Merivel: A Man of His Time
-
-
3.5 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
Merivel is an unforgettable hero—soulful, funny, outrageous and achingly sad. His unmistakable, self-mocking voice speaks directly to us down the centuries.
From the Orange Prize–winning author Rose Tremain comes a brilliant and picaresque novel of seventeenth-century England. In the wake of the gaudy years of the Restoration, Robert Merivel, physician and courtier to Charles II, faces the agitations and anxieties of middle age. Questions crowd his mind: has he been a good father? Is he a fair master? Is he the King’s friend or the King’s slave? In search of answers, Merivel sets off for the French court of Versailles, where—inevitably—misadventures ensue.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1683, 15 years after the end of Tremain's Restoration, this sequel finds sometime doctor, sometime court jester Robert Merivel restless despite his comfortable county estate in England. Merivel travels to Versailles looking for joie de vivre, encountering instead a cliquish court, shabby accommodations, and an ill-treated pet bear. Merivel sends the bear back to England before returning himself to attend to his ailing daughter, Margaret. Though she recovers and the prospect of a new romance, with a gay Swiss Guard's beautiful, neglected wife, Louise de Flamanville, arises in the meantime Merivel remains weary, disappointed, and haunted by memories, his malaise mirroring that of King Charles II, whose reign is ending with England beset by poverty and unrest. As before, Tremain contrasts beauty and coarseness, melancholy and slapstick, tenderness and pageantry. Wonderfully rich scenes light up the meandering narrative: the King's mistress in retreat; the bear on the loose; Merivel walking the royal dogs. If something seems lacking, that may only be in comparison with the first novel's unflagging inventiveness and its film adaptation's unrestrained opulence, and from Tremain's focus on the Restoration's sadder, waning days, with both Merivel and Charles realizing how short of their former promise their lives have fallen.
