The New Confessions
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In this extraordinary novel, William Boyd presents the autobiography of John James Todd, whose uncanny and exhilarating life as one of the most unappreciated geniuses of the twentieth century is equal parts Laurence Stern, Charles Dickens, Robertson Davies, and Saul Bellow, and a hundred percent William Boyd. From his birth in 1899, Todd was doomed. Emerging from his angst-filled childhood, he rushes into the throes of the twentieth century on the Western Front during the Great War, and quickly changes his role on the battlefield from cannon fodder to cameraman. When he becomes a prisoner of war, he discovers Rousseau's Confessions, and dedicates his life to bringing the memoir to the silver screen. Plagued by bad luck and blind ambition, Todd becomes a celebrated London upstart, a Weimar luminary, and finally a disgruntled director of cowboy movies and the eleventh member of the Hollywood Ten. Ambitious and entertaining, Boyd has invented a most irresistible hero.
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Overly vigorous and mundane examination of John James Todd (Hey, three first names!) and his various encounters throughout life, from the battlefront in the trenches during world war 1 to his filmmaking attempts to make a nine-hour epic of Jean Jacques Rousseau's the new confessions culminating in him being a victim of McCarthyism. The biggest issue here is that Boyd assumes the reader has an intricate interest in Rousseau's life and the filmmaking techniques he used to make a grandeur epic, but in reality, this took up half the book for me. If I wanted to read about the making of a silent film epic, I would just read production stories of Napoleon (1927), which Boyd was clearly inspired by.
If John James Todd was a fascinating character, all the overwriting could be forgiven, but he isn't lacking the self-awareness you think might have come in abundance during his later years.
Boyd seems to adore writing fictional biographies about people, but based on my personal experiences with this one, I won't be rushing to read them anytime soon.