In 1987, William Boyd’s novel The New Confessions surveyed the 20th century through the eyes of an elderly film-maker and war photographer. In 2002, Any Human Heart surveyed the 20th century through the journals of an elderly writer and war correspondent. Now, Sweet Caress surveys the 20th century through the eyes of an elderly photographer and war photojournalist.
It isn’t only its narrative set-up that looks familiar. As camera-loving Amory Clay recalls a career that has taken her through the aftermath of the First World War into frenetic parties in the 1920s, decadent nightlife in 1930s Berlin, excitement in wartime Paris, doodlebug raids on London and risky ventures in war-torn Vietnam, her story follows a well-trodden path. Excursions into locales such as the Klosett-Club or the (lesbian-frequented) Monokel for her scandalous picture exhibition, Berlin bei Nacht, resemble offcuts from Cabaret. So does an encounter with thuggish brownshirts. Amory falls foul of blackshirts, too, at a rally in London’s East End. Around her, period personages keep popping up (“That ‘little chap’ is the Prince of Wales. Our future king”, “And then Marlene Dietrich walked in”).
Amid this newsreel-like stuff, there is abundant drama in Amory’s private life: a homicidally insane father, an uncle she makes an embarrassing pass at (as the narrator of The New Confessions did with his aunt), marital mishaps. Despite this, Sweet Caress fails to grip.
Where it most loses purchase is through the slackness of its characterisation. Amory voices commonplaces about photography (that it can “stop time”, capture light effects, have documentary importance), but she never seems believable as a gifted practitioner of it (further weakened by Boyd’s decision to include blurry black-and-white snaps as specimens of her work). Her professional credentials are mainly exhibited by the equipment he loads on to her: a Kodak Brownie No 2, a Butcher Klimax, a Dallmeyer Reflex, “my little Ensignette”, “my little Voigtländer”, “my Zeiss Contax that fitted neatly into my handbag”, an “Excelda” quarter-plate, a Rolleiflex, a Nikon.
Advertisement
Reminders that Amory is a woman receive similarly heavy emphasis. Literary transvestism doesn’t often entail a male author paying such sedulous attention to his female narrator’s dress sense: “I selected a two-piece beige jumper suit in a ripple knit with a plain chocolate-coloured blouse with a bow at the neck”; “I was wearing a navy crepe-knit frock with a high silk cross-over collar and a swathed cap”. She is given gynaecological problems, too, and a swoony responsiveness to virile lovers (“I lost power over my limbs: my knees seemed unable to support the weight of my body”), but none of this strengthens her claim to be a woman leading a life of “complexity”.
As often in his fiction, Boyd highlights randomness and surprises. But it is hard to take seriously the way a background figure such as Amory’s sister mutates into a globally celebrated concert pianist (“Bela Bartok had dedicated a horn trio to her...Harold Wilson invited her to lunch at 10 Downing Street”), or how a “sudden spurt of intellectual energy” transforms her meagrely characterised brother into a poet.
A vivid look back across the 20th century, The New Confessions was an outstanding achievement. It is understandable that Boyd would seek to repeat its success. But Any Human Heart showed diminishing returns in attempting to revive its winning formula. Sweet Caress suggests it’s time that it was shelved.
Bloomsbury £18.99/ebook £12.99 pp452
Buy for £14.99, inc p&p, from The ST Bookshop