Reviews

There is a heartstopping passage in Restoration, at our hero and narrator Robert Merivel's wedding feast. He describes how, as his father-in-law plays an air of intense melancholy on his viola da gamba, he is overcome with an unhappiness so profound he has to run outside and weep. This epiphany is described to the strains of that very piece, John Dowland's Flow my Tears, one of the most powerful uses of music I have ever heard on an audio production. The period is the 1660s, and we follow the rise, fall and redemption of the troubled physician Merivel, made palpably likeable by Degas's performance. He becomes a favourite of Charles II, gains and loses wealth, works at the new BedlamA" in the Fens and returns to London for the plague and the great fire, finally buttressing his sadness with a sense that he can be usefulA". - Karen Robinson, Sunday Times

There is a heartstopping passage in Restoration, at our hero and narrator Robert Merivel's wedding feast. He describes how, as his father-in-law plays an air of intense melancholy on his viola da gamba, he is overcome with an unhappiness so profound he has to run outside and weep. This epiphany is described to the strains of that very piece, John Dowland's Flow my Tears, one of the most powerful uses of music I have ever heard on an audio production. The period is the 1660s, and we follow the rise, fall and redemption of the troubled physician Merivel, made palpably likeable by Degas's performance. He becomes a favourite of Charles II, gains and loses wealth, works at the new BedlamA" in the Fens and returns to London for the plague and the great fire, finally buttressing his sadness with a sense that he can be usefulA". - Karen Robinson, Sunday Times

Restoration is all that its title implies: a tale of the restoration of gaiety, self-indulgence, and worldiness after the austerity of the Puritan regime; the restoration of energy and life to London after the plague and the Great Fire; and the restoration of purpose and meaning to the life of Robert Merivel after King Charles II withdraws the patronage which had plunged it into enervating luxury. It is a beautifully crafted work in which almost every event and character, as well as the narrator's relationship with the reader, richly illuminate Merivel's life and temperament. Exquisite balance and symmetry as well as passages of lyrical description are certain to please discriminating readers. British author Tremain has written Letter to Sister Benedicta (LJ 9/1/79) and The Colonel's Daughter and Other Stories (LJ 5/15/84), among other works.-- Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.