Robert Merivel is an orphaned medical student who successfully treats an ill spaniel belonging to Charles II; this leads to his preferment at court and eventually to his being installed as the master of a Norfolk country estate as the nominal but cuckolded husband of Charles' latest mistress. But he falls in love with the woman and incurs the king's wrath.
The story rambles from Fenland madhouse to Cheapside lodgings. There seems no coherence or purpose to the tale. As with the sequel, it is a picaresque. It works because it explores the character of a remarkable man, a frail mortal who can laugh at himself, an Everyman in whose flaws and sufferings we can recognise ourselves.
This book was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1989.
Books by Tremain reviewed in this blog include:
- The Road Home: the story of Lev, an eastern European immigrant in Britain.
- Music and Silence: a historical novel set in Denmark
- Restoration and its sequel Merivel: historical novels set in the court of Charles II
- The Gustav Sonata: the rather sad life of a Swiss hotelier
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