What do you think?
Rate this book
Park Stories
The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth written and read by William Boyd.
A philandering art dealer tries to give up casual love affairs - seeking only passionate kisses as a substitute. A man recounts his personal history through the things he has stolen from others throughout his life. A couple chart the journey of their five year relationship backwards, from awkward reunion to lovelorn first encounter. And, at the heart of the book, a 24-year old young woman, Bethany Mellmoth, embarks on a year-long journey of wishful and tentative self-discovery.
The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth depicts the random encounters that bring the past bubbling to the surface; the impulsive decisions that irrevocably shape a life; and the endless hesitations and loss-of-nerve that wickedly complicate it. These funny, surprising and moving stories are a resounding confirmation of Boyd's powers as one of our most original and compelling storytellers.
A philandering art dealer tries to give up casual love affairs - seeking only passionate kisses as a substitute. A man recounts his personal history through the things he has stolen from others throughout his life. A couple chart the journey of their five year relationship backwards, from awkward reunion to lovelorn first encounter. And, at the heart of the book, a 24-year old young woman, Bethany Mellmoth, embarks on a year-long journey of wishful and tentative self-discovery.
The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth depicts the random encounters that bring the past bubbling to the surface; the impulsive decisions that irrevocably shape a life; and the endless hesitations and loss-of-nerve that wickedly complicate it. These funny, surprising and moving stories are a resounding confirmation of Boyd's powers as one of our most original and compelling storytellers.
Audio CD
First published January 1, 2009
103 people are currently reading
710 people want to read
About the author
William Boyd
69 books2,520 followersNote: William^^Boyd
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.
Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.
Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.
Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.
Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.
Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.
Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews
September 30, 2017
William Boyd has penned a number of short series that have the occasional loose interconnections. Art dealer Luke Abernathy likes kissing women, managing to stay ostensibly faithful to his pregnant wife who expecting twins. He sees an opportunity to make a phenomenal profit over the sale of Lucian Freud painting, and finds himself going beyond a kiss. He is left wondering if there is something more to the events that occur as his marriage falls apart. A couple's relationship is related going backwards to how it first began. A German soldier becomes obsessed with a chimpanzee on a UN mission and sets a monkey free at home. A film maker finds his mental health spiralling downwards as his movie plans fall apart. A lifelong kleptomaniac relates his history of stealing from airline memorabilia and ending with airline memorabilia. An artist celebrates his portrait of Brodie, a corporate CEO, a painting so bad that it's good. The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth gives us a year in the life of 24 year old Bethany as her ambitions shift as her personal life drifts from one shambles to another. Her dreams of being a novelist, an actress, photographer and more fall apart. In the final story, Boyd gives us a tense thriller. Alec Dunbar, finds he has been mistaken for Alexa in a movie audition. He takes up an offer to deliver a flask of holy water from the River Jordan to a church in Scotland only to find himself being followed. Using knowledge gained from his previous roles, Alec foils sinister ruthless plans. I liked most of the stories but the last one was my favourite. If you like William Boyd, then it is likely that you will enjoy this disparate collection of tales. Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC.
July 30, 2021
After the first section I was hooked. I’d been introduced to a London art dealer – a serial philanderer it seems – whose roving eye was constantly leading him into trouble. He was attempting to control his habit by limiting himself to two kisses, before moving on to his next conquest. It was a strange but engaging start – witty and intelligent, no less than I’d expect from this author. Then suddenly the scene had changed, the setting was still modern day London but a new set of characters were acting out what seemed to be a completely independent scene. It was just as interesting and the characters equally engaging. I thought, it’ll be one of those books where the whole will come together at some point, then it’ll all make sense. But then this section ended abruptly too and yet another set of characters were introduced. Hang on a minute!
Of course, a hasty read through the blurb enlightened me to the fact that this was, in fact, a collection of short stories! But my oversight does highlight the rub here: all of the stories have no ending, they just seem to stop at some point leaving the reader hanging. Is that ok? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly a little disconcerting. I do know that I’d have liked to have seen one or two of these tales fleshed out a full length novel. It’s hard to tell whether each of these narratives were intended to be of this length or if Boyd had suddenly tired of the ideas and abandoned these projects unfinished.
But anyway, back to the stories. They are predominantly, but not exclusively, set in London. There are seven of them, with two being of novella length - one of which, The Vanishing Game - I realised I’d read before. They do show off what an astute and insightful writer William Boyd is but I really couldn’t get passed the feeling that in each instance I’d been cheated of the full story.
Of course, a hasty read through the blurb enlightened me to the fact that this was, in fact, a collection of short stories! But my oversight does highlight the rub here: all of the stories have no ending, they just seem to stop at some point leaving the reader hanging. Is that ok? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly a little disconcerting. I do know that I’d have liked to have seen one or two of these tales fleshed out a full length novel. It’s hard to tell whether each of these narratives were intended to be of this length or if Boyd had suddenly tired of the ideas and abandoned these projects unfinished.
But anyway, back to the stories. They are predominantly, but not exclusively, set in London. There are seven of them, with two being of novella length - one of which, The Vanishing Game - I realised I’d read before. They do show off what an astute and insightful writer William Boyd is but I really couldn’t get passed the feeling that in each instance I’d been cheated of the full story.
January 26, 2018
Short stories have never been my preferred choice of reading matter and so perhaps The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth was not the best choice for my first experience of reading William Boyd. In a short book of 250 pages and varied quality I was left experiencing everything from wry amusement to feeling nonplussed and a little short-changed. Whilst there is evidence in abundance which testifies to how incisive and self-assured an author Boyd is and certainly encourages me to seek out his full length novels, I will take very little away from this collection. If there is any loose theme running through the stories then it is that of London dwelling VARP’s (“Vaguely Art-Related Person”), united by their eternal optimism and self-belief in their various talents. Despite their mixed fortunes very few of Boyd’s protagonists are kept down for too long before they come bouncing back with a renewed energy for their chosen pursuits and this collection serves as a pithy testimony to the affected creative types caught up in their own pomp.
In a collection divided into three parts the first one hundred is comprised of seven short stories of which the average length is twelve pages. Of these I can honestly say that only three worked well for me and the others felt too slight to do the necessary justice required. Particularly soporific is “The Road Less Taken” which attempts to capture a relationship told backwards and feels superficial and lacks the required character development to make a real impact. However others are more successful, in particular “The Man Who Liked Kissing Women”, in which philandering art-dealer and forty-seven-year-old Ludo Abernathy’s three marriages and three sets of children are proof that adultery is both painful and costly and, with this in mind, he decides to restrict his carnal pleasures outside of marriage to merely kissing. However when a Lucian Freud painting comes under his radar his avaricious nature sees him come a cropper... “Humiliation” is a pointed vignette of a slighted novelist gaining revenge on the critic who savaged his work and is genuinely very droll and “The Diarists” catalogues a sixtieth birthday party seen through the eyes of its various guests and is well drawn.
Part two is a novella consisting of approximately one hundred pages and follows a naive twenty-two-year-old, Bethany Mellmoth, working her way through an array of boyfriends and attempting to turn her hand to a range of artistic pursuits, all with no realistic concept of what they entail or motivated by any particular desire. Caught up in her own dream like world it is her divorced parents who add the most to the novel, with the ruse of new boyfriend/new career rapidly becoming stale. Seen in the context of her familial woes this story subtly captures how the vapid offspring of wealthy parents always in reach of a financial lifeline flounder when their parents actively move on with their own lives. Whilst snippets capture the pretentious London art scene stereotypes in a memorably witty fashion, as for Bethany’s transient lifestyle it only makes me ponder how quickly youth vanishes and life slips away. So whilst William Boyd sets the scene and provides the context for Bethany I felt this story rather exhausted itself and never really had any particularly profound revelations.
Part three and the final fifty pages comprises of a farcical thriller of a mistaken identity at a casting audition leading thirty-five-year-old actor, Alec Dunbar, to accept a stranger’s proposition to hand-deliver a precious flask of holy water to a remote location in Scotland. Told as a series of tribulations, this story is a frenzied take on the journey of Robert Hannay in John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, albeit told in relation to Dunbar’s acting roles. Whilst I liked the breathless narrative style, with this story sharing more than a passing similarity to a renowned classic I hardly felt it qualified as inspired and it all becomes, like Bethany’s tale, a little wearisome.
A hit and miss affair all told, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth left me rather underwhelmed but the character development and experience is enough to leave me feeling optimistic about encountering Boyd over the lengthier format.
In a collection divided into three parts the first one hundred is comprised of seven short stories of which the average length is twelve pages. Of these I can honestly say that only three worked well for me and the others felt too slight to do the necessary justice required. Particularly soporific is “The Road Less Taken” which attempts to capture a relationship told backwards and feels superficial and lacks the required character development to make a real impact. However others are more successful, in particular “The Man Who Liked Kissing Women”, in which philandering art-dealer and forty-seven-year-old Ludo Abernathy’s three marriages and three sets of children are proof that adultery is both painful and costly and, with this in mind, he decides to restrict his carnal pleasures outside of marriage to merely kissing. However when a Lucian Freud painting comes under his radar his avaricious nature sees him come a cropper... “Humiliation” is a pointed vignette of a slighted novelist gaining revenge on the critic who savaged his work and is genuinely very droll and “The Diarists” catalogues a sixtieth birthday party seen through the eyes of its various guests and is well drawn.
Part two is a novella consisting of approximately one hundred pages and follows a naive twenty-two-year-old, Bethany Mellmoth, working her way through an array of boyfriends and attempting to turn her hand to a range of artistic pursuits, all with no realistic concept of what they entail or motivated by any particular desire. Caught up in her own dream like world it is her divorced parents who add the most to the novel, with the ruse of new boyfriend/new career rapidly becoming stale. Seen in the context of her familial woes this story subtly captures how the vapid offspring of wealthy parents always in reach of a financial lifeline flounder when their parents actively move on with their own lives. Whilst snippets capture the pretentious London art scene stereotypes in a memorably witty fashion, as for Bethany’s transient lifestyle it only makes me ponder how quickly youth vanishes and life slips away. So whilst William Boyd sets the scene and provides the context for Bethany I felt this story rather exhausted itself and never really had any particularly profound revelations.
Part three and the final fifty pages comprises of a farcical thriller of a mistaken identity at a casting audition leading thirty-five-year-old actor, Alec Dunbar, to accept a stranger’s proposition to hand-deliver a precious flask of holy water to a remote location in Scotland. Told as a series of tribulations, this story is a frenzied take on the journey of Robert Hannay in John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, albeit told in relation to Dunbar’s acting roles. Whilst I liked the breathless narrative style, with this story sharing more than a passing similarity to a renowned classic I hardly felt it qualified as inspired and it all becomes, like Bethany’s tale, a little wearisome.
A hit and miss affair all told, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth left me rather underwhelmed but the character development and experience is enough to leave me feeling optimistic about encountering Boyd over the lengthier format.
November 6, 2017
William Boyd is an avowed short story enthusiast, and his writing career started out with short story collections.
The Dreams of Bethany Melmoth has nine stories of which the longest is the one giving its name to the book.
There are broadly two styles. The whimsical, humorous celebration of people's idiosyncrasies; Boyd likes malicious, capricious, interaction between people. Conflicts where, eventually, justice is done.
Then Boyd has the punchy short story that leaves the reader hanging in the air.
Boyd is an old fashioned writer in the sense that beautiful, and alluring, women cast spells on male admirers. Men are the charmers and chasers, and the known influence of Ian Fleming's 1969's writing on Boyd is plain to see. This makes Bethany Mellmoth ever so slightly dated.
I wonder what Boyd, who is also a film writer and director, and full on cinema and movie insider, makes of 2017s Harvey Weinstein scandal?
In Unsent Letters
an actress is warned off a film director with the words "He's a lecherous swine, so be careful. And don't be alone with him" (61)
Another story is entitled
The Man Who Liked Kissing Women. While there's no sense of coercion, nonetheless the implication seems to be that women in general are largely receptive to a man's attentions.
I liked Humiliation best- for Oyster gastronomes- and I was least impressed by The Vanishing Game, a pastiche on John Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps.
Overall a book that is good in parts, but rarely Boyd at his best
The Dreams of Bethany Melmoth has nine stories of which the longest is the one giving its name to the book.
There are broadly two styles. The whimsical, humorous celebration of people's idiosyncrasies; Boyd likes malicious, capricious, interaction between people. Conflicts where, eventually, justice is done.
Then Boyd has the punchy short story that leaves the reader hanging in the air.
Boyd is an old fashioned writer in the sense that beautiful, and alluring, women cast spells on male admirers. Men are the charmers and chasers, and the known influence of Ian Fleming's 1969's writing on Boyd is plain to see. This makes Bethany Mellmoth ever so slightly dated.
I wonder what Boyd, who is also a film writer and director, and full on cinema and movie insider, makes of 2017s Harvey Weinstein scandal?
In Unsent Letters
an actress is warned off a film director with the words "He's a lecherous swine, so be careful. And don't be alone with him" (61)
Another story is entitled
The Man Who Liked Kissing Women. While there's no sense of coercion, nonetheless the implication seems to be that women in general are largely receptive to a man's attentions.
I liked Humiliation best- for Oyster gastronomes- and I was least impressed by The Vanishing Game, a pastiche on John Buchan's Thirty Nine Steps.
Overall a book that is good in parts, but rarely Boyd at his best
May 29, 2018
What's in a name?
As the pipedreams of Bethany Mellmoth drift from unobtainable career to unobtainable career and from feckless boyfriend to feckless boyfriend, her aimlessness seeps into the very DNA of this novella. That this particular story should have been chosen as the title lead in this collection is probably because it’s the longest. But could it also be because Bethany Mellmoth is such an arresting name?
Virtually all of the characters in William Boyd’s new collection of short stories have odd names: Ludo Abernathy, an art dealer who confines his unfaithfulness to kissing. Yves Hill and Raleigh Maltravers in a tale of oysters and revenge. Tarquin Wolde and Jadranka in a series of epistolary fragments from a frustrated, would-be film-maker. Lolita and Bonita, twin daughters of a kleptomaniac. Lizz and Samsuna in a confusing confection of diary entries. And finally, the ostensible muddle-up of names in a movie casting-call that launches an out-of-work actor on a Highland adventure.
So. Nomenclature is clearly important to William Boyd in this mixed bag of a book. But striking names are a distraction for the reader, can hardly be said to aid authenticity and the people he attaches to them are a pretty rum bunch too. 2.5*
As the pipedreams of Bethany Mellmoth drift from unobtainable career to unobtainable career and from feckless boyfriend to feckless boyfriend, her aimlessness seeps into the very DNA of this novella. That this particular story should have been chosen as the title lead in this collection is probably because it’s the longest. But could it also be because Bethany Mellmoth is such an arresting name?
Virtually all of the characters in William Boyd’s new collection of short stories have odd names: Ludo Abernathy, an art dealer who confines his unfaithfulness to kissing. Yves Hill and Raleigh Maltravers in a tale of oysters and revenge. Tarquin Wolde and Jadranka in a series of epistolary fragments from a frustrated, would-be film-maker. Lolita and Bonita, twin daughters of a kleptomaniac. Lizz and Samsuna in a confusing confection of diary entries. And finally, the ostensible muddle-up of names in a movie casting-call that launches an out-of-work actor on a Highland adventure.
So. Nomenclature is clearly important to William Boyd in this mixed bag of a book. But striking names are a distraction for the reader, can hardly be said to aid authenticity and the people he attaches to them are a pretty rum bunch too. 2.5*
January 30, 2020
I really enjoyed this book of short stories (and one novella). Simple but effective narritive, set out in a fluid style that led me to turn page after page, and often coming with a sting in the tale.
I particularly liked "the diaries", where an old lech gets a smack in the kisser for supposedly interfering with an ex, and "humiliation" where a writer meets his nemesis in rural France, and comes up with a cunning plan for revenge.
One story has me in two minds. "the vanishing game" rattles on at a good pace, with a sort of North by Northwest vibe about it. I was swept along as it takes us to a point where the hero is literally teetering on a cliff edge, then the cavalry arrives and it fizzles out. Too much of a tease for me.
I particularly liked "the diaries", where an old lech gets a smack in the kisser for supposedly interfering with an ex, and "humiliation" where a writer meets his nemesis in rural France, and comes up with a cunning plan for revenge.
One story has me in two minds. "the vanishing game" rattles on at a good pace, with a sort of North by Northwest vibe about it. I was swept along as it takes us to a point where the hero is literally teetering on a cliff edge, then the cavalry arrives and it fizzles out. Too much of a tease for me.
March 24, 2018
Light entertainment...
William Boyd is one of my long-time favourite authors. Although I've always found him a bit hit or miss, when he's on form he's one of the best. As a novelist he tends to write long books, full of layers and depth and detail, and with wonderful characterisation. But I've never come across any short stories by him before, so was intrigued to see how his style would work in that form.
The stories in this collection are largely unconnected, though many of them have a common theme of artists who have experienced some form of failure in their professional or personal lives. To some degree, they're mainly character studies, though each has a plot. They vary in length from quite short up to novella length and, for me, the longer they were, the better they were, so I guess that answers my question about his style suiting the format. There's a lot of humour in them, some of it mildly black, and truthfully, not much depth. I found them enjoyable enough to read but rather disappointingly light – although I'm sure my disappointment is mainly a result of my expectations of him based on his novels.
However, the characterisation is great. Even in the shorter ones, he creates fully formed individuals, with enough background for each to explain why they are as they are. He also shows a lot of originality in both subject matter and structure – everything from a UN soldier in the Congo to an out-of-work actor carrying a mysterious substance on a trip to Scotland, and from a love story told backwards to a series of unsent letters.
So in conclusion, for me, the collection doesn't have the depth that makes his novels stand out from the crowd, but there's still plenty to enjoy overall. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin Books UK.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
William Boyd is one of my long-time favourite authors. Although I've always found him a bit hit or miss, when he's on form he's one of the best. As a novelist he tends to write long books, full of layers and depth and detail, and with wonderful characterisation. But I've never come across any short stories by him before, so was intrigued to see how his style would work in that form.
The stories in this collection are largely unconnected, though many of them have a common theme of artists who have experienced some form of failure in their professional or personal lives. To some degree, they're mainly character studies, though each has a plot. They vary in length from quite short up to novella length and, for me, the longer they were, the better they were, so I guess that answers my question about his style suiting the format. There's a lot of humour in them, some of it mildly black, and truthfully, not much depth. I found them enjoyable enough to read but rather disappointingly light – although I'm sure my disappointment is mainly a result of my expectations of him based on his novels.
However, the characterisation is great. Even in the shorter ones, he creates fully formed individuals, with enough background for each to explain why they are as they are. He also shows a lot of originality in both subject matter and structure – everything from a UN soldier in the Congo to an out-of-work actor carrying a mysterious substance on a trip to Scotland, and from a love story told backwards to a series of unsent letters.
So in conclusion, for me, the collection doesn't have the depth that makes his novels stand out from the crowd, but there's still plenty to enjoy overall. 3½ stars for me, so rounded up.
NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin Books UK.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
September 28, 2017
The Ministry of Silly Names
On the one hand a selection of comical or wryly amusing short stories, on the other hand a series of vignettes of societal attitudes in Britain today, these stories both entertain and exasperate the reader.
There are loose connections: a central character in one story has a bit part in another; many of the stories focus on people who imagine themselves as artists in some way, actors, film directors, writers, sculptors; most of the participants have silly names, often chosen by themselves, names which they imagine enhance their ‘artisteness’ in some way, but which simply emphasise their selfishness, their egocentricity, their second-rate talents.
The title story is the best in the selection, a novella in itself, a year in the life of a fey young woman, not unintelligent, but a snowflake, drifting from one unrealistic ambition to another, meeting other self-obsessed partners, settling to nothing – all the time suffering a vague feeling that life is passing by and none of her many targets have or will be met.
Divorce, unfaithfulness, self-deception, a pursuit of artistic standing by the lazy and untalented, the subjects of stories which are all funny but with a bite.
On the one hand a selection of comical or wryly amusing short stories, on the other hand a series of vignettes of societal attitudes in Britain today, these stories both entertain and exasperate the reader.
There are loose connections: a central character in one story has a bit part in another; many of the stories focus on people who imagine themselves as artists in some way, actors, film directors, writers, sculptors; most of the participants have silly names, often chosen by themselves, names which they imagine enhance their ‘artisteness’ in some way, but which simply emphasise their selfishness, their egocentricity, their second-rate talents.
The title story is the best in the selection, a novella in itself, a year in the life of a fey young woman, not unintelligent, but a snowflake, drifting from one unrealistic ambition to another, meeting other self-obsessed partners, settling to nothing – all the time suffering a vague feeling that life is passing by and none of her many targets have or will be met.
Divorce, unfaithfulness, self-deception, a pursuit of artistic standing by the lazy and untalented, the subjects of stories which are all funny but with a bite.
July 16, 2018
I really enjoy William Boyd's fiction; his novel, Restless, is one of my absolute favourites, and I look forward to his new releases. The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth - or at least the part which I read of it - focuses upon rather a loathsome and lecherous art dealer named Ludo Abernathy, whose third wife is pregnant with twins. Whilst he has vowed never to have another affair, he still thinks that it is perfectly acceptable to kiss other women - 'forty-two women in the past five years', to be specific - and views this as something completely separate to a betrayal. Dude, that's not okay. Whilst Boyd can undoubtedly write, I got to around 7% of this book, and found that my skin was crawling. I decided to give up on it at this point.
October 28, 2017
If you've enjoyed any of William Boyd's books, there is something for you in this short story collection. Among them are a jaded older man reminiscing, a young woman with artistic sensibilities trying to find herself, a story set in Africa, a man trying to outwit his pursuers in Scotland. Different stories reminded me of different books that he has written. There were elements of Brazzaville Beach, Ordinary Thunderstorms, Sweet Caress and Restless, among others. It's a disparate collection, bucking the trend for short stories to be linked in some way.
The first section consists of seven short stories, mostly very pleasing but not terribly memorable. Boyd has a gift for putting you inside the main character's head very quickly - I find with his writing that I often remember the characters, but struggle to remember the plots.
I read this on an ereader so it's difficult to be sure, but it felt like the titular "Dreams of Bethany Mellmouth" takes up about half (the middle section) of this book. More a novella than a short story, it's about a young woman who reinvents herself with each new boyfriend that she acquires.
The final story is the most enjoyable and is highly reminiscent of "The 39 steps", a book that Boyd has often cited as a favourite and as his inspiration for Ordinary Thunderstorms. It's about an actor who is making a delivery to remote Scotland, but finds himself on the run from mysterious pursuers. I have to say that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's totally gripping and thoroughly enjoyable: worth the price of entry in its own right.
The first section consists of seven short stories, mostly very pleasing but not terribly memorable. Boyd has a gift for putting you inside the main character's head very quickly - I find with his writing that I often remember the characters, but struggle to remember the plots.
I read this on an ereader so it's difficult to be sure, but it felt like the titular "Dreams of Bethany Mellmouth" takes up about half (the middle section) of this book. More a novella than a short story, it's about a young woman who reinvents herself with each new boyfriend that she acquires.
The final story is the most enjoyable and is highly reminiscent of "The 39 steps", a book that Boyd has often cited as a favourite and as his inspiration for Ordinary Thunderstorms. It's about an actor who is making a delivery to remote Scotland, but finds himself on the run from mysterious pursuers. I have to say that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's totally gripping and thoroughly enjoyable: worth the price of entry in its own right.
September 13, 2021
“It'll be different this time around,” Bethany says. “I've changed.”I admit I ordered this because I liked Bethany Mellmoth's name. No other reason. I've had varied responses to the author's books – loved Restless, hated Trio – and this collection of short stories and novellas falls somewhere in between. The character rule seems to be the odder the name, the more unlikeable the person (although I would certainly read a book about the child who will grow up with the name Light Tan.) We spend a drifty, unfocused year with aimless Bethany - well, she has aims, she just doesn't exactly aim at them. She's immature and distractable and doesn't learn a blessed thing from any of her sordid and silly experiences, and her story just kinda peters out with the promise of another drifty year. The other stories were mildly fun but forgettable, but the last story, The Vanishing Game: An Adventure, was much more fun but would have worked better as a graphic novel.
May 9, 2013
[4.5] A charming short story. It's just that some details about the protagonist don't quite fit her income bracket and age.
November 23, 2017
I thought this was a bit of a mixed bag. William Boyd is one of our finest writers, so this collection of short stories is all beautifully poised and well done, but I'm not sure what it really added up to in the end.
The book begins with a collection of brief stories, each a sort of character study in which Boyd exposes and skewers the pretensions of various self-deluding characters, often in the world of art, books or film and often with a very unrealistic view of their own talent and character, and of their relationship with others. This is also true of the two later, longer stories in the first of which the eponymous Bethany has a deluded view of her own talents and drifts from one career idea to another without sticking to any of them – which was rather the way I felt about the story itself, in that it had some nice scenes which didn’t add up to much overall. The book closes with a sort of Thirty-Nine Steps-like story which is well done and very gripping…until it just peters out with loose ends all over the place and no resolution. This may be edgy and experimental, but for me it's a very unsatisfactory tactic in this genre and marred an enjoyable story.
It's all very neatly done. The characters are well painted and believable, and Boyd's prose is elegant, poised and unflashy so that it's a pleasure to read. However, I'm not sure how much there is in the way of new insight here - as though these were the author's initial character sketches and vignettes from the sort of longer, more profound books which we know Boyd can write. As a result I enjoyed the process of reading, but I did get to the end with a sense of not really having gained a lot from the process.
This is definitely worth four stars because I did enjoy it, but I can only give it a qualified recommendation.
(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)
The book begins with a collection of brief stories, each a sort of character study in which Boyd exposes and skewers the pretensions of various self-deluding characters, often in the world of art, books or film and often with a very unrealistic view of their own talent and character, and of their relationship with others. This is also true of the two later, longer stories in the first of which the eponymous Bethany has a deluded view of her own talents and drifts from one career idea to another without sticking to any of them – which was rather the way I felt about the story itself, in that it had some nice scenes which didn’t add up to much overall. The book closes with a sort of Thirty-Nine Steps-like story which is well done and very gripping…until it just peters out with loose ends all over the place and no resolution. This may be edgy and experimental, but for me it's a very unsatisfactory tactic in this genre and marred an enjoyable story.
It's all very neatly done. The characters are well painted and believable, and Boyd's prose is elegant, poised and unflashy so that it's a pleasure to read. However, I'm not sure how much there is in the way of new insight here - as though these were the author's initial character sketches and vignettes from the sort of longer, more profound books which we know Boyd can write. As a result I enjoyed the process of reading, but I did get to the end with a sense of not really having gained a lot from the process.
This is definitely worth four stars because I did enjoy it, but I can only give it a qualified recommendation.
(I received an ARC via NetGalley.)
January 17, 2020
4.5 Stars!
There is always something inherently exciting about picking up a book by a novelist you have never encountered before. Boyd is one of those guys who I’ve heard loads about and have been meaning to read for years, so here we are. I really got a lot out of his style of writing. “The Man Who Liked Kissing Women” was a fine read, and “The Road Not Taken” takes a very interesting approach to two ex-lovers bumping into each other in town. “Unsent Letters” was also good value.
The novella which shares the same title as the book was an absolute delight. Bethany Mellmoth is a restless twenty-something searching, aching for a way to eloquently express herself in almost any artistic form she can find, whilst trying to meet a steady/reliable man. We see the many times when reality clashes ugly with her dreams and expectations.
There are so many tantalising scenes and scenarios thrown up in here, moments filled with tenderness and others shrouded in darkness, but all along the hope and determination that keeps driving her on, makes her easy to relate to and wonderful to read about.
“The Vanishing Game” presents a delicious set of Hitchcockian circumstances which makes for thrilling reading. Meeting a good new writer is almost a bit like meeting a new friend. This is one of those collections which really felt like a varied and extensive adventure and I really look forward to getting into his novels now.
July 18, 2025
It pains me to give William Boyd below 4* but he’s just not a short story guy.
January 1, 2018
In three parts: the first a collection of short stories, the second a novella, the third a longish short story; I enjoyed the latter the most, with its heightening tension as a middle-aged second-rate actor finds himself enmeshed in an elaborate plot that mirrors the action films he has starred in.
December 12, 2017
After all the heavy reading I'd been doing, I found this collection of crafty short stories enjoyable. The eponymous short story (first time I've used that word!) was my favourite and stood out from the others in its delightful, if not frustrating characterisation of a dreamer who never quite realises more than the excitement of dreaming a new dream. Light reading for the summer.
February 14, 2020
4.5/5 stars! There's nothing more satisfying than a really well written short story, and you'll find lots of these in this collection, which actually has two that are more novella length. Take a look at my #bookreview of this on my blog now. https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2020/02/1...
November 2, 2017
I’ve had a difficult relationship with the short story and have concluded that on the whole I much prefer a novel where the author has time to develop the characters or alternatively say something important rather than entertain me for a short while. Of course, like novels, all short stories are different some appearing in compendiums of different authors on a theme while others are chosen to reflect the different styles of a single author but of course they can consist of anything and everything else in between. In William Boyd’s The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth the reader is treated to a loose association of stories that celebrate, or perhaps that should be denigrate the life of those who are ‘artists’, with most of the stories including the one that claims the title of this collection looking at the world of those who make their living out of the world of art. And, I enjoyed each and everyone. This time there was no feeling that the story despite being perfectly formed was a mere snack that stimulated rather than satiated my appetite, I can firmly say that William Boyd has given me cause to view the form with a renewed enthusiasm.
My favourite story of all was the last in a the book, where Alec Dunbar, a film actor is called to an audition for a film with an embargoed script only to find out that in a case of mistaken identity the actual auditionee should have been a young female called Alexa Dunbar. Then in a twist of fate, the actor is offered a job driving a cask of holy water to a remote part of Scotland for a christening by another actress who can’t deliver it herself as she has a broken ankle. He takes the job for a price and soon finds himself in all manner of bother, planning his next move using inspiration from previous film scripts. The reader therefore gets a sense of where Alec Dunbar is in his career by the curious snippets, films about a SAS film reminded him of the car he was to drive on the mammoth journey soon morph into a short memory of some t’ai chi learnt on a Samurai movie later switching to a sentimental WWII movie. This inspired format keeps the theme of actors running through what is a farcical tale which I’m not sure I would have engaged with if I hadn’t spent my time becoming thoroughly immersed in the world of artists, their single-minded simultaneous over-confidence and crushing self-doubt that I’d enjoyed during the preceding stories.
The title story is a novella and also brilliantly executed while it examines of a relatively short period of time in the life of an aspiring actress, or perhaps photographer, whereby Bethany’s dreams are adapted to the situation she finds herself in. This tale managed to elicit some sympathy and even a little admiration for her even while the sensible voice in my head is urging her to see these unrealistic dreams for what they are before her life spirals too far in a downward direction.
With the book headed up by some far shorter but delightfully pithy tales there is an awful lot to enjoy in William Boyd’s collection and it has prompted me to look out some of his novels since he had dropped off my radar for some explicable reason.
My favourite story of all was the last in a the book, where Alec Dunbar, a film actor is called to an audition for a film with an embargoed script only to find out that in a case of mistaken identity the actual auditionee should have been a young female called Alexa Dunbar. Then in a twist of fate, the actor is offered a job driving a cask of holy water to a remote part of Scotland for a christening by another actress who can’t deliver it herself as she has a broken ankle. He takes the job for a price and soon finds himself in all manner of bother, planning his next move using inspiration from previous film scripts. The reader therefore gets a sense of where Alec Dunbar is in his career by the curious snippets, films about a SAS film reminded him of the car he was to drive on the mammoth journey soon morph into a short memory of some t’ai chi learnt on a Samurai movie later switching to a sentimental WWII movie. This inspired format keeps the theme of actors running through what is a farcical tale which I’m not sure I would have engaged with if I hadn’t spent my time becoming thoroughly immersed in the world of artists, their single-minded simultaneous over-confidence and crushing self-doubt that I’d enjoyed during the preceding stories.
The title story is a novella and also brilliantly executed while it examines of a relatively short period of time in the life of an aspiring actress, or perhaps photographer, whereby Bethany’s dreams are adapted to the situation she finds herself in. This tale managed to elicit some sympathy and even a little admiration for her even while the sensible voice in my head is urging her to see these unrealistic dreams for what they are before her life spirals too far in a downward direction.
With the book headed up by some far shorter but delightfully pithy tales there is an awful lot to enjoy in William Boyd’s collection and it has prompted me to look out some of his novels since he had dropped off my radar for some explicable reason.
November 4, 2017
William Boyd’s collection of stories “The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth“ is not easy to review. As it often with such an assembly of very various texts, differing in length and topic, not connected in any way, you cannot pay them all the due respect in a review. The opening is great, I absolutely liked the the story about the art dealer and womanizer Ludo who immediately after having married one is looking for the next wife. The story about the thief did not really appeal to me, it was a mere enumeration without a real story, whereas the story of the freeing of the monkey had some deeper message. The longest and title providing story was the one about Bethany Mellmoth. Actually, I think it would have also made a good novel if extended a bit. Bethany is an interesting character and I think her make-up could have provided more to fill the pages of a whole book. In the last story, we even get a kind of short thriller which I also liked a lot. You sense that there is something odd about the woman and job for Dunbar, but it is hard to say what is wrong about it. William Boyd knows how to tell a story and he definitely is best in longer narrations such as the one about Bethany’s dreams.
One reoccurring topic in several stories is love, or rather: unfulfilled love. The characters are looking for the one person with whom they can spend the rest of their life, but they only encounter the ones who do not really match or who have mischievous plans. Or they themselves are actually unable to love and to be faithful. Loneliness can be found in many of them which gives the whole collection a kind of underlying melancholy.
All in all, there is something in every single story and a lot of wit in Boyd’s writing make reading the stories a great pleasure. In the narration of Bethany’s dreams he somehow sums at a point what life and the core of his stories are about, what he not only tries but masterly manages to portray:
Bethany is suspicious – this is not normal: everything seems to be going well and this is not how the world works – no. Life is a dysfunctioning system, she knows: failure, breakdown, disappointment, frustration – where are you hiding?
One reoccurring topic in several stories is love, or rather: unfulfilled love. The characters are looking for the one person with whom they can spend the rest of their life, but they only encounter the ones who do not really match or who have mischievous plans. Or they themselves are actually unable to love and to be faithful. Loneliness can be found in many of them which gives the whole collection a kind of underlying melancholy.
All in all, there is something in every single story and a lot of wit in Boyd’s writing make reading the stories a great pleasure. In the narration of Bethany’s dreams he somehow sums at a point what life and the core of his stories are about, what he not only tries but masterly manages to portray:
Bethany is suspicious – this is not normal: everything seems to be going well and this is not how the world works – no. Life is a dysfunctioning system, she knows: failure, breakdown, disappointment, frustration – where are you hiding?
January 28, 2018
I'm not a great fan of the short story but this book came along at just the right time, when I had short story sized spaces in my life, and it filled them admirably. I *am* a William Boyd fan so I was predisposed to enjoy this and was not disappointed. The short story does not allow room for slow unfolding of character personality: the people need to leap off the page at you and here they certainly do, a wonderful range of deftly drawn individuals.
Bethany Mellmoth reminded me of Bridget Jones, but with more depth of character and a greater sense of control over her own life, although that sense is a little illusory as Bethany drifts from situation to situation. But even in adversity she has a positive outlook and a sharp intelligence. I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes.
The final - long - story is a wonderful pastiche of every thriller set in Scotland from The Thirty-nine Steps onwards. The hero is a movie actor whose star is declining, swept up in a bizarre plot that is never resolved. He has learned many of the survival skills the plot demands from the movies he has starred in, a delightful touch. I had to read the whole story in one sitting because Boyd manages to make it edge of the seat stuff even though it lacks the seriousness of the genre.
I was quite sorry to reach the end of this slim volume. Recommended.
Bethany Mellmoth reminded me of Bridget Jones, but with more depth of character and a greater sense of control over her own life, although that sense is a little illusory as Bethany drifts from situation to situation. But even in adversity she has a positive outlook and a sharp intelligence. I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes.
The final - long - story is a wonderful pastiche of every thriller set in Scotland from The Thirty-nine Steps onwards. The hero is a movie actor whose star is declining, swept up in a bizarre plot that is never resolved. He has learned many of the survival skills the plot demands from the movies he has starred in, a delightful touch. I had to read the whole story in one sitting because Boyd manages to make it edge of the seat stuff even though it lacks the seriousness of the genre.
I was quite sorry to reach the end of this slim volume. Recommended.
September 20, 2025
It’s completely annoying that when you review something, it doesn’t seem to show up in progress. Anyway, the stories that proceeded the novellas were fine, but they were only really two that were of any substance. I wonder if by this time short stories were just exercises toward bigger things. The main novella was readable, but I didn’t really care. It was one of those things that I could’ve kept reading and reading and reading, but never really knowing why I was doing it. I’ve left the final Novella or novelette for a future time.
February 3, 2018
I closed the book with satisfaction. Admittedly, I enjoyed parts 2 & 3 more than part 1. I'm giving this book of eclectic short stories, five stars because it made me happy. Loved the writing. :)
August 27, 2021
Frustrating collection of stories; some enjoyable and others I really didn't find interesting or engaging.
February 4, 2025
Loved it, very entertaining. Classic Boyd.
August 11, 2019
I've read a few William Boyd and quite enjoyed them but this got a bit tired. The pattern of characters who were a) wealthy and b) some form of actor, artist or writer started to indicate he struggles to think outside his own circle.
There were a few which were good examples of a short story (short but still engaging and surprising, if you ask me), but most were pretty inconsequential and the title story (more of a novella, at 100 odd pages) will not last long in the memory.
There were a few which were good examples of a short story (short but still engaging and surprising, if you ask me), but most were pretty inconsequential and the title story (more of a novella, at 100 odd pages) will not last long in the memory.
March 8, 2024
Mixed
January 8, 2021
Some enjoyable stuff here, but the last long story (The Vanishing Game) is dire.
December 6, 2017
The first thing I noticed upon spying the contents of William Boyd’s brand new short story collection was that it wasn’t.
“I know this one!” I said to myself. Closely followed by: “And this one!”
But this is nothing new in another sense, too.
Boyd’s other compendia have been, in part, a pulling together of works of his that had previously been published elsewhere.
The title story, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, was published in 2009 having been written for the The Royal Park’s Park Stories release - a special edition box set pairing short stories with the celebrated green spaces of the capital. There is a version from 2007 in the now-extinct creative writing magazine Notes from the Underground, and a Christmas story under the same title with completely different content and written for The Spectator. Indeed the version presented to us in the new release has been substantially extended from the 2009 version. Interestingly, Bethany’s degree has changed from Media Studies to English and American Literature.
This is the first of two long form stories in the collection. Seven short stories precede them. Of those seven, four can be found elsewhere. Granted, one of the four has only been discoverable for three months.
The other extended offering here is The Vanishing Game: An Adventure, where one of the main characters is a Land Rover Defender. The product placement was of course paid for, and the deal created a small amount of consternation within the British publishing industry back in 2014. However, considering how many fine authors in history wrote to patron commission, it seems a little hysterical to label one of our finest living writers as, to quote Dr Johnson, “a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.”
Boyd possesses an extraordinary and febrile imagination. He has described a six hour flight delay as a joyous opportunity to watch people and explore what your imagination can impose upon their lives. The short story genre is, then, the perfect space for his mind to exorcise the smorgasbord of distractions that wouldn’t quite make it into a full novel. And crucially, some of these creations - and this is one of my favourite elements of the Boydean ouvre - reoccur.
In an anthology called One For the Trouble from those literary event minxes at Book Slam, Bethany is dating a stand up comic and applying for drama school. But here, she is with a lad called Sholto - the name of one of the protagonist’s husbands in his most recent novel, Sweet Caress. Bethany’s Sholto believes he has invented a new art form by listening to Bob Dylan while watching rolling news with the sound muted.
The contrast between random image and random Bob Dylan is completely mind blowing, he says.
Sholto then watches footage of sheep in a northern blizzard to the tune of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Later there is a Banglasdeshi aid plane dropping packages to flood victims while ‘It’s all over now, Baby Blue’ blares out roughly from the speakers. It’s a mash up that manages to be at once flippant and oddly beautiful.
She writes in Green Park, and her chosen green world is given a psychogeographical power, which will no doubt have delighted The Royal Parks.
Green Park will resonate with her all her life, she realises, even when she’s an old
lady she will think of this park, the bullring’s wide circle of tarmac with its central lamp post and that innocuous wooden bench in a unique, unforgettable way.
In the park, Bethany meets elderly novelist Yves Hill.
I’m no stranger to Mr Hill, either. When I first met him in The View from Yves Hill (Fascination: 2004) he was a mere slip of a lad at 75. He’d slept with 48 women, “not counting prostitutes, of course” and drank his own invented cocktail - a ‘rumry’ - made with “rum, sherry, warm milk and a spoonful of honey.” Bethany meets him at 87, which was a surprise as I had thought he’d died. However, we are treated to a prequel in the farcical and brilliantly embittered Humiliation, (first spied in The Spectator in 2007).
We are in 1952, which makes Yves Hill 56. And he’s not enjoying himself. The Times have indelicately reported the details of his marital shambles and how he confessed to adultery. But not his - his wife’s.
Of course I confessed - only to spare myself the further wounds, the death by a thousand cuts, of admitting to Felicity’s adultery to that zero, that nul, that parvenu nonentity Gerald Laing-Turner.
He has something of the Basil Fawlty about him. Wrathful, vengeful, and somehow born to comically lose. Benevolently, Boyd allows him a singular triumph as he hilariously scuppers the romantic plans of a critic by way of bivalve.
The older Yves is giving Bethany Mellmoth advice on writing. Boyd almost always writes about things he doesn’t naturally know so he is well placed to imbue Yves Hill with the correct counsel. He advises her to do “something totally surprising and unforeseen.”
The Vanishing Game was certainly something that I had not foreseen when it was first available on the web. “An interactive literary experience” presented by Land Rover was an enormous surprise. But it raises a question about content and its provenance. A cynic would say it was the paycheck. I would put it down to the medium, to Boyd’s pursuit of new forms.
The semi-interactive, digital nature of this brand-inspired story would have appealed. He is, after all, a writer who seeks original structures for storytelling.
Unsent Letters and The Diarists are two riotously amusing stories in this collection that reveal all through the form implied by the title. A diary we have seen before, but to chart the miserable career plummet of a film director through the missives that never made the envelope is just marvellous.
The lack of new material for me to devour is partly mitigated, as far as I’m concerned at least, by the idea that Boyd’s work forms some kind of temporal grid where we can view the recurring characters in different stages of their lives, in different contexts. Mapping their existences within Boyd’s canon, feels like a game of three-dimensional chess.
Perhaps Bethany Mellmoth is going to have a few more dreams, in a number of different places.
“I know this one!” I said to myself. Closely followed by: “And this one!”
But this is nothing new in another sense, too.
Boyd’s other compendia have been, in part, a pulling together of works of his that had previously been published elsewhere.
The title story, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth, was published in 2009 having been written for the The Royal Park’s Park Stories release - a special edition box set pairing short stories with the celebrated green spaces of the capital. There is a version from 2007 in the now-extinct creative writing magazine Notes from the Underground, and a Christmas story under the same title with completely different content and written for The Spectator. Indeed the version presented to us in the new release has been substantially extended from the 2009 version. Interestingly, Bethany’s degree has changed from Media Studies to English and American Literature.
This is the first of two long form stories in the collection. Seven short stories precede them. Of those seven, four can be found elsewhere. Granted, one of the four has only been discoverable for three months.
The other extended offering here is The Vanishing Game: An Adventure, where one of the main characters is a Land Rover Defender. The product placement was of course paid for, and the deal created a small amount of consternation within the British publishing industry back in 2014. However, considering how many fine authors in history wrote to patron commission, it seems a little hysterical to label one of our finest living writers as, to quote Dr Johnson, “a wretch who supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.”
Boyd possesses an extraordinary and febrile imagination. He has described a six hour flight delay as a joyous opportunity to watch people and explore what your imagination can impose upon their lives. The short story genre is, then, the perfect space for his mind to exorcise the smorgasbord of distractions that wouldn’t quite make it into a full novel. And crucially, some of these creations - and this is one of my favourite elements of the Boydean ouvre - reoccur.
In an anthology called One For the Trouble from those literary event minxes at Book Slam, Bethany is dating a stand up comic and applying for drama school. But here, she is with a lad called Sholto - the name of one of the protagonist’s husbands in his most recent novel, Sweet Caress. Bethany’s Sholto believes he has invented a new art form by listening to Bob Dylan while watching rolling news with the sound muted.
The contrast between random image and random Bob Dylan is completely mind blowing, he says.
Sholto then watches footage of sheep in a northern blizzard to the tune of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. Later there is a Banglasdeshi aid plane dropping packages to flood victims while ‘It’s all over now, Baby Blue’ blares out roughly from the speakers. It’s a mash up that manages to be at once flippant and oddly beautiful.
She writes in Green Park, and her chosen green world is given a psychogeographical power, which will no doubt have delighted The Royal Parks.
Green Park will resonate with her all her life, she realises, even when she’s an old
lady she will think of this park, the bullring’s wide circle of tarmac with its central lamp post and that innocuous wooden bench in a unique, unforgettable way.
In the park, Bethany meets elderly novelist Yves Hill.
I’m no stranger to Mr Hill, either. When I first met him in The View from Yves Hill (Fascination: 2004) he was a mere slip of a lad at 75. He’d slept with 48 women, “not counting prostitutes, of course” and drank his own invented cocktail - a ‘rumry’ - made with “rum, sherry, warm milk and a spoonful of honey.” Bethany meets him at 87, which was a surprise as I had thought he’d died. However, we are treated to a prequel in the farcical and brilliantly embittered Humiliation, (first spied in The Spectator in 2007).
We are in 1952, which makes Yves Hill 56. And he’s not enjoying himself. The Times have indelicately reported the details of his marital shambles and how he confessed to adultery. But not his - his wife’s.
Of course I confessed - only to spare myself the further wounds, the death by a thousand cuts, of admitting to Felicity’s adultery to that zero, that nul, that parvenu nonentity Gerald Laing-Turner.
He has something of the Basil Fawlty about him. Wrathful, vengeful, and somehow born to comically lose. Benevolently, Boyd allows him a singular triumph as he hilariously scuppers the romantic plans of a critic by way of bivalve.
The older Yves is giving Bethany Mellmoth advice on writing. Boyd almost always writes about things he doesn’t naturally know so he is well placed to imbue Yves Hill with the correct counsel. He advises her to do “something totally surprising and unforeseen.”
The Vanishing Game was certainly something that I had not foreseen when it was first available on the web. “An interactive literary experience” presented by Land Rover was an enormous surprise. But it raises a question about content and its provenance. A cynic would say it was the paycheck. I would put it down to the medium, to Boyd’s pursuit of new forms.
The semi-interactive, digital nature of this brand-inspired story would have appealed. He is, after all, a writer who seeks original structures for storytelling.
Unsent Letters and The Diarists are two riotously amusing stories in this collection that reveal all through the form implied by the title. A diary we have seen before, but to chart the miserable career plummet of a film director through the missives that never made the envelope is just marvellous.
The lack of new material for me to devour is partly mitigated, as far as I’m concerned at least, by the idea that Boyd’s work forms some kind of temporal grid where we can view the recurring characters in different stages of their lives, in different contexts. Mapping their existences within Boyd’s canon, feels like a game of three-dimensional chess.
Perhaps Bethany Mellmoth is going to have a few more dreams, in a number of different places.
September 14, 2017
One of the countless characters in this series of funny stories William Boyd has compiled makes modern art out of dubbing endless loops of Bob Dylan music over a continuously changing montage of news footage. Similarly, Bethany Mellmoth's dreams seem to consist of "an endlessly variable, unique" series of random characters set in random situations; at times "stimulating, tragic or uplifting, funny or surreal".
I did find it disconcerting how some stories very suddenly morph into the next one, and yet others are set apart with a heading. In my favorites the dastardly bad guys get what they deserve, while in the last and (or only seemingly?) longest story, the ending is hidden.
I did find it disconcerting how some stories very suddenly morph into the next one, and yet others are set apart with a heading. In my favorites the dastardly bad guys get what they deserve, while in the last and (or only seemingly?) longest story, the ending is hidden.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 161 reviews