Merivel, Rose Tremain
Merivel, Rose Tremain
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Merivel
A Man of His Time

Author: Rose Tremain

Narrator: Sean Barrett

Unabridged: 12 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/14/2013

Synopsis

The Restoration is over and Robert Merivel, renowned physician and courtier to Charles II, now faces the anxieties of middle age. Questions crowd his mind: Has he been a good father? Is he a fair master? Is he the king's friend or the king's slave? In search of answers, Merivel sets off for the French court. But Versailles leaves him in despair, until a chance encounter with a seductive Swiss botanist allows him to dream of an honorable future. But back home, his loyalty and medical skill are about to be tested to the limit, while the captive bear he has brought back from France begins to cause havoc … With a cascade of lace at his neck and a laugh that can burst out of him in the midst of torment, Merivel is soulful, outrageous, and achingly sad. His unmistakable, self-mocking voice speaks directly to us down the centuries. Get ready to laugh, prepare to weep—Robert Merivel is back in Rose Tremain's magical sequel to Restoration.

About Rose Tremain

Rose Tremain’s bestselling novels have won many awards, including the Orange Prize, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Prix Femina Étranger. Restoration, the first of her novels to feature Robert Merivel, was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1989 and made into a film in 1995. She lives in Norfolk and London with her husband, biographer Richard Holmes.

About Sean Barrett

Sean Barrett has won over twenty Earphones Awards and two prestigious Audie Awards for his audiobook narrations. He started acting professionally at the age of twelve and has since appeared on television and in film in Minder, Brush Strokes, War and Peace, Sons and Lovers, and Return to Oz. His stage credits include performing in the West End with Noël Coward in his Suite in Three Keys. He has worked extensively on BBC Radio and has also narrated several television series, including People’s Century and Crash.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Andy

Brilliant but brutal. I have added Will Gates to my list of all-time favourite literary characters.......more

Goodreads review by Lewis

This is a cracking read. I much prefer this work to much of Tremaine's recent writing. If you're expecting to simply pick up where 'Restoration' leaves off you'll be disappointed but if you're interested in the game Tremaine is playing with ageing - both with herself and with her main character - you......more

Goodreads review by Nigeyb

Funny, unexpected, elegiac, insightful, and beautifully written 'Merivel: A Man of His Time' (2014) is the follow up to 'Restoration' (1989), which I have just finished and which I adored. Discovering there was a sequel was wonderful. I read it with some trepidation as it seemed unlikely that Rose Tr......more

Goodreads review by C.W.

Extremely well-written and highly entertaining two book series. Going on this journey with this complex and flawed man has been a pleasure through the up and downs and ALL around. I couldn’t help but root for him despite his habit of making poor choices. Ultimately, I was saddened when it ended. Ros......more

Goodreads review by Scott

Having devoured Restoration in one sitting and then forcing my Book Club to read it, I was thrilled to learn that Tremain had revisited the characters of King Charles II, Merivel, Will Gates and the badger tabards. Far from being a book of two halves like Restoration, Merivel is a return to the Sir......more

Quotes

“What ultimately makes the book such a joy is simply being in Merivel’s company. His narration is by turns rueful, comic, despairing, and joyful; but it’s always bursting with life, always good-hearted—and always entirely loveable.” Daily Mail (London)

“Robert Merivel is one of the great imaginative creations in English literature of the past fifty years. [Merivel is] as rich and as dazzling as its predecessor—steeped in wise and witty reflection on the great mysteries of life, and the timeless, futile hopes and follies.” Daily Telegraph (London)

“Richly marbled with intelligence, compassion, and compelling characters, leavened with flourishes of lyricism and an attractive tolerance towards human frailties.” Times (London)

“When he appeared in 1989, Merivel was truly the man of the Thatcherite moment, an individualistic, hedonistic creature who held up a mirror to his audience. So does he still have something to say to us in 2012? Resoundingly, yes.” Observer (London)

“Tremain’s control of her character and her reflective but often dramatic unfolding of events are impressive acts of authorial ventriloquism, in which she gives a nod to the great diarists of that era but carries off her own man’s story with wit, grace, and originality…She not only effortlessly sustains momentum and mood, but brings the novel to as near a perfect ending as one could wish.” Herald (Scotland)

“In a droll tone, Sean Barrett delivers the fictional autobiography of Robert Merivel, physician to kings, as he reflects on his life from the mid- to the late 1600s…As Barrett recounts the quotidian dealings and events of the doctor’s life, his fluid performance draws the listener into Merivel’s story.” AudioFile

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