The New Confessions by William
Boyd
Boyd Is A Genius
In this extraordinary novel, William Boyd presents the autobiography of
John James Todd, whose uncanny and exhilarating life as one of the most
unappreciated geniuses of the twentieth century is equal parts Laurence
Stern, Charles Dickens, Robertson Davies, and Saul Bellow, and a
hundred percent William Boyd.
From his birth in 1899, Todd was doomed. Emerging from his angst-filled
childhood, he rushes into the throes of the twentieth century on the
Western Front during the Great War, and quickly changes his role on the
battlefield from cannon fodder to cameraman. When he becomes a
prisoner of war, he discovers Rousseaus Confessions, and dedicates his
life to bringing the memoir to the silver screen. Plagued by bad luck and
blind ambition, Todd becomes a celebrated London upstart, a Weimar
luminary, and finally a disgruntled director of cowboy movies and the

eleventh member of the Hollywood Ten. Ambitious and entertaining, Boyd
has invented a most irresistible hero.
Personal Review: The New Confessions by William Boyd
This fictional memoir displays Boyd's consummate skill and style to full
effect, ranging across time an place to create a vivid tale. Jean Jacques
Rousseau's Confessions is (perhaps arguably) first tell-all memoir, and
here Boyd updates it through the reminisces of James Todd. The story
unfolds chronologically from his birth in 1899 and upbringing in Edinburgh
to the 1970s, when he sits incognito on a quiet island writing his memoirs.
The years between are a picaresque journey through the first half of the
last century and one man's attempt to create meaning in his life.The early
years in his domineering father's household document an unhappy child
yearning for love and approval. His father's quest to perfect and patent
medicines provides an uncommonly interesting background for this. When
a family friend introduces him to photography, the die is cast. As a
teenager, like so many British men of his age, he is swallowed by the first
World War, where he is wounded at Ypres. Here, Boyd's descriptions
manage to breath fresh life into carnage whose horror has been well-
documented. Fortuitously, he is then transferred to a propaganda unit,
where his talent in photography is applied to the new realm of film.
Captured by the Germans, he languishes in prison, where a guard
befriends him and gives him a copy of Rousseau's Confessions to pass the
time. The work insinuates itself into him, and it percolates in him in the
postwar years as he works in the London silent film industry. Despite
marrying and fathering several children, his ambitions remain thwarted and
he moves to Berlin to pursue his pet project of making an epic version of
Rousseau's book. In Weimar Berlin he embraces the vibrant (if
pfenningless) art community and reconnects with his former guard, who is
now an actor. Working together, and with Armenian producers, their
careers start to take off and Todd becomes embroiled in a lifelong love
affair with an actress. Boyd's description of the inter-war Berlin film scene
is so vivid, and the discussion of Todd's career so convincing that one is
tempted to put the book down and rush to the video store to see his films.
With the juice to get his pet Rousseau project made, Todd throws himself
full-tilt into the project, only to see the emergence of "talkies" scuttle it. This
propels him to Hollywood, where makes some quiet B-Westerns
embedded with subtle social messages until t he next war finds him
scrambling around as a war correspondent for third-tier U.S.
newspapers.Following WWII, he falls afoul of the McCarthy witch hunts for
communist in the entertainment industry and appears before HUAC. Here,
is perhaps the book's one flaw. The HUAC hearings provide Todd with an
opportunity to both stay afloat by naming names (some of whom have
already named him), and exact revenge on his longtime archnemesis-but
he doesn't take it. Although he's presented as variously idealistic and
honorable, it's the one time in the book where the character doesn't hold
true. And from here, the book bogs down a little, as Todd's current
situation as apparent exile starts to loom over the proceedings. Despite a
somewhat unsatisiying ending, the story's overall quality is head and

shoulders above the pack. Once again Boyd has researched a plethora of
subjects and places, and recreates them perfectly. At the same time he
occasionally deploys a light comic touch to lighten this story of the search
for meaning and the role of chance in life.
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