The New Confessions
First edition
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| Author | William Boyd |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
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Publication date
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28 Sep 1987 |
| Pages | 384 |
| ISBN | |
The New Confessions (1987) is a novel of the Scottish writer William Boyd. The theme and narrative structure of the novel is modelled on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Les Confessions, the reading of which has a huge impact on the protagonist's life.
The book follows the life of John James Todd from his birth in Edinburgh up to his final exile on a Mediterranean island. Todd fights in the First World War and also films it as a cameraman, he then works for a film studio and ends up in Berlin where he starts his filming of The Confessions. After the financial collapse of his backer, he move to Hollywood along with many German exiles. He becomes a war correspondent during the Second World War and then returns to America where he becomes caught up in the anti-communist witch hunts.
The novel's protagonist, John James Todd, experiences a lonely childhood growing up with a father who is distant and cold towards him and a brother, Thompson Todd, who dislikes him intensely. His only solace is Oonagh, his nanny, who, although illiterate, has a tough, sharp mind and acts as a kind of surrogate mother. His father, Innes McNeil Todd, is a senior consultant at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and University Professor. John James's school years pass uneventfully until he decides to run away to visit his mother's sister, Faye, living in the south of England - a woman for whom he has developed a schoolboy crush as a consequence of their correspondence following her husband's death. During his stay, John James exposes himself whilst they are having a picnic whilst punting in Oxford and his aunt slaps him. Feeling disgraced, he decides to enlist in the army and ends up on the Western Front.
Todd's war starts off fairly peacefully because he is stationed at Nieuport-les-Bains in Belgium at the extreme northern end of the Front. His regiment - the 13th (Public School) service battalion of the Duke of Clarence's Own South Oxfordshire Light Infantry is made up of former public school pupils, none of whom Todd particularly likes apart from Leo Druce. Todd takes part in the attack and his company suffers over fifty percent casualties. On 22 August 1917 Todd is involved in a second attack - one of the Bantams tries to kill him (after a previous run in) but mistakenly kills Todd's Lieutenant. Todd is finally relieved from his own personal nightmare by Donald Verulam, a friend of his father's, who enlists him into the WOCC (War Office Cinema Committee).
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