Any Human Heart

By William Boyd

William Boyd’s masterful new novel tells, in a series of intimate journals, the story of Logan Mountstuart—writer, lover, art dealer, spy—as he makes his often precarious way through the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 18, 2007
• ISBN: 9780307424853

William Boyd

William Boyd is also the author of A Good Man in Africa, winner of the Whitbread Award and the Somerset Maugham Award; An Ice-Cream War, winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys War Prize and short-listed for the Booker Prize; Brazzaville Beach, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize; Restless, winner of the Costa Novel of the Year; Ordinary Thunderstorms; and Waiting for Sunrise, among other books. He lives in London.

Reviews for Any Human Heart

[lisapeet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This review from November 2009: Really good reread. Stories about the arcs of people's lives always make me reflect, in this case a lot of fun. In the six years since I last read it I've gotten whomped over the head with a whole lot of 20th-century cultural literacy, and it was pleasing how much more I got out of that angle. Plus I'm older (doh), and you know... the older the grape the sweeter the wine, or whatever that saying is. Not that I like sweet wine, come to think of it. At any rate, though I generally don't reread much, this was a perfect candidate and I'm glad I did.

[abergsman-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book so much more than I thought it would. Typically, when books languish on my TBR shelf for years at a time, I am ultimately disappointed when I do finally get around to reading them. In this case, however, I am left wondering what took me so long! It is the first William Boyd novel I have read, and has definitely made we inclined to seek out more of his work.

[nadnerb_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. Wonderful.

[charlotte1162 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An amazing tale, entirely realistic and believable.

[sianpr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fictional memoir taking in the 20th century in which Logan Mountstuart reflects on his life. A riches to rags story with a poignant end, taking in the sweep of 20th Century events, love and loss, war & peace and a whole lot more. An ambitious novel in which I found myself coming to like Logan Mountstuart - a deeply flawed individual.

[kaulsu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It took me from elementary school through Oxford to get into the rhythm of the book, but then I fell for it. The characters were flesh and bone. LMS gave growing old a good name. Just when a reader might be forgiven for thinking there was no corner left to turn: voila! I loved the name dropping, and for the editorial asides. I especially got a kick out of the artist N. Tate. Although I've never listened to a recorded book twice, I think this may be an exception. Simon Vance did his usual masterly narration.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

William Boyd' s novel is presented in the form of journal entries; thus the subtitle, "The Intimate Journals of Logan Mountstuart". The "journals" which the author has created, complete with footnotes and an index of all the people whom Logan meets (including Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, and countless others), brilliantly evoke a past era - or rather eras; for the journals span Logan Mountstuart's life from 1923, when he was a precocious schoolboy, through his early success as a biographer and novelist, his marriages, a war spent in Military Intelligence under Ian Fleming, life as an art dealer in New York, and poverty in London in his old age, until his death in France on October 5, 1991. The breadth of the story reminded me of Boyd's earlier novel, The New Confessions, which took the form of the autobiography of John James Todd, chronicling his uncanny and exhilarating life as one of the most unappreciated geniuses of the twentieth centuryMuch of the technical brilliance of this book results from the shifts in Logan's style as he, and the times through which he lives, ever so subtly evolve. Because of this it is sometimes difficult to appreciate Boyd's art as one ought, for one finds oneself almost reading the journals as genuine. The most dazzling vignettes, perhaps, are those of the self-regarding diaries of the young writers and aesthetes of the Twenties and Thirties, where Cyril Connolly (who appears as a character) is a likely influence. But if the early sections are the closest to parody, they are never mere caricature.Boyd manages a rather touching, as well as extremely funny, portrait of a pretentious, arrogant, clever 17-year-old ("wrote a Spenserian ode on loss of faith"), who writes with flourishes of self-conscious pomposity ("we regained the purlieus of school without further incident"), is striving for superiority ("the Xmas tree is surely the saddest and most vulgar object invented by mankind"), yet does not know how to go about kissing his cousin Lucy, or deal with the discovery that his father does not have long to live.Almost every section of the journals is nearly as good: Logan's moment with his baby son: "Lionel has croup. He seems a sickly baby. I sat him on my knee the other day and he stared at me with a baleful, sullen, and unknowing eye." is reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh. But the novel is not a simple criticism of many diarists of the period. Logan is capable of real and generous feeling, as well as of self-regarding depression; though to reveal the circumstances in which he finds (and loses) his truest love, as he moves from early critical acclaim to poverty and obscurity, would spoil an immensely readable story.One remembers that this is a novel, indeed, by the way it holds your interest - which is quite a feat, because Boyd has also skillfully mimicked the "artless" and random qualities of the typical diary. As Logan remarks in his opening preamble, one should not expect coherence from journals: they merely "entrap that collection of selves that forms us"; unshaped by retrospection, their reality is "riotous and disorganized." Boyd's novel deliberately appears sprawling and inclusive; but it reads like a distillation of a real journal. He displays an unobtrusive artistry that transforms the potentially confusing "disorganized" diary-form into a novel which demonstrates the confusions and randomness of human life.

[mimal_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

bookshelves: impac-longlist, booker-longlist, fraudio, published-2002, winter-20132014, tbr-busting-2014, spies, historical-fiction, lit-richer, lifestyles-deathstyles, art-forms, epistolatory-diary-blog, south-americas, uruguay, britain-england, cults-societies-brotherhoods, sport, gr-library, france, paris, oxford, glbt, spain, books-about-books-and-book-shops, norfolk, teh-brillianz, greece, adventure, cover-love, epic-proportions, eye-scorcher, london, madrid, war, wwii, lisbon, portugal, filthy-lucre, nassau, bahamas, switzerland, britain-scotland, iceland, suicide, teh-demon-booze, new-york, germany, picaresque, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, travel, edinburgh, those-autumn-years, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, washyourmouthout-language, north-americas, music, midlife-crisis, african-continent, afr-nigeria, skoolzy-stuff, dodgy-narrator, afr-somaliaRead from November 28, 2013 to January 16, 2014Read by Mike GradyFrom the description: The journals begin with Mountstuart's boyhood in Montevideo, Uruguay, then move to Oxford in the 1920s and the publication of his first book, then on to Paris where he meets Joyce, Picasso, Hemingway, et al., and to Spain, where he covers the civil war. During World War II, we see him as an agent for naval intelligence, becoming embroiled in a murder scandal that involves the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The postwar years bring him to New York as an art dealer in the world of 1950s abstract expressionism, then on to West Africa, to London where he has a run-in with the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and, finally, to France where, in his old age, he acquires a measure of hard-won serenity. This is a moving, ambitious, and richly conceived novel that summons up the heroics and follies of twentieth-century life.In the fashion of Zelig, Forrest Gump and the 100 year old man, Mountstuart is in all the right places meeting all the important people, however Any Human Heart is an absolute joy as Boyd's writing leaves those also-rans in the starting gates.Purringly enjoyed Logan's slamming of the Bloomsbury set, that circle of spite who lived in squares and loved in triangles. Not sure about the portrayal of Duke and Duchess and for this reason I support a flawed, dodgy narrator scenario.And that goodreads product description box - WTF! It is just a review filched over from Amazon book sales, with its inherent bias. Bad News! Check the product description elsewhere.Born on April 20, 1893 in Barcelona, Joan Miró Ferra was a Spanish painter.From wiki: Sir Harry Oakes, 1st Baronet (December 23, 1874 – July 7, 1943) was an American-born British Canadian gold mine owner, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. He earned his fortune in Canada and in the 1930s moved to the Bahamas for tax purposes, where he was murdered in 1943 in notorious circumstances. The cause of death and the details surrounding it have never been entirely determined, and have been the subject of several books and four films.Have the TV miniseries to watch at some stage, however, for now, I will mull over the full life of Logan MS - I am in my weeds for you.4* Restless5* Any Human Heart - recommended4* Brazzaville BeachWL Waiting for Sunrise3* ArmadilloAB Solo

[seriousgrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The journals of Logan Mountstuart tell of his long and colorful life as an art dealer, writer, lover, spy, prisoner, and sometimes cad. Spanning December 10th, 1923 to October 5th, 1991 we watch as the 20th century unfolds. What makes Any Human Heart so enticing is the inclusion of real events (World War II and the death of JFK,  to name two) and real people, especially from the worlds of art and literature; people like Picasso and Hemingway.You know the saying, you can't judge a book by its cover? Well, let it be said, you can't judge a book by its length either. I was convinced I would have to slog through 500 plus pages half paying attention. Wrong. This was delightful. Devious, but delightful.There was one review that stuck with me as I was reading Any Human Heart. The New York Times said you could almost forget Logan Mountstuart is not a real person. His journal entries are convincingly honest. I couldn't agree more.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My first and still favorite Boyd book. The main character manages to be in all the right places at all the right times during many of the critical junctures of the 20th Century. Along the way he gets to meet Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and Evelyn Waugh (and a host of others). Unfortunately he never quite seems to get famous despite his "good" fortune. The reader, however, gets a fantastic ride in the process.

[saschenka-316193 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful in sadness and in pleasure. The narrator, Logan Mounstuart, is born in Uruguay 1906, grows up in England, lives in Paris, NYC and Nigeria, and dies in rural France 1991 (85 yrs old) having experienced every decade of the 20th century. Bittersweet and thought-provoking. The narrator is neither heroic nor a villain, Themes of loss and of life constantly beginning again. Logan is both foolish and a true inspiration. The middle section drags a bit, but I suspect this is true for our lives :)

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I came across this book in Diary of a Bookseller who mentions it as the book most recommended to him. He reports later that he loved it. I'm more in two minds.The book is a fictional biography in the form of journal entries. The author takes considerable pains to make the whole thing appear to be the work of real person, while it is, in fact, pure fiction. A small conceit, and didn't really add or subtract to my enjoyment.The writing is good, the changing characterisation of the subject, from teens to 80s, is well done, but there is something of Forest Gump in the plot. The subject is in everything - from the secret service in WW2, to the Baader-Meinhof gang in the 70's. He meets everyone - from Hemingway to Picasso (who knocks off a quick sketch, signs and dates it, and gives it to our hero, as he would). He catches the Duke of Windsor in some skullduggery in the Bahamas, and so it goes on. As a nice potted history of selected events in the 20th century, this stuff is quite enjoyable, but as a plot - is more questionable.So, I enjoyed the book, but not to gush over, and as a recommendation to others - I'll be a little selective.

[ken5me5old5mate · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well, this was unexpected. About half way through I was ready to chuck it but lo and behold it turned into gold. Initially I didn't like the main character but that normally doesn't put me off, I'm not so brilliant myself! So in retrospect I don't really know if it was the book or that was flagging in the middle.

What was it that endeared this book to me and so many others? Not the writing style, that’s for sure. Not his life or any of the other characters either. Dunno but by the end I was completely hooked and could feel the end approaching. I think it was like three books in one for me, the art world, the war and his women, and his life in France. All equally interesting and good stories in their own right. Maybe it was the overall effect of reading a person's life?

[nycke137 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed reading this book because it was written in journal form. Logan started off as such a promising young man, but in the end I really felt sorry for him. He could never be alone and when he was in a relationship with someone, it was never enough.

[russellbittner · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I come to this review belatedly, and only after having seen the video version of this novel twice — most recently, this evening.

I first read Any Human Heart several years ago and on the recommendation of a good British friend — no, actually, on the recommendation of the daughter of a former Swiss lover who married a Brit, but who has remained a good friend (as has her daughter) ever since.

That British daughter’s recommendation assured me at the time that I’d made the right decision in almost marrying her Swiss mother — that if only in following through, I might’ve had such a daughter.

In short, I believe Any Human Heart — both the novel and the film—may be the best work of this era. And possibly the last of its kind.

I’m not optimistic about the future of literature—and Any Human Heart is literature, make no mistake about it. William Boyd’s novel — as well as the film for which he wrote the screenplay (and of which his novel is obviously the source) — are the stuff of world literature. At the very least, he has written the definitive novel of the Boomer Generation; at most, he has written a novel to compete with the best of novels of all time.

Does Any Human Heart hold the same rank as Don Quixote (the first and, in my opinion, the greatest of all novels ever written)? I’ll have to ponder that one for a while — and while I continue to read William Boyd’s other works. In the meantime, however, I can’t recommend strongly enough both the novel and the film.

RRB
5/11/13
Brooklyn, NY

[vguy_6 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Waste of time. Story in journal form of a novelist - though he shows little sign of intelligence imagination or literary style. He rubs shoulders with numerous celebs of the first half of the 20th century (V. Woolf, Duke of Windsor, Hemingway); these are rendered in thumbnail sketches, more like nail-clippings. The protagonist has a sex-life, at its most interesting with a Russian prostitute in Paris. Little discernible plot, just a sequence of events. A scattering of factual oddities and inconsistencies, such as the WW1 vets at Oxford in 1924! were they all doing doctorates? Didn't finish it. Enjoyed his first two books some years back, so disappointed in this.

[bongo_x_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I’ve gone back and changed my rating a couple of times already, I decided that since I keep thinking about it (much more than I expected) it must deserve the higher rating.
I don’t think there are any real spoilers here, but I have to mention some of the broad plot points to give my reasons for my rating. I picked this up at random thinking it was some obscure, unread book and not realizing it was fairly popular, or that there was a BBC production of it.

This is the (fictional) story of a man’s life, from beginning to end, told through his journal entries. He’s a fairly ordinary man, a moderately successful writer, who finds himself in some of the big historical events of the last century. Unlike similar books I’ve read (one just recently, which put me off this at first) he is not a hero or the secret brain behind events; he’s not the guy that told Edison the secret of the light bulb, or told the Allies how to win the war. This book is almost the opposite of that.

He’s the guy who’s standing in the background in the famous picture. When you read an account of a famous gathering of writers and artists, a dinner or a party, he’s the name you don’t recognize. I’ve always been very curious about those people, I’m always asking "what’s their story?" and apparently Mr. Boyd was too and wrote one. I think Mr. Boyd did a great job capturing that story, and the book is well written, the problems come from the same source as the strengths; the whole point is that the main character is not the most interesting man in the world. He leads a very interesting life compared to most, but not interesting enough to tell stories about. He occupies that middle ground. If you’re like me and always wonder who that actress is that made a bunch of movies but no one remembers her name, or read an obituary buried somewhere and thought the person had lived an interesting life, this will probably interest you.

The other side of this book is a look at what it is to be a man and get through life. Again, something that’s been covered many times, in some ways reminds me of what I thought the "The Sportswriter" could’ve been (which I didn’t care for). The subject is a good guy, and tries to be, but does things that are not always admirable, if never outright evil or bad.

My criticisms are tempered by the feeling that the book does exactly what it attempts to do. I had the strange feeling after reading the journals of a man’s entire life that I still didn’t know him that well, but I think in some ways he didn’t know himself that well, and that’s what you get from only reading his journals. There is no narrator to add extra depth and description. I like the fact that Mr. Boyd resisted the temptation to make the characters and events larger than life, they are exactly life size. You could almost forget you’re reading a fictional account.

If you’re looking for a hero story or a great adventure you will be disappointed. If you want a quiet story of a man trying to figure out his life and living through the big events of recent history then I think it was well done.

[neddludd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel burrows into your subconscious. The author's skill at creating a main character who records his observations in a journal is brilliant, the language and pacing perfect. Logan Mountstuart is an upper middle-class child, who proceeds through university and his life as a writer. Readers are introduced to the cast that wonders in and out: Picasso, James Joyce, Hemingway. A meditation on the randomness of life, with its triumphs and agonies, my only caveat is that Logan expects a certain level of pleasure and accomplishment. He is after all, an Englishman with a world-class education and enough family money to do as he wishes rather than what he must. This includes sleeping with his friends' wives and lovers. Somewhere, this situation changes, and Mountstuart loses his protective shield; life hits him with a brutality suitable to someone whose luck has turned. World War II visitis its inhumanity upon him. But, as always, he muddles through and copes as he maintains friendships over decades with boys from his public school who age with him and have their own moral and professional issues. He seems almost incapable of love, except fleetingly. The one woman whom he does love is a victim of both circumstances and bad luck. The reader loses a sense of time and place as he/she is swept into Logan's life--be it in London, Paris, New York, Switzerland, or Nigeria. This is a very satisfying, intelligent, and memorable read--and highly recommended.

[bookmarque · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first part was hard to get into. The scribblings of an adolescent boy are pretty trying, but in a sense they were successful because of that. I applaud Boyd for being able to show character and more importantly, growth and change through the journal entries of LMS. The voice, perspective and level of maturity definitely change with each phase of his life and that's hard to pull off. So while I wasn't sure I'd like this LMS character, in the end I came to love him and each up and down in his life had me emotionally hooked. So much so that it's hard to think of this as a work of fiction, LMS's character is that real.Partly it's because so many real-life people pepper his life including Hemingway, Picasso, Evelyn Waugh, Ian Flemming and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. While not many of them penetrate to the core of LMS's life, they all affect the course of it. The reality they add to the narrative definitely contributes to the overall feeling of biography here, or I should say, autobiography. Although the beginning of LMS's life is basically smooth and tranquil, the middle and end have many surprises and strange scenes.One reviewer I saw characterizes LMS's whole life as dismal and LMS himself as hapless. I wonder if we read the same book. While there are some moments that are out of his control and he is clearly an alcoholic, none of it is so desperately dire that we see him as a tragic figure. Instead I found LMS to be remarkably adaptable; resourceful and able to land on his feet. Yes, he's a randy bugger his whole life, but he knows true love and treasures it when he finds it. Yes, there is a lot of coincidence and LMS is connected to a lot of important people, but he has a very small circle of real friends who sustain him like the air he breathes.And it's that interconnectedness and coincidence that frame one of the novel's strongest aspects; an overview of the ways and moves of the 20th century. From war to terrorism, art and attitudes, LMS's life encompasses a great deal of the change and upheaval that shaped the century from almost every outpost on the globe. If you are a student of history you'll love the little vignettes in Spain, Nigeria, Bahamas, England and France. All those changes and events shape LMS and his outlook and attitude although at heart he never really does change and he's not sorry or apologetic about anything in his life, even the dog food years.If you've never read a William Boyd novel, this is a good one to start with. It's my 3rd and there will be more. Oh and a note about the narration (like the others, my experience of this Boyd novel was as an audio) - Simon Vance did a great job. LMS's voice does change character as he ages and Vance reflected that in each section of journal, capturing the enthusiasm, peril, resignation and joy of each phase of LMS's rich and varied life. Bravo!For a more detailed and nuanced breakdown and analysis of Any Human Heart, check out its Wiki Page. Oh and I see that it was turned into a BBC miniseries, too. What a great source for something like that. I'll have to see if it pops up on Netflix or something.

[mahallett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

i saw the bbC series and loved it and decided to read the book. why isn't more fiction like this? instead of drivel! i think the book was sadder than the movie in which his old age was interspersed into his other ages and perhaps you can't really show what someone feels. we have to be told? or maybe it's that i'm 65 heading into old age with none of my body parts working that well, most begging to be removed from the rest.

[jnwelch_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Any Human Heart by William Boyd is an excellent read. Logan Mountstuart is born in 1906 in Montevideo, son of an English corporate executive and a Uraguayan mother, and then attends a British public school, where he meets two friends who will have great significance to him his whole life. He hopes to attend Oxford and become a writer.The book consists of his personal journals, with some editorial commentary, and follows his life for almost the entirety of the 20th century. He has notable successes and embarrassing failures, both professionally and personally. He has unexpected adventures, particularly during WWII, when he works under future James Bond author Ian Fleming in defense of the realm. One 1933 entry gives an example of his peripatetic existence: "Movements. Monte Carlo - La Spezia (to see Shelley's last house at Lerici) - Pisa - Sienna - Rome. Rome - Paris (on an aeroplane - this is the only way to travel). Paris - London. London - Thorpe Gellingham." One of the pleasures of the book is his globetrotting and intimate descriptions of the locales where he stays.He marries mistakenly, and subsequently meets the love of his life. Throughout his life, like a well-known U.S. president, he has trouble keeping his pants zipped. Surprisingly, perhaps because of his basic humility and decency, this often leads to lasting relationships, even when the sex stops.He believably meets many luminaries of the century, and his connections with an art gallery bring him into contact with artists like Picasso and Klee. "Picasso seems to me one of those stupid geniuses - more Yeats, Strindberg, Rimbaud, Mozart, than Matisse, Brahms, Braque. It's quite tiring being with him.". But Picasso takes to Logan, and gives Logan and a paramour a precious drawing of the two of them. One story thread that reappears through the years is Logan's on-again off-again relationship with the odious Duke and Duchess of Windsor (were they as odious as portrayed, I wonder?)He lives in the U.S. for a while, and prefers a city like Chicago to LA - "there has to be something brutal and careless about a true city - the denizen must feel vulnerable - and Los Angeles doesn't deliver that . . . I feel too damn comfortable here, too cocooned." Toward the end of his life he spends time at a beautifully described farmhouse near a small French village, where he is a mystery to the increasingly friendly locals. This is not a story of a steady climb to the top or a rocket trajectory followed by a plunge. Logan thinks of his life first as a roller coaster, then corrects himself to view it as a yo-yo, used by a "maladroit child". Looking back, he sees, "sporadic highs and appalling lows, . . . brief triumphs and terrible losses", but in the end it is a life well-lived, and well-told. In many ways he is like each of us, and much of the enjoyment of this book is his honest depiction of a full and eventful life. Many thanks to Mark for recommending this one.

[ectopicbrain · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An excellent novel written like a personal diary published posthumously with editorial annotations and comments plus a complete index. I had to keep checking to assure myself it was really fiction. The main character, Logan Mountstuart, is so alive you feel you know him in the end.

[msf59 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“Never say you know the last word about any human heart".-Henry JamesAnother title for this book, may have been “The Mortal Life of Logan Mountstuart”. LMS, as he calls himself, was born in 1906 and starting in 1923, he tells his story through personal journal entries, taking us through the decades of the 20th century. It’s a Zelig-like journey, as LMS, a fledgling author and correspondent, tools across Europe, bumping into a vast array of cultural icons, like Hemingway, Picasso, Ian Fleming, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Virginia Woolf and many others. We also experience his many ups and downs, his affairs, (sex plays a large frolicking role), his marriages and his life-long friendships: “It's true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We're all busy people, we can't spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps.” This is my first Boyd novel and his clear prose and sure-fire storytelling sold me immediately. I’m an instant fan.

[smiler69 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Logan Mountstuart's story, which spans every decade of the 20th century (born 1906, died 1991), is told through his personal journals, which he has kept off and on at various stages of his life. Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, he moved to England with his English father and Uruguayan mother as a young boy. The earliest pages of the journals having been lost, the story picks up sometime in LMS's teens, when he made a pact with his two best friends which in one case, had lasting consequences. He decided to become a writer and published a successful novel after attending Oxford university, and his early success led him to meet some of the leading figures of the arts and letters, making for plenty of namedropping, from Hemingway (encountered in Spain during the civil war), to Picasso (whom he interviewed for an article), to Evelyn Waugh (who kissed him on the mouth), to name just a few. But his acquaintance with the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson may have had dramatic consequences, as he believed the duke, with whom he had fallen out of favour, later betrayed him during WWII, leading to two years of internment in Switzerland after a failed intelligence mission. Because of the nature of the documents through which we get to know LMS, we are presented with many facets of his life, from intimate details about his loves and lovers to little anecdotes and comments about a wide variety of topics and people. LMS certainly lived an exciting life, but this book having been highly recommended to me by various people, and having read two of Boyd's books before, I had high expectations, and while I thought the story was very good for the most part, I wasn't so impressed with all the cameos and appearances of famous people in his life and kept wanting more, which is why the novel suddenly became absolutely fascinating to me when, as an old man, LMS hit hard times and had to go to extreme measures to eke out a living and fight to hang on to his dignity and sense of self, even as he found himself unable to write the novel that might have put him back on the map. By then end I was completely won over and quite fascinated by this monumental construction, which is one I'll have to find time to read again in future, as I'm sure I'll enjoy it very differently now that the whole picture has been revealed. Strongly recommended.

[lara335 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Didn't find it as hilarious as other reviewers did, but interesting trek through the 20th century by Logan as he moves from public school to Oxbridge, becomes an intelligence officer in the 2nd WW, art gallery bod in NY, to eating dog food as a has been.

[janglen_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book and will cetainly now read more by William Boyd. It follows the life of Logan Mountstuart through the 20th century. We see him as a schoolboy, writer, spy, art dealer, lover; we see him in London, New York, France. The story holds your attention throughout but it is the depiction of the people that stands out, particularly Logan himself. It is a warts and all picture, which goes well beyond the superficial to leave us feeling this is person we know intimately - someone we sometimes like and sometimes not but whom we always understand.

[gbelik_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel is told in the form of a journal, kept by the Logan Mountstuart from his early years in school till his death in the 1990s. I liked it more and more as it went on--as I got to know Logan as a complex (and sympathetic) person. His life has a few exciting incidents (imprisonment in Switzerland(!) during WWII and an inadvertent mission for the Baeder-Meinhoff gang, but mainly is a private life of a man who is unsuccessful in his life as measured by economic standards or concrete accomplishments, but, I thought, eminently successful as a moral person.

[bob_kemp_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this a very compelling book but not in the sense that we often mean of being particularly un-put-downable or enjoyable. The central character is the thing - there are other good things such as period detail and an extension of Boyd's fictitious artist joke but it's an ambitious attempt to document a complete life, a rather flawed and at times not particularly interesting or likeable life, but one that is recognisably deeply human. Over-ambitious perhaps, and at times I felt that I was carried along by the ambition more than anything else but nonetheless a fantastic piece of work.

[edwinbcn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One typical characteristic of postmodern literature is the play with genre. Early on in the 1990s, literary authors started producing biographies of insignificant or imaginary people, the latter sometimes with relatively uneventful or insignificant lives. In 1998, William Boyd published Nat Tate: American Artist, 1928-1960, which is an elaborate hoax, a biography on a non-existant American painter. Any human heart is a variant in the same vein, being the diaries of the fictional character Logan Mountstuart.In a way, I suppose writing a fictional diary must be more difficult that a fictional biography. In a journal the internal psychology, the psychology of the main character are essential to the credibility of the journals, a credibility which is important to maintain suspense, and prevent the reader from abandoning the book altogether. Still, as a consequence of the genre, any fictional diary or biography is in essence less interesting than a real journal or biography, because nothing really matters.The first hurdle for the author is, therefore, to make a convincing case for the diarist to keep a journal which would be interesting enough for a modern readership. This problem is conspicuously solved by making Logan a minor author, who lived throughout the whole of the 20th century, being born in 1916, whose background, course of life through modern history we are all familiar with, and interests are generally appealing to the average reader. However, there is some strain as Mountstuart's life story does take some unexpected turns, possibly to keep the story going.There are a few hidden strings in the story, which add to the authenticity of the character of Mountstuart while winking an eye to the reader. One of these lines is Mountstuart's flawed assessment of celebrities he encounters during his life, dismissing Hemingway as a minor author. Another would be his "daring" bravado of publishing an "indecent" novel, although Mountstuart is a follower here, rather than a trendsetter, as D.H.Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover would already have come out and paved the way for this type of literature.Any human heart did not convince me as a journal. The unity of style, the lack of spontaneity and the general feel were more of a novel than an autograph. Nonetheless, the formidable book, more than 500 pages, was a very enjoyable read.

[kk1_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

(Read for a book group. Probably wouldn't have picked it up or finished it otherwise.) It's a fictional story of a man's life, presented as his penultimate work containing the journals of his life. I didn't get caught up or lost in it - he was mildly interesting, probably more so when he was being bad.You get his unique perspective and experience of various events around the world. However the journal format means his descriptions are often short, fractured or incomplete. You almost need prior knowledge to put into context what you are reading.Lots of name dropping, probably as a device. Also, as in in real life, fairly tedious. Years later, I will probably only remember that he recommends buying dog food (pref rabbit stew) when funds are low.