A review by vanityclear
Restoration by Rose Tremain

5.0

I read a little bit around the publication of this book, in 1989. While the novel is great on its own, it takes on a special depth when you realize that (1) its setting in the 1660s was intended as a commentary on the absurd opulence of the 1980s, (2) historical novels were by that point in a romantic rut and were pooh-poohed by most critics (rightly or wrongly I can't say); Restoration restored the genre and paved the way for Hilary Mantel to find a publisher for A Place of Greater Safety more than ten years after she'd finished it.

I also find it excruciatingly funny that most critics swooned over Tremain's realistic portrayal of a man's inner world, when the opposite is rarely commented upon.