He is given a grand estate, and immediately sets about decorating his large house in an effusion of baroque colours, in the most vivid hues, then takes an interest in painting and music, and indeed he observes all around him with an artist's eye. Merivel becomes part of this community of Friends, he begins his own period of "restoration," becoming a more complete person able to put the needs of others above his own. In search of answers, Merivel sets off for the French court. Entirely self-taught, he became a talented artist and in high school joined the staff of the newspaper and the yearbook. Twentieth Century Fox wanted a series of Believe It or Not movies. of ordeals, which include treating the inmates at the Quaker-run asylum where his old The doll had been abandoned and Myrtle decided to keep him during the entire 20-year period she lived . He's attending medical school, and he has a gift for healing; he's not in the least bit squeamish. Get help and learn more about the design. (3) Yet the Dryasdust distain for the historical novel still lingers on in some quarters. It might be said, however, that this image is arguably a hangover of the Charles II of the Arthur Bryant School of history. You think maybe I have given too much away? She has been living at Bedlam Asylum for the past few years and has endured so much pain and heartache, that most people think her mad. Establishing himself as a doltish lady's man, Merivel One night Merivel drunkenly makes advances towards her and is promptly reported to the King by Elias Finn. In the end he finds peace and awareness of what really The novel tells the story of Robert Merivel, who begins the book as a medical student, studying alongside his serious, practical friend John Pearce. I felt like I had been transported back in time to all the disagreeable muck and smells and ribaldry of the 1660s. Librarians knew Pearlroth by name and would have to ask him to leave at closing time. Merivel finds himself enjoying a life of debauched pleasure and popularity at court, until the King informs him that he has arranged for Merivel to wed Celia, the King's favorite mistress. In an excerpt adapted from his new book, SAG Awards 2023 Red Carpet Fashion: See All the Looks, Rupert Murdoch Colluded With Jared Kushner to Try to Throw the 2020 Election to Trump Because Of Course He Did. And as long as I continue to receive the lions share of this odd form of flattery, I dont worry about a wolf being at my door. He roamed constantly, obsessively searching for strange facts and faces for his cartoon. I found this book quite intriguing. Stripped of everything, Merivel endures an excruciating series A young doctor, Robert Merivel, enters the service of King Charles II of England after having saved the King's favorite spaniel. I find that novels written in the first person are difficult to pull off. In this engaging historical saga, he's a randy physician His mission was to prove to readers that veracity and reality were elusiveBuffalo Bill never shot a buffalo, for example; he shot bison; Irelands St. Patrick wasnt Irish or Catholic, and his name wasnt Patrickand that sometimes you cant recognize truth until someone shines a sharp light on a subject, as Ripley did when his cartoon divulged that the Star Spangled Banner, based on a crude English drinking song, had never been formally adopted as the American national anthem, which led to a 1931 petition to Congress bearing five million signatures, and the anthems official adoption. View the profiles of people named Robert Merivel. health and is invited to the court. In addition, John Pearce demonstrates an illness which Merivel is unable to treat, despite his best efforts, and slowly sickens and dies. He was soon being wooed by radio networks looking for ways to capture the Believe It or Not magic on the airwaves. Merivel: A Man of His Time. wants and spiritual needs. Suddenly, the court is notified that the city is ablaze, and Merivel races back to the city to retrieve his infant daughter from the flames. Merivel joins the hospital with the best of intentions and hopes to rediscover his medical vocation. I went to combat in Operation Desert Storm . Merivel slips easily into a life of luxury and idleness, enthusiastically enjoying the women and wine of the vibrant Restoration age. discretion when relying onit. Restoration. Downey portrays Robert Merivel, a 17th-century medical student whose gift for healing brings him to the court of King Charles II (Neill). A after he has lost. And yet, though he was a public figure for 40 years, no one knew the real story, the real Ripley. There was such a consistency to the narrative voice, and such a lovely tone to this book, that I did not want it to end. For argues Jenkinson the order and health of the nation was reliant on, symptomatic of and a reflection of that of the royal court (p. 213) Underneath the pleasurable veneer of the Restoration court therefore stood both severe uncertainty and a lively interrogation of the issues of the court: virtue, love, loyalty, reason, authority and honour had to be interrogated (p. 236) The monarch who compromised these political/cultural elements was Charles II. matters. But it's only after losing it all that Merivel discovers who he really is and - becomes the man he never dreamed he could be. Regardless, Rose Tremain gives this historical period double-meaning in her novel, Restoration. Ripley served cocktails from beneath the flags of countries hed visited, scores of which dangled from the walls. With oak floors and dark-wood paneling, the mansions shadowy and spooky interior resembled an elegant lodge. This card eventually ends up being passed to the King, who is suitably impressed by Merivel's personality change through time from fool to selfless individual. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. He is the novels deus ex machina. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Washington Post Staff Writer Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. For the King moves like God in our world, like Faith itself. Along the way to international fame, he accumulated knowledge of thousands of oddities, girlfriends from around the world, a curio-stuffed house on a private islandand who could forget that dried whale penis? Though he was bucktoothed, chubby, and not especially handsome, something about Ripleys style and confidence attracted women. his profession. Max Schuster had wisely sent one of the first copies of Ripleys book to William Randolph Hearst. He was naturally a man with faults, but was also a lover of wine, women, dogs, song and pleasure and who could dislike such a man as that? . wearisome, particularly when Merivel's spiritual redemption leads him into the arms of, uh, Clearly the suggestion of the very idea of the Restoration as aspirational is crucial to the novel. Rose Tremain's best-selling novels have won many awards, including the Baileys Women's Prize, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Prix Femina Etranger. The first is a wealthy nobleman seeking the lover he deserted From her greed is good heyday to her post-divorce denouement cavorting with a series of freaky Italian lovers, it was Ivana, all along, who gilded the Trump name. An aspiring young physician, Robert Merivel found himself in the service of King Charles II and saves the life of someone close to the King. Merivel joins his old student friend John Pearce at the New Bedlam hospital, also in Norfolk. his colleague and friend John Pearce that he not give up . Thousands of irate readers sent incredulous letters and telegrams, berating Ripley for insulting an American icon, and calling him all sorts of names, primarily a liar. And in reply to the sober charge of falsehood, against a narrative announced positively to be fictitious, one can only answer by Priors exclamation, Odzooks, must one swear to the truth of a song!.(8). A garishly gilded, gloriously overstuffed costume drama, "Restoration" sometimes threatens Yelp is a fun and easy way to find, recommend and talk about what's great and not so great in Lewisville and beyond. "A most useful fellow." . Ripley poses with his inaugural 1918 Believe it or Not cartoon (originally titled Champs and Chumps)., From A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert Believe It or Not! Ripley. His timing was ideal: the paper had just partnered with the Associated Newspapers syndicate, which meant his sports cartoons would be reprinted in papers across the country. U.S. If such literary works tend to be treated at all by historians, then it is often as a somewhat smaller, less worthy, over-rowdy, and much more emotional younger brother, over-concerned with mere story and (taken as given by many historians) often containing many an ill-conceived, ahistorical, character creation. Washington Post Staff Writer *While covering a 1910 fight between Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries, in Reno, he met Jack London and other writers who, impressed by Ripleys cartoons, advised him to move to New York. The garage held wooden statues and carvings, python skins and stuffed animals. The king's favorite humiliated man Merivel visits his friend John, who has As Merivel and Celia slide into bed, moments after they have been Yet, for all of this there is still arguably room for both versions, for used wisely the one can provoke questions of the other. Through tender care, rather than anything particularly medical, Merivel restores the dog to Composer James Newton Howard's main theme is based on the music from The Fairy-Queen by Henry Purcell. Merivel agrees, only to discover he can't resist Celia, and soon finds himself out of the king's favor. appears to be a cheap fright wig. I became much too excited by and greedy for life to spend much of it at work. Rose Tremain lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes. It was funny and engaging. Why is there such a fascination with this particular monarch? Cartoons, photographs, and color printing were more popular than ever, as were sexy, gossipy stories. court of King Charles II. The islands centerpiece was a 28-room English-style manor, stucco and stone with wood trim, atop on a rock mound in the center of the island. When he died, in 1949, he left behind no children. Ripley never mocked the efforts of men such as E. L. Blystone, who wrote 1,615 letters of the alphabet on a grain of rice, or the two German railroad workers who drank 372 glasses of beer in 17 hours, or Jim White, who towed cars with his teeth, or the father and son, each missing a leg, who shared pairs of shoes, or the Chinese-American baby born the day of Lindberghs trans-Atlantic flight, whose parents named him One Long Hop. When guests asked what that was, Ripley would explain, Lets just say it was very dear to the whale. In one rock-walled, grotto-like room, which was off-limits to female visitors, Ripley kept his collection of erotica. lives and society. Robert Deleon Fine Art in Lewisville, reviews by real people. Fresh off the plane in New York City Harbor after a three-month South East Asia trip, Ripley forces a smile for the crowdhe hated to fly. Miramax.All Rights Reserved. Merivel rejoins his old friend, John Pearce, who has opened a Quaker sanitarium. Robert Merivel, son of a glove maker and an aspiring physician, finds his fortunes transformed when he is given a position at the court of King Charles II. becomes a pawn in a Machiavellian scheme of the king's. With a cascade of lace at his neck and a laugh that can burst out of him in the midst of torment, Merivel is a uniquely brilliant creationsoulful, funny, outrageous, and achingly sad. Michael Hoffman's jaunty 17th-century period piece, adapted from Rose Tremain's novel, follows the ribald adventures of Robert Merivel (Robert Downey Jr.), medic to the royal dogs of Charles II . Inventing Ivana Trump: Her Improbable Rise and Tragic Death. Chapter two of the book goes on to explore the features of the court in the early Restoration, the first being a rhetorical commitment to the law as evinced by the executions of the regicides. He is Everyman. I so love Rose Tremain's writing. The book, set in the first years of the Restoration, chronicles the adventures of a bawdy physician with a taste for the farcical who develops a passionate love for King Charles II. His cartoons appeared in more than 300 newspapers around the world, in dozens of languages, and were read by many millions. Just as Restoration opens with Sir Robert Merivel - a lavishly imagined historical character we get to know so vividly over these quick-turning 800 pages he feels real - recounting "five beginnings" of his life, let's start by listing five ways this posting is unlike any other: The review is a double-package. course, is smitten and falls from the king's favor. Intellectuals and highbrow writers likened tabloids to addictive drugs, fretting that theyd precipitate the demise of American culture. Merivel finds by the end of the book that the court was not worth that much anyway and fortunately for him he is eventually given his own space to inhabit, but few of those who aspired to the court at the time would have thought like this and they were eager to be there whatever the consequences for themselves. The king has power and money, but he cannot control hearts. But The site's critics consensus reads, "Restoration spins an engaging period yarn out of its bestselling source material, brought to life through the efforts of an eclectic ensemble cast led by Robert Downey Jr."[4] At Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Merivel is a more serious novel than Restoration, and its backdrop offers a cautionary tale for austerity Britain. This is the third Tremain I've read (The Road Home, Trespass) and each is completely different but the one constant is really good, felicitous writing -- the kind that makes you look forward to getting back to your book, and staying up too late to read a few more pages. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made his treacherous solo voyage across the Atlantic, flying his single-engine Spirit of St. Louis nonstop from New York to Paris and becoming an instant hero for accomplishing a feat long thought to be impossiblecrossing an ocean in a day and a half; traveling 60 miles an hour for more than 3,000 miles; flying alone through the night, through storms, without sleep. The short answer he usually gave was: Everywhere, all the time.. February 02, 1996. Is he a fair master? Merivel and Katherine travel to London to live with Katherine's mother, in London, which is enduring the Great Plague. A very hopeful read. Introduced by his father, a glovemaker to the King, Young Meviel, a student in medicine, meets Charles II for the first time and immediately falls under his spell, so that when King Charles asks Merivel to save one of his dying dogs (his beloved spaniels of course), Merivel jumps at the chance to be part of the inner circle of Whitehall Palace and successfully cures the dog, mainly by doing nothing. When he awakens, he is being cared for by Will Gates back at Bidnold. The novel is set in the reign of Charles II of England (reigned 16601685), and depicts a medical student who gains the king's favour by apparently curing a pet dog owned by the king. Very different from the other books by Rose Tremain I have read. In many senses therefore the historical work parallels that of the novel; it too is about ideas. The author knocks on the doors bearing the darkest symbols, behind which lie guns, ammo, antisemitism, antiabortion dogmaand a belief in the coming civil war. "Movies: Restoration: Directed by Michael Hoffman", Maslin, Janet. I think it's going to mean that I will just love it because it is so fabulous, but somehow that doesn't seem to be the way it turns out for me and this book is no exception. Merivel abandons his profession to follow a life of Inevitably, Merivel falls madly in love with her. plague, a pestilence that more than decimates London's population before the Great Fire of His favorite, ever since his first visit to China and India during his 192223 circumnavigation, was the Far East, the spice-scented alleys of Shanghai and the self-flagellating Hindu rituals in the Indian holy city of Benares, which he told readers was home to the weirdest collection of humanity on the face of the earth. Ripleys travels, combined with Pearlroths knowledge of the world and facility with languages, added an exotic flair and worldly tone to the Believe It or Not cartoons, earning Ripley a reputation as a real-life Indiana Jones. In some ways he appears to be a shallow man In some ways he appears to be a shallow man but is actually consumed by self . Leading the way (up or down was a matter of debate) were the half-sized papers known as tabloids. people abandon the things that are important in life for In 1919, with the old New York Globe, I began a syndicated column. Tremains book is written in first-person, which doesnt usually work for me, but I really enjoyed this. Merivel further captures the king's favour with his comical antics, and the king comes to affectionately call him his fool, which delights Merivel, as being in the king's favour and among his friends is a privilege he revels in. In sorrow he commits himself to Truth, you know, is really stranger than fiction, he wrote. He had been divorced for 25 years. With that, the King steps aside to reveal a nurse holding Margaret safely in her arms. The one communications medium Ripley had yet to conquer was television, and in 1949 he launched a TV show based on his cartoon. Most importantly, Merivel feels like a real person, and I never felt that Tremain was sneering at him. matches his lust for knowledge only with his passion for gorgeous women and a fashion sense The King then arranges a marriage of convenience between Merivel and one of his mistresses, Celia Clemence. Merivel (Robert Downey, Jr.) leaves Will Gates (Ian McKellen) at his country estate Invited to the Court of the charismatic King Charles II (Sam Neill), the high-spirited young Robert Merivel (Robert Downey, Jr.) cheerfully abandons his medical studies to accept the post of Royal Physician. distracted by amusements, confuses desire for love, and For his courage and good work done in treating the victims of the plague, the King once again gives Bidnold to Merivel, stating that this time it will never be taken away. Speaking to the Advertising Club of New York, he explained that he got some of his ideas from readers, some from encyclopedias, and some in his dreams. His goal was to turn BION Island into a showcase for his booty from foreign lands. He gives his card to someone in the vicinity who asks for his name to pray for him. When Merivel is obliged to crawl away, wearing the ram's head, it's the beginning of a Last edited on 28 February 2023, at 21:15, Restoration (disambiguation) Literature, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Restoration_(Tremain_novel)&oldid=1142161118, This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 21:15. Facts, to be interesting, must be very close or very far away, Ripley believed. He comes to the attention of the king and for a while he is part of the court and plays the fool. Is he the King\'s friend or the King\'s slave? His unmistakable, self-mocking voice speaks directly to us down the centuries. Ripley and some unidentified ladies enjoy a boat-ride on the pond behind his mansion. Elias Finn, a painter commissioned by the King to paint a portrait of Celia, tricks Merivel into revealing his romantic feelings for Celia, who does not return Merivel's affections. The idea of the Restoration period has been present in the historical novel genre for some time. Travers, Peter. Ripleys staff now included a secretary and two assistants to read letters and check facts. If the entire Restoration court experience has, it is argued, implications for the health of the body politic then indeed the ideas of words and meanings of the courtiers and their king need to be deconstructed. The letter writers had even created their own fad, addressing envelopes simply to Rip, while others wrote backwards, upside down, in Braille, Hebrew, shorthand, semaphore, or Morse code (.-. Merivel, physician to the pampered royal spaniels, Also featuring Sam Neill, Ian McKellen and . Being called untruthful is to me a compliment. During the Depression, as Americans sought affordable means of escape and entertainment, Ripley provided both. With his various collections now on display, he loved to show off his estate to guests. e Navy. I'm . The It became an immediate hit. With: Robert Merivel - Robert Downey Jr. Charles II - Sam Neill John Pearce - David Thewlis Celia - Polly Walker Katherine - Meg Ryan Will Gates - Ian McKellen Finn - Hugh Grant Ambrose . . Thats the deal made between the king and Merivel the fool. He started by making a salesmans pitch to his new readership, promising that his Believe It or Nots are all true, and if any readers questioned the facts, hed prove the truth to any doubters. Having said this, as so often in historical fiction the timescale within this novel jars to the historians eye. He jumped with his cartoon to Hearsts King Features Syndicate, and would remain there for the rest of his life. Restoration is rated R for nudity, sexuality and bawdiness. He is aided in this by a sober Quaker Just before the war Norbert Pearlroth had listened to Ripley one night, over dinner, describe how his life had played out in 10-year intervals. This very fine novel was first published in 1989. This is the story of a seventeenth century physician, Robert Merivel, who has a special talent for healing which he neglects as he indulges in his weakness for vice and luxury. pleasure and status. Restoration study guide contains a biography of Rose Tremain, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. "Completing a novel is not like giving birth, as people sometimes say - it's more like a death. 22 Photos Biography Drama History The exiled royal physician to King Charles II devotes himself to helping Londoners suffering from the plague, and in the process falls in love with an equally poor woman. 2016 The Old Devils. Ripleys domain also contained a smaller house with an attached garage, and a boathouse. It is a rich and finely detailed mix for the reader to interrogate and gives us a good understanding of the cultural ambience and the cultural ambivalences of the court.