I
thought this might be a bit too heavy-going for me despite the rave reviews and
awards. But I finally took the plunge and didn’t regret it.
To be
honest I’d always thought of Samuel Pepys as a bit of a Pooter-ish twit who
wrote a mildly witty and self-obsessed diary. I also knew he was quite high up
in the admiralty but until I read this I hadn’t realised how important a figure
he was. And certainly no twit.
He
lived in dangerous times through the Civil War, the Commonwealth and then the
Restoration and managed to steer a safe course through all of them and keep his
head (literally), which was quite an achievement.
He kept
his famous diary for ten years, and the brilliant insight that Claire Tomalin
has is that he writes it as if observing a third party. Samuel Pepys is very
interested in an almost scientific way in what Samuel Pepys does and thinks.
And in passing he gives us a remarkable insight into seventeenth century family
life and the sort of arguments that husbands and wives had then.
No comments:
Post a Comment