Under strict orders not to consummate the marriage, Robert must now add cuckoldry to his long list of reasons for hating himself. The shrewd King, who knows a patsy when he sees one, gives Robert a knighthood, a country estate and a pension in exchange for marrying Celia Clemence, the latest royal mistress, to still the jealous furies of another royal mistress, Lady Castlemaine. The delighted King makes Robert a courtier, but Robert, knowing the truth, sinks deeper into self-loathing.ĭesperate to fit in, Robert tells himself that ''he who is not of the time risks the scorn of his peers.'' He gives up his medical studies (''When the King returned, it was as if self-discipline and drudgery had exploded in a clap of laughter'') and seeks identity in promiscuity and gluttony until he becomes a debauched gallant in the Stuart mold. As it happens, his gaucherie is a stroke of luck, for the dog, which has been poked and prodded and dosed nearly to death, recovers simply from being left alone for a while. The insecure, eager-to-please Robert is so overwhelmed by the royal favor that, to calm his nerves, he drinks too much claret and passes out on the floor beside the dying dog. A medical student and the son of a glovemaker to the court, Robert comes to the attention of Charles II, who orders him to cure one of his famous spaniels. The hero (who spends most of the book as an antihero) is Robert Merivel, a 17th-century yuppie crippled by what today is called low self-esteem. Readers of this splendid story, which was a finalist for Britain's Booker Prize last year, will find that the title has yet a third meaning: Rose Tremain, its author, has restored the historical novel to its rightful place of honor after nearly two decades of degeneration into the sweet-savage imbecility of so-called historical romance.

It refers to the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 after the Cromwellian interlude and to the restoration of the hero's spiritual sanity in an age of greed and sensual excess very much like our own. The title of this novel, ''Restoration,'' has a dual meaning.

Restoration rose tremain review