Most of us struggle to find our true path and mature into what we should truly be in life. Youthful experimentation, choices and indiscretions give way to mid-life crises and revaluations. Hopefully, what emerges is a calmer, more grounded "us" truer to our essence and better fulfilling our life's purpose. So it is with Tremain's main character, the doctor and libertine Robert Merivel. His darker side keeps leading him into trouble. His last name conjures this struggle. A conflation of merry evil, a marvel somehow corrupted with the devil. At the King's court, he is known as "Merivel" for its fashionable, tripping sound. Amongst the Quaker community, he is called Robert: simple, human, and without attribution of status.
 
Tremain skillfully balances Robert Merivel's first-person narration so we can find the heroic in his struggle without dismissing his insufferable folly. It helps that the account of his life is set down by himself at a seemingly later stage and with some hard-earned self-knowledge.
 
The book is set in 1660s England. Charles II is the newly restored monarch, providing the book's title. Forgiveness of sins, but without forgetting, is an important theme of the book. The Act of Oblivion forgave the crimes and sins of the Civil War in favour of focusing on moving forward and creating a better nation. Except the greatest sins, such as regicide, could not be forgotten or forgiven. Those involved in the King's execution were hunted down and themselves executed. Similarly, the novel explores whether Robert Merivel can learn from his mistakes and "restore" to himself his true character and find his purpose in life. One of the things that resonates with him is a comment from a marble craftsman who tells him patience is required to chisel out the stone and reveal the form within.  
 
Early in his narration, Robert lays out the five most influential incidents that shaped him and foresees several paths, many of which are unattractive. He splits his life story into three parts. The first two parts involve him in "utopian" worlds.
 
Firstly, he falls into the world of the new King's court. Treated as a fool, he is delighted to play the fool and is indeed genuinely foolish. Ironically, becoming beloved for an act of laziness. He abandons his medical work and bathes in a world of bacchanalian and orgiastic excesses with sumptuous food, clothes and music. But this is not a world devoid of soul. The King is erudite and possesses an uncanny ability to look at people and know them deeply. As well as using Merivel he also urges him to rouse himself from torpor and make the most of himself. He's both nemesis and guide to Merivel, and we are reminded of this duality when Merivel writes that he loves his telescope more for its sensuous feel than for its power of scientific observation.
 
Unable to control himself, Merivel falls out of favour with the King. It's intriguing to see how Merivel perceives his exile from court life. Is it unjustified shunning, or has he self-destructed, and what will he learn and change?
 
His next utopian world is a polar opposite. The Quaker hospital for the insane at Whittlesea. This is an ascetic, religious community. Impoverished and dedicated to the care of others, the Keepers lead simple, hard, but rewarding lives in service. Robert develops new perspectives. He notices that women here are admired for their abilities and character and not for their looks and that flowers may be scented for a reason other than for sensuous appeal. Taking up his medical practice again, Robert questions whether this is a restoration or punitive. Reunited with his medical college friend, John Pearce, he begins to see himself in a different light. His friend was appalled by his life at court and offered a very different lodestar by which to navigate his life.
 
In the 1660s much medical treatment is based on bleeding, emetics and laxatives to purge the build-up of vapours and humours toxic to one's person. But Robert begins to question the received wisdom of the time in how to treat madness and theorises that if one could go back to the trauma that caused the breakdown, could it be prevented, and is it possible later to find a cure? This would benefit himself and his patients. In exploring the theory, his best intentions have consequences unexpected by him but anticipated by others, and he leaves to make another new start.
 
The final part sees Robert return to the "real world" of London. Can he find a balanced, normal life? Perhaps one with a family and a professional role that he can commit to? Or will he be drawn back into the world of the King and seek his approval once more? Robert's parents died in a fire, and now the year is 1666. Will he fall victim to London's Great Fire and be razed to the ground, or can he raise his sights and be restored to his best life?

Back to classic Tremain: absurd historical characters doing weird things. Compelling, funny, enjoyable.