Waterland

I do not like this book. I tried several times to enjoy it but could not. It’s disjointed and switches times and characters so often that I couldn’t keep up. I’m very disappointed to have spent the money on a book I won’t read.

Graham Swift's 'Waterland' stands as one of -- if not the -- finest novels which I have read in the past five years. Swift's organic narration imbues his text with a sense of authenticity, a sense of capturing the English experience. Swift's characters are painful in their realism, and are suggestive of the dynamic which guides the novel: the relationship between past and present, history and contemporary culture. 'Waterland' is required reading for those with an interest in modern fiction. This is a novel which will survive the ages and will stand as a symbol of the Fens for generations to come.

To be succinct: this is one of the best books of the late twentieth century. Swift's LAST ORDERS is sure to get the lion's share of attention now that it's been made into a movie, but WATERLAND surpasses Last Orders in every way. In terms of its entirely original and convincing structure and voice, Waterland is a twentieth century masterpiece.

Now, I'm not going to try and pretend I can explain the different facets of just why I hold this novel so dear to my heart, because I can't. It's enough to say that it's a terribly heartfelt novel, about the past, present and the ways that humans rely on each to live and love, even when the ones they love seem lost to them. It sense of character and location seems persuasive, and the sense of loss that the narrator holds for his past and his wife is simply tragic. Wonderful.

A reader must have patience and perseverance while reading Graham Swift's remarkable novel "Waterland." Like some of the better authors in British literature, Mr. Swift weaves theme upon theme with great virtuosity and skill; the reader must follow the turns and detours of the expansive plot while dealing with an unusual handling of time. The extraordinary tale is narrated by Tom Crick, a rambling storyteller and ex-history teacher from England's Fen Country. He is the son of a canal lock keeper, and the story he tells - although frequently convoluted, digressive, and rambling - is one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read. Right before he is forced to retire in the 1980's, Tom abandons the history curriculum of the school at which he teaches and relates instead a three-hundred page saga of the Fen Country involving murder, incest, madness, ghosts, revenge, and two centuries of pain and tragedy. He incorporates this remarkable history with references to the French Revolution and to his own painful story of growing up during World War II, becoming involved with a bizarre murder and with a witless half-brother who was conceived in order to become "Saviour of the World." It is a disquieting and painful novel, a work of Gothic proportions in which the reader must maintain the utmost concentration. But the rewards are great. I simply could not get this novel out of my mind while I was reading it. I quickly became enthralled with Tom Crick's touching story, with his striking historical account of his ancestors, and with his marvelously graphic description of the Fen Country and its austerity and often tragic hardships. In fact the Fen Country is a major character in the novel for it acts upon the characters in extraordinary ways. The symbol of water is omnipresent, and the Fens are seen as mysterious, isolated, overwhelming in their effects on the rugged and independent peoples who inhabit them. "Waterland" is indeed an exceptional novel. Despite its chronological complexities, its many digressions, and the rather complex syntax of the narrator, the novel forcefully probes mankind's pain and torment in the twentieth century and presents new perceptions for the reader to consider.

History is more than the mere retelling of facts and occurrences. History is about people. It is about raw feelings and experiences, emotions and reactions. History defines the human cycle of events, that is the constant re-invention of ideas, ideals and results. It matters not whether we have learned from the past, for we are constantly doomed to repeat its consequences anyway. After reading "Waterland," I am inclined to believe that author Graham Swift agrees with this notion. The novel, which vibrantly paints the portrait of an emotionally tortured family's history, deals head-on with the subject of history. Swift immediately questions the legitimacy of history. The mere title, "Waterland," is a contradiction in itself that begs questioning. The title suggests the murky, unstable format which the novel follows. Swift divides the novel into 52 separate chapters, each seemingly unrelated to each other on the surface, but eventually drawn to a common understanding by the intermingling of history's events in different time periods. Immediately, Swift establishes the struggle to make sense of history (the battle of understanding between fairy tale and reality) and exposes the absurdity of the repetitious human cycle. Indeed, this is a novel that wastes no time finding the earthy core of its inner-meaning (the organic fundamentals of "natural" history, i.e. "accidental" happenings caused by nature). Fittingly, the tale is told from the perspective of an aging, soon-to-be dispatched London history teacher lecturing his students for the final time. For Tom Crick, the story deals with the "end" of history, both literally and figuratively. Crick's final lesson does not pertain to the French Revolution or the great world wars, but to a fanatical storytelling about the Fenland, a marshy, isolated area nestled somewhere in Eastern England. This "fairy tale" land, where Crick spent his youth, serves as the backdrop to the telling of the schoolteacher's family history (over the past 240 years). But at the basis of this dramatic retelling is the current situation that engrosses Tom Crick: the longtime teacher is about to be canned as a result of a controversy involving his wife (who is guilty of child theft). Through Swift's brilliant (and well-placed) usage of flashback and foreshadowing, the reader learns how this unfortunate incident was in the making for nearly three centuries. The emotional history of the Crick/ Atkinson family tree shows that Tom Crick's problems are the direct result of past incidents of long ago. We learn that the wheels of fate began turning generations ago. The tale is intriguing, fast-paced and thought provoking. Swift effortlessly and effectively intertwines not only the different time periods he recounts, but the seemingly unrelated (at least, on the surface) lives of those who lived generations apart. After a short while, the lives and personalities of an 18th Century brewmaster