Night Watch [Paperback]

Sarah Waters (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: PENGUIN PUTNAM @ TRADE (1980)
• ASIN: B000N7B6UI
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Sarah Waters is the bestselling author of Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, Fingersmith, and The Night Watch. Winner of many literary awards, she has been shortlisted for both the Man Booker and Orange Prizes. She lives in London.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Women in Wartime, November 23, 2006

By 

Roger Brunyate "reader/writer/musician" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Night Watch (Hardcover)

"We never seem to love the people we ought to; I can't think why." These words, spoken by one of the central characters near the end of this sensitive book, might well serve as the epigraph for the whole. As a love story, it is passionate and true, but untidy because it is true; the truth and awkwardness go hand in hand, both beautifully reconciled by Sarah Waters' unusual narrative method. The novel traces the changing emotional relationships among a group of women (plus a few men) whose lives intersect in London during the two main periods of the Blitz, in 1941 and 1944. So completely do we get to know these characters that it is tempting to talk about them as though already conversant with their backgrounds. But one of the joys of Sarah Waters' storytelling is the manner in which she reveals information piece by piece, starting after the War and working backwards. It would be a shame to spoil this pleasure for a new reader.

But one can at least quote the opening sentence: "So this," said Kay to herself, "is the sort of person you've become: a person whose clocks and wrist-watches have stopped, and who tells the time, instead, by the particular kind of cripple arriving at her landlord's door." The year is 1947, and Kay appears as a casualty of war, living alone in a declining area of South London, in a poky flat in the house of a faith healer. Yet we shall soon glimpse a different Kay: a woman of elegance and style, performing almost daily acts of heroism in her wartime work, and responsible for many of the epiphanies of grace which illuminate this story of a dark period.

The book has three sections: the first, set in 1947, is 175 pages in the paperback edition; the second, set in 1944, is the longest at 290 pages; the third, set in 1941, is only 50 pages. Reading it is rather like going to the movies in those days, picking up in the middle of the feature, then watching the program round again to discover how it all began. It has the advantage of heading towards two different kinds of ending simultaneously: there is the ending of each chronological section, and there is the ending of the book as a whole. The endings in the 1947 section are mostly hopeful but never pat, all utterly believable, and untidy as true things generally are. This is mostly the case with the 1944 section as well. Two of the three short episodes in the concluding 1941 section, however, are bright as a button; descriptions of how the characters first met, they are crisp and compact because they shine with possibility unshaded by subsequent events. The third 1941 episode describes an event that has been glimpsed as a shadow over in the life of the main male character, Duncan, now brought into the light for the first time. If there had been any doubt as to the wisdom of Waters' narrative method, the bracing cocktail of these last fifty pages triumphantly dispels it.

But no matter how she chooses to tell it, I would read any Sarah Waters novel for her portrayal of women. There is a reality to these women that is rare even among female writers. We share the author's understanding of their social lives, their work, their friendships deep or casual, their emotional needs, even their bodies. It is no surprise that most of the relationships in this love story are lesbian ones. But I found none of the difficulty I encountered with the homosexuality in Alan Hollinghurst's THE LINE OF BEAUTY (another recent Man Booker finalist), because the relationships that Waters describes are all emotional ones first, and her rare descriptions of physical sex are the natural outcome of an intimacy of the feelings. Even reading as a man, I don't find myself watching the characters from outside (still less with any prurient fascination), but experiencing with them as I recall the emotional roller-coaster of my own youth.

I called this a love story, and it is. But looking back at it, I feel it is very much more a friendship story, set against a remarkably convincing portrayal of a particular time and place. Perhaps wartime pressures both highlight simple acts of kindness and make them more necessary. There are many such things in this book, extending to the minor characters as well as the major ones, and they give a richness to the intertwined lives that are portrayed in it. When these connections between one human being and another lead to love, it is almost irrelevant whether that love is emotional or physical, hetero- or homosexual. For this, as its unusual form makes clear, is a novel about beginnings, emotional journeys, and stops along the way. It is not to be confined by mere endings.

74 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Night Watch, April 17, 2006

By 

K. Freeman (Apple Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Night Watch (Hardcover)

An interestingly structured account of several characters in 1940's London.

Waters starts with the present and works backward, illuminating the present situation, which appears innocuous and even shallow at first, by showing what happened in the past. The present gains depth, and even a touch of horror, as we see the jealous lover who betrayed someone to be with the person whose absences she now violently suspects, and the continued relationship between a woman and the man who abandoned her as she fought for her life.

It's an interesting plot structure, and the fact that it naturally lessens tension is somewhat made up for by the ugly depths that we learn lie behind our initial picture. Dramatic individual scenes keep the immediate interest level fairly high.

Having loved all three of Waters' previous novels, though, I was disappointed by this. It was impossible to sympathize with most of the characters, not because they were weak or venal (they were) but because they were boring. Their concerns seemed mundane and their personalities unremarkable. In addition, strangely precious dialogue had a jarring effect and made it hard to take the narrative seriously at times.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but not her best., March 29, 2006

By 

Mona (upstate new york) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night Watch (Hardcover)

i'll keep this short: the story is interesting, the characters are well crafted, the descriptions have depth, but there is no heart to this story. the first thing that struck me is her language - in previous novels she stunned me with her words. this is much more bland. maybe its because of the time period and events that she is portraying, but i miss reading sentences that rocked me like a blow. if you are a fan, it is a must read. if you are new to her, try her first three so you can see her at her best.