Customer Reviews

Waterland

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book was masterfully told in the form of a retrospective by a history teacher, Tom Crick, who is being forced into early retirement under the guise of "cut backs." Crick's narrative takes the reader through hundreds of years of history, painting pictures of youthful sexual experimentation; love; betrayal; mental illness and even baby-snatching. Crick is disheartened by his forced early retirement and disallusioned by life. He struggles to answer the question "Why, Why, Why?" regarding his own life by answering his pupil's question as to why history is important. His student feels that the here and now is important and to dwell on the past is a waste of time. Crick searches for answers by giving his class a history lesson on his youth and his anscestry. The story takes many twists and turns and shows us the consequences of the actions of many of the men in this history teacher's "history." Swift takes the reader through a botched abortion performed on Mary, the love of Crick's life, and we are privy to the physical and mental consequences of that act. Swift provides wonderful characters such as Dick, Tom's brother, who reminded me of Steinbeck's Lenny in the masterpiece "Of Mice and Men." Waterland tells tales of insanity, giving us characters like Sarah Atkinson who goes nuts as a result of domestic abuse and mistrust by her husband who shares Crick's first name. Sarah shows up at various other points as a ghost, adding a sense of mysticism to the tale. Swift takes chances on subjects that are often taboo, such as incest and child abduction. Crick's mother who was adored by his father, had a sexual relationship with her father. We are given insight into the relationship and provided with her point of view. She is not viewed as a villain in the novel. To the contrary, she is idolized by Crick's father and forever mourned after her passing. Swift gives an account of the process that Mary, who is now Crick's wife, goes through to steal a baby from a young mother. She is not portrayed as an evil, vicious child abductor. The reader is given the story of her life and taken through her history, leading us to her ultimate mental breakdown. We see the affects of this breakdown on our narrator, Tom Crick. Swift goes a long way to show that every action has a consequence and history is something to be learned from if it is not to be repeated. Mary and Sarah Atkinson suffered the same fate of mental breakdown. Crick hopes to convey this lesson in life to Price, as Swift hopes to convey this lesson to his readers. This book was an absolute page-turner and didn't pass judgement on its characters. The unique thing about this novel was that topics that are normally avoided or harshly judged, were presented with their ultimate consequences and left to the reader to be evaluated. Swift obviously trusted the intelligence of his readers to make their own analysis as to the morality of his captivating cast of characters.

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.

Through his sometimes over-inflated, long-winded and dramatic language, Graham Swift tells the story of history in his book Waterland, because history, to Tom Crick, the book's narrator, is just that: a story. "..." (135). The fairy-tales of history are constantly returning to claim the present time's mysteries as reoccurrences, soothing those who so boldly demand explanations. These explanations, however, cannot be found in studying French Revolutions or the New World; the purpose of history, education, and fairy-tales is to eliminate fear of what's to come. In the same way that Helen Atkinson soothes her veteran patients to mental health with her stories, the world inundates itself with fairy tales, convincing explanations for the way things are, the way things progress. Once faced with the loss of his job and a rebellious youth named Price, Crick tells his own story, beginning appropriately with "Once upon a time..." (7).
His story is told in realistic sequence, that is, as it comes to mind, in three parts. The present day conflict with overflowing curriculum loads, fanatical headmasters, and unmotivated students leads Crick to conceal his biggest fears of progression with fairy-tales, his own family history, laborers of water control and land reclamation, giving Crick his roots in the Fens, and also, the rise and decline of the Atkinson name, once a prominent brewing family turned to insanity and incest, tying all three together in an overview of world history.
As this book points out, history is not the only thing to move in cycles. Nature has its own dramatic role in this novel. The deceitful Eastern winds, sometimes bringing ample life to the region, other times signifying death. Stubborn silt landscapes refuse technological progression and falter the human desire to push on. Raging fires claim years of accomplishment in a matter of seconds, leaving an audience to gawk at its awesome ability. Tireless bouts with land reclamation foiled by a few days of rain and the reinstatement of river waters, crushing livelihoods effortlessly. How easily nature can retract what takes history decades to produce.
In doing all of this, Swift takes on an excessively optimistic, but admirable task. His story is one of ingenuity and poignancy, even, at certain points, grace, but his writing style is not an attractive one. Long, complex sentences (frequently interrupted by parenthetical additions that read longer than the sentences themselves) and overly dramatic ellipsis plague this novel. I cannot recall how many times I had to return to the beginning of a sentence, paragraph, or chapter to recapture my thoughts. This was extremely discouraging as a reader and certainly affected the amount of time I spent on this novel. Perhaps my short attention span and fastidious reading style is to blame for this because the content of the novel is wonderful. There were even points where I grew to appreciate the difficult writing style. In the end, the book felt like a lot of work, but because of its message and Swift's unique approach, it was a worthwhile read.

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.

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.

I should preface this review by mentioning that I first read the book as one of the requirements of an historiography course in graduate school. As a result, while I have reread the book on numerous occasions since and, while it remained my favorite book until I read "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami, I come at my reading of the book from that historian's slant. Also, while I love the book, I don't "like" the characters, if this makes sense.

As noted by other reviewers, Tom Crick tells the tragic story of his family to the captive audience of his high school history class in the days before he is forced out of his teaching position. A troubling aspect of this, though, that I have not seen mentioned in other reviews is that way in which Tom USES the history of his family to, in a way, explain away the recent events that have brought him and his wife to their current place in time. Swift is able to make us feel sympathy for this character all the while that the character is using the trials and tribulations of his family to explain the reasons that "it's not his fault". Shouldn't we feel sympathy for the students who must listen to Tom interpret the events of the past 300 years in a way that absolves himself of responsibility for the faults in his life and marriage?

Thinking about this actually makes me want to read the book once more.....

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.

Waterland is one of those books that leaves a deep impression. First, Graham Swift paints beautiful images of a fading way of life, along the Fens in England. While reading Swift's descriptions of this area, I couldn't get various paintings of Monet out of my mind, where lighting and detail so depend on perspective and distance. Swift's prose is like that, beautiful and complex, then dull and boring (only in what's being described), and then flowing back to wonderful and amazing.

Swift, through the narrator of the story, Tom Crick, compares the complex ecosystem of the Fens to the people that live along it, seemingly languid and lazy, but deeper down churning and defying understanding, full of mystery and amazement if one but looks. It takes some early work to enter the flow of the book, but what a wonderful inertia is gained.

Waterland questions history and memory, both from afar and up close, from times distant and in the present, but seemingly always very personal. The book is full of wonders, which flow with the seep and power of the Fens themselves. The book is unique in my experience.

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, a World War I veteran and a contemporary school teacher seem much more alike than different. Every aspect of this human cycle - tragic death, jealousy, mental instability, curiosity, sexuality and (especially) love - is visited and revisited several times over throughout the family's history. The human cycle, as Swift subtly points out, is a never-ending machine that breaks down the generation barriers of those who call the "Fens" home. "Waterland" is nothing short of a masterpiece. To see these very obscure puzzle pieces fitting into place by the novel's three-quarter point is a wonder of fiction. Through the fabricative lectures of Tom Crick, the reader sees how Swift's grasp of and take on history is a fresh alternative to the one-dimensional history books most contemporary students are accustomed to. Swift is bold enough to point out that history is more than simply "what happened." As he explains through the story of Tom Crick, history is much more abstract. History is peaked by the curiosity of human nature, that which gives birth to an endless repetition of events and/ or happenings (the human cycle). As Swift defines it, history will never die as long as the individual continues to seek answers to his or her questions about life. Any work that makes an individual stop and rethink the basis of an institutional constant, such as our "accepted" notion of history, is invaluable. "Waterland," however, goes above and beyond the call of duty in that respect.

Graham Swift's revolutionary novel "Waterland," cycles in and out of the past and present, natural history and human history, to illustrate that "history does repeat itself," in the name of love. This insightful novel reveals the vulnerability a teacher through his history lessons, in which he intertwines personal history with that of the world. The teacher shows that his own future was decided in the past, and it is through returning to the past that he might be able to move into the future. Swift uses the imagery of earth, water, wind, and fire to show that the natural elements of the world, the natural shifting of silt or mating habits of eels, are just as natural as the actions of humans. It is a cycle that is both captivating and revolting, but most importantly unavoidable.
Tom Crick, the history teacher, is a man that constantly questions the world in his eagerness to understand how things come to be. He is infatuated with history because it is a part of him that has already been determined. History cannot be changed, it cannot be denied, but it can determine your life. Because of a past he cannot escape, his wife does the unthinkable, she steals a baby in a supermarket. This action, which is the end of Crick's career as a history teacher, forces him, as if he were somehow destined, to teach the most valuable life lessons to his students. Ironically enough, it will bring him closer to a student who he will eventually call "son." In a slow unfolding of details, Crick reveals a star-crossed past, in which love and passion have both burned and drowned, leaving the reader with a complete understanding of "why."
What is history? This novel suggests that history is love. It is love that causes Thomas Atkinson to become violently jealous of his wife Sarah, pushing him to cause her the injury that will make her the mythical saint of a town. Love creates babies, it causes a father to fall in love with his daughter and produce an offspring, who coincidentally is capable of only one thing: love. Tom and Mary love each other and create a baby that must be aborted. That, in turn, prevents them from having another child. Love is unavoidable; it stirs revolutions, it burns in the hearts of lovers, and it blows like the wind, affecting everything in its path. It creates history.
The novel thrives on curiosity. Swift carefully constructs curious characters and reveals small sections of past and present to create mystery and suspense. Tom Crick relays his own coming-of-age story that captivates his students. He shows how his curiosity brought both love and fear. As a boy, Tom learns that sometimes uncovering the truth means facing a piece of history that may threaten the future. His tale is both enjoyable yet disgusting in its innocence and relevance to true life. The curiosity of the young brings both pleasure and pain, but most importantly truth and answers.
Swift brings nature and man together by linking rain and fire to the actions of men. In a beautifully constructed scene, he brings rain to a town just as their beloved, saintly Sarah dies. By doing so he creates the impression that death is as natural as rain. Like the weather, things change, but basically stay the same.
This book mimics a history textbook in that the beginning is slow and seemingly uneventful, but as time presses on, each event is linked to the last in a both unsuspecting, yet predictable pattern. "Waterland" will capture the curious reader who needs to understand why things happen. Swift writes a complete history, skillfully linking fictional and factual in a mesmerizing tale with valuable lessons in love and fear.