Waterland

Rating:
Summary: Once Upon A Time...History
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Best of the Twentieth Century
Review: 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.