Status
Checked out
Publication
Riverhead Trade (2006), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 544 pages
Description
Former ambulance driver Kay lives life fast, wandering the war-torn streets and hunting for other women. Kind and clever Helen guards her secrets--and her lover--closely. Glamorous Viv remains utterly devoted, for better or worse, to the soldier she adores. And Duncan fights to make a new life for himself after spending time in prison. As these four people survive the devastation of war and the experience life's dizzying highs, their paths cross in ways none of them can forsee.
User reviews
LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Set in 1940s London, The Night Watch revolves around the lives of four people: Kay, Helen, Vivien, and Duncan. The book opens in 1947; each character has experienced the dramatic impact of World War II, living through bombings and coping with loss. Duncan is an ex-con working a menial job. Duncan's
Sarah Waters spends nearly 200 pages building up each of these characters, whose lives appear to be independent from each other. But there is much Waters leaves unsaid. Just as I was wondering where all this was going, Waters employed a very interesting device: she took me backwards in time. Part 2 of The Night Watch is set in 1944, and there the reader learns much more about each character's history. Some of the connections between characters are explained. In part 1, Vivien briefly encounters Kay and gives her something she's had for a long time. It seems like a minor detail. But in part 2, a particularly harrowing sequence reveals the significance of the encounter in part 1. Part 3, set in 1941, portrays the protagonists at the time of the Blitz, explains how Duncan came to spend time in prison, and provides the backdrop for romantic relationships in place during parts 1 and 2.
It's an effective technique. Moving in reverse allows Waters to show only the most essential details of the past. She weaves a rich tapestry of characters and relationships. And she writes about lesbian love in a refreshingly candid way. The erotic scenes are no more or less explicit than fiction about heterosexual relationships. And they are not there to titillate, but to say, "hey, this is what happens, this is normal." I do believe this type of candor is, in some way, advancing societal understanding and acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships.
However, there was one flaw in The Night Watch: the lavatory figured far too prominently in the story. I know that every character in a novel needs to pee now and then. But does the reader really need to be informed? A couple made love and then one person "went to the lavatory." Someone would "need to use the lavatory" before leaving home. Or, a character would be sitting in their quiet house late at night and hear their partner upstairs, washing up and using the lavatory. A lavatory even featured in the aftermath of a bombing, although it was not being used at the time. What was that about? It really drove me crazy and caused me to knock half a star off the rating of an otherwise good book.
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sister Vivien is having an affair with a married man. Helen is in a committed but troubled relationship with another character, Julia. Kay is leading a somewhat aimless and lonely existence.Sarah Waters spends nearly 200 pages building up each of these characters, whose lives appear to be independent from each other. But there is much Waters leaves unsaid. Just as I was wondering where all this was going, Waters employed a very interesting device: she took me backwards in time. Part 2 of The Night Watch is set in 1944, and there the reader learns much more about each character's history. Some of the connections between characters are explained. In part 1, Vivien briefly encounters Kay and gives her something she's had for a long time. It seems like a minor detail. But in part 2, a particularly harrowing sequence reveals the significance of the encounter in part 1. Part 3, set in 1941, portrays the protagonists at the time of the Blitz, explains how Duncan came to spend time in prison, and provides the backdrop for romantic relationships in place during parts 1 and 2.
It's an effective technique. Moving in reverse allows Waters to show only the most essential details of the past. She weaves a rich tapestry of characters and relationships. And she writes about lesbian love in a refreshingly candid way. The erotic scenes are no more or less explicit than fiction about heterosexual relationships. And they are not there to titillate, but to say, "hey, this is what happens, this is normal." I do believe this type of candor is, in some way, advancing societal understanding and acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships.
However, there was one flaw in The Night Watch: the lavatory figured far too prominently in the story. I know that every character in a novel needs to pee now and then. But does the reader really need to be informed? A couple made love and then one person "went to the lavatory." Someone would "need to use the lavatory" before leaving home. Or, a character would be sitting in their quiet house late at night and hear their partner upstairs, washing up and using the lavatory. A lavatory even featured in the aftermath of a bombing, although it was not being used at the time. What was that about? It really drove me crazy and caused me to knock half a star off the rating of an otherwise good book.
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LibraryThing member Joycepa
The Night Watch
Sarah Waters
In her 4th novel, Sarah Waters breaks radically with her first three books, in era, structure, and theme. The Night Watch is set against a 1946 London struggling to recover from the war; 2/3 of the book, however, takes place during the war itself.
Waters follows the lives
Switch back to 1944, and Waters does a magnificent job of using the terrible daily struggle of Londoners to stay alive and, more importantly, stay relatively sane with some hope through the darkest period of the war. The Night Watch is named after the units, staffed mostly by women, that were sent out on call to give emergency treatment to victims of the bombing. Here we get a background--a surprising one--on the four main characters.
And finally, 1941, the start of the war. And the start of everything in the story.
As I finished the first section and started on the second seeing what was happening I wondered how in the world Waters was going to maintain any kind of tension. I decided that what she was writing, then, was some sort of psychological drama--that there would be no real mystery to it and she would simply develop the plot from the point of view of the characters’ own development.
I should have known better.
There are enough twists and turns, unexpected developments, to satisfy the most devoted reader of Affinity and Fingersmith--in fact, more so. Make no mistake, this is a sophisticated book. You see what the four protagonists are going through and you feel helpless--and then we're blindsided by the developments. Possibly the overall them can be summed up by something that Kay, one of the protagonists, asks, wryly and a little sadly, why can’t we love the ones we should love? That question hangs over the book.
The last line of the book is as good as they come.
For me, Waters took a radical leap forward with this book, not content to rest on her highly deserved laurels for her three Victorian-era novels. Given that she’s capable of such surprises, it’s hard to wait for her next exploration.
Highly recommended.
Sarah Waters
In her 4th novel, Sarah Waters breaks radically with her first three books, in era, structure, and theme. The Night Watch is set against a 1946 London struggling to recover from the war; 2/3 of the book, however, takes place during the war itself.
Waters follows the lives
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of four ordinary Londoners as they cope as best as they can with the horrors of the war and its aftermath. However she does this most unusually by following them backwards in time; the book in three parts, starts in 1946 and ends in 1941. We learn about the lives of the four--three women and a young man--right from the beginning--or we think we do. Loss, heartbreak, obsessive love and jealousy, a dark past affecting the present--all are made clear, or seem to be, in one case through a brutal revelation by another of the characters.Switch back to 1944, and Waters does a magnificent job of using the terrible daily struggle of Londoners to stay alive and, more importantly, stay relatively sane with some hope through the darkest period of the war. The Night Watch is named after the units, staffed mostly by women, that were sent out on call to give emergency treatment to victims of the bombing. Here we get a background--a surprising one--on the four main characters.
And finally, 1941, the start of the war. And the start of everything in the story.
As I finished the first section and started on the second seeing what was happening I wondered how in the world Waters was going to maintain any kind of tension. I decided that what she was writing, then, was some sort of psychological drama--that there would be no real mystery to it and she would simply develop the plot from the point of view of the characters’ own development.
I should have known better.
There are enough twists and turns, unexpected developments, to satisfy the most devoted reader of Affinity and Fingersmith--in fact, more so. Make no mistake, this is a sophisticated book. You see what the four protagonists are going through and you feel helpless--and then we're blindsided by the developments. Possibly the overall them can be summed up by something that Kay, one of the protagonists, asks, wryly and a little sadly, why can’t we love the ones we should love? That question hangs over the book.
The last line of the book is as good as they come.
For me, Waters took a radical leap forward with this book, not content to rest on her highly deserved laurels for her three Victorian-era novels. Given that she’s capable of such surprises, it’s hard to wait for her next exploration.
Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member kambrogi
This is a fine literary novel and a terrific read. I would expect no less from Sarah Waters, whose story lines are invariably layered with nuance and surprise. In this tale, we begin following our four protagonists in London. It’s 1947 and the war is over.
• Kay is an attractive, mannish sort
• Duncan is a gentle young man who works in a candle factory, and seems to care for old Mr. Mundy, with whom he lives.
• Viv and Helen run a matchmaking agency together, but they don’t share their secrets with each other or anyone else: Viv’s affair with married Reggie, Helen’s obsession with her lesbian lover Julia.
Once the stage is set, we begin to move backward through time, to the Blitz and beyond, as each section of the book peels away another veil from each character’s backstory. Not only are secrets revealed and puzzles solved, but we discover the startling connections that link them all together into a web of community stitched together by war. In this small group of people we see the shadow of everyone one else in London, whom we imagine similarly connected by the same convoluted historical patterns of fear, pain, loss, love and family. Marvelous stuff.
• Kay is an attractive, mannish sort
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of woman, lonely and unemployed, wandering the streets or sitting alone staring out her window. • Duncan is a gentle young man who works in a candle factory, and seems to care for old Mr. Mundy, with whom he lives.
• Viv and Helen run a matchmaking agency together, but they don’t share their secrets with each other or anyone else: Viv’s affair with married Reggie, Helen’s obsession with her lesbian lover Julia.
Once the stage is set, we begin to move backward through time, to the Blitz and beyond, as each section of the book peels away another veil from each character’s backstory. Not only are secrets revealed and puzzles solved, but we discover the startling connections that link them all together into a web of community stitched together by war. In this small group of people we see the shadow of everyone one else in London, whom we imagine similarly connected by the same convoluted historical patterns of fear, pain, loss, love and family. Marvelous stuff.
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LibraryThing member writestuff
In The Night Watch, Sarah Waters has created tension and mystery by peering backwards into the past - beginning in 1947 and regressing back in time so that the end of the novel is actually the beginning of the story. This structure is at once unsettling and fascinating.
The novel spins around four
One of the aspects of the novel which touched me was the exploration of the repercussions of war on youth.
Waters' prose - nuanced and full of empathy for her characters - is a bit like reading a narrative poem. Her descriptions set the reader into the novel, revealing the beauty of the human spirit amid the horror of night-time air raids and causalities. The story is a beautifully rendered, character driven look at World War II from 1941 to 1947.
The Night Watch was shortlisted for the Booker and Orange Prizes - and it is easy to see why. This was my first Sarah Waters novel, but it will not be my last.
Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5
The novel spins around four
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Londoners and their significant others and explores the impact of war on relationships. The reader is introduced to each character - Kay, Helen, Viv and Viv's brother, Duncan - immediately following WWII in the year 1947. Each character carries secrets and is struggling with events in their history which are undisclosed to the reader. As the novel progresses, Waters carefully unwraps the past, drawing the threads of the characters' lives together to create a stunning expose about sexuality and the tenuous nature of love amid the historical significance of war.One of the aspects of the novel which touched me was the exploration of the repercussions of war on youth.
Waters' prose - nuanced and full of empathy for her characters - is a bit like reading a narrative poem. Her descriptions set the reader into the novel, revealing the beauty of the human spirit amid the horror of night-time air raids and causalities. The story is a beautifully rendered, character driven look at World War II from 1941 to 1947.
The Night Watch was shortlisted for the Booker and Orange Prizes - and it is easy to see why. This was my first Sarah Waters novel, but it will not be my last.
Highly recommended; rated 4.5/5
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LibraryThing member alionora
The Night Watch is the story about four people in a London marked by the Second World War, all trying to find a way for themselves. Kay was an ambulance driver during the war, fearless, energetic, loved and in love. Now she wanders the street, not certain what she's searching for. Helen is living
The book is written in three parts, taking place in 1941, 1944 and 1947, but in reverse chronological order. I'm usually not fond of tricks like that, but in this case it works. Veil after veil is lifted, to reveal some of the mystery surrounding these characters, but not all. When I'd finished reading, after the part set in 1941, I admit I was a little bit disappointed. I didn't get the answers I'd been looking for, I wanted to know more about these persons, and most importantly, what happened to them. But I went back to the start and read some parts from the 1947 block again, and found that I knew more that I thought I did.
A lot of people seem to find The Night Watch dull compared to Sarah Water's other books. I've only read Tipping the Velvet, which was wonderful, but I actually like this one better. Perhaps it's not exciting, but it's definitely compelling.
My favourite part about the book is that, even though it's set in the 40s, the characters' sexuality is treated as a fact, and not as an issue. They have problems in their relationships, of course, but it's not because some of them happen to be gay, it's simply because they're human. It's a rather unusual approach in fiction, and very refreshing.
The war is treated much in the same way. It's there, ruthlessly shaping their lives, but it's not really commented on.
I had a lovely time reading this book, enjoying Sarah Water's wonderful langague, and I definitely recommend it.
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with Julia, having all she could wish for, but she's plagued by jelousy and guilt. Viv knows that she's wasting her life waiting the next stolen moment with her married lover, but can't bring herself to give him up. Her younger brother Duncan spends the days with mindless work in a factory and the nights with his "uncle", fading away a bit more every day. The lives of these characters, and the supporting cast, intertwine more than you can imagine when you first start reading.The book is written in three parts, taking place in 1941, 1944 and 1947, but in reverse chronological order. I'm usually not fond of tricks like that, but in this case it works. Veil after veil is lifted, to reveal some of the mystery surrounding these characters, but not all. When I'd finished reading, after the part set in 1941, I admit I was a little bit disappointed. I didn't get the answers I'd been looking for, I wanted to know more about these persons, and most importantly, what happened to them. But I went back to the start and read some parts from the 1947 block again, and found that I knew more that I thought I did.
A lot of people seem to find The Night Watch dull compared to Sarah Water's other books. I've only read Tipping the Velvet, which was wonderful, but I actually like this one better. Perhaps it's not exciting, but it's definitely compelling.
My favourite part about the book is that, even though it's set in the 40s, the characters' sexuality is treated as a fact, and not as an issue. They have problems in their relationships, of course, but it's not because some of them happen to be gay, it's simply because they're human. It's a rather unusual approach in fiction, and very refreshing.
The war is treated much in the same way. It's there, ruthlessly shaping their lives, but it's not really commented on.
I had a lovely time reading this book, enjoying Sarah Water's wonderful langague, and I definitely recommend it.
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LibraryThing member bragan
The Night Watch follows the intertwined lives of several people -- mostly women -- in London during and after WWII. All of whom have secrets, or parts of their lives the rest of the world would consider unacceptable: homosexuality, affairs, a stint in jail...
It's an interestingly structured novel,
I didn't find it quite as addictively compelling as the other two of Waters' novels that I've read -- Fingersmith and The Little Stranger -- but for a novel that's character- rather than plot-based, it's a remarkably fast read. And I find myself extremely impressed, this time, by how well Waters captures ordinary, realistic, awkward moments, in relationships in sex, and in life. There were a few places where I found that realism almost painful, but always in a good way.
It's an interestingly structured novel,
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as it's divided into three parts, each of which takes place three years before the previous one, making it a sort of journey backwards through these characters' lives. It's a structure that works remarkably well; I was always interested in what was happening to the characters at the current point in the narrative, but also curious to learn the details of past events and what led them from point A to point B. And the way the novel leaves us with the beginnings of things we've already seen the ending (or at least the evolution) of is rather poignant.I didn't find it quite as addictively compelling as the other two of Waters' novels that I've read -- Fingersmith and The Little Stranger -- but for a novel that's character- rather than plot-based, it's a remarkably fast read. And I find myself extremely impressed, this time, by how well Waters captures ordinary, realistic, awkward moments, in relationships in sex, and in life. There were a few places where I found that realism almost painful, but always in a good way.
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LibraryThing member thorold
I found this a bit of a disappointment. Had it been written by anyone else I would have given it at least four stars, but it doesn't live up to the expectations that Waters built up by her earlier novels. It's a very good, well-researched historical novel with characters who are more than just
Waters is writing about characters of the generation somewhere between my (and presumably also her) parents and grandparents. These are people we have met ourselves, whose memoirs and letters we have read, whose own novels we are familiar with: a novel like this that lifts up a corner of the blackout curtain and reveals a few scurrying lesbians and conscientious objectors in between the bombs can't have the striking effect of her earlier reworkings of Dickens and Wilkie Collins.
The storyline is also a bit flat - the idea of a series of episodes working progressively back from 1947 towards a group of key events in 1941 would make sense in the context of a mystery story, but there isn't really any mystery here. Possibly Waters wanted to avoid repeating the teasing reversals of the plot of Fingersmith, but I had the feeling that the book needed a little more to keep the momentum up.
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period stock figures, but it doesn't really tell us anything about wartime London that we didn't know already. Waters is writing about characters of the generation somewhere between my (and presumably also her) parents and grandparents. These are people we have met ourselves, whose memoirs and letters we have read, whose own novels we are familiar with: a novel like this that lifts up a corner of the blackout curtain and reveals a few scurrying lesbians and conscientious objectors in between the bombs can't have the striking effect of her earlier reworkings of Dickens and Wilkie Collins.
The storyline is also a bit flat - the idea of a series of episodes working progressively back from 1947 towards a group of key events in 1941 would make sense in the context of a mystery story, but there isn't really any mystery here. Possibly Waters wanted to avoid repeating the teasing reversals of the plot of Fingersmith, but I had the feeling that the book needed a little more to keep the momentum up.
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LibraryThing member mks27
Sarah Waters, in The Night Watch, brought me to her setting in both an emotional and a physical reality. Not only did she take me to WW II London, but she completely imbedded me in this almost surreal place and time.
I had never imagined being an ambulance driver on the night shift in London during
She examines the question of how the people of London during this time, experienced, lived with, and survived the terrors and fears of war and how this experience changed them. Waters did her research well and much of what she writes is based on firsthand accounts. Indeed, she includes an extensive bibliography of her wide ranging sources.
The characters comprise a set of loosely connected London residents who we follow from 1947, after the War’s end, and travel back in time with, first to 1944, and then 1941. Waters sets up situations with hints of what happened before, compelling the reader to move back with her in time to learn the origins of her character’s circumstances. This book was everything I had hoped it would be and more.
I had never imagined being an ambulance driver on the night shift in London during
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the bombings, the smells, textures, impaired visibility, the dead and the injured, the destruction, and blocked and trashed streets or a prisoner trapped in a locked cell block when the bombs begin to fall trying to find some way to get through the night. The title is so apt, each character, regardless, were all on the night watch and all dealt with that reality differently.She examines the question of how the people of London during this time, experienced, lived with, and survived the terrors and fears of war and how this experience changed them. Waters did her research well and much of what she writes is based on firsthand accounts. Indeed, she includes an extensive bibliography of her wide ranging sources.
The characters comprise a set of loosely connected London residents who we follow from 1947, after the War’s end, and travel back in time with, first to 1944, and then 1941. Waters sets up situations with hints of what happened before, compelling the reader to move back with her in time to learn the origins of her character’s circumstances. This book was everything I had hoped it would be and more.
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LibraryThing member rainpebble
I finished [The Night Watch] by [[Sarah Waters]] this morning and I liked it a great deal but not quite as much as her [The Little Stranger]. I think that this was simply because I got lost in the book a few times and it blew my concentration. It is written in an odd fashion (for me). The chapters
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are backward in the lives of the characters to the early on part of their lives and I must say that I enjoyed the endings of their lives more than the beginning. I think that I could also have done totally without the prison scenes and those characters other than Duncan, Alec & Mr. Munday. The girls totally confused me and at times I couldn't figure out who was with who, etc. I did appreciate the philosophy of the story and I liked it well enough to give it 4 stars. I will definitely be reading it again to see if I can settle my head a little better into the story. Show Less
LibraryThing member miss_read
I loved, loved, loved, loved this book. It's my first foray into Sarah Waters' writing, and I admit I thought it might be a bit too lesbian-centric for me, but it wasn't at all.
I have heard people say that this is the first time she's had male characters who are as important to the story as female
The Night Watch is the story of four Londoners during and immediately after the war, and their interconnected lives. The book starts in 1947, in the unsettled post-war period. The book's other two sections go back in time, first to 1944 and then to 1941. I enjoyed this "backwards" telling of the stories because as Waters wrote, clues were dropped about the characters' lives, making me want to keep reading to find out how Duncan wound up in prison, what drew Viv to Reggie, etc. I think Kay was the most compelling character, a mannish lesbian who drove an ambulance during the blitz, but who later led a sort of bitter and oddly empty life. It was as if there was no room for her in the post-war world, as if she'd had a real sense of purpose during the war that was missing later. The only story to which I felt Waters didn't do justice, was Duncan's. Even now, I'm not sure what he did or didn't do that landed him in prison. Perhaps Waters meant to leave that vague.
Part of her brilliance as a writer is her attention to detail. When she describes the government typing pool where Helen works, the smells she writes about make it all come alive - the cigarette smoke, body odour, perfume and ink. And her descriptions of such simple acts as someone stirring a cup of tea are so effortlessly perfect.
To me, the book was all about destruction; the physical destruction suffered by London during the war, but more importantly the destruction people's lives suffer either at their own hands, the hands of those who love them, or because of something as large and powerful as war.
I have heard people say that this is the first time she's had male characters who are as important to the story as female
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characters, so perhaps that's true. In any case, I thought this was a brilliant piece of writing. I don't know why, but I'm always drawn to books set in or around World War II - not books about the war, necessarily, but books about ordinary people living their ordinary lives during that time. The Night Watch is the story of four Londoners during and immediately after the war, and their interconnected lives. The book starts in 1947, in the unsettled post-war period. The book's other two sections go back in time, first to 1944 and then to 1941. I enjoyed this "backwards" telling of the stories because as Waters wrote, clues were dropped about the characters' lives, making me want to keep reading to find out how Duncan wound up in prison, what drew Viv to Reggie, etc. I think Kay was the most compelling character, a mannish lesbian who drove an ambulance during the blitz, but who later led a sort of bitter and oddly empty life. It was as if there was no room for her in the post-war world, as if she'd had a real sense of purpose during the war that was missing later. The only story to which I felt Waters didn't do justice, was Duncan's. Even now, I'm not sure what he did or didn't do that landed him in prison. Perhaps Waters meant to leave that vague.
Part of her brilliance as a writer is her attention to detail. When she describes the government typing pool where Helen works, the smells she writes about make it all come alive - the cigarette smoke, body odour, perfume and ink. And her descriptions of such simple acts as someone stirring a cup of tea are so effortlessly perfect.
To me, the book was all about destruction; the physical destruction suffered by London during the war, but more importantly the destruction people's lives suffer either at their own hands, the hands of those who love them, or because of something as large and powerful as war.
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LibraryThing member queen_evie
It is based around the lives of four Londoners in the 1940s, in and around wartime - starting in 1947 and ending at its beginning in 1941. An incredibly intense and vivid book, slightly different in style from others of hers I've read... but still with that beautifully descriptive and insightful SW
In the first section everyone seems to have a mysterious past, and it's hard to understand the characters in their entirety, but by the end you love and sympathise with every one of them. I particularly liked the relationship between Kay and Mickey their utter companionship and CHUM-ness! Each character has a depth and beauty to them - and the way the book is written, working backwards, makes you think right from the start "what has happened to make these people like this?" I almost had the urge to flip through to the end or the middle as soon as I started - but that would've ruined it, and the way to truly enjoy Waters' writing is to get lost amid her words.
I think her work is usually more 'flight-and-fancy' based, with lots of poetry and erotica and frills; but setting this book against the backdrop of wartime London meant she had to pale her tone a bit. However, she made the bleakness work to her advantage, and, again, I have learnt so much from this book... even through fiction, I always feel I have grown from reading her work.
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touch, I thoroughly enjoyed it and during the last 100 pages couldn't put it down.In the first section everyone seems to have a mysterious past, and it's hard to understand the characters in their entirety, but by the end you love and sympathise with every one of them. I particularly liked the relationship between Kay and Mickey their utter companionship and CHUM-ness! Each character has a depth and beauty to them - and the way the book is written, working backwards, makes you think right from the start "what has happened to make these people like this?" I almost had the urge to flip through to the end or the middle as soon as I started - but that would've ruined it, and the way to truly enjoy Waters' writing is to get lost amid her words.
I think her work is usually more 'flight-and-fancy' based, with lots of poetry and erotica and frills; but setting this book against the backdrop of wartime London meant she had to pale her tone a bit. However, she made the bleakness work to her advantage, and, again, I have learnt so much from this book... even through fiction, I always feel I have grown from reading her work.
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LibraryThing member Petroglyph
This book struck me as memorable for three reasons.
Firstly, the research and the feel of the setting and prose. These were excellent: Waters managed to blend her historical research unobtrusively with an unfamiliar (for me) setting -- London between 1941 and 1947 -- with interesting characters.
Secondly, the relationships. Since [The night watch] is not so much historical fiction as a serious literary look at relationships and the uncertainties surrounding them, these are what drives the book. [The night watch] presents three snapshots of a group of loosely-related characters set against the background of the London Blitz, and details the evolution of their relationships over time. It does so by presenting the snapshots in chronologically reversed order, starting in 1947 and moving backwards, first to 1944 and then to 1941. Inhabiting these settings are a lovely set of 3D characters whose relationships with each other (or with each other’s partners, or lack thereof) are solid pieces of perspicacious fiction. The way in which Waters writes about the tedium and excitement that comes with emotional attachments between stressed-out people who feel hesitant to reach out is masterful. Her characters’ reflections on maintaining friendships, illicit romantic entanglements or dreary and almost perfunctory adultery kept me interested through most of the novel.
Third, the most notable narrative technique is of course the backwards-told fashion in which these relational ruminations are presented. This is where my problems with this book lie, and since they are such obvious ones, it makes me wonder whether I have overlooked something, or whether I came to this with the wrong expectations.
Normally, what I expect from a story told backwards is that each successive part makes me reevaluate the earlier (but chronologically later) sections, serving me alternate interpretations of the same events, unsuspected but plausible character motivations, or other types of twists and surprises. And this book does none of that, leaving me wondering why Waters even considered this backwards approach.
There really is very little point in telling the story backwards: in the first portion, we get to know a set of characters in their current constellation, with hints at and conversations about previous relationships and ensuing reconfigurations and complications -- elopements, breakups, serving a prison sentence for being gay. When subsequent sections describe those earlier events and character configurations, we already know about them. And sometimes that works: realizing that characters stick together despite or thanks to harrowing experiences they went through earlier in the war does gain you a new appreciation for the way their relationships play out a few years later, with or without the emotional war of attrition that was the Blitz. But as a reader, I was at no point forced to reevaluate interpretations or to cast chronologically later events in an entirely new light; the book merely went about its business of dutifully filling in the details of the framework established in the previous portion. And this happens twice!
As a result, some of the things that are clearly presented as surprises or twists in later chapters are so obvious that Waters’ tiptoeing around unnamed characters’ identities, or delaying the arrival of a new love interest becomes roll-your-eyes annoying. It’s true, later chapters do delve extensively into the whys and hows of the various reconfigurations only briefly touched upon in the 1947 section (and like I said, Waters is very good at writing flawed humans dealing with their ties to other, equally flawed, people), but because we already know how the various relationships are about to be strained or established, Waters is playing coy precisely when she needn’t beat around the bush. And that makes the few remaining “mysteries” (such as the business with the ring, or the actual circumstances of Duncan’s transgression) stand out all the more as narrative techniques -- intentionally unexplained tidbits ostentatiously introduced to serve as structural devices and to set up an obligatory pay-off.
And that is a pity. Waters can write, and write well, and it’s obvious she’s good at observing people and drawing convincing characters with believable motivations to populate her well-researched setting. But the unnecessary backwards chronology and the conspicuous plot twists that weren’t kept on pulling me out of the book. Frankly, I think I’d enjoyed this book more if it had been told chronologically, without those elements that kept pulling me out of the narrative. In the end, then, [The night watch], as my first Sarah Waters novel, left me with the impression of a high-level historical fiction that has aspirations to higher literary quality that it can’t quite pull it off.
Firstly, the research and the feel of the setting and prose. These were excellent: Waters managed to blend her historical research unobtrusively with an unfamiliar (for me) setting -- London between 1941 and 1947 -- with interesting characters.
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The language felt about right for the period, too. So well done there. Secondly, the relationships. Since [The night watch] is not so much historical fiction as a serious literary look at relationships and the uncertainties surrounding them, these are what drives the book. [The night watch] presents three snapshots of a group of loosely-related characters set against the background of the London Blitz, and details the evolution of their relationships over time. It does so by presenting the snapshots in chronologically reversed order, starting in 1947 and moving backwards, first to 1944 and then to 1941. Inhabiting these settings are a lovely set of 3D characters whose relationships with each other (or with each other’s partners, or lack thereof) are solid pieces of perspicacious fiction. The way in which Waters writes about the tedium and excitement that comes with emotional attachments between stressed-out people who feel hesitant to reach out is masterful. Her characters’ reflections on maintaining friendships, illicit romantic entanglements or dreary and almost perfunctory adultery kept me interested through most of the novel.
Third, the most notable narrative technique is of course the backwards-told fashion in which these relational ruminations are presented. This is where my problems with this book lie, and since they are such obvious ones, it makes me wonder whether I have overlooked something, or whether I came to this with the wrong expectations.
Normally, what I expect from a story told backwards is that each successive part makes me reevaluate the earlier (but chronologically later) sections, serving me alternate interpretations of the same events, unsuspected but plausible character motivations, or other types of twists and surprises. And this book does none of that, leaving me wondering why Waters even considered this backwards approach.
There really is very little point in telling the story backwards: in the first portion, we get to know a set of characters in their current constellation, with hints at and conversations about previous relationships and ensuing reconfigurations and complications -- elopements, breakups, serving a prison sentence for being gay. When subsequent sections describe those earlier events and character configurations, we already know about them. And sometimes that works: realizing that characters stick together despite or thanks to harrowing experiences they went through earlier in the war does gain you a new appreciation for the way their relationships play out a few years later, with or without the emotional war of attrition that was the Blitz. But as a reader, I was at no point forced to reevaluate interpretations or to cast chronologically later events in an entirely new light; the book merely went about its business of dutifully filling in the details of the framework established in the previous portion. And this happens twice!
As a result, some of the things that are clearly presented as surprises or twists in later chapters are so obvious that Waters’ tiptoeing around unnamed characters’ identities, or delaying the arrival of a new love interest becomes roll-your-eyes annoying. It’s true, later chapters do delve extensively into the whys and hows of the various reconfigurations only briefly touched upon in the 1947 section (and like I said, Waters is very good at writing flawed humans dealing with their ties to other, equally flawed, people), but because we already know how the various relationships are about to be strained or established, Waters is playing coy precisely when she needn’t beat around the bush. And that makes the few remaining “mysteries” (such as the business with the ring, or the actual circumstances of Duncan’s transgression) stand out all the more as narrative techniques -- intentionally unexplained tidbits ostentatiously introduced to serve as structural devices and to set up an obligatory pay-off.
And that is a pity. Waters can write, and write well, and it’s obvious she’s good at observing people and drawing convincing characters with believable motivations to populate her well-researched setting. But the unnecessary backwards chronology and the conspicuous plot twists that weren’t kept on pulling me out of the book. Frankly, I think I’d enjoyed this book more if it had been told chronologically, without those elements that kept pulling me out of the narrative. In the end, then, [The night watch], as my first Sarah Waters novel, left me with the impression of a high-level historical fiction that has aspirations to higher literary quality that it can’t quite pull it off.
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LibraryThing member lizzyb7
Lovely characterisation, beautifully written and interesting fragmentary style, but overall a but insubstantial.
LibraryThing member bibliobibuli
There was much that I did really like about the novel. I like the way that the story moves backward in time. It opens in 1947. The scars of war are still apparent in the bombed out streets. Waters' create a chain of characters each carrying guilty secrets. The promise that we going to learn the
I particularly like the structure of the book - the way it opens in the post war years and then moves backwards to tell the stories of different individuals I like the almost accidental way their lives intersect. Many of the scenes take place at night when emotions are rawest : each scene is like a searchlight illuminating momentarily important moments in the characters' lives.
Waters' recreaction of the London blitz is excellent and I think that this is the first time that fiction had taken me there.
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answers propels us through the story, although it is not in the end completely fulfilled. (But then, isn't life like that?)I particularly like the structure of the book - the way it opens in the post war years and then moves backwards to tell the stories of different individuals I like the almost accidental way their lives intersect. Many of the scenes take place at night when emotions are rawest : each scene is like a searchlight illuminating momentarily important moments in the characters' lives.
Waters' recreaction of the London blitz is excellent and I think that this is the first time that fiction had taken me there.
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LibraryThing member cindywho
I listened to this one on audiobook. This is one of Waters' less fanciful novels, set during and after WW2 in London. It moves backwards through 3 time periods, illuminating the connections and actions of the several characters and their personal disasters. At times I would smile or gasp while
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listening in the dark, her stories seem so real. Show Less
LibraryThing member veronicay
I loved this book. Such a pleasure to read after the disappointing Iain Banks that preceded it. What a writer! I found this utterly compelling, not because of plot or suspense, but because the characters seemed so real. I read it over the course of a week, and often found myself thinking about the
It's written backwards, starting in 1947, then jumping back to 1944; then 1941. This could seem as much a gimmick as Banks's jumping around in time in [The Steep Approach to Garbadale], but here it works. When you meet the characters in the first section, you want to know more about what makes them the way they are, and just as in real life encounters, you gradually discover what happened to them in the past.
The writing is brilliant -- I really can't understand the reviewers on Amazon who say this book is dull, plotless, and badly written. Waters captures the clipped yet vivid style of pre-war writers like Rosamond Lehmann, or Mass Observation diaries like the wonderful [Nella Last's War]. She has clearly done her research on wartime London, without it being overbearing or clunky; it just seems like her characters' real lives taking place in front of her eyes. Some scenes are flinchingly vivid: notably one character's self-mutilation, and a ghastly account of the aftermath of a back-street abortion.
If I have any criticism, it is that the ending falls a little bit flat because we already know "what happened" (the middle section of the book is where most development takes place). And it's a pity that the only heterosexual relationship is so sordid and unsatisfactory (she even rams the point home with the entertaining account of how Viv and Reggie met!). And I liked Viv so much I hated the fact that she was still wasting her time with Reg in 1947 -- she deserved better! Finally, although Kay could be seen as the "main"character, linking all the others, I felt she was a bit shadowy; I never really felt I understood her.
These are all minor criticisms though; overall, despite the depressing natire of a lot of it, this is a life-enhancing novel.
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characters when I wasn't reading it.It's written backwards, starting in 1947, then jumping back to 1944; then 1941. This could seem as much a gimmick as Banks's jumping around in time in [The Steep Approach to Garbadale], but here it works. When you meet the characters in the first section, you want to know more about what makes them the way they are, and just as in real life encounters, you gradually discover what happened to them in the past.
The writing is brilliant -- I really can't understand the reviewers on Amazon who say this book is dull, plotless, and badly written. Waters captures the clipped yet vivid style of pre-war writers like Rosamond Lehmann, or Mass Observation diaries like the wonderful [Nella Last's War]. She has clearly done her research on wartime London, without it being overbearing or clunky; it just seems like her characters' real lives taking place in front of her eyes. Some scenes are flinchingly vivid: notably one character's self-mutilation, and a ghastly account of the aftermath of a back-street abortion.
If I have any criticism, it is that the ending falls a little bit flat because we already know "what happened" (the middle section of the book is where most development takes place). And it's a pity that the only heterosexual relationship is so sordid and unsatisfactory (she even rams the point home with the entertaining account of how Viv and Reggie met!). And I liked Viv so much I hated the fact that she was still wasting her time with Reg in 1947 -- she deserved better! Finally, although Kay could be seen as the "main"character, linking all the others, I felt she was a bit shadowy; I never really felt I understood her.
These are all minor criticisms though; overall, despite the depressing natire of a lot of it, this is a life-enhancing novel.
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LibraryThing member astrologerjenny
A very good read. There are five main characters, and their lives are layered together before, during, and after the bombing of London in World War II. The novel works backwards, with each section moving the reader a few more years into the past, and this probably wouldn’t work so well in the
The most interesting of the main characters is Kay, an androgynous ambulance driver during the Blitz. She holds herself aloof from the reader in the beginning, so it takes a while to get her story, but she is the one whose passion shakes you. Her lover Helen is not as sympathetic, but is realistically drawn, as we watch her becoming obsessed with another woman. Two other interwoven plots underline the theme of connection and disconnection.
Waters is really good at atmosphere, and she’s captured the fatalism and the many hungers that must have been part of being a Londoner during WWII. People live in small, dark spaces, and even the streets are claustrophic at night. Everyone seems a little hunted. And when it’s over, it’s not really over.
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hands of a less able writer. In most novels, we are told about the characters’ backgrounds, but in this novel, we live it. The most interesting of the main characters is Kay, an androgynous ambulance driver during the Blitz. She holds herself aloof from the reader in the beginning, so it takes a while to get her story, but she is the one whose passion shakes you. Her lover Helen is not as sympathetic, but is realistically drawn, as we watch her becoming obsessed with another woman. Two other interwoven plots underline the theme of connection and disconnection.
Waters is really good at atmosphere, and she’s captured the fatalism and the many hungers that must have been part of being a Londoner during WWII. People live in small, dark spaces, and even the streets are claustrophic at night. Everyone seems a little hunted. And when it’s over, it’s not really over.
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LibraryThing member mrstreme
Sarah Waters swept her readers away with a tale of love, war, betrayal and hardship in her historical novel, The Night Watch. Set against a backdrop of bomb-ravaged London during World War II, this novel explored the lives of four young people – Helen, Vivian, Duncan and Kay – plus their
Waters structured her novel using a backward timeframe, so that as each year unraveled, you learned more about each character and his/her secrets. The first section was from 1947, and admittedly, this was the hardest section for me to get through. The characters were introduced with very little connection to each other, but I got the sense that their secrets and relationships were somehow woven together. As the book progressed, Waters shined a little more light on each character and story, putting each piece of her puzzle carefully together. It was a brilliant story structure – one that only a talented writer like Waters could pull off.
Each character was developed into an unforgettable person – one you worry about, sympathize with and root for. The Night Watch is considered lesbian fiction, which does not make this a book for everyone, but I found the women’s relationships to be compelling and insightful.
This is my first book by Sarah Waters but certainly won’t be my last. Short-listed for both the Booker and Orange Prizes (and understandably so), The Night Watch was a fantastic look at the lives of young people affected by a terrible war – and how they made the best and worst of these times.
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lovers, friends and acquaintances – as they coped with their daily lives on the home front. Waters structured her novel using a backward timeframe, so that as each year unraveled, you learned more about each character and his/her secrets. The first section was from 1947, and admittedly, this was the hardest section for me to get through. The characters were introduced with very little connection to each other, but I got the sense that their secrets and relationships were somehow woven together. As the book progressed, Waters shined a little more light on each character and story, putting each piece of her puzzle carefully together. It was a brilliant story structure – one that only a talented writer like Waters could pull off.
Each character was developed into an unforgettable person – one you worry about, sympathize with and root for. The Night Watch is considered lesbian fiction, which does not make this a book for everyone, but I found the women’s relationships to be compelling and insightful.
This is my first book by Sarah Waters but certainly won’t be my last. Short-listed for both the Booker and Orange Prizes (and understandably so), The Night Watch was a fantastic look at the lives of young people affected by a terrible war – and how they made the best and worst of these times.
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LibraryThing member nbmars
The Night Watch is written in three parts that take you in reverse order: 1947, 1944, and 1941. It chronicles the lives of its protagonists, Viv, Helen, Julia, Kay, and Duncan, in wartime London.
The pivotal focus (and the source for the title) is “The Blitz,” the sustained nighttime bombing of
In Night Watch, the character Kay works on a mobile ambulance unit that deals with casualties caused by the nighttime bombings. But the raids impact all the characters in one way or another.
With the narrative proceeding backwards, we see in the very beginning the alienation, inchoate bitterness, sense of loss, and melancholy of the characters. It is only as their pasts are revealed that we find out how they got to this point. In part, the end of the war is to blame. War provides a sense of drama to any who live through its scourges. The littlest acts can be heroic. Emotions are constantly keyed up. In peacetime, life reverts back to the mundane, and those who were once “important” now find they have no more opportunity to be exceptional. (As Chris Hedges notes in his award winning book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, “The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. … It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble.”) Further, there is no more reason for the passionate encounters that are rationalized during wartime by the sense of fragility of existence.
At the story's outset in 1947, the war is over, and life is rather prosaic for the characters. Helen and Vivien work at a lonely hearts bureau – an apt theme that is a microcosm of the whole. Vivien is in a less-than satisfactory relationship with a married man. Helen is in a troubled relationship with Julia. The three women know Kay, but we are not sure how in the beginning. Vivien’s brother Duncan seems to be in a caretaker relationship with an “uncle” but this is also undefined for us.
When we meet Kay, she is in the habit of going to the movies, but only when they are halfway over, so she can see the ending first, and then go back to the beginning. And so it is with this book. We see how it all ends, but we don’t know why, and so we are compelled to read on to understand the plot.
Discussion: From the other two books I read by Waters - Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet, I was prepared for her amazing attention to detail in setting the scenes for her dramas. I don’t recall another account of wartime London that so faithfully captures the atmosphere of not only the extraordinary, but also – and especially – the quotidian.
Yet it is the sheer banality of the characters and their lives that to me is both the main strength and the main weakness of this book, viz: it tells just how it was for ordinary, self-absorbed people to have gone through the London Blitz in World War II. But how much do we really care about ordinary, self-absorbed people? On the other hand, don’t we, the majority of us who just pass our days on jobs and errands and our small universe of friends and relationships deserve to have our stories told? And yet, how much interest can there ultimately be in insular stories that have no more to say than “I was happy, then I was sad,” or the reverse?
The characters are undeniably well-drawn, however. All of them are emotionally needy. And so there is a great deal in this book about intrusion and constriction of space, metaphorically and otherwise. This truncation of space ranges from the emotional confinement of insecurity to the physical confinement of prison walls. Even bathrooms play a major role in this book. These small areas, meant to be private spaces, are shared in wartime, and thereafter in non-wealthy London: the desire for elbowroom and privacy must perforce be transferred to other aspects of life. Thus the characters engage in any number of attempts to escape unwanted closeness, even as they crave attachment. But what they get is resignation and despair.
Evaluation: Waters does a terrific job in portraying "quiet desperation" and of documenting the toll that ordinariness can take on lives that have been exposed to more. I appreciate her talent; perhaps she is too good here, however, as her characters convinced me they weren't worthy of all that attention.
The pivotal focus (and the source for the title) is “The Blitz,” the sustained nighttime bombing of
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Britain by Nazi Germany between September 1940 and May 1941. While the Blitz hit many towns and cities across the country, it began with an attack on London for 76 consecutive nights. Those who endured The Blitz watched for the bombs that would start to fall just after dark. By the end of May 1941, over 43,000 civilians, half of them in London, had been killed by bombing and more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged in London alone. In Night Watch, the character Kay works on a mobile ambulance unit that deals with casualties caused by the nighttime bombings. But the raids impact all the characters in one way or another.
With the narrative proceeding backwards, we see in the very beginning the alienation, inchoate bitterness, sense of loss, and melancholy of the characters. It is only as their pasts are revealed that we find out how they got to this point. In part, the end of the war is to blame. War provides a sense of drama to any who live through its scourges. The littlest acts can be heroic. Emotions are constantly keyed up. In peacetime, life reverts back to the mundane, and those who were once “important” now find they have no more opportunity to be exceptional. (As Chris Hedges notes in his award winning book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, “The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. … It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble.”) Further, there is no more reason for the passionate encounters that are rationalized during wartime by the sense of fragility of existence.
At the story's outset in 1947, the war is over, and life is rather prosaic for the characters. Helen and Vivien work at a lonely hearts bureau – an apt theme that is a microcosm of the whole. Vivien is in a less-than satisfactory relationship with a married man. Helen is in a troubled relationship with Julia. The three women know Kay, but we are not sure how in the beginning. Vivien’s brother Duncan seems to be in a caretaker relationship with an “uncle” but this is also undefined for us.
When we meet Kay, she is in the habit of going to the movies, but only when they are halfway over, so she can see the ending first, and then go back to the beginning. And so it is with this book. We see how it all ends, but we don’t know why, and so we are compelled to read on to understand the plot.
Discussion: From the other two books I read by Waters - Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet, I was prepared for her amazing attention to detail in setting the scenes for her dramas. I don’t recall another account of wartime London that so faithfully captures the atmosphere of not only the extraordinary, but also – and especially – the quotidian.
Yet it is the sheer banality of the characters and their lives that to me is both the main strength and the main weakness of this book, viz: it tells just how it was for ordinary, self-absorbed people to have gone through the London Blitz in World War II. But how much do we really care about ordinary, self-absorbed people? On the other hand, don’t we, the majority of us who just pass our days on jobs and errands and our small universe of friends and relationships deserve to have our stories told? And yet, how much interest can there ultimately be in insular stories that have no more to say than “I was happy, then I was sad,” or the reverse?
The characters are undeniably well-drawn, however. All of them are emotionally needy. And so there is a great deal in this book about intrusion and constriction of space, metaphorically and otherwise. This truncation of space ranges from the emotional confinement of insecurity to the physical confinement of prison walls. Even bathrooms play a major role in this book. These small areas, meant to be private spaces, are shared in wartime, and thereafter in non-wealthy London: the desire for elbowroom and privacy must perforce be transferred to other aspects of life. Thus the characters engage in any number of attempts to escape unwanted closeness, even as they crave attachment. But what they get is resignation and despair.
Evaluation: Waters does a terrific job in portraying "quiet desperation" and of documenting the toll that ordinariness can take on lives that have been exposed to more. I appreciate her talent; perhaps she is too good here, however, as her characters convinced me they weren't worthy of all that attention.
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LibraryThing member brokenangelkisses
The opening pages introduce you to an intriguing array of characters, including: Kay, who seems to have no purpose in her life and lives in a building that seems liable to collapse at any time; Mr Mundy, who receives a strange kind of counseling designed to help his arthritis (from a man in Viv's
The interest in the first part of the book is found in wondering how these characters are connected and why they are suffering. The problem is that the novel becomes quite fragmented since the stories really unfold almost totally independently of each other, and tell of such different characters and events that you could get frustrated hearing about Helen and her lover Julie when all you really want to know is why Duncan is so panicked by meeting someone from his past who knows him and Mr Mundy.
The issue of why these characters suffer begins to be addressed when a major time shift occurs: the novel begins in 1947 but is divided into three sections, set in 1947, 1944 and 1941 respectively. This allows us to discover the reasons for each character's current situation and quite quickly reveals some significant changes and events, although Duncan's full story is not revealed until the final section. This is the most engaging section of the novel as each character struggles through battle-torn Britain, trying to hold their lives and relationships together.
The final section of the novel is very short, allowing only one glimpse into each character's past. This denies the reader as easy resolution: you have to return to the first section to remind yourselves of the characters' futures and consider whether their final positions are hopeful or dreadful.
Personally, I would have preferred a return to 1947, or even a shift further forward in time to see how the characters are coping several years after the war, but Walters does allow the reader enough evidence to finally judge the characters. The third section helps to create a real sense of empathy with several of the characters as we know how their hopeful beginnings will turn to ash and ruin.
Waters has been criticised by some for including several unnecessary helpings of lesbian sex, which I do agree with to a certain extent. However, most of the scenes do allow the reader to draw some conclusions about the relationships between the characters, and only one sexual scene, set in a prison, struck me as being truly gratuitous.
My bigger concern was the graphic description of two events in the novel. One in particular was described at such length and made me feel so queasy that I had to take a few breaks from reading simply to settle my stomach. Although it is realistic and artistically valid, it is difficult to read and I almost felt that I would have liked the novel to come with a warning!
While mentioning realism, I think it worth noting that this is what Walters does best. However irritating some of the characters may be at times, I found them fully convincing, and even when they commit their most melodramatic actions, I would defy anyone to question the veracity of their experience. In particular, one scene in which a character waits with increasing anxiety for her lover to return from (what she suspects) is an illicit liason, her thoughts and actions are truly human.
Waters also draws a very convincing portrait of wartime London: the excitement and fear of being out in a blackout; the terror and yet the dreary monotony of the bombing; the thrill of driving an ambulance and the stomach-churning task of collecting parts of bodies. For this skilful portrait alone, the novel would seem to be worth reading.
And yet…I am reluctant to really recommend it. I did not find myself turning pages eagerly; I did not find the novel especially 'thrilling' or 'powerful' as suggested by the quotations inside the jacket. The characters and setting are well-drawn, the structure encourages empathy and irony, but on the whole the novel felt flat to me. Perhaps because it is episodic - it captures three short segments of each character's life - I felt it was more of an historical document than a novel. I could not have learned more about each character if I'd read their diaries, despite the numerous ambiguities. (We never really discover the truth behind Duncan and Mr Mundy's relationship, for example.)
So is it worth reading? Probably, yes: it is well-written enough to keep your attention and you may find the various plot lines more engaging than I did. Would I recommend it? On the whole, no; there are more interesting, genuinely thrilling novels out there that feel more rewarding, rather than simply slightly cleverly done.
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building); and Duncan, who tells people that Mr Mundy is his uncle, though he isn't. Gradually, Walters establishes four main characters, Kay, Helen, Vivienne and Duncan (Viv's brother), each of whom seems to be suffering in some way that is connected to their past. The connections between them all are not immediately clear, and in fact are often tenuous, even where they should be strongest - Viv and her brother lead almost totally separate lives, besides an obligatory weekly visit.The interest in the first part of the book is found in wondering how these characters are connected and why they are suffering. The problem is that the novel becomes quite fragmented since the stories really unfold almost totally independently of each other, and tell of such different characters and events that you could get frustrated hearing about Helen and her lover Julie when all you really want to know is why Duncan is so panicked by meeting someone from his past who knows him and Mr Mundy.
The issue of why these characters suffer begins to be addressed when a major time shift occurs: the novel begins in 1947 but is divided into three sections, set in 1947, 1944 and 1941 respectively. This allows us to discover the reasons for each character's current situation and quite quickly reveals some significant changes and events, although Duncan's full story is not revealed until the final section. This is the most engaging section of the novel as each character struggles through battle-torn Britain, trying to hold their lives and relationships together.
The final section of the novel is very short, allowing only one glimpse into each character's past. This denies the reader as easy resolution: you have to return to the first section to remind yourselves of the characters' futures and consider whether their final positions are hopeful or dreadful.
Personally, I would have preferred a return to 1947, or even a shift further forward in time to see how the characters are coping several years after the war, but Walters does allow the reader enough evidence to finally judge the characters. The third section helps to create a real sense of empathy with several of the characters as we know how their hopeful beginnings will turn to ash and ruin.
Waters has been criticised by some for including several unnecessary helpings of lesbian sex, which I do agree with to a certain extent. However, most of the scenes do allow the reader to draw some conclusions about the relationships between the characters, and only one sexual scene, set in a prison, struck me as being truly gratuitous.
My bigger concern was the graphic description of two events in the novel. One in particular was described at such length and made me feel so queasy that I had to take a few breaks from reading simply to settle my stomach. Although it is realistic and artistically valid, it is difficult to read and I almost felt that I would have liked the novel to come with a warning!
While mentioning realism, I think it worth noting that this is what Walters does best. However irritating some of the characters may be at times, I found them fully convincing, and even when they commit their most melodramatic actions, I would defy anyone to question the veracity of their experience. In particular, one scene in which a character waits with increasing anxiety for her lover to return from (what she suspects) is an illicit liason, her thoughts and actions are truly human.
Waters also draws a very convincing portrait of wartime London: the excitement and fear of being out in a blackout; the terror and yet the dreary monotony of the bombing; the thrill of driving an ambulance and the stomach-churning task of collecting parts of bodies. For this skilful portrait alone, the novel would seem to be worth reading.
And yet…I am reluctant to really recommend it. I did not find myself turning pages eagerly; I did not find the novel especially 'thrilling' or 'powerful' as suggested by the quotations inside the jacket. The characters and setting are well-drawn, the structure encourages empathy and irony, but on the whole the novel felt flat to me. Perhaps because it is episodic - it captures three short segments of each character's life - I felt it was more of an historical document than a novel. I could not have learned more about each character if I'd read their diaries, despite the numerous ambiguities. (We never really discover the truth behind Duncan and Mr Mundy's relationship, for example.)
So is it worth reading? Probably, yes: it is well-written enough to keep your attention and you may find the various plot lines more engaging than I did. Would I recommend it? On the whole, no; there are more interesting, genuinely thrilling novels out there that feel more rewarding, rather than simply slightly cleverly done.
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LibraryThing member PghDragonMan
Sarah Waters has created a very moving, and erotic, tale of how several lives are interwoven. The setting is in London during World War II and traces backwards how a small group of people came to be associated with each other. My previous exposure to Ms Waters’ was through film adaptations of two
One unsettling aspect of the book is the author does not treat time in a strictly linear fashion, she bounces around from post WWII, to the middle of WWII and then to the beginnings of WWII. Within each era, time does flows in a forward direction, but the jumps backward are abrupt. Once the narrative begins again, however, the reader is quickly oriented to where you are and becomes immersed in the detail. This trick of chronology helps heighten the action of the characters and works very effectively on the reader.
I mentioned this is an erotic story, but the eroticism is secondary to the real love, and betrayal, between the main characters. We also learn that not all love translates to a physical act, either. There is a friendship between two of the characters, Duncan and Alec, which is revealed as love, yet it is not the physical love we are expecting to have occurred between them, yet it is not totally platonic either. To say more would spoil one of the twists in this plot.
With the extreme character development Sarah Waters has imparted to her protagonists, this novel is elevated above a novel of erotic love. The sex, while relevant to the story, it is secondary to the underlying relationships of the characters. If you are looking for a read full of cheap thrills, this is not your novel. If you are offended by same sex love scenes, this is not for you either. If you are still with me, try this for something seriously different. It is a deep story of a very trying time and shows how the many aspects of friendship will get someone through those trying times. Well worth the reading.
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of her other novels, Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet, so I was not surprised that she continues her theme of love between women, but I was delighted to find her prose very delicate and fluid.One unsettling aspect of the book is the author does not treat time in a strictly linear fashion, she bounces around from post WWII, to the middle of WWII and then to the beginnings of WWII. Within each era, time does flows in a forward direction, but the jumps backward are abrupt. Once the narrative begins again, however, the reader is quickly oriented to where you are and becomes immersed in the detail. This trick of chronology helps heighten the action of the characters and works very effectively on the reader.
I mentioned this is an erotic story, but the eroticism is secondary to the real love, and betrayal, between the main characters. We also learn that not all love translates to a physical act, either. There is a friendship between two of the characters, Duncan and Alec, which is revealed as love, yet it is not the physical love we are expecting to have occurred between them, yet it is not totally platonic either. To say more would spoil one of the twists in this plot.
With the extreme character development Sarah Waters has imparted to her protagonists, this novel is elevated above a novel of erotic love. The sex, while relevant to the story, it is secondary to the underlying relationships of the characters. If you are looking for a read full of cheap thrills, this is not your novel. If you are offended by same sex love scenes, this is not for you either. If you are still with me, try this for something seriously different. It is a deep story of a very trying time and shows how the many aspects of friendship will get someone through those trying times. Well worth the reading.
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LibraryThing member JeremyPreacher
As a set of character sketches, this was excellent. As a story, this... wasn't. The reverse-chronological arrangement of the sections appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the fact that there's no actual plot, and it meant that there was nearly no tension at all, since we know from the
The characters are reasonably interesting and well-drawn, but I just don't have much patience with books that are essentially painstakingly crafted dioramas.
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first twenty pages who survives and who they end up sleeping with.The characters are reasonably interesting and well-drawn, but I just don't have much patience with books that are essentially painstakingly crafted dioramas.
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LibraryThing member gwendolyndawson
Moving backwards in time, the story covers the lives of four Londoners during WWII (2 women and 1 man, all gay except for one straight woman). The lives connect and intersect in surprising and revealing ways. Tender and extraordinarily intimate with the backdrop of brutal war.
LibraryThing member tngolden
The characters in this book were well written and drew me into the story. The setting of war-time London (WWII) was fascinating and well rendered. However, I found it disconcerting that the book is written backwards -- you start at 1947 and work your way back to 1941. It was interesting to get
That being said I really think that Sarah Waters is one of our premier writers today and I look forward to her next work.
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explanations about the lives of the characters... like a series of extended flashbacks... But at the end of the book I wanted to read the first section again to see "how it all turns out." Disconcerting. But I can't say that it was more of the same or boring. It was an interesting way to write a novel, but it felt wrong after I finished it somehow.That being said I really think that Sarah Waters is one of our premier writers today and I look forward to her next work.
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LibraryThing member bcquinnsmom
The Night Watch is not set in the Victorian period as were this author's other novels; it actually takes place from 1941-1947 but told in reverse chronological order. Very interesting device, and it works, to a point. What Waters does here is to follow the stories of four characters whose lives
To be very honest, I almost put the book down at one point, but, as I told my husband, I never give up on a book for which I paid full price. It was at some points tedious, and in some cases, by the time you unearthed what you needed to know toward the end, anti-climatic.
I would recommend it, most definitely; Sarah Waters is a gifted writer and not one of her books should be missed.
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overlap either in a strong connection or randomly throughout WWII and just afterwards. The structure of the novel is, imho, most interesting, building the suspense by looking at the aftermath of the war for each of the characters, but at the same time, it was problematic for me because even though I wanted to find out what had happened in the past, I didn't feel like I knew these people well enough at the outset to really care enough about them.To be very honest, I almost put the book down at one point, but, as I told my husband, I never give up on a book for which I paid full price. It was at some points tedious, and in some cases, by the time you unearthed what you needed to know toward the end, anti-climatic.
I would recommend it, most definitely; Sarah Waters is a gifted writer and not one of her books should be missed.
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Subjects
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2006)
Women's Prize for Fiction (Longlist — 2006)
Lambda Literary Award (Winner — 2006)
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Shortlist — Fiction — 2006)
Stonewall Book Award (Honor Book — Literature — 2007)
Original publication date
2006
Physical description
544 p.; 8.1 inches
ISBN
1594482306 / 9781594482304