The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters

[rachelmanija]

I really like Sarah Waters. Her other novels all feature Victorian lesbians. Affinity is a very spooky, claustrophobic thriller/love story/spoiler about a medium imprisoned after a seance goes horribly wrong, and the woman who visits her in prison. Tipping the Velvet is a very fun picaresque which bounces from oyster bars to theatres to the rooms of kept girls. Fingersmith is a wild thriller which doesn't entirely make sense in places, but is one hell of a ride. I recommend all of those. Some people hate Affinity because of the DO NOT SPOIL ending, but it's my favorite.

The Night Watch is well-written and gripping, but lacks the excitement, passion, and sense of joyous discovery that permeate Waters' other books. (Even her tragedies seem like she had fun writing them, even if the characters didn't have fun living them.) It's about the intertwined lives of several Londoners after and during the Blitz, and is told backwards in time. This narrative device is not arbitrary, and provides for a few interesting discoveries and poignant moments; but it also makes the entire book quite depressing, as we already know how everyone will end up, and nobody ends up better than "maybe, just maybe, they will now take a tiny step toward improving their life," and some of them don't even get that.

Several years after the war is over, everyone is miserable. Kay, the butch former ambulance driver, is mired in post-traumatic stress, depression, and agoraphoia; Duncan, the young former prisoner, is living with an old man and collecting worthless antiques; his sister Vi, a young woman, is stuck in a loveless and passionless affair with a married man; and Helen, whom I regret to say that I HATE, is obsessively jealous of her lover, the cold writer Julia whom I also kind of hate.

After a long section exploring their lives, the narrative jumps back to the Blitz, and we see who they were before, what their relationships were, and some light is shed on the more myserious elements of the first section. At the end of this, the concluding section jumps back even further, to the start of the Blitz; the concluding scene is lovely, but intensely depressing because we know how that particular relationship worked out.

I was fascinated by Kay, the heroic ambulance driver, her work rescuing victims of the air raids, and the society of butch volunteers she hung out with. I could have happily read an entire book about her and her friend Mickey, whom I loved with a passion disproportionate to her brief appearances. The other characters either interested me less, or their situations interested me less; the reason Duncan was in jail was tragic and not a story often told, but he was a rather opaque character and so were the men he interacted with; I liked his sister Vi, but except for her brief but wonderful interaction with Kay, her story was mostly about loving a married jerk and that has been told a million times; Helen and Julia I just didn't like, ever, and the more I learned about them, the less time I wanted to spend in their company, even on paper.

Worth reading if you're a Waters fan, but not a good introduction. It did make me want to read more about the Blitz, though. (Two of my favorite short stories of all time are set there, Connie Willis' "Fire Watch" ("deaths: one cat") and "Jack.") Any recommendations? Especially, any recommendations for fact or fiction featuring lesbians and/or people doing the more dramatic sort of volunteer work, search and rescue, fire watch, ambulance drivers, and the like?

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

I dunno if this qualifies, but it's got Blitz in it, and an incredible cast of fascinating people doing cool stuff during WWII: Marge Piercy's Gone for Soldiers. I flippin' adored it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I haven't read that, but I really like her poetry. I'll check it out.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I would say that Tipping the Velvet is the most fun, Affinity the best written and most tragic, and Fingersmith the best structured of the "Victorian trilogy". I haven't yet read Night Watch, but would very much like to, for completeness if nothing else.

Unfortunately I don't have any recommendations for you, but your review did make me think of one of the more interesting parts of (all things) The Well of Loneliness, when the heroine does a stint as an ambulance driver in France during WWI. I think there's quite a good novella struggling to get out of that book.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

No kidding! I have read Holly Hughes' The Well of Horniness, but not its classic source; that's one of those, er, seminal works which I heard and read so much about that I never felt the need to actually read it. Now I kind of want to, though.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

It's...an odd one. Hall *could* write straightforward prose, because _The Unlit Lamp_ has some downright snappy lines, but I wonder if she felt she *had* to write in a terribly serious vein for _The Well of Loneliness_ and it bogged the style down. The catalyst for the book surprised me: Hall originally wrote it to protest the lack of visiting rights in hospital for the partner of a friend who had a chronic illness (multiple sclerosis, I think). This plot point shows up so circuitously that it's a "blink and you'll miss it" moment in the novel.

I've read _The Well of Loneliness_ several times, and had radically varying responses each time. I sniffled all the way through the first time, laughed hysterically the next, spent the third time planning each character's painful demise, and spent the most recent time going "Hmm. The writer's out of her gourd, but she's got *something* here, wish I could figure out what it is." I don't think it's a bad book at all, but it does need to be taken on its own terms and seen in context. As a lesbian-rights novel written by a Conservative, upper-class white Englishwoman in the 1920s, it can feel a bit like Sybil.

[marith.livejournal.com]

I recently read E.F. Benson's review of it, which can be summed up as "Why do the moral conservatives want to ban this book so much? Homosexuality as portrayed in this story is a tragic curse that makes the women afflicted with it utterly miserable. If I had a daughter and wanted to make absolutely sure she never experimented, I would give her this book at once."

[questioncurl.livejournal.com]

I actually wondered if Waters wrote Kay's character partly as a response to Hall's book... After _The Well of Loneliness_, you should have a look at Mary Renault's _Friendly Young Ladies_, which is not set in WWII, but has lesbians and was written partly as a reaction to the unrelenting gloom and self-hatred of Hall's book.

You should also read Renault's _The Charioteer_, which is about (partly) male homosexuality in WWII, though not about the Blitz. It's beautifully written!

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

_The Friendly Young Ladies_ is titled _The Middle Mists_ in the US. I think the UK title is *much* better. The US title apparently is a Platonic reference or a reference to a line towards the end of the book, or possibly both.

I have mixed feelings about this one...I love most of it, but there is One Part that makes me want to throw the book across the room hard enough to leave a permanent crater in the wall. Most of it? Comedic gold, or at least silver. Later in life, Renault said herself that The Scene I Do Not Like was "silly" and that she would have written it differently in later years.

[questioncurl.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that; the title is so perfect for it! I bought mine in the US (and it has US spellings), but it's _The Friendly Young Ladies_.

Yes, I'm not a big fan of the ending either, and agree with Renault. But the rest of the book more than makes up for it, and I am recomending it to everyone I know.

[rayechu.livejournal.com]

drats, I saw the title and thought of the book that the Nightwatch movie was based on. The movie was interesting enough, but I was hesitant to pick up the book as it was pretty expensive and I didn't know if it would be translated well. I rock for not paying attention!

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

I liked NIGHT WATCH -- but mostly I liked it in a cold, architechtural sort of way. The book's structure was itself like a bomb seen from reverse -- part one, you see the aftermath - part two, you see the hit - part one, you see the airplanes coming toward you. So while the tension was mostly not really there, I thought in a way it made some characters fates more poignant.

I heart the blitz! The last bit of blitz lit I read had nothing to do with lesbians, ambos, firemen or anything - rather it is a middle grade (or young YA) about a modern american kid who gets sent back in time to the blitz via his old radio. LONDON CALLING by Edward Bloor.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yes, an excellent metaphor. The last scene really works because of everything that we know is coming.

Was Bloor's novel good? I read his first two books, and thought they had some great ideas and scenes, but were padded and didn't really live up to their ambition.

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

yeah, I liked it -- I listened to it on audio, so I dunno how it would translate into a real book.

if you listen to audio, I can send it to you.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Is it on CD? I can listen to CDs in the car.

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

yes! who has cassettes anymore?

I am obsessed with listening to books on the way to work - my ride there and home is pretty much exactly one CD's worth, so it's perfect for audio books.

I can either upload it and email it to you, or just send you the CDs - whatevah.

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

also I don't know why i picked the sulking icon.

I LOVE making people share my addiction to audiobooks, so it should have been more like a totoro icon.

or hedonism bot.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Could you mail the CDs, please? Do you have my address on Washington Pl?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I was a bit disappointed by this book, too. I rushed through it, because the structure fascinated me into trying to figure out all the character's past secrets, and I really wanted to get to the end and see what had happened. But I felt it wasn't a book I'd ever reread, like once I knew the twists, I didn't much care about the rest.

Spoilers:

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

And your buddy of the same name would have eaten him for lunch. Um, so to speak.

Have you read Waters' other novels?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha, yes. Though this one actually managed to carry through on the death attempts.

Yep, all of them. Fingersmith is my favorite, though possibly just because I read it first and didn't know to expect lesbians. I was so pleased to discover it that none of the problems with the plot bother me.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Affinity was the one I read first. I happened upon it in a friends' broom closet and was transfixed by the brilliant first page. I wasn't expecting lesbians either. Heh, I see a theme here.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I read Tipping the Velvet first, and I *was* expecting lesbians, though whether because I read about it in a gay magazine or saw it in the lesbian literature section I can't remember.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I liked Affinity a great deal, but it was too dark for me to really want to go back to it again and again. Whereas Fingersmith I've read at least three times; it's turning into the book I get out when I'm sick and stuck in bed and want something comforting.

[diony.livejournal.com]

Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson has neither lesbians (well, not that I noticed) nor dramatic work, but is an excellent diary written by an intelligent & interesting woman living in London during the Blitz. It doesn't have as much personal introspection as I'd like, because the author was writing for her extended family (some of whom were in South Africa IIRC), but it does mean she goes into detail about some things a truly personal diarist might have overlooked.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

The best work of fiction set in Britain during WWII that I've ever encountered is Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's film A Canterbury Tale, which was filmed at the time it was set and is an absolutely invaluable snapshot of both small-town and wartime England. There isn't much material on the Blitz, although you can see for a short while some of what it did to Canterbury, and was doing when they filmed; however, the movie is focused on things that have mostly fallen out of history, like the Women's Land Army and the vast social problems of what you do with more than a million Americans billeted on the British population when American mores surrounding, for example, dating were *totally different* from the British expectations. The film is humorous, intricate, wry, and manages to be both a perfectly plausible wartime story and a genuine Canterbury tale, a pilgrimage to Canterbury, overflowing with the numinous. It became one of my favorite movies on first viewing. And Criterion has just put it out on DVD, so Netflix should be able to supply it.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Do you also know Went the Day Well? which is about a hypothetical German invasion? It's lovely - the village squire is the villain and the women perform acts of quiet and desperate heroism and an alliance between the local poacher and a cockney evacuee saves the day.

[sarashina-nikki.livejournal.com]

Re: stories set during the Blitz featuring dramatic volunteer work, although it's a tv show instead of book, "Danger UXB" remains one of my favorites. It's a British drama (long since finished and out on DVD) about the people who were sent in to defuse bombs that hit the ground unexploded. (UXB = Unexploded Bomb) I used to watch it with my grandparents, and they thought it was just the best. Which, considering they lived through the Blitz, is good endorsement I think.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Great rec, Netflixed!

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

May Sinclair's The Romantic is about a female ambulance driver, but it might be hard to find, and probably concentrates too much on her (straight) love affair with a total loser.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

A lot of Sinclair has suddenly become available in (rather cheapo) paperback editions - can't remember offhand if The Romantic is one of them. I am still trying to decide whether loser bloke is being coded as 'inverted' or as twisted in different ways.

Another book on WWI ambulance drivers, which has both (non-sexual) female bonding and some rather homophobic moments about sexual female bonding, is Helen Zenna Smith's Not So Quiet.... It is possibly even more of a downer that The Romantic - as I recall narrator/protag ends up marrying man who indicates that he has been wounded in such a way as to preclude prospect of 'the pram on the lawn'.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Now that I think about it, is The Romantic the Blitz or the Spanish Civil War?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

It's fairly early on in World War I, because the Germans are still in the process of invading Belgium. Based on Sinclair's own experience in an ambulance unit (which she also wrote about as non-fictional reportage).

[oursin.livejournal.com]

A rather anti-heroic work about people wanting to participate in the war effort and spending a lot of time hanging about in the early stages of the war is E M Delafield's The Provincial Lady in Wartime.

I thought The Night Watch was a bit research-bogged: perhaps the Victorians are somewhat more distant and place less of an obligation of realism?

I have a feeling that there are a couple of books, either based on diaries or oral histories, about ambulance drivers in the Blitz - will try and remember details. On women generally in WWII, I very much like Penny Summerfield's books based in oral history - I think the most recent is one on women in the Home Guard.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I'm still blanking on either authors or titles of the books on driving ambulances in the blitz, but you might be interested in this new website on films of the Home Front (http://www.movinghistory.ac.uk/homefront/).

[crowyhead.livejournal.com]

Have you read Pat Barker's WWI trilogy?

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

I never realized that Tipping the Velvet was based on a book. I thoroughly enjoyed the miniseries, though, so I might have to pick it up.

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

the book is way steamier. while i liked the miniseries very much - the book blows it out of the water.

(so to speak)

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Mother London by Michael Moorcock is about the Blitz and afterward, told in slices of narrative from various times.

If you haven't watched the movie Hope and Glory, do so, as you'll enjoy it.

"Thank you, Adolf!"

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I love Hope and Glory and its dead-on accuracy about children finding thrills where adults see tragedy. I was exactly like that when I was a kid.

Re: "Thank you, Adolf!"

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's the same accurate child mindset as J. G. Ballard admits to (I think most people forget) in Empire of the Sun.

Re: "Thank you, Adolf!"

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

[stumbled over this threat much later while looking at Rachel's Sarah Waters reviews]

HOPE AND GLORY (based on John "DELIVERANCE" Boorman's childhood] and JG Ballard's EMPIRE OF THE SUN are the two movies which helped me understand why my Europe-in-WW2-childhood mother had such a complex view of reality. I used to get these two movies confused, and it wasn't until 10 years after seeing them that I realized how twisted Ballard was (or who Boorman even WAS), and then I was like, OK then.

My mom doesn't have as dramatic childhood memories, but, a similar sense of ridiculousness/playfulness/seeing the game in Serious World Events of adulthood, and she kept it throughout her life as a white suburbanite.

Re: "Thank you, Adolf!"

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

[er, threat = thread]

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

The only book I can remember that even touches on the Blitz and ambulance drivers is Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle, a what-if trashy thriller about the one Nazi spy who discovers the Allies' fake-out for D-Day. One of the leads has a late wife or lover (can't remember which) who was an ambulance driver. I read it when I was quite young-- early high school, IIRC-- but it was an enjoyable bit of trash.