Together in Spirit

An online reading group ('TIS a reading group!) to bring together friends, and friends of friends, who aren't able to be in a conventional reading group due to constraints of time or geography.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The Night Watch

I thought that this was a very competently written book, set during the second world war and in 1947. It gave several very vivid pictures of the period from the different standpoints of the main characters, all of them interlinked. A novel from a lesbian author, with a strong, but not entirely lesbian theme. The images of the bombardment of London, the destruction and the blackout are powerful, as are the conditions of prison life. The lesbian lifestyle is enlightening and the need to keep both this and the then illegal homosexuality secret, gave a strong flavour of the mores of the era.

Sarah Waters tries to include as many social issues as possible, including conscientious objectors and the conditions in the prisons, illegal abortions the stigma of pregnancy outside marriage. Quite a feast and rather an overload. I agree that the sense of period is very strong, a skill that the author used in her previous books and also that the need to tie in all the ends became rather trying. Largely, I think, because there were so many ends to tie.

Rather long and exhausting, but a jolly good read.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Night Watch

Thanks for choosing this, Valerie. The critics went wild over it, didn't they, and I wondered what all the fuss was about. I'm very glad to have been thus spurred into investigating, since by myself I wouldn't necessarily have got round to it.

That said, I haven't read it all and won't continue to do so. I thought it well done for what it is - pacy, atmospheric and with a fresh slant - but it didn't make me want to read it all. The tone was somehow a little repetitive and seemed to skate over the top of things a bit. I can't express easily what I mean, but it didn't get under my skin or bring me up short as I read or catch me with its language or encapsulate characters with just a few words in the way my favourite literature does. I read a lovely quote from a Guy de Maupassant story in an article recently: "He was a gentleman with red whiskers who always went first through a doorway". Ford Maddox Ford commented: "that gentleman is so sufficiently got in that you need no more of him to understand how he will act. He has been 'got in' and can get to work at once".

I could have read it - it is by no means unreadable! - but with time short I'm having to be ruthless. But I am so glad to have given it a go and will be interested to see what the rest of you think.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Night watched

So glad you chose this Valerie, it has been on my ‘to read’ shelf for ages but I’ve been saving it to savour. Wrongly as it turns out. What I really did like about it was the period detail (and that particular period) so that even though I think it needs to lose 100 pages, at least the excess of words had some atmospheric merit. She sets some vivid scenes – eg Helen and Julia’s walk through London in the blackout – but I think she’s stronger at this than characters. I couldn’t be bothered with any of them really, except maybe Viv, which is perhaps why it seemed so long. In something like Poisonwood Bible or A Fine Balance you care so much about the people that it could go on for ever, or maybe a sequel, but not here.

Does writing it ‘backwards’ make a difference? Yes and no. She is quite skilful and not too irritating in leaving clues and then revealing the truth – I didn’t mind that (eg what Duncan had done to land him in prison). But it takes away all narrative tension in eg Kay’s frantic dash across London to find bombed out Helen when we all know she isn’t there, but is with Julia. Did you see Stuart, A Life Backwards on TV some months back (or have you read the book by Alexander Masters)? The concept here was what had led to the young addict/vagrant being what he was, and it was his idea to write it this way. That was a very moving drama, and the backwards bit really worked. I think however it’s a bit of a fad at the moment.

I think one of the initial reasons for writing this was wanting to express the anticlimax of the post war period, especially for women who had been liberated, in many ways, by (both) World wars. But you rather lose that thread as you arrive back at 1941, so I think ‘backwards’ isn’t the best way to bring this out. I hadn’t thought about the chaos of war being liberating for lesbian women, so it would be quite interesting to know how the closet door slammed shut post war – but we don’t get that. Apparantly Water's aim was to 'write lesbians back into history', which is laudible but not fully realised here because of her structure, I fear. It is also another book which one is recommended to read twice to fully value - I don't have time for this very often, and I think it is lazy of authors to expect it.

Helen SO glad you enjoyed the McEwan and also thought it his best (do read Amsterdam if you haven't already - not harrowing). It certainly provoked as much discussion and debate as any we've done, didn't it?

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Better late than never...

Sorry for the delay in my post on Child in Time. I blame our library and illness in equal measure.
I think I overlap with nearly everyone's views so far on this book. Like Emily I found the opening chapter deeply traumatic to read. Reading about the abduction of a three year old girl when one is the parent of a three year old girl who matched her physical description and interaction with her parents in nearly every way was too emotionally disturbing. Never have I been more grateful for getting my groceries delivered! However, like Emily, I read the last page and decided that it was suitably redemptive enough for me to continue, and I'm glad I did.

I thought the themes were beautifully handled and some of the descriptive passages were exquisite. I would add 'Life and Death' to the other themes surrounding that of Childhood. Kate's was a 'death in limbo', the lorry incident was a 'death escaped', the abortion discussion was a 'death prevented'. Charles' of course was a very real and very physical (the description of carrying the weighty dead body) death. Add to this the final chapter of life beginning and you have a very powerful cocktail. I thought that final chapter was absolutely masterful in it's description of childbirth and that wonderful moment when a baby is born and one basks in the very miracle of it's existence before reality kicks in and all the medical checks are made. I also thought that McEwan had taken us as readers a long way to enable that chapter to be more than a trite resolution to the loss of Kate and make the journey for the characters a meaningful one.

I'm afraid the dystopian future world thing went right over my head. As did the politics. Sorry.

I liked his whole exploration of Time - discussions with Thelma (Valerie, what did you consider "odd"? Her as a character or the existence of female physicists? I have met a number of female physics and therefore did not consider Thelma "odd" in either sense!), Kate as the shadowy child in limbo time, the alternative time/universe of his young parents when his own existence hung in the balance, Charles' desperation to hang on to a time long gone.

I thought this was the best McEwan I have read as there was just so much in it and I felt that he picked themes he really could explore fully rather than just making the most out of very little, which is what I have felt about some of his other books.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

The Night Watch

I thought that this was a very competently written book, set during the second world war and in 1947. It gave several very vivid pictures of the period from the different standpoints of the main characters, all of them interlinked. A novel from a lesbian author, with a strong, but not entirely lesbian theme. The images of the bombardment of London, the destruction and the blackout are powerful, as are the conditions of prison life. The lesbian lifestyle is enlightening and the need to keep both this and the then illegal homosexuality secret, gave a strong flavour of the mores of the era.

Sarah Waters tries to include as many social issues as possible, including conscientious objectors and the conditions in the prisons, illegal abortions the stigma of pregnancy outside marriage. Quite a feast and rather an overload. I agree that the sense of period is very strong, a skill that the author used in her previous books and also that the need to tie in all the ends became rather trying. Largely, I think, because there were so many ends to tie.

Rather long and exhausting, but a jolly good read.