Graham Swift: Waterland

This was rhe firts book that I read by this author and although a long time ago, I can still vividly recall the tremendous impact that it had.

It is often said that modern fiction has become very insular and self-regarding, often overly concerned with radical new techniques of ‘telling a tale’ but one of the most admirable qaulities about this book is how old-fashioned it is - and I use this as a major compliment.

It seems to embody all of the standard requirements of a wholly engaging piece of fiction which I see as the following: A strong sense of place, narrative drive, richly drawn characters, perceptiveness about human relationships and how they develop and, ideally, some universal truths that one might be able to take away.

Waterland has all these. The sense of place of extraordinary. I used to live near to the area he evokes and, very occasionally, ventured a litttle way into the Fens and his evoking of their extraordinary feel, their isolation - and the emphasis on the sky looming over everything is fantastic. Likewise the story he tells and of the people who live there. He evokes a bizarre, extraordinarily cut-off and insular world that it seems hard to realsie is still existing now as it gives the impression of not having changed for generations - which, to a degree , it has not.

Swift creates this wonderful world that become at once utterly engaging and totally unfamiliar and at times frightening but we are sucked into it, like the deadly bogs of the setting.

It’s a one-off book - like all his work I feel. You never have the feeling that he is simply retreading familiar ground with his ‘own’ recycled cast of characters or locations or stories which one can find very easily in very many other authors. Its a cliche to say one ‘cannot put the book down’ but it is completely true in this case.