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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
2.5/5
This is not a work of deep introspection or rambling digression or intense imagery, and when those are lacking, I'm usually left with two points of engagement: plot, and character. Due to how easily I predict narrative twists these days, it's far easier for literature to achieve success in the latter category. I'm not asking for cartoon level villainy or heroism or the sort of troubled in-between type who usually functions as no more than an excuse for increasing levels of disability/mental illness/trauma porn, but some quirk or complex or singular fascination whose, in the case of this text, fully developed bequeathment all four of the main characters would have improved things enormously. Instead, what there was of that was either barely there or almost entirely libidinous in nature, so that I finished the work thinking that I would have rather that the 500+ pages be completely devoted to Kay, or maybe Kay + her women loving women cohorts, rather than all that other admittedly sensational but still rather lifeless character arcs. Despite what that sort of statement may imply, I wasn't that impressed with [b:Tipping the Velvet|25104465|Tipping the Velvet|Sarah Waters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1425892206l/25104465._SY75_.jpg|1013794] either, so perhaps Waters just isn't my kind of author. I liked the film adaptations I saw of both [b:Fingersmith|8913370|Fingersmith|Sarah Waters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545241494l/8913370._SY75_.jpg|1014113] and [b:The Little Stranger|7234875|The Little Stranger|Sarah Waters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407105269l/7234875._SY75_.jpg|5769396], but that may be where that "writing for television" comes in, and I'm not motivated enough in regards to either work to test this hypothesis out. Maybe someday in the future, especially if a work lends itself to one reading challenge or another, but after this second time around, I'm not feeling any more inclined than I was after the first.
In the end, the satisfaction I'll get from finally getting this book off my shelf, as well as checked off of a substantial number of lists in accordance with my usual prediction, ranks almost on the level of the satisfaction that I got from actually reading the work, and that's never a good sign. Once again, this is a work that relies too much on the hallowed aura of the WWII in one form or another to make up for its lacking, and it seems that that period when I paid attention to longlists and shortlists and the like was chockful of adaptations of that particular trope that still instinctively draws me in if I'm not careful about it. It makes me glad how I've gotten away from the crowd that feeds off of those sorts of hyped up collections that make their way across my dash around this time of year, as it's frustrating enough to deal with the remains of those peer-pressured years without clogging up my reading priorities with more recent developments. I've even refrained buying copies of certain works just to have the excuse to continue to pass over them without fully committing to removing the work from my TBR, especially if the all too common whiteness isn't mitigated at all by women's writing/queerhood/some other still infrequent factor in what tends to be institutionally raised up on the hierarchy of literary quality. Waters has enough works that I could easily return for a third time's the charm, even fourth time's for the stats, but my less than amazing experiences with what I've read so far, combined with a familiarity with the basic outlines/plot twists of the works I'm interested in and low ratings for the works that I'm not, means that I'm in no rush to give another chance to a relatively mainstream name when there are so many whom I haven't experienced at all. I'm glad she's doing her part in bringing history to life in a far more accurate way than the bulwark of historical fictions composed over the last 75 years tends towards, deconstructing that false conscience that all those "others" don't have a reason to exist until the 60s or later. For me, though, it just doesn't make for very engaging writing or even a credible learning experience, and when such writing averages out to 500+ pages per work, it's best I give it five, maybe ten, years before trying again. Pretty words and thoughts in places, but not nearly enough of that or another, or some of the more base self-indulgences, to merit the work running as long as it did and still leave the reader unsatisfied.
As if one's grief is a fallen house, and one has to pick one's way over the rubble to the ground on the other side...There's a commonly espoused phrase that proclaims that, attempt to write for everyone, and you'll end up writing for no one. There's also the idea of "writing for television" that certainly serves a purpose in its correct venue, but, unless brilliantly done, has little place in the world of the written word. And then of course: show, not tell. At first, I appreciated much of this after the overwhelming pathos of certain works that are 95% the the successive soliloquies of a single self, but after a while, NW fumbled in all three areas, taking on too many timelines across too long a span that cram in so much of the doing rather than the telling that one thinks this cross-section of interlocking narratives would do better as a limited series put on by one enterprising streaming service or another. Not all of the characters are drawn equally in terms of how much they engage the reader, and the weaker ones tend to drag the whole narrative down into a barely differentiable mass of human weakness in the time of stiff upper lips to the point that, when something does happen, the climax is damped down by all the sitcom tedium that preceded it. The narrative conceit of three separate periods broken up by three year intervals steadily traveling back in time lent the work some kind of 'solving the mystery' type feel, but I'm not one for that sort of genre, not to mention that final revelations themselves ended up being less than what one had been led to expect. A stronger work would have started in 1947 and stuck there: it's not like flashbacks or beginning in media res haven't been part an parcel of fiction for millennia now, and experimentation's not the best if it simply leads to the work falling flat.
This is not a work of deep introspection or rambling digression or intense imagery, and when those are lacking, I'm usually left with two points of engagement: plot, and character. Due to how easily I predict narrative twists these days, it's far easier for literature to achieve success in the latter category. I'm not asking for cartoon level villainy or heroism or the sort of troubled in-between type who usually functions as no more than an excuse for increasing levels of disability/mental illness/trauma porn, but some quirk or complex or singular fascination whose, in the case of this text, fully developed bequeathment all four of the main characters would have improved things enormously. Instead, what there was of that was either barely there or almost entirely libidinous in nature, so that I finished the work thinking that I would have rather that the 500+ pages be completely devoted to Kay, or maybe Kay + her women loving women cohorts, rather than all that other admittedly sensational but still rather lifeless character arcs. Despite what that sort of statement may imply, I wasn't that impressed with [b:Tipping the Velvet|25104465|Tipping the Velvet|Sarah Waters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1425892206l/25104465._SY75_.jpg|1013794] either, so perhaps Waters just isn't my kind of author. I liked the film adaptations I saw of both [b:Fingersmith|8913370|Fingersmith|Sarah Waters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545241494l/8913370._SY75_.jpg|1014113] and [b:The Little Stranger|7234875|The Little Stranger|Sarah Waters|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407105269l/7234875._SY75_.jpg|5769396], but that may be where that "writing for television" comes in, and I'm not motivated enough in regards to either work to test this hypothesis out. Maybe someday in the future, especially if a work lends itself to one reading challenge or another, but after this second time around, I'm not feeling any more inclined than I was after the first.
In the end, the satisfaction I'll get from finally getting this book off my shelf, as well as checked off of a substantial number of lists in accordance with my usual prediction, ranks almost on the level of the satisfaction that I got from actually reading the work, and that's never a good sign. Once again, this is a work that relies too much on the hallowed aura of the WWII in one form or another to make up for its lacking, and it seems that that period when I paid attention to longlists and shortlists and the like was chockful of adaptations of that particular trope that still instinctively draws me in if I'm not careful about it. It makes me glad how I've gotten away from the crowd that feeds off of those sorts of hyped up collections that make their way across my dash around this time of year, as it's frustrating enough to deal with the remains of those peer-pressured years without clogging up my reading priorities with more recent developments. I've even refrained buying copies of certain works just to have the excuse to continue to pass over them without fully committing to removing the work from my TBR, especially if the all too common whiteness isn't mitigated at all by women's writing/queerhood/some other still infrequent factor in what tends to be institutionally raised up on the hierarchy of literary quality. Waters has enough works that I could easily return for a third time's the charm, even fourth time's for the stats, but my less than amazing experiences with what I've read so far, combined with a familiarity with the basic outlines/plot twists of the works I'm interested in and low ratings for the works that I'm not, means that I'm in no rush to give another chance to a relatively mainstream name when there are so many whom I haven't experienced at all. I'm glad she's doing her part in bringing history to life in a far more accurate way than the bulwark of historical fictions composed over the last 75 years tends towards, deconstructing that false conscience that all those "others" don't have a reason to exist until the 60s or later. For me, though, it just doesn't make for very engaging writing or even a credible learning experience, and when such writing averages out to 500+ pages per work, it's best I give it five, maybe ten, years before trying again. Pretty words and thoughts in places, but not nearly enough of that or another, or some of the more base self-indulgences, to merit the work running as long as it did and still leave the reader unsatisfied.
Rum sort of job, isn't it? All dust. Not like the other war: that was all mud. Makes one wonder what the next one will be. Ashes, I expect...
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
If you're looking for a fun or nice story, look elsewhere. The Night Watch is a quiet, somber glimpse into the lives of people who feel so realistic it could well be a particularly artsy biography. At first I didn't fully enjoy or understand the ending, but I realized I was still thinking about it several days later. I've decided that the reverse chronological order is a beautiful way to tell this story in particular; the short and sweet 1941 chapter leaves you with this feeling that the story has just begun, the same way the characters felt at that point in their lives.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Suicide, Abortion, War
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
As always, Sarah Waters knows how to set a lush scene and how to write characters in such a way that invites the reader deep inside the secrets of their lives. Waters is also brilliant at historical fiction, showing the reader details and aspects of the past in a way that makes that time period feel real and present. For example, despite the ubiquity of World War II literature, it took The Night Watch to show me how desperate and frightening life in England was during that war. The experiences of women, especially queer women, are often overlooked in fiction and historical accounts, so Waters' narratives often feel like a trove of lost treasures. Her narratives are also a powerful insertion of the disappeared identities of queer women into a literary tradition that has sought to erase them.
In The Night Watch, Waters takes the reader progressively back in time from post-WWII, to the middle of the war, to the early onset of the war. While this technique was interesting, some of the scenes felt redundant or unnecessary (mostly Duncan's scenes...his story is the least engaging). This progression backward in time (without jumping back to the "present") also recontextualized the purpose of the book, putting the focus on the war as a catalyst for a chain of events that wholly and irrevocably shaped the characters lives.
In The Night Watch, Waters takes the reader progressively back in time from post-WWII, to the middle of the war, to the early onset of the war. While this technique was interesting, some of the scenes felt redundant or unnecessary (mostly Duncan's scenes...his story is the least engaging). This progression backward in time (without jumping back to the "present") also recontextualized the purpose of the book, putting the focus on the war as a catalyst for a chain of events that wholly and irrevocably shaped the characters lives.
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I honestly had the most mixed experience reading this book. However my key takeaway is even though I didn't enjoy this very much at all, I would highly recommend it to everyone (who can handle the content warnings). For a lot of it I was not very interested, it felt like a sapphic romance and as a straight man who isn't interested in romance I was having a hard time enjoying the book. I also went into this book hoping for a light read, and did not receive that (lol). Content warnings SHOULD be checked.
What has led to me putting this at a decent score is that there are moments in this book that are heart wrenching and so extremely powerful, and explores experiences for women and queer people that are still experienced in the world today, especially given recent political environments. In particular the last third was such excellent storytelling, it is a shame I didn't enjoy the rest of the book so much.
To compare it to the 2 stormlight books that I've read this year, despite the fact that those books are higher rated, it is simply because I had more fun reading them. In terms of quality, impact, message, storytelling, and literary value, The Night Watch blows stormlight out of the park. I just wanted to clarify that.
What has led to me putting this at a decent score is that there are moments in this book that are heart wrenching and so extremely powerful, and explores experiences for women and queer people that are still experienced in the world today, especially given recent political environments. In particular the last third was such excellent storytelling, it is a shame I didn't enjoy the rest of the book so much.
To compare it to the 2 stormlight books that I've read this year, despite the fact that those books are higher rated, it is simply because I had more fun reading them. In terms of quality, impact, message, storytelling, and literary value, The Night Watch blows stormlight out of the park. I just wanted to clarify that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: War
This is Waters's 4th novel, and since I am reading them in order, I've just emerged from a terrifyingly real rendition of 1940s London under the Nazi blitzkrieg.
Reverse chronological order is a strange way to tell a story. It kind of works here, though, as we move from the end of World War II (1947) to the middle of its raging destruction (1944) to its early days (1941) to understand what makes these four disparate characters tick.
By the final pages, the reader finally understands how the central characters arrived where they are in their immediate post-war lives. But there is this strange sense of being left to hang in mid-story, with no resolution. I guess that's how life is, especially life after such a traumatic time. But it's a bit unsatisfying.
Perhaps the inimitable Waters tried to do too much here - too many interwoven stories, too many characters clacking up against each other through happenstance like billiard balls. Unlike her first three novels, which focused solely on lesbian women, this novel has a male protagonist (of ambiguous sexual orientation) and a heterosexual woman. I'm wondering if Waters was feeling pigeon-holed, and trying to break out of the box of being labeled as a "lesbian author"?
Waters is a masterful storyteller, though, whatever she sets her mind to write. All four of her books so far have been engrossing. Just as her first three novels brought 19th-century Victorian London to visceral life, so The Night Watch makes London during the Nazi blitzkrieg feel powerfully real. A story that will definitely stay with me.
Reverse chronological order is a strange way to tell a story. It kind of works here, though, as we move from the end of World War II (1947) to the middle of its raging destruction (1944) to its early days (1941) to understand what makes these four disparate characters tick.
By the final pages, the reader finally understands how the central characters arrived where they are in their immediate post-war lives. But there is this strange sense of being left to hang in mid-story, with no resolution. I guess that's how life is, especially life after such a traumatic time. But it's a bit unsatisfying.
Perhaps the inimitable Waters tried to do too much here - too many interwoven stories, too many characters clacking up against each other through happenstance like billiard balls. Unlike her first three novels, which focused solely on lesbian women, this novel has a male protagonist (of ambiguous sexual orientation) and a heterosexual woman. I'm wondering if Waters was feeling pigeon-holed, and trying to break out of the box of being labeled as a "lesbian author"?
Waters is a masterful storyteller, though, whatever she sets her mind to write. All four of her books so far have been engrossing. Just as her first three novels brought 19th-century Victorian London to visceral life, so The Night Watch makes London during the Nazi blitzkrieg feel powerfully real. A story that will definitely stay with me.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Set in London during World War II, the terror of German bombings is an overwhelming threat throughout.
Told in reverse-chronological order, you know everyone survives... but the histories and relationships between the main characters do not become clear until the end. And the landscape remains ominous throughout.
Told in reverse-chronological order, you know everyone survives... but the histories and relationships between the main characters do not become clear until the end. And the landscape remains ominous throughout.
I'm mad. This book made me mad.
First of all, this is totally different than the other Sarah Waters books I've read, but the synopsis sounded really interesting, so I was excited to read it. However, I found it slow to start and pretty tedious, as it laid out these seemingly unrelated people and their stories. The reveals for how they were connected were mildly interesting, but I didn't find these reveals very exciting. Maybe they weren't meant to me, I'm not sure. But there was no real suspense or sense of wonder while reading it.
I also really did not enjoy the time-lapses. I expected it to go from 1947 to 1944, then back to 1947 for the ending. But instead, a chapter for 1941 was shoehorned in at the end to show the background for things that the reader already knew. I was excited about one of the stories (Duncan's) but I was disappointed in it. I really wanted more background than what I got. The other two stories, I didn't feel were necessary at all. I just couldn't bring myself to care.
There were certainly some interesting parts of this. I loved all the wartime history parts and I found Duncan's background interesting (not so much his present situations), but the interpersonal relationships pissed me off more often than not.
I think the biggest crime of this book though is the fact that there's no plot. You're meant to care about these characters I suppose, in order to make this an enjoyable "slice of life" novel, but aside from Kay and somewhat Duncan, I didn't care one bit (and in Helen's case, I despised her). I think if this were a continuous timeline and reworked, I would've been more amenable to this book, but it just did not work for me at all in its current state. I didn't even find Waters' writing as enchanting as usual, though that may have been because of the difference in time period with less flowery language.
Overall, I'm just incredibly disappointed in this book, as I expect greatness from Sarah Waters. I think I'm giving it 3 stars anyway because: 1) I'm always here for lesbian content, 2) it did make me feel a lot of things...in fact, I DNF'd it and then couldn't get into any other book and I wondered how this one turned out, so I re-checked it out from the library to finish it, and 3) I'm in love with Kay.
First of all, this is totally different than the other Sarah Waters books I've read, but the synopsis sounded really interesting, so I was excited to read it. However, I found it slow to start and pretty tedious, as it laid out these seemingly unrelated people and their stories. The reveals for how they were connected were mildly interesting, but I didn't find these reveals very exciting. Maybe they weren't meant to me, I'm not sure. But there was no real suspense or sense of wonder while reading it.
I also really did not enjoy the time-lapses. I expected it to go from 1947 to 1944, then back to 1947 for the ending. But instead, a chapter for 1941 was shoehorned in at the end to show the background for things that the reader already knew. I was excited about one of the stories (Duncan's) but I was disappointed in it. I really wanted more background than what I got. The other two stories, I didn't feel were necessary at all. I just couldn't bring myself to care.
There were certainly some interesting parts of this. I loved all the wartime history parts and I found Duncan's background interesting (not so much his present situations), but the interpersonal relationships pissed me off more often than not.
Spoiler
I absolutely HATE Helen, oh my god. She starts out as a pretty normal woman but you quickly discover that she's incredibly jealous and suspicious of her girlfriend, Julia. Then, in the middle section of the book, you find out that she CHEATED on her wonderful girlfriend Kay to get with Julia, who used to be in love with Kay and in fact, it was Kay who introduced them! As soon as that started, I got super annoyed and immediately lost interest in the book. Helen is trash and Kay's 1947 story makes me so sad because she's still not over Helen and lives a very lonely life. I'll be her wife!!I think the biggest crime of this book though is the fact that there's no plot. You're meant to care about these characters I suppose, in order to make this an enjoyable "slice of life" novel, but aside from Kay and somewhat Duncan, I didn't care one bit (and in Helen's case, I despised her). I think if this were a continuous timeline and reworked, I would've been more amenable to this book, but it just did not work for me at all in its current state. I didn't even find Waters' writing as enchanting as usual, though that may have been because of the difference in time period with less flowery language.
Overall, I'm just incredibly disappointed in this book, as I expect greatness from Sarah Waters. I think I'm giving it 3 stars anyway because: 1) I'm always here for lesbian content, 2) it did make me feel a lot of things...in fact, I DNF'd it and then couldn't get into any other book and I wondered how this one turned out, so I re-checked it out from the library to finish it, and 3) I'm in love with Kay.