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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
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 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.
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.
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 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.[return:][return:]These are all minor criticisms though; overall, despite the depressing nature of a lot of it, this is a life-enhancing novel.
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.[return:][return:]These are all minor criticisms though; overall, despite the depressing nature of a lot of it, this is a life-enhancing novel.
"Sometimes I go in half way through, and watch the second half first. I almost prefer them that way - people's pasts, you know, being so much more interesting than their futures."
So, perhaps this sums up the book. For we begin at the end and end at the begin. You can't skip to the back of the book to find out what happens, because what happens is how the book starts. It's cleverly done, working on the presumption that you know it all (you don't) and therefore everything doesn't need to be explained. The book is in three sections, about 1947, post war, 1944 towards the end of the war and then finally 1941, the start of the war. And you make assumptions about why people are doing certain things, or what the connections between other characters might be. And sometimes you'll be right, as you discover as you dip back to the next section, and other times you're so off the mark.
There's a host of characters we follow, whose lives pass by in very different ways. My favourite had to be Kay, the heroic ambulance driver in London throughout the war, who so desperately wants a little wife, as Julia puts it, and to look after a lady in her life. Just a thoroughly decent person. We have Ducan, who lives with a much older man, Mr Mundy, in very odd circumstances, which are gradually explained; his older sister Vivien who is having an affair with Reggie. She also works at a lonely hearts bureau along with Helen, who lives (in secret, out of necessity) with Julia, the murder mystery writer. And now that I've finished the book, it's strange looking back on them all and seeing where and how they all ended up. And after all that drama and tragedy, normality reigns. In some respects it's done in a necessary order, for it you went at it chronologically, I don't think you'd want to read about what happened to them in the end - either too boring or too sad.
And ultimately I found this a sad book. Life is hard and unfair and things just don't work out. And as someone said about relationships at one point, there always seems to be one person that loves a lot and the other who doesn't. Poor Duncan, so utterly taken advantage of throughout this story. There's a little glimmer at the end (beginning - ha ha) although it's not immediately obvious. And there's a storyline in here underlining why it is so essentially important that free and legal abortions and access to birth control is available for women's lives. And then beyond the stories of the characters, there's the devastation of the war. Some of the descriptions of what Kay and her ambulance pal Mickey had to deal with when they were out on nights is just heart breaking. And what was it all for?
I think the last line of the book is very thought provoking as well: "gazing at her in a sort of wonder; unable to believe that something so fresh and so unmarked coudl have emerged from so much chaos."
So, perhaps this sums up the book. For we begin at the end and end at the begin. You can't skip to the back of the book to find out what happens, because what happens is how the book starts. It's cleverly done, working on the presumption that you know it all (you don't) and therefore everything doesn't need to be explained. The book is in three sections, about 1947, post war, 1944 towards the end of the war and then finally 1941, the start of the war. And you make assumptions about why people are doing certain things, or what the connections between other characters might be. And sometimes you'll be right, as you discover as you dip back to the next section, and other times you're so off the mark.
There's a host of characters we follow, whose lives pass by in very different ways. My favourite had to be Kay, the heroic ambulance driver in London throughout the war, who so desperately wants a little wife, as Julia puts it, and to look after a lady in her life. Just a thoroughly decent person. We have Ducan, who lives with a much older man, Mr Mundy, in very odd circumstances, which are gradually explained; his older sister Vivien who is having an affair with Reggie. She also works at a lonely hearts bureau along with Helen, who lives (in secret, out of necessity) with Julia, the murder mystery writer. And now that I've finished the book, it's strange looking back on them all and seeing where and how they all ended up. And after all that drama and tragedy, normality reigns. In some respects it's done in a necessary order, for it you went at it chronologically, I don't think you'd want to read about what happened to them in the end - either too boring or too sad.
And ultimately I found this a sad book. Life is hard and unfair and things just don't work out. And as someone said about relationships at one point, there always seems to be one person that loves a lot and the other who doesn't. Poor Duncan, so utterly taken advantage of throughout this story. There's a little glimmer at the end (beginning - ha ha) although it's not immediately obvious. And there's a storyline in here underlining why it is so essentially important that free and legal abortions and access to birth control is available for women's lives. And then beyond the stories of the characters, there's the devastation of the war. Some of the descriptions of what Kay and her ambulance pal Mickey had to deal with when they were out on nights is just heart breaking. And what was it all for?
I think the last line of the book is very thought provoking as well: "gazing at her in a sort of wonder; unable to believe that something so fresh and so unmarked coudl have emerged from so much chaos."
A beautifully written and well-crafted novel with a story told backwards to remind us that everyone's story makes sense finally when we know what came before--this is as close as we can come to reading Thomas Hardy in the 21st Century.
Waters is best known for Tipping the Velvet, her novel that also became a British miniseries. This one is less daring in terms of the bedroom antics of women who love women... dare I say, it's more romantic? In more than one sense? It's dark, too, though, following ambulance drivers into WWII London under constant bombs, and walking right up to a catalogue of human pain and loss. Somehow it's still a quick and fun read--particularly for a small houseboat party with black market gimlets. Waters gave me a sense of what it must have been like to live in London in the blitz. And I'd like to believe I would have faced it as some of these characters do.
I was moved by the structure of this book. It starts at present-day -- and what I mean by "present-day" is that the Second World War is over. The feel of post-war London seems to be a great mise-en-scene to place 21st century moods and frustrations. The main characters are lost and directionless. I continued reading because I wanted to see where they would go, or what decisions they would make.
I was not surprised to encounter the following sections of the book that bring the reader back to the hard months and years of London during the war -- the nightly bombings. "Flashbacks" are perfectly necessary and expected to demonstrate how the characters arrived at their present-day states.
However, the book continues to go back. The last section of the book takes place prior to the Blitz, when the characters were perhaps at their most optimistic. And yes, this creates the illusion of a happy ending, but when I closed the book, I thought, "Wait. But this is not a happy ending. They are still sitting miserable in their present-day lives." Also, I revisited their present-day states and discovered that I had questions, but naturally I didn't expect answers. I empathized even more deeply with their disappointment.
I was not surprised to encounter the following sections of the book that bring the reader back to the hard months and years of London during the war -- the nightly bombings. "Flashbacks" are perfectly necessary and expected to demonstrate how the characters arrived at their present-day states.
However, the book continues to go back. The last section of the book takes place prior to the Blitz, when the characters were perhaps at their most optimistic. And yes, this creates the illusion of a happy ending, but when I closed the book, I thought, "Wait. But this is not a happy ending. They are still sitting miserable in their present-day lives." Also, I revisited their present-day states and discovered that I had questions, but naturally I didn't expect answers. I empathized even more deeply with their disappointment.
beautifully written, but comes across as a novel that thinks it's deep -- but isn't really.
I was bored stiff 75 pages in. Life is too short. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Nothing happens to drive the story forward in 75 pages.
Nothing happens to drive the story forward in 75 pages.
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes