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A review by moonpix
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
5.0
This is Waters' first novel set in the 40s, and it is a welcome change: the perversity of her fascination for Victorians can get tiring after a while. Despite being set in London around WWII, her attitude towards the period feels more grounded. Wartime brings the hidden horrors of past generations to the surface, and so rather than focus on the heightened yet archetypal experience of soldiers she illuminates the suffering of everyday civilians. The collective traumas of war constantly intertwine with the trauma of individuals, just as public secrets compound upon private ones: a bomb causes a woman to be impaled by railings in the street not long after a character’s womb is ruptured in an illegal abortion, someone is chastised for loudly naming landmarks in a public park in case a spy overhears while a lesbian quietly complains to her lover that she is being too obvious about their relationship.
The novel ultimately doesn't reach the same complexity as Fingersmith but as a result it doesn't feel quite as thorny either (there is a creeping feeling of unscrupulousness to her first three novels that I still don't entirely know what to do with). Waters is often praised for restoring lesbians to their rightful place in history and literature, for being “good representation”. But of course her real project is much more complex: what The Night Watch’s layers of public and private suffering make clear is that her interest lies in exploring how people’s sense of morality is shaped by the times they live in. And while in her Victorian fiction this can often result in a kind of nihilism, The Night Watch softens this a bit, with characters that reflect more readily on their desire to be (and their idea of) what a “good person” is. I appreciate that she was able to do this without placing modern frameworks on the characters, and I left feeling that the novel was a refreshing alternative to the a-historicism that seems so pervasive these days.
The plot also unfolds backward beautifully, each section further intertwining the characters’ relationships with each other. This aspect of her plotting feels charmingly queer: among lesbians, there are no coincidences, everybody just already knows everybody else (though I will say the melodrama of the character Helen was the least compelling aspect of the novel). I also found it an appropriate approach for characters impacted by war, in the beginning section the unknowable-ness of traumatic memories was reflected in both the characters, who don’t know how to process the past, and the reader, who doesn’t have access to it yet.
I desperately needed to get absorbed in a novel again and this was just the thing. Can't believe this book has been sitting unread on my shelf for so many years, but I'm glad I waited until now because it has helped me stumble through a few very cold, very depressing days.
The novel ultimately doesn't reach the same complexity as Fingersmith but as a result it doesn't feel quite as thorny either (there is a creeping feeling of unscrupulousness to her first three novels that I still don't entirely know what to do with). Waters is often praised for restoring lesbians to their rightful place in history and literature, for being “good representation”. But of course her real project is much more complex: what The Night Watch’s layers of public and private suffering make clear is that her interest lies in exploring how people’s sense of morality is shaped by the times they live in. And while in her Victorian fiction this can often result in a kind of nihilism, The Night Watch softens this a bit, with characters that reflect more readily on their desire to be (and their idea of) what a “good person” is. I appreciate that she was able to do this without placing modern frameworks on the characters, and I left feeling that the novel was a refreshing alternative to the a-historicism that seems so pervasive these days.
The plot also unfolds backward beautifully, each section further intertwining the characters’ relationships with each other. This aspect of her plotting feels charmingly queer: among lesbians, there are no coincidences, everybody just already knows everybody else (though I will say the melodrama of the character Helen was the least compelling aspect of the novel). I also found it an appropriate approach for characters impacted by war, in the beginning section the unknowable-ness of traumatic memories was reflected in both the characters, who don’t know how to process the past, and the reader, who doesn’t have access to it yet.
I desperately needed to get absorbed in a novel again and this was just the thing. Can't believe this book has been sitting unread on my shelf for so many years, but I'm glad I waited until now because it has helped me stumble through a few very cold, very depressing days.