Waterland by Graham Swift

[cameron]

Anyone read this? It's one of my fav novels. Set in the fens, it tells the story of the Crick family.

The film version of it was very disappointing I thought - as films of books often are.

I've always been fascinated by the fens, so maybe I'm predisposed towards it. Why are the fens so flat? So God has a clear view.

Content-wise it definitely owes something to The Mill on the Floss.

Been trying (without success) to write something about the railway journey from Norwich to Peterborough which is probably the best way to see the fens: the Bedford Levels, the Hundred Foot Drain and bizarre desolate little stations like Prickwillow and Manea. In fact, a tractor driver was recently killed on an unmanned level crossing near Prickwillow. (Might make a good story-line?)

C

[k-j]

I read that at school and have done again since - a stunning novel. Pretty sure I've seen the film too but don't remember much about that.

If you're going to use Prickwillow in a story (and you should, it's a fantastic name) then there should be lots of dialogue - East Anglian (Anglican?) dialect - scene I, evening in pub, death of local lad main strand of conversation alongside the usual humdrum and humour, scene II, funeral and related.

[camus]

A friend recommended it, but I've never delved in, she explained there are parralels to Great Expectations within?

I did read a book of short stories by him - Learning to Swim, which was excellent.

[cameron]

There is a quote from Great Expectations inside the cover:

'Ours was the marsh country.....'

I think it's really just the opening chapter of GE ( Pip in the graveyard) and the correspondence between the flat land by the river and the fens. Don't think the story lines are very similar.

The fens are full of places with evocative names. I once wrote a poem called Gedney Drove End, but there are also: Stuntney, Nordelph, Upwell and Outwell, Salters Lode, Shippea Hill, Clenchwarton, Whaplode Drove and Queen Adelaide to mention a few.

I know a chap at Essex Uni who is a world authority on the fenland dialect, who could do some proof reading. It is slightly different from 'Norfolk'.

C

[bobvincent]

I found it as dull and flat as the countryside it is set in. Another disappointing yet acclaimed modern novel.

[R. Broath]

It's one of my favourite reads, too, Cameron. The flat lands are evoked wonderfully well and Swift's writing is the sort that makes this reader sigh and wonder 'maybe I should stop trying'. By the way,
Jonathon Raban writes well on the vastness of the prairies in Badlands - but then I think he is an exceptional writer anyway.
Also read Swift's 'Last Orders' - another goodun.
I live in County Down which is full of little (and not so little) hills called drumlins and found the landscape in Waterland to be imposing to the point of breathlessness.
Yeah. A great read.

Jimmy