| Waterland | 
 enlarge | Author: Swift
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
Buy Used: £5.71
Used (8) from £5.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 1755880
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 309
ISBN: 0671498630
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780671498634
ASIN: 0671498630
Publication Date: March 30, 1984
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Totally engrossing, lyrical masterpiece May 23, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a book that deserves to endure for years, an absolutely compelling story told through amazing writing. This book acheives a fusion of landscape, memory, history and personal horror and redemption. I think it would also be perfect for a book group because the artistry as well as the themes are timeless and should feed enthusiastic discussion. Swift is a neglected master.
A mesmerising river of a novel. November 5, 2005
25 out of 27 found this review helpful
This novel flows like a river through time and space, taking history and misfortune as its central themes. Told from the perspective of a London-based history teacher at the end of his school career, the narrator takes us (and his class of pupils) back to the lost Fenland of his youth, to revisit the past in an effort to understand what is happening to him in the present. As a meditation on history and the historical process, it is second to none. As a meditation on place - including London, where, after all, the memories crowd in - it is a worthy inheritor of the likes of Thomas Hardy, John Cowper Powys and Ronald Blyth (of Akenfield fame); and the description of the launch of Coronation Ale (which is surely based on Adnams' deadly Broadside; or maybe even Green King's IPA) is one of the best accounts of mass drunkenness in all literature.
 Re-writing the Fens July 26, 2004
21 out of 23 found this review helpful
Swift paints a landscape that breathes history and and also critiques its validity. The Fens are brought to life before us in a moving and impressive manner. Although at first it took me a while to engage with the characters, I soon became engrossed in the narrative and couldn't put the book down! Anyone that has ever driven or taken a train through the dreary, isolated Fens will appreciate this novel: anyone who hasn't will want to visit this unique land and see it for themselves. A truly great read and worth your time.
Brilliantly Disturbing May 31, 2001
22 out of 26 found this review helpful
I absolutely loved this book. Being from the edge of the fens myself, I know the strangely claustrophobic flatness and space which Swift uses as his setting. It works.I have nothing but the highest praise for the this book. I have since lent it out to 5 or 6 other people who've also agreed with my reccomendation. One of the best books I've ever read!
Swift brings it alive December 1, 2000
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
Swift brings the story of a teacher and his ancestors to life; hundreds of years of history, the vagaries of cause and effect and the landscape's imprint on the consciousness are all subtly but precisely conveyed.I wasn't convinced by the classroom device to tell the story, but it is so well told that it didn't impair my enjoyment. I have just read another of Swift's called 'Out of this World' which told a family's more immediate history in a similar style. It suffered in comparison because there was no setting to earth the story. In Waterland I could feel the Fens all around me, glowering. I skipped the chapter on eel husbandry though!
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