Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Atmospheric and Thought Provoking August 27, 2008
This is a wonderful book on many levels. Swift creates a magical Fenland world as atmospheric as the marshes in Dickens' Great Expectations. He also writes a gripping story spread over several generations, with his characters operating within the context of major historical events. The key character - Tom Crick - is a history teacher and this conveniently allows Swift also to explore the very nature of history itself. A compelling read. This book should have earned Swift the Booker prize (but he got it later for 'Last Orders' anyway).
Quite simply, the best book I have ever read May 24, 2007
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Similar to my fellow reviewer, Waterland has sat on my shelves unread for years. Sometimes coming close to being the final selection as I ritually choose my next book. Well, finally, I decided to read it and now, as I am about 15 pages from the end, I almost cannot bear to finish it - I do not want to let it go. It is truly inspiring. It's atmosphere envelops you and goes with you, it invades your waking mind. I will say no more except that, if you are reading this review then click buy now and don't wait for years to read it.
 Engrossing and Beautifully written April 11, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a special novel, special because it has sat on my bookshelves as they moved around the country from London to Leeds, Leeds to Sheffield, Sheffield to York always unread, always passed over since 1984. Special because after 22 years of running my finger across the spine, passing it by to select other novels, its turn eventually came; it was worth the wait.
The sense of place and history created by Swift is stunning; I was there in the wide flat landscape with the slow moving broad rivers and sluices, the home of the Eel. The detail was required to position the backdrop to understand the fragility of the existence in this remote and ancient part of the England. Although the landscape is flat, the layered stories add the extra dimension; provide the depth.
I liked the way the novel pulled back and forth from past to present, and set a base around which the stories swirled and added power to them.
The unanswered questions remained too many though; I did wonder what the need for the child abduction was; it played a small part in the novel and I remain unconvinced in added much. But by looking beyond the story of Tom's first love it added other avenues, other streams for the novel and kept you guessing to the end where it would all end up.
One of the most atmospheric books you will ever read. March 14, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Water and land, land and water, the battle between the two in the Fens of East Anglia serves as the setting for this most atmospheric of books. The story of invented history is recounted by an experience-weary school-teacher in the last days of his career. Deprived of a future, he takes a journey back into his past, into the history of his family and the place of his birth, and what comes out is a strangely believable account of rural England on the crest of change. The blurry sense of place is captured in pre-colour sepia and, like an old family photo, feels real and present. Rarely has a book remained so long in my consciousness.
waterland December 11, 2006
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Waterland by Graham Swift is a history of the brooding, stubborn marshland, intractable rivers and development of The Fens as much as of the fictional character, history teacher Tom Crick. The taming of the water-logged swamps, construction of locks and drainage devices and natural history and geography of the area, and the flourishing, and later, sagging, of the Atkinsons' beer business are relayed in detail, spiced with myth and superstition. These are interspersed with sections of Tom's life, past and present.
There are haunting,chilling scenes and the characterisation is strong, veiling readers in the murky past and keeping them guessing.Tom's mentally defective brother Dick, for example, for whom the reader initially feels pity and sympathy,is transformed into a more sinister, malevolent presence, wreaking a terrible vengeance that touches his father, who neglected Dick's education. Or is Dick actually an innocent who has been manipulated by another? Just who has been using and abusing who? Meanwhile, Tom and Dick's hardworking,vigilant father is drawn as a stubborn but decent man who struggles to cope as a widower - and the mystery of his contrasting attitude towards the education of his two sons is another that keeps the reader gripped.
Simultaneously, we learn of Tom's current life in the early '80s as a teacher forced into early retirement, ostensibly due to 'cutbacks', but in reality because of a crime committed by his mentally unstable wife Mary, a crime triggered indirectly by events in the past.
This is an engrossing and beautifully written book, pulling the reader into the various strands of the story. At times, the delivery of the historical parts, in the form of lectures to Tom's school pupils, is wearing and tiresome, with the frequent 'and now, children' type kindly admonishments and teacherly exhortations seeming redundant and distracing from the engrossing tales of the past. Similaly, occasionally, the detailed history and geography of the area may seem superfluous. But the moody, atmospheric quality of the prose together with the layers of stories and secrets overcome these minor irritations, and the reader becomes mesmerised:immersed and mystified by tales just as the Fens once were by water.
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