Waterland

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Graham Swift's more recent works include The Light of Day (2003), Tomorrow (2007), Wish You Were Here (2011), and Mothering Sunday: A Romance (2016). Swift has also published both short story and essay collections. Today, Swift is known as a talented and capable writer who often focuses on the themes of loss and the past. Issues of national identity are also very important in Swift's writing. The students in Tom’s school have grown increasingly scientifically oriented, and the headmaster, Lewis Scott, himself a physicist, has little sympathy for Tom’s subject, a fact that he in no way masks. One of Tom’s students, Price, an intelligent sixteen-year-old whose father is a mechanic, presses Tom with questions about the relevance of learning about such historical events as the French Revolution. The youth’s skepticism causes Tom to change his teaching approach from one of presenting historical facts to one that involves his telling tales drawn from his own recollection. By doing so, he makes himself a part of the history he is teaching, relating his tales to local history and genealogy. Tom is away fighting in World War II. Finally the two fathers agree to bring their children together again; unknown to them, Tom has already written to Mary. When he comes home, the two marry, and Tom begins his teaching career, while Mary takes a position in an old persons’ home. They live thus for more than thirty years; then Mary gives up her job and becomes actively involved in the church. Finally, she steals a baby because “God tells her to.” She explains the new arrival to Tom by saying that it is a gift from God. Obviously demented and obviously suffering from a pain that has been festering since her teenage abortion, Mary is arrested. Tom, as recounted above, is forced into an early retirement as a result of this disgrace. Mary also experiences significant losses in Waterland. These happen when she is a young woman but impact the rest of her life and the lives of those around her. Mary's botched abortion results in her losing the ability to ever have children. As she gets older, it becomes clear that she desperately wants children. Her infertility drastically affects her mental health to the point in which she is unstable enough to steal a baby. Not only does she lose the ability to have children, Mary gradually loses her mind throughout Waterland too.

Mary tries to provoke a miscarriage but fails, so she and Tom, the father of the child, go to Mary Clay, an old crone, who performs an abortion that leaves Mary sterile. Her father forces her into seclusion, and for three years she remains isolated, engaging largely in prayer and meditation. The Norwich, Gildsey, Peterborough railway was introduced primarily as a passenger service but, by enabling cheap freight transportation, also contributed to the emergence of rail as the principal artery of agricultural trade in mid-nineteenth century East Anglia, overtaking inland waterways, with radical implications for the region’s economy and socio-political fabric. C hange and Continuity: The novel explores the tension between change and continuity, particularly in relation to the shifting landscape of the Fens. While the draining of the Fens represented a profound change in the region, the novel suggests that the underlying rhythms and cycles of life continue, albeit in different forms. Tomorrow (2007) once again adopted a South London setting and an intense interior monologue to unravel a saga of family secrets at the moments before their imminent revelation. This time, the internal voice was that of 49-year old Paula, speaking as if to the teenage children asleep in the next room. With her husband asleep by her side, the novel relied on the tension of what the coming ‘tomorrow’ of the title would bring for the family. How would family secrets be revealed and how would the secrets be disclosed? Mainly, however, it was the descriptions of the Fens: "a landscape which, of all landscapes, most approximates to Nothing". A vast empty place inhabited by willow-the-wisps, potato-heads and a people filled with "phlegm", "mucus" and "slime" by the dank air.Graham Swift kulağımıza yer yer güçlü çığlıklar haline bürünen çok özel bir hikaye fısıldıyor Su Diyarı kitabıyla. Tarihe geçmeden mekâna bir uğrayalım zira öğretmenimiz tarihçi olduğu kadar yetkin bir coğrafya bilgisine de sahip. Su diyarı namlı Fens, İngiltere’nin kuzey doğusunda insan emeği ile yaratılmış bir bölge, yüzlerce yıla yayılan bir süreç ve çaba sonucunda su diyarının göbeğine bir toprak diyarı inşa ediliyor. Anlatıcımız buranı yerlisi su diyarı insanları ile bölgeye toprağı taşıyan toprak insanlarının soyundan geliyor. Bu iki diyar iki farklı insan türünü de ortaya çıkarıyor. Su insanları doğaları ile barışık ve doğanın sunduğu nimetlerle –yılanbalıkları nereden geliyor- yaşarken toprak insanları sürekli bir gelişim, çatışma ve doğayı hizaya sokmanın tüm ard anlamları ve olumsuzluklarını bağrında taşıyorlar. Bu iki dünyanın çatışması metni ekolojist bir yoruma da açık kılıyor olsa da yazar bunu ve çatışmanın gerilimini büyük sözler sarf etmeden metnin son sahnesine kadar taşıyor ve nihayetinde topraktan gelen soy –dünyanın kurtarıcısı- karanlık sularda nihayete eriyor ya da kitaba sadık kalarak söylemek gerekirse doğanın tarihi büyük anlatının tarihine baskın geliyor. There are no compasses for journeying in time. As far as our sense of direction in this unchartable dimension is concerned, we are like lost travellers in a desert. We believe we are going forward...but how do we know that we are not moving in a great circle?" History and Memory: The novel reflects on the power of storytelling and memory in constructing personal and collective histories. Tom's reflections on his family's past and the history of the Fens demonstrate the role of storytelling in shaping our understanding of the world around us. I always taught you that history has its uses, its serious purpose. I always taught you to accept the burden of our need to ask why. I taught you that there is never any end to that question, because, as I once denied it for you (yes, I confess a weakness for improvised definitions), history is that impossible thing: the attempt to give an account, with incomplete knowledge, of actions themselves undertaken with incomplete knowledge. (Chapter 10) Pradėjus skaityti galvojau "kaip žmogus gali taip gerai rašyti?". Ir iki šiol tas jausmas liko. Ši istorija - tai dėlionė akylam ir neskubančiam skaitytojui. Ji supinta iš subtilių užuominų, kurios viena po kitos atskleidžiamos ir po truputį dedamos į savas vietas parodo pilną vaizdą. Aš joje tiesiog mėgavausi. Pasakojimo stiliumi, pasirinktomis temomis, magijos ir pasakos priemaišomis, istorija ir beprotybe, pelkėmis, vandenimis ir jų žmonėmis. 💛

I enjoyed the slow, circular process of reading Waterland. I especially savored the parallel structure and imagery embedded in the prose. The novel's protagonist and storyteller is a history teacher. Swift's method of using the teacher's lessons to tell the stories in the book gives the novel a sense of breaking down the fourth wall.

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This was Swift's first published collection of short stories. It preceded Waterland by a year. It also is in a vastly different Style to Waterland. Most of the stories in the collection have a very reserved Style. It's a totally bizarre story, I went with its bizarreness," says Swift. "I suppose of all the stories in the book it is the most weirdly many-faceted. It brings together so many diverse things in, of all places, Exmoor." Swift was influenced by Isaac Babel when he was younger, and kept a photograph of the Russian writer on his desk. Although "deeply attached" to the English language he sees himself as European and is against the decision to open the Man Booker prize to US writers. "Each prize has its own remit, why expand it?" he asks. "It's like saying at the Commonwealth Games, 'Let's have the Americans!' The reverse is not the case: the Pulitzer prize is not open to British writers. It's almost like saying they deserve to win the prize, and I don't think so."