Product Description

First published in 1983, Graham Swift's multilayered chronicle set in the Cambridgeshire Fens is widely regarded as one of the finest British novels of the 1980s. Tom Crick is a history teacher, but the history that absorbs him is his own and his family's. The past, with its secrets and oddities, hangs heavy on him, pushing him towards a heartbreaking new crisis in his life. Swift's powerful psychological drama takes in life and death, betrayal and compassion; his setting, the brooding landscape of the marshy Fens, is utterly compelling.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #544728 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
'The tale Swift tells is at once a history of England, a Fenland documentary, and a fictional autobiography... Waterland appropriates the Fens as Moby Dick did whaling or Wuthering Heights the moors. This is a beautiful, serious and intelligent novel, admirably ambitious and original' OBSERVER

About the Author
Graham Swift was born in London in 1949. He is the author of five other novels: The Sweet Shop Owner, Shuttlecock, Out of this World, Ever After and Last Orders, winner of the 1996 Booker Prize and now a major film, and of Learning to Swim, a collection of short stories. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in London.

Customer Reviews

A mesmerising river of a novel.
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
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 evocative
Last Orders won the Booker and is a brilliant read but, nevertheless, Waterland is my favourite of Swift's books.
It's one of the best novels I have ever read for evoking a sense of place and for tying the characters and their actions in with that place. In Swift's hands the flat watery fens become a place of mystery and beauty - the people who live there take on a phlegmatic character.
The descriptions are masterful and haunt you for a long time after reading them, the prose is majestic and a sesual pleasure to read. The plot's gripping too - real human drama. I can't recommend this one enough.