Waterland

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Chapter 9, which I’ve just finished reading, is a 37-page history of the (fictitious) family that was largely responsible for draining and developing this part of Fenland.

It isn’t by the time he’s finished his extraordinary swim, leading to all kinds of speculation about why that might be. C hange and Continuity: The novel explores the tension between change and continuity, particularly in relation to the shifting landscape of the Fens.But as Henry hopes desperately to stop him doing anything dangerous on the dredger, he shouts to him how things can be different.

Mary had been a mystery then and, following the flat, featureless years of their Fenland marriage, she’s a mystery to him now. The plot of the novel revolves around loosely interwoven themes and narrative, including the attraction of the narrator's brother to his girlfriend/wife, a resulting murder, a girl having an abortion that leaves her sterile, and her later struggle with depression. There is the small community, enclosed by its own watery boundaries and separated from the rest of the country which barely gets a mention, close family (sometimes too close) and customs that are a throwback to times that if not simpler, were certainly less self-conscious. The draining of the Fens in the 17th and 18th centuries is presented as a traumatic event that disrupted the social and economic structures of the region and forced its inhabitants to adapt to new ways of life.His most recent novel, Mothering Sunday, became an international bestseller and won The Hawthornden Prize for best work of imaginative literature. But if, as I suspect, we can be persuaded that this narrator really would put off the truth (or truths) for as long as possible because it’s all too painful, then it’s another kind of coup. The confident self-belief of the teacher determined always to explain is nothing of the sort in his case. Perhaps her new, closed-down mindset since the moment she found out that Freddie was dead makes Tom reluctant to cross her.