Sarah Waters

The night watch

I thought everything would change, after the war. And now, no one even mentions it. It is as if we all got together in private and said whatever you do don't mention that, like it never happened. It's the late 1940s. Calm has returned to London and five people are recovering from the chaos of war. In scenes set in a quiet dating agency, a bombed-out church and a prison cell, the stories of these five lives begin to intertwine and we uncover the desire and regret that has bound them together. Sarah Waters's story of illicit love and everyday heroism takes us from a dazed and shattered post-war Britain back into the heart of the Blitz, towards the secrets that are hidden there. Olivier-nominated playwright Hattie Naylor has created a thrilling and theatrically inventive adaptation of a great modern novel. The stage adaptation of The Night Watch was premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, on 16 May 2016.

The Night Watch

azliana aziz

steadily nuanced post war stories of four people connected by guilt and desire to just live.

Kate Hall

Two stars might be unduly harsh but I found this to be quite a slog. The characters were not well drawn and seemed to just behave in very frustrating ways - carrying on terrible relationships in particular. A lot of time was given to the most tedious storylines for characters who were clearly the author’s favourites, while the most intriguing one (Duncan) had very little page time, and a very dissatisfactory reveal. The first chunk (post-war) is also quite dull.

I'm mad. This book made me mad.

First of all, this is totally different than the other Sarah Waters books I've read, but the synopsis sounded really interesting, so I was excited to read it. However, I found it slow to start and pretty tedious, as it laid out these seemingly unrelated people and their stories. The reveals for how they were connected were mildly interesting, but I didn't find these reveals very exciting. Maybe they weren't meant to me, I'm not sure. But there was no real suspense or sense of wonder while reading it.

I also really did not enjoy the time-lapses. I expected it to go from 1947 to 1944, then back to 1947 for the ending. But instead, a chapter for 1941 was shoehorned in at the end to show the background for things that the reader already knew. I was excited about one of the stories (Duncan's) but I was disappointed in it. I really wanted more background than what I got. The other two stories, I didn't feel were necessary at all. I just couldn't bring myself to care.

There were certainly some interesting parts of this. I loved all the wartime history parts and I found Duncan's background interesting (not so much his present situations), but the interpersonal relationships pissed me off more often than not. (view spoiler)[I absolutely HATE Helen, oh my god. She starts out as a pretty normal woman but you quickly discover that she's incredibly jealous and suspicious of her girlfriend, Julia. Then, in the middle section of the book, you find out that she CHEATED on her wonderful girlfriend Kay to get with Julia, who used to be in love with Kay and in fact, it was Kay who introduced them! As soon as that started, I got super annoyed and immediately lost interest in the book. Helen is trash and Kay's 1947 story makes me so sad because she's still not over Helen and lives a very lonely life. I'll be her wife!! (hide spoiler)]

I think the biggest crime of this book though is the fact that there's no plot. You're meant to care about these characters I suppose, in order to make this an enjoyable "slice of life" novel, but aside from Kay and somewhat Duncan, I didn't care one bit (and in Helen's case, I despised her). I think if this were a continuous timeline and reworked, I would've been more amenable to this book, but it just did not work for me at all in its current state. I didn't even find Waters' writing as enchanting as usual, though that may have been because of the difference in time period with less flowery language. 

Overall, I'm just incredibly disappointed in this book, as I expect greatness from Sarah Waters. I think I'm giving it 3 stars anyway because: 1) I'm always here for lesbian content, 2) it did make me feel a lot of things...in fact, I DNF'd it and then couldn't get into any other book and I wondered how this one turned out, so I re-checked it out from the library to finish it, and 3) I'm in love with Kay.

Eugenia Andino

My problem with this writer is that I expect her books to be as fun as Tipping the Velvet or as romantic as Fingersmith. This one is neither fun or romantic even though it has a number of intercrossing love stories. It's well written, but in a very self-conscious way.

Laura

Its a beautiful book with a brilliant story. Sarah Waters is a brilliant writer, and I loved the book. I feel like I can only give the book a 3 though because the book is so hard to get through. Waters writes in long, intense sentences making the book long without really adding anything to the story but rather making me notice less the brilliance of her writing.

Meagan Fowler

I thought that I was going to love this book! Seemed to be the exact type of historical fiction that I would love but the first half of the book was so boring. It took me so much longer to finish this book because I was just not motivated to read it. I really wanted to just put it down all together and not finish but I told myself to push through cause I thought it would get better. Probably the last 15% or less of the book was the only part that I enjoyed. I just wanted to be more connected to the characters and the story line.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller. This is the story of four Londoners - three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy. Kay, who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching . . . Helen, clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret . . . Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly, even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover . . . Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in sometimes startling ways. War leads to strange alliances . . . Tender, tragic and beautifully poignant, set against the backdrop of feats of heroism both epic and ordinary, here is a novel of relationships that offers up subtle surprises and twists. The Night Watch is thrilling. A towering achievement.

Stephanie Rich

Had it merits though the writing was a bit mellow-dramatic. The backwards moving story (1947 -] 1944 -] 1941) providing a unique viewpoint and worked for the most part, but failed to pay off in the end.

The night watch

Reviews