Waterland (Picador Classic)

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Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither memory nor history. But man - let me offer you a definition - is the storytelling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories. He has to go on telling stories. He has to keep on making them up. As long as there's a story, it's all right. Even in his last moments, it's said, in the split second of a fatal fall - or when he's about to drown - he sees, passing rapidly before him, the story of his whole life.”

Bir tarih öğretmenimiz var ve onun kişisel tarihi, ailevi tarihi, meslek olarak tarihçiliği –tarihte kesintiye gidiyoruz- ve dünyanın sonunun tarihi özel bir anda eşzamanlı olarak çökmek ya da kitaba yaraşır bir şekilde söylemek gerekirse batmak üzeredir ama hiç batmamış olsak da biliriz ki batma eylemi bir çırpıda gerçekleşmez, zamana yayılır, ağır ağır gerçekleşir, yardım çığlıkları, ağıtlar, küfürler ve söylenmeler batış anına eşlik eder. Son kertede çırpınmadan geriye determinizm kalır, olması gereken olur ya da kitaba uygun bir şekilde söylemek gerekirse akacak kan bacak arasında durmaz. Ama yine biliriz ki “bebeklerin sevgiden neşet etmesi” gibi tarihte hikayelerden neşet eder.Tai viena tų istorijų, kurioje man nėra labai svarbu iki kur nuves, kaip baigsis. Joje svarbu būti, išgyventi, jausti. Ir nors tikrai buvo smalsu, kaip ta baigta dėlionė atrodys, procesas džiugino daug labiau! Mėgavausi, kai buvau viliojama ir už rankos vedama, pastūmiama prireikus, ar tiesiogiai pabaksnojama faktais prieš akis.💛 This personal narrative is set in the context of a wider history, of the narrator's family, the Fens in general, and the eel. Swift spins a tale of empire-building, land reclamation, brewers and sluice-minders, bewhiskered Victorian patriarchs, insane and visionary relicts . . . A book of strange, insidious, unsettling power.”— Books and Bookmen There’s this thing called progress. But it doesn’t progress. It doesn’t go anywhere. Because as progress progresses the world can slip away. It’s progress if you can stop the world slipping away. My humble model for progress is the reclamation of land. Which is repeatedly, never-ending retrieving what it lost. A dogged and vigilant business. A dull yet valuable business. A hard, inglorious business. But you shouldn’t go mistaking the reclamation of land for the building of empires.” By doing so, he makes himself a part of the history he is teaching, relating his tales to local history and genealogy. The headmaster, Lewis, tries to entice Tom into taking an early retirement. Tom resists this because his leaving would mean that the History Department would cease to exist and would be combined with the broader area of General Studies. Tom's wife is arrested for snatching a baby. The publicity that attends her arrest reflects badly on the school, and Tom is told that he now must retire. In response, he uses his impending forced retirement as an excuse to recount a story to his students. The pivot of Waterland focuses on both the past in 1943, and the present time thirty years after – all related through the eyes of Tom as an adolescent.

There’s this thing called progress. But it doesn’t progress, it doesn’t go anywhere. Because as progress progresses the world can slip away. It’s progress if you can stop the world slipping away. My humble model for progress is the reclamation of land. Which is repeatedly, never-endingly retrieving what is lost. A dogged, vigilant busi-ness. A dull yet valuable business. A hard, inglorious business. But you shouldn’t go mistaking the reclamation of land for the building of empires.’ In his 2017 lecture to the British Academy, John Burnside discussed an important strand of British fiction over the last thirty years – exemplified by work by Graham Swift, Adam Thorpe and Michael Bracewell – in which the growth of ‘cultural totalitarianism’ has engendered a profound grief for the consequent loss of communal and ritual life, as well as for the land itself which has been ‘savagely degraded’ over the same period. In this extract, he talks about the 1983 novel Waterland by Graham Swift. Murder, incest, guilt, insanity, ale and eels. Hard to imagine not loving a book with themes like that eh? Or is it? As critics and reviewers have pointed out there are similarities with Great Expectations and Absalom, Absalom: post-modern retellings which question narrative itself. Of course the material of the stories refuses to be shaped by them. There’s a great deal of water (this is the Fens!) and lots of water related motifs and symbols. It also fairly deftly jumps between the quaint and the macabre. This is an amalgam of lots of ideas which actually works rather well. And don’t forget the eels!The telling shifts this way and that in time. The telling is fragmentary and nonlinear. This is a technique that usually does not appeal to me, but it works here! 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. Büyük anlatı demişken; anlatıcımız Fransız devrimi uzmanı ancak bu ve diğer bütün büyük anlatılar haliyle bir dünya imkanı varken işe yarayan bilgiler ve kendi dünyasının çöküşü, öğrencilerinin dünyanın genel çöküşünü – rüyaya dair bölümü, nükleer felaket beklentili 80’ler- beklediği momentle çakışınca ve dahi tarih kesintiye uğramışken başka bir anlatını kapısı açılıyor. Tarihsel ilerlemenin bir adım ileri iki adım geri formunun benzeri bir biçimde anlatı, kişisel olanın sınırlarının tarihsel olanın sınırıyla bulanık bir halde ileri geri savruluşuna hikaye dinleyicisi olarak tanık okur olarak eşlik ediyoruz sayfalar boyunca. Anlatını merkezinde bir hikaye, üç ceset ve bir tarih var: 1943. Adorno az sonra şiirin sonunu ilan edecek, Hitler sonu ya zafer ya hüsran olacak adımlar atacak ama biz dünyanın sonuna kadar biraz daha hikaye dinleyeceğiz ama hiçbir hikaye bize sonuna kadar burada ne oluyor, ne olmuştu, ne oldunun cevabını vermeyecek. Tarihi biraz biliyorsak, bütün anlatıların öznel olduğunu da biliyoruzdur ve biraz Faulkner biliyorsak geçmişin asla geçmediğini, geçmişin geçmiş bile olmadığını biliyoruz. Read the full text of John Burnside’s lecture ‘“Soliloquies of suffering and consolation”: Fiction as elegy and refusal’, published in the Journal of British Academy in December 2017. The left side of my brain admired the novel’s ambition and scope. The right side of my brain remained detached and I was unable to stay immersed.

Waterland is a story about storytelling, a narrative about narration that analyses the meaning and the necessity of history. 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. Tarihin dikkate değer tek yönü, bence efendim muhtemelen sona ermek üzere olduğu noktaya gelmiş olması.” 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?"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. 💛 Graham Swift’s extraordinary masterpiece—a finalist for the Booker Prize—WATERLAND weaves together eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as Greek tragedy into one epic story.

Is history simply a record of past mistakes? How do religious beliefs fit into the picture? Can knowledge of past events make us better people? With knowledge can we make better decisions? Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Life without curiosity is a dead end. If you have curiosity, how can one stop asking why, why, why as life unrolls? If you are a person who incessantly asks why, the need for history is a given. Waterland is a 1983 novel by Graham Swift, set in the Fenland of eastern England. It won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And so the protagonist of the book, Tom, a history teacher in a high school, tells us a story. About the “waterland”, the low-lying fens somewhere in east England. About drainage and beer brewing, madness and murder, coming of age, incest, abortion and childlessness. Swift suggests that history is cyclical, that any revolution for a better future is always based on a vision or an adapted reflection of a period of prosperity and wellbeing in the past. That a change leads to another change, which does not always mean progress. That there is also regression and repetition. The Fens, where the biggest part of the story is based, serve Swift as the main metaphor of this cyclicality. Despite centuries of efforts to drain and improve the land in the fens, the water had always found the way to return through rains and floods, bringing disasters to the inhabitants. 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.What is drawn is no happy story, but it feels real. We read of the discovery and awakening of sexual desire. Of incest, mental retardation, jealousy and envy. Abortion and deaths. A father fights in the First World War and his son in the Second World War. Tom has reached a crisis aged 52. It looks as though he is about to be made redundant as his history post is being replaced by General Studies. His wife of thirty years has snatched a baby. He resorts to teaching history to his class by teaching them his own history: A formidably intelligent book—animated by an impressive, angry pity at what human creatures are capable of doing to one another in the name of love and need.”— The New York Review of Books Atmosferiškas, gilus, persmelktas pelkių, vandens ir cikliškumo pasakojimas. Emociškai sunkus kaip švinas, bet teikiantis begalinį pasimėgavimą! Do we all live in the fens of history, I dare to ask? And is there more to it than trying to keep our heads above the water of its recurring floods?