And yet though its the readers job to tease out the mystery behind each characters present self and how each character is connected, its not always possible to work up the desire to do so.

Both the setting and the characters are lost and joyless and ultimately changed by everything thats gone on. Not just from the exigencies of war itself, but from decisions made during wartime that are largely independent of the war itself. Were given a London thats slowly pulling itself back together after the war, and characters who are listless and despondent after all thats gone on. The first section of the novel is an aftermath in many ways. But as I read I just couldnt shake the feeling that the reverse chronology approach of the novel undermined the story being told. Waters has been on my to-read list for years, and I picked this one up with tremendous anticipation. Perhaps as disappointed as you to read it, because I know that this is a book that I should love, and really, its one that I wanted to love.

You have no idea how disappointed I am to write that. And yet, although I adored both' The Glamour'and' The Remains of the Dayand perhaps just as much for that chronological creativity as in spite of it The Night Watch fell short for me. Divided into three parts, it travels back from the 1947 setting of part one to the 1941 of the third part, slowly tracing the meetings and liaisons and links between a half dozen or so characters living in WWII London. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters does something similar, although even more explicitly so.

Kazuo Ishiguros' The Remains of the Day, which I read not long after, involves a sort of braided narrative where a character, in what is a painful act of self-deception, looks back on his past in order to determine how things have become the way they are. Christopher Priests' The Glamour, which I read earlier this year, involves the recreation of the pasts of two characters through their own conflicting, contradictory memories: its about a past or pasts made present. I wonder what it is that makes authors inclined towards not so much narrative progression, but a narrative reflection, or even a regression. If you're new here, why not subscribe to our email updates or follow us on Facebook? You can also add us to your Google Reader.

The night watch by sarah waters