The Pleasure of What Happens Next
Sep. 24th, 2014 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselApr 2014
The Night Watch - Sarah Waters - Virago, 2006
* * *
I cannot think of a truly satisfying reverse chronology novel, though I am pretty sure that one can be written. One requirement is that the chronological ending must be clear and definite, but not immediately comprehensible. The characters must be compelling, so that the reader really wants to understand why the chronological ending happened in the way that it did. And the initial events the trigger the whole story must be dramatic, so as to form a satisfying climax to the book. Waters gets two of these right - it's just a shame about the third.
Like any good writer, Waters makes her characters mysterious and not necessarily likeable. And this is part of the problem, because it means that the chronological end of the story, which occurs about 150 pages in, is ambiguous, with several relationships left up in the air. The setting obviously become more dramatic as the story shifts back in time, and the mysteries in the characters' back stories become increasingly clear, but these were not a sufficient distraction from the desire to know what happens next and made the following three hundred and fifty pages more frustrating than anything else.
For me the most interesting thread was the apparently gentle and fairly obviously gay Duncan, the mystery of the crime that caused him to be incarcerated, and his relationship with the more ambiguous Fraser. But I also liked Kay and her job as an ambulance driver in the Blitz which is as vividly described as in Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear diptych. The lesbian relationships were rather too soapy to be of interest and it was hard to drum up enthusiasm for Viv when it was clear from practically his first line of dialogue that Reg is a charming slime-ball whom any sensible woman would have dumped long ago.
The story revolves around a cast of characters whom we first meet in 1947. Kay is a lonely woman who wanders the streets of London dressed in men's clothing. Her landlord is a Christian Scientist who gives "treatments" once a week to an elderly man, Mr Mundy, who comes with a young assistant called Duncan, an ex-prisoner who is found by his former cell-mate Fraser. Duncan's sister Viv, who is having a long-term affair with the married Reg, works at an introductions agency with Helen, who is in a turbulent relationship with Julia, a writer. And both Helen and Julia know Kay.
This book is the literary equivalent of Steven Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, an interesting musical that starts at the sour end of a set of friendships among Hollywood types and works back chronologically to their idealistic beginnings. It was a brave experiment but also at the time of its first production a spectacular flop that only ran for eight performances (subsequent revivals have rehabilitated it somewhat). In Finishing the Hat, Sondheim blames its failure on the inexperience of the cast and the unlikeability of the lead character, but actually I think that the problem is more fundamental. A major feature of almost all narrative is anticipation, the pleasure of discovering what happens next. Even if the ending is telegraphed, there is enjoyment to be had in working out how the events and characters will conspire to make it occur, and a good writer will try to wrongfoot the audience's expectations. But with a story told backwards, there can be no anticipation. Mysteries of character motivation are of course possible, but in narrative terms they are meaningless because they can have no consequences that the audience hasn't already seen. Telling a story without the prop of anticipation is an interesting exercise, but if you are going to sell it to a general audience you had better be good. And Waters is good. Just not, I think, good enough.
The Night Watch - Sarah Waters - Virago, 2006
* * *
I cannot think of a truly satisfying reverse chronology novel, though I am pretty sure that one can be written. One requirement is that the chronological ending must be clear and definite, but not immediately comprehensible. The characters must be compelling, so that the reader really wants to understand why the chronological ending happened in the way that it did. And the initial events the trigger the whole story must be dramatic, so as to form a satisfying climax to the book. Waters gets two of these right - it's just a shame about the third.
Like any good writer, Waters makes her characters mysterious and not necessarily likeable. And this is part of the problem, because it means that the chronological end of the story, which occurs about 150 pages in, is ambiguous, with several relationships left up in the air. The setting obviously become more dramatic as the story shifts back in time, and the mysteries in the characters' back stories become increasingly clear, but these were not a sufficient distraction from the desire to know what happens next and made the following three hundred and fifty pages more frustrating than anything else.
For me the most interesting thread was the apparently gentle and fairly obviously gay Duncan, the mystery of the crime that caused him to be incarcerated, and his relationship with the more ambiguous Fraser. But I also liked Kay and her job as an ambulance driver in the Blitz which is as vividly described as in Connie Willis' Blackout and All Clear diptych. The lesbian relationships were rather too soapy to be of interest and it was hard to drum up enthusiasm for Viv when it was clear from practically his first line of dialogue that Reg is a charming slime-ball whom any sensible woman would have dumped long ago.
The story revolves around a cast of characters whom we first meet in 1947. Kay is a lonely woman who wanders the streets of London dressed in men's clothing. Her landlord is a Christian Scientist who gives "treatments" once a week to an elderly man, Mr Mundy, who comes with a young assistant called Duncan, an ex-prisoner who is found by his former cell-mate Fraser. Duncan's sister Viv, who is having a long-term affair with the married Reg, works at an introductions agency with Helen, who is in a turbulent relationship with Julia, a writer. And both Helen and Julia know Kay.
This book is the literary equivalent of Steven Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, an interesting musical that starts at the sour end of a set of friendships among Hollywood types and works back chronologically to their idealistic beginnings. It was a brave experiment but also at the time of its first production a spectacular flop that only ran for eight performances (subsequent revivals have rehabilitated it somewhat). In Finishing the Hat, Sondheim blames its failure on the inexperience of the cast and the unlikeability of the lead character, but actually I think that the problem is more fundamental. A major feature of almost all narrative is anticipation, the pleasure of discovering what happens next. Even if the ending is telegraphed, there is enjoyment to be had in working out how the events and characters will conspire to make it occur, and a good writer will try to wrongfoot the audience's expectations. But with a story told backwards, there can be no anticipation. Mysteries of character motivation are of course possible, but in narrative terms they are meaningless because they can have no consequences that the audience hasn't already seen. Telling a story without the prop of anticipation is an interesting exercise, but if you are going to sell it to a general audience you had better be good. And Waters is good. Just not, I think, good enough.