I'm quickly nearing the end of Sarah Waters's The Nightwatch, which I've found to be an exceptional read. I don't want to say much about it now, but I always find myself completely wrapped up in the characters' lives when I'm reading one of her novels--no matter whether I can identify with them or not. I will say this is a darkish story, not surprising considering the WWII setting of London during the Blitz (actually the book begins after the war and moves backwards). Waters is very talented when it comes to portraying a particular era and it's obvious she does her homework carefully. This description of two characters out walking when the air raid sirens go off caught my attention:
They crossed Ludgate Circus and went on towards the start of the bridge. They saw people going down into the underground with bags and blankets and pillows, and paused to watch them.
'It gives one a shock, doesn't it,' said Helen quietly, 'to see people doing this, after all this time? I hear the queues will start at four and five o'clock at some stations. I couldn't bear to do it, could you?'
'No, I couldn't bear it,' said Julia.
'They've got nowhere else, though. And look, it's all old ladies and men, and children.'
'It's horrible. People being made to live like moles. It's like the Dark Ages. It's worse than that. It's prehistoric.'
There was something elemental, it was true, to the heavily laden figures, as they made their uncertain way into the dimly lighted mouth of the Underground. They might have been mendicants or pedlars; refugees from some other, medieval, war--or else, from some war of the future, as imagined by H.G. Wells or a fanciful writer like that. Then Helen caught snatches of their conversation: 'Head over heels! How we laughed!' 'A pound of onions and a saddle of pork.' 'He said, "It's got fancy teeth." I said, "It ought to have better teeth than I've got, at that price..."'
I'll only have one Sarah Waters novel left after this one, and I'm sure I'll be reading it in 2010. Until she writes another book the rest will have to go to the reread pile!