Waterland

"I have never enjoyed any of Swift’s other books quite as much as Waterland . But then I have never enjoyed any other book quite as much. This was written at the same time as the Paul Theroux, published in 1983. It’s a delightful marriage of fiction and landscape. It’s set in the Fens, mixing real history, fictional history and a present-day story. And it insinuates itself into your mind in the same way that the waters of the Fens insinuate themselves into the landscape – the way the water and the land intermingle. Yes, it is absolutely one of our perceived characteristics. It ties into our nature as a nation of grumblers rather than complainers. We’re too shy to say what we think to the people we want to say it to, so we say it to ourselves and to others instead. Swift also makes you see the processes of history that are nothing to do with kings, queens and prime ministers. There’s a quote that captures this: “So forget, indeed, your revolutions, your turning points, your grand metamorphoses of history. Consider, instead, the slow and arduous process, the interminable and ambiguous process – the process of human siltation – of land reclamation.” I’m not in any way a novelist. My only attempt lies in a computer file which I hope no one else will ever find. But what I value most about writing in general, and what I aspire to when I’m doing it myself, is seeing things from the bottom up. I believe that five hours with the managing director will teach you far less than five minutes with a bloke on the shop floor. That’s what I’m always hunting for. Writers who can tell you about a place, or a subject, and make you think of it in that way are rare – and incredibly rare in newspapers."