Many of you will remember that I pledged to read Margaret Drabble novels during 2024 – hoping for at least one a month. The Waterfall is my fifth Drabble of the year. I’m sorry to see that this one seems to be currently out of print, and wasn’t among those that Canongate reissued a couple of years ago. My blogging has been so erratic that I haven’t even reviewed all of them, however although I have really enjoyed them all, the book I read last month, Jerusalem, the Golden, was the one I have enjoyed least. Still I am constantly impressed by Drabble’s skill as a writer, her narrators are realistic, though not always likeable – and in this case not entirely reliable.
The Waterfall is described as one of her most experimental novels – it is a literary novel of course, and quite a slow read, although I didn’t find it difficult. I found Drabble’s prose immersive and her narrator quite compelling – though typically she is a flawed and sometimes irritating character. The novel is told in both the first and third person, the point of view is always that of Jane Grey – the central character – but the switching from first to third person perhaps allows Drabble to play with the reliability of the narrator.
“Learning was so dangerous: for how could one tell in advance, while still ignorant, whether a thing could ever be unlearned or forgotten, or if, once known and named, it would invalidate by its significance the whole of one’s former life, all of those years wiped out, convicted at one blow, retrospectively darkened by one sudden light?”
This is a novel about love – the love a woman, Jane feels is such a necessity it becomes all consuming. The novel opens just as Jane is about to give birth to her second child, shortly after having been left by her husband. Jane’s marriage to Malcolm has not been happy, and she is quite glad to see the back of him. She has a small son Laurie and within the first few pages, gives birth to Bianca. While Jane is in bed recovering from the birth of her daughter, she is cared for by her cousin Lucy and her husband James. They take it in turns to stay with Jane, as they themselves have three young children. Very quickly an intimacy develops between Jane and James that considering she has just given birth feels rather inappropriate, in more ways than one.
“She was prepared to spend all the rest of the evenings of her life alone, but the next night, after the midwife and Lucy had left, she was surprised to hear a knock on the door. She had to get up and go down to open it, and she found James standing there on the step. She was weak with relief at the sight of him: she had been afraid as she descended the stairs that it might have been her husband. She tried to conceal her relief, but she was so overcome that she could hardly stand.”
James continues to spend time with Jane and the children, long after she has ceased needing support, the two locked in a passionate affair – which Jane seems to have convinced herself that Lucy knows all about somehow. Drabble portrays this relationship wholly from Jane’s point of view and reveals how for Jane there is an intense sexuality in her feelings for James – which are so very different to how she had felt about Malcolm. Jane is a poet, though she hasn’t published anything recently, she is often crippled by self doubt and feelings of inadequacy. Her love for James is transcendent in how it makes her feel – she shrugs off any lingering feelings of guilt, convinced she is right, putting any negative feelings right away from her. It is interesting in how there are subtle differences in aspects of the first and third person narratives, as if the truth is told from the third person perspective, while Jane, in her first person narrative is more protective of herself and less honest about what is going on, and who James really is. He fixes a couple of simple things in the house for Jane and promptly acquires almost legendary status – while gradually the reader begins to see him as more feckless. There are references to Jane Eyre and Rochester – as Jane insists on seeing James as her romantic lead.
“She felt she was taking part in some elaborate delicate ritual, and that if she broke some small unknown rule of it, by a false word or touch, by a treacherous mention of Lucy or Malcolm, by a murmur of indignation at his leaving, by a too willing acceptance of that same leaving, then he would be taken from her, she would forfeit him for her unwitting transgression.”
Along with her powerful depiction of a love affair – and Jane’s love for James is wholly convincing at least. Drabble is realistic about the daily minutiae of motherhood and modern life. The atmosphere she creates between Jane and James in the early pages of the book is beautifully done. Again we see a beautifully crafted and realistic relationship between a young mother and her tiny children. We know a crisis must come, and it is well highlighted in some blurbs. An accident – occurring a good way through the novel – forces their affair into the open, and the consequences have to be faced.
I thought this was an enormously impressive novel about love and obsession, it is a shame that Canongate didn’t reissue this one – I see from Goodreads that it has divided some readers, but perhaps that is the sign of a good book.
Love the sound of how the movement between first-person and third-person narration allows Drabble to delve into the reliability of her protagonist! And those quotes are characteristically excellent. I’m going to have to track down a copy of this, especially if it’s out of print…
I find there are a lot of reasonable priced copies of Drabble novels on Ebay. I hope you manage to track this one down. It has a lot that is interesting, I think, and I think you might enjoy it too.
I appreciate your insights with regard to the first and third person narratives and Drabble‘s realistic depictions but I did find this novel hardgoing compared with Jerusalem the Golden. I realise that Drabble was doing something special and different but Jane Gray’s wallowing in self-obsessiveness, her lack of will and inactivity up until the crisis made for difficult reading – at least for me!
Sorry you didn’t quite like this one. I can understand readers being frustrated by Jane, she is self obsessed. She seems typical of a Drabble character at least in these early novels. I don’t mind reading about unsympathetic characters. Never mind, we can’t all like the same things.
Very interesting, Ali – sounds most unusual in its construction and that switch between first and third person narrative is intriguing. particularly if there is the sense that the first person is an unreliable narrator. I can understand how the story might divide readers a bit, as the main character might indeed be a little wearing. But we don’t need to be reading about *nice* characters, and the writing sound lovely.
I thought the use of first and third person worked well. Yes, I understand why readers might be divided, but I don’t mind unlikeable characters.
That’s a good point that a good book is one that divide’s readers, it means we must be involved doesn’t it?
Absolutely, I think a good book needs to make us react in some way.
Thanks for this thoughtful review Ali; it does tempt me to see if I can find a copy of this one. As you and others have noted, the switch in voice does sound a clever device and used to good effect it would seem here.
A book that divides is doubly interesting in some ways – it clearly evokes strong feelings and reveals our individual differences – just as long as we can all accept that it is OK to have different reading tastes without having to fall out about it!!
Oh yes, we can’t all like the same things, or react to things in the same way. That’s what reading is about. The switch in narrative voice, is a device used well here, I think.
This sounds excellent Ali. It’s interesting when a novel divides readers like that it makes me think it must be complex and nuanced, which you’ve highlighted.
Yes, definitely a nuanced piece, though I didn’t find it particularly complex, I understand why others have found it difficult.
That sounds very immersive and extremely cleverly done – such a good technical writer but still able to pull us in rather than *just* being clever for the sake of it.
She is such a good writer. I have just bought my next one from Ebay, and it looks quite a bit longer.
[…] material, but it is appealing to see Drabble experimenting with how to tell a story. See also Ali’s review. (Secondhand – Alnwick charity […]
At first I thought “what a nice reissue” but then peerly more closely and realised it must be the original! Could be that this says more about me than it says about the illustration. heheh This isn’t one I’ve read, but I do have a dog-earned liltte Penguin paperback and I hope to get to it this year.
Yes, an old copy I got on Ebay. It’s the original edition but does have ex library stamps.