A review by foggy_rosamund
Night Waking by Sarah Moss
5.0
I'm not sure how to rate this book: it raises a lot of different themes, and holds a lot of threads. It doesn't deal with them all well or with enough nuance, but it's gripping, insightful and has a wonderful narrative voice. I found reading it utterly absorbing, though at the end I was left with a lot of questions. The story is set on the fictional Scottish island of Colsay, somewhere out in the Hebrides. The narrator, Anna, is staying on this island with her husband and her two sons. Anna is an academic, and is trying to finish a book about the history of childhood. But her toddler and seven-year-old need constant attention, and her husband absconds every day to study puffins. This is far from a rosy view of motherhood: Anna is constantly overwhelmed by how much she wants to do, so depressed she thinks about suicide, and struggles to feel anything positive towards her two children. Her husband, Giles, concentrates on anything but childcare, and seems not to understand how hard she is working or how overwhelmed she is. Anna feels bitterly resentful towards him, and doesn't know how she can continue to live the way she is.
As the narrative progresses, we begin to see different sides of Anna, and of Giles, but the overwhelming nature of motherhood is a constant theme. We also learn about the history of families on Colsay: the grinding poverty in which families lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries; the cruelty of landlords and the highland clearances; and the infant mortality rate, which was close to 85%. A stack of letters written by a Victorian nurse comes to light during the course of the novel, describing a winter spent on the island, and how the nurse is incapable of understanding the islanders, and the islanders resent her intrusion and concern. These run in counterpoint to Anna's struggles on the island, the ways in which she lives in luxury, and the ways in which misogyny remains the same. The novel also explores the role of landowners in Scotland: Giles' family own Colsay, now uninhabited, and his ancestors were landlords there during much of the poverty of the 19th century. The local people resent Giles and Anna, treating them with hostility -- which at first seems unreasonable, then, as we learn more of the history of the place, begins to make sense.
The story touches on other complex themes: infanticide, ambivalent attachment, teenage anorexia, loss and grief, academia, and doesn't deal with all of them equally well. However, Anna has one of the most memorable narrative voices I've ever read, and I found this book completely engaging. I could hardly put it down, and for that alone, I highly recommend it. It's very memorable.
As the narrative progresses, we begin to see different sides of Anna, and of Giles, but the overwhelming nature of motherhood is a constant theme. We also learn about the history of families on Colsay: the grinding poverty in which families lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries; the cruelty of landlords and the highland clearances; and the infant mortality rate, which was close to 85%. A stack of letters written by a Victorian nurse comes to light during the course of the novel, describing a winter spent on the island, and how the nurse is incapable of understanding the islanders, and the islanders resent her intrusion and concern. These run in counterpoint to Anna's struggles on the island, the ways in which she lives in luxury, and the ways in which misogyny remains the same. The novel also explores the role of landowners in Scotland: Giles' family own Colsay, now uninhabited, and his ancestors were landlords there during much of the poverty of the 19th century. The local people resent Giles and Anna, treating them with hostility -- which at first seems unreasonable, then, as we learn more of the history of the place, begins to make sense.
The story touches on other complex themes: infanticide, ambivalent attachment, teenage anorexia, loss and grief, academia, and doesn't deal with all of them equally well. However, Anna has one of the most memorable narrative voices I've ever read, and I found this book completely engaging. I could hardly put it down, and for that alone, I highly recommend it. It's very memorable.