The Night Watch (Sarah Waters)
I’m pretty sure that Sarah Waters is gay. Not that it matters to me one way or another if she is or if she isn’t. In fact, if I were her, I might be a bit upset that every reader who sits down with her book asks themselves at least once (and probably more than once) about her sexual preference. I am an author! she might be thinking. What does it matter who I am attracted to? Short answer is this: It doesn’t matter… unless you insert same sex attraction, couples and sex in your novel. That will naturally raise some questions in my mind. Not objections or moral dilemmas. Just questions.
Toni Morrison was once asked when she was going to include white people in her books. Naturally, she scoffed and asked why white writers were never asked the reverse question about including blacks. I suppose this is a similar issue. No one ever asks straight writers why they feature only male-female relationships in their novels, so I shouldn’t be doing the reverse. You write about what you know, about the people you know. And if you write them well enough — if the character comes to life from the page — then it doesn’t matter if they are black or white, straight or gay.
To sum up, I shouldn’t really care about an author’s orientation if they write an excellent story. So why do I harp? Can’t you guess? It wasn’t an excellent story. It was an overly nostalgic time period (WWII) tale told in a trite, yet difficult to pull off fashion (starting at the end, moving toward the beginning). The characters were interesting but not exceptional and the few snippets of sex were quite vibrant. In short, I think it was a soft-core romance novel for lesbians. Hey, they deserve one! But, I think that it deserves the same rating I would give something interestingly readable but still one step above Fabio on the cover, pirates and throbbing members.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Vacation reading
Fiction |