Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 13 Jan 2016

The Waterworks by E.L.Doctorow

When  E. L. Doctorow died in the summer of 2015 it was a sad loss that went largely unnoticed in the wider news media. There was a time not too long ago that he was being talked about as being one of America’s literary giants but I suspect there are more people who know the films of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate than they do the books. Even if his reputation has dimmed in recent times, I still think Ragtime is a fabulous novel and so I was intrigued when I read an article by Sam Jordison in The Guardian claiming that Doctorow’s novel The Waterworks was a forgotten masterpiece. This caught my eye because any passing familiarity I had with the book was based on some pretty bad reviews it has received in a number of  literary journals. Ultimately, the only way to resolve this seeming contradiction in the book’s reputation was to read it for myself – so I did.

I have to be super-careful not to give away any of the plot here because this is essentially an atmospheric mystery-thriller. Doctorow is known to be a very specific kind of historical novelist and he loves to carefully blend US history with fiction and in The Waterworks he takes us back to New York in the years immediately following the civil war. There are all sorts of echoes of Edgar Allen Poe (Doctorow’s first name is Edgar after all) and Wilkie Collins in this book and much of the reading experience is almost tangibly physical – the bustling streets, the sounds of horses pulling carts, the emerging commercial bustle of Broadway and the looming Waterworks of the title.

The mystery is narrated by a worldly but essentially sympathetic journalist, McIlvaine, who provides not only a running commentary but in acting as our eyes, ears and noses also provides us with a moral centre. He is aided by possibly the only honest policeman in corrupt New York, Donne, who has a persona that would be very familiar to those who love to read or watch the modern, quirky detectives that have become so popular today but have their roots in Wilkie Collins’ oeuvre.

In terms of the plot I feel I can tell you very little before getting into spoiler territory. Let me titillate you by saying that Martin Pemberton is a well regarded but occasional writer for McIlvaine’s newspaper until one day, in a state of dishevelment, he delivers his last copy before claiming that he has just seen his recently buried father alive and being driven around the city in a horse-drawn white omnibus. Clearly on the verge of a breakdown Martin Pemberton disappears – triggering the playing out of this complex and extraordinary story.

There’s no doubt this is an artfully constructed story and I genuinely had only the vaguest inkling where this was heading until the denouement played itself out. You will always get great atmospherics from Doctorow and it comes in spades here – and maybe it’s a touch overdone. I couldn’t help but feel that writing something which is a homage to Poe and Collins is one thing but steering perilously close to pastiche is quite another. However, the male characters in particular are, on the whole, strong and well drawn. Sadly though,  the female characters tend to be rather irritatingly and stereotypically bewitching – it seems to have become a detective thriller convention that the male characters should be damaged or fascinatingly idiosyncratic while the female characters have to be alluring while at the same time hinting at hidden strengths and depths.

One of the main criticisms aimed at the book on its release was the ‘voice’ given to McIlvanie. Stylistically, Doctorow tries to give him a sense of being  ......thoughtful and .....considered ... even... ruminative  by breaking up his internal point-of-view monologue with these ellipses. This seems to have really irritated some people whilst for others it’s inventive and appropriate to the character. I have to say it irritated me.

For me this wasn’t really the masterpiece Jordison claimed it to be but it was a perfectly adequate and engaging little mystery. I understand that the book was out-of-print for a good part of last year but is, I think, available again in paperback. Writers as good as this are always worth reading and I’m pretty sure the quality easily outstrips some of the popular pulp thrillers that pack out the shelves of so many bookshops. So, make sure it stays in print by going out and buying a copy – it will make a good late winter read.

 

Terry Potter

January 2016