(PART OF) A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Tonight I missed an opportunity to hear the terrific British author Sarah Waters read at Powell's. Instead my partner, Drew, and I went to the opera to see the 3 1/2 hour epic Nixon in China. Drew's recovering from a cold and the spectacle fell short of Spectacular, so we only made it through one act. But I must say that seeing Tricky Dick, Pat Nixon and Chairman Mao form a Conga line was quite a treat.

To atone for dissing Sarah, I'm gunning to boost her sales by posting my recent review of her new novel The Night Watch:

Sarah Waters hasn’t caught up with the twenty-first century yet, but at least she’s made her way out of the Victorian era.
Her first three novels – Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and the Man Booker Prize finalist Fingersmith- are all set in and around London in the 1800s. Like the works of Jeanette Winterson (Written on the Body), they’ve won critical acclaim and a devoted lesbian following.
Fans may be taken off guard to discover that her latest novel, The Night Watch, is not another slice of lesbian Victoriana. It has plenty of lesbian content alright, but it takes place in the 1940s. At least the London setting remains the same. Judging from her formidable bibliography, Waters spent ages researching this tender, seamless tale of relationships amid the chaos of World War II.
Waters’s previous novel, Fingersmith, is lots of fun, but the endless plot contrivances become exhausting and distracting after awhile. The Night Watch is a more mature work that favors complex character development over dizzying twists and turns. The story is enormously gripping nonetheless, apart from a few slow going scenes in the middle section.
The novel’s structure seems challenging at first, but it’s actually quite accessible. We first meet the characters in 1947; the two subsequent sections take us back in time to 1944 and 1941. This unconventional approach sends readers scurrying for resolutions about the plot’s origins. Think of it as Memento without the amnesia.
The central characters include Kay, an ambulance driver betrayed by her lover, Helen. Viv, a typist, is the pregnant mistress of a married soldier. Her brother, Duncan, is an imprisoned bloke who pines for his cell mate, Fraser.
Waters writes beautifully about intimacies and sexual longings of all stripes, as though she’s equally comfortable in the skins of her gay, lesbian and straight characters. Her empathy and eloquence yield dozens of sensuous, life-affirming moments that offset the wartime brutalities she describes in gruesome detail.