Call Upon The Water: An English Novelist Writes About Marshes

The first time I noticed swamps as a setting was the Disney miniseries The Swamp Fox based on the life of real 18th century American revolutionary Francis Marion which I watched with fascination when I was a child.

As an adult, some of my friends were nature lovers and environmentalists who were aware of the need to preserve wetlands as a vital habitat for a variety of species.  They took me to visit local wetlands and encouraged me to support the cause of saving the swamps.

 Fast forward to 2018 when Where The Crawdads Sing by first time novelist Delia Owens became a mega-bestseller.  Nearly everyone I knew on Goodreads loved the unexpected tale of the despised and abandoned Marsh Girl, Kya.  I am a colossal avoider of widely hyped books, but I loved Kya  too.

More recently, I came across a Smithsonian article called Deep in the Swamps, Archaeologists are Finding How Fugitive Slaves Kept Their Freedom.  I  arrived at the realization that rebels, runaway slaves and marginalized people had been living in the swamps for centuries, but I thought this was a prototypical American story.

I had jumped to a conclusion too quickly.  It was an English story too.  That's what I found out through Call Upon The Water by Stella Tillyard which was offered to me in advance of publication for review by the publisher through Net Galley.  I seized upon it as an amazing example of serendipity.

                           

                                                                             
In England, the marshes were called fens.  There was an 11th century English revolutionary associated with the fens known as Hereward the Wake.  He is said to have led opposition to the Norman Conquest from the fens.  Eventually,  in pursuit of more arable land ,English property owners sought assistance  in draining their fens.

 It occurred to me while reading this book that claiming ownership of the fens and draining them is a continuation of the centuries long trend to diminish the commons.  The commons were lands that weren't privately owned.   Anyone could access them. The poor could survive by gathering edible plants, hunting and fishing in the commons.  Without the commons, the poor were completely dependent on the benevolence of landowners and employers.  The people who inhabited the fens could no longer make  an independent livelihood from the fens once they were drained.  The fens would become farmland, and their crops would be harvested for the benefit of the landowners.

  Draining wetlands had been central to the history of  the Netherlands.  For the Dutch, this was an essential nation building process.  I found a podcast and article about this swamp draining history from Amsterdam Radio. It's no wonder that when England sought to drain the fens in the 17th century, they called upon Dutch experts.

Call Upon The Water  primarily deals with the experiences of one of these Dutch swamp draining experts. Fictional character Jan Brunt arrived in England  in 1649 to assist in draining the Great Level. He meets Eliza, a local fenwoman.  He is impressed by her intelligence and her interest in his work. He feels compassion for Eliza and comes to love her.   Yet he really hasn't got a clue about what motivates her.  The trouble is that the reader doesn't really understand her either.

This is because of the author's choice to limit Eliza's perspective as a narrator to  the final chapters.  If this were a mystery like Where The Crawdads Sing, I would applaud Tillyard for enhancing suspense by causing us to continually wonder about Eliza.   I feel that Call Upon The Water is literary fiction, and that the lengthy absence of Eliza's perspective lessens the power of the novel. It also occurred to me that some readers might think that the author is telling us that Jan Brunt's perspective is the most important one. He does seem to be the most fully realized character.   He grows over the course of the narrative.  His orientation toward his work  and his feelings about wetlands change over his lifetime.  I wanted to have the same insight into Eliza's thought processes to perceive her entire character arc.  I wanted to know more about who she really was. Instead Eliza tells us that she had  no story until her viewpoint narrative began.  I found this frustrating and disappointing.

The Eliza we see in her viewpoint narrative is very pragmatic.  She knows what she wants and how to accomplish it.  She seems to have very little ambivalence, if any, about her choices.  She lacks vulnerability.  I find her understandable and worthy of respect, but not always sympathetic.   Brunt did have regrets about his choices.   So for me he is much more sympathetic.  

Aside from my problem with Eliza's characterization, I thought Call Upon The Water was an insightful historical novel that caused me to reflect on a variety of issues.  I also never thought I could end up admiring a character like Jan Brunt when I identify so strongly with outsiders like Delia Owens' character Kya.  That's an achievement as far as I'm concerned.  So bravo to Stella Tillyard.