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Winter Under Water, or, Conversation with the Elements
Is it possible to fully comprehend a person when you don't grasp the intricacies of their culture, when you don't share a homeland or a voice, when you have different definitions of the past and conflicting commitments in the present? What future is there for love when you find yourself the other side of language—a place where everything feels slowed down, reduced to gestures, as if under water?
When Joseph meets Marta, who has come to the UK to research the forgotten histories of remarkable women from across Europe, he is captivated, and Marta feels the same; when she returns to her previous life, their relationship continues through letters and phone calls. Then Joseph decides to visit Marta in her native Poland. His subsequent journey, across a continent, through the cold and dark of an unfamiliar country, proves as much a search for understanding—of a person, a place, a language—as it does a struggle against isolation.
Interlinking Joseph's often strange experiences with Marta's letters to him, Winter Under Water is a book of Europe, of myriad identities, of love and language. It is also, ultimately, a book that suggests you only truly know a person or a place when you can sit in silence and not feel compelled to break it—in any language.
When Joseph meets Marta, who has come to the UK to research the forgotten histories of remarkable women from across Europe, he is captivated, and Marta feels the same; when she returns to her previous life, their relationship continues through letters and phone calls. Then Joseph decides to visit Marta in her native Poland. His subsequent journey, across a continent, through the cold and dark of an unfamiliar country, proves as much a search for understanding—of a person, a place, a language—as it does a struggle against isolation.
Interlinking Joseph's often strange experiences with Marta's letters to him, Winter Under Water is a book of Europe, of myriad identities, of love and language. It is also, ultimately, a book that suggests you only truly know a person or a place when you can sit in silence and not feel compelled to break it—in any language.
- GenresPoland
348 pages, Hardcover
First published January 9, 2007
4 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 23, 2022
It is obvious from the opening sentence of Winter Under Water that the author possesses clear talent when it comes to crafting prose and a passion for his subject, but sadly, neither of these can save his book - it is simply not a compelling novel, and it pains me greatly to say this, as I very much wanted it to be one.
Set in the Polish city of Kraków, the ancient capital of the country and now a popular tourist trap, Winter Under Water is the story of a bizarre love triangle - of Joseph, an Englishman who falls in love with Marta, a Polish woman that he met in England, and then followed back into Poland. There's only one problem - Marta is married and has a young daughter...
It is clear to me that Hopkin has genuine passion for Polish culture, history and language, but as a native many things about it seemed off, and exaggerated for the purpose of enchanting the reader - reading his depiction of winter made me feel as if I was in the middle of Siberia, not in a large European country in the middle of the continent. Although the time period if never explicitly stated in the novel, it is meant to be early 2000's - and you'd never have guessed it from reading the novel; there are no cellphones, and computers and modern technology are almost nonexistent - if anything more modern than a steam engine was mentioned in this novel, I must have missed it - the weather is always grey and cold, buildings decayed and crumbling. The city is populated with many interesting characters of all nationalities, who are obviously based on the author's own personal encounters in the city, but they also beg the question: why not just write a travelog? I think the answer is clear - because writing a travelog doesn't allow one to exaggerate and make things up out of the whole cloth (unless, of course, the person writing said travelog thinks that they can get away with it) and writing fiction does. Most side characters in this book are too quirky, special and unique. I understand that it is their narrative role to make Joseph feel like a stranger in another country, but how could he not feel like one, when he never meets anyone who would treat him like a normal person? I think there might actually be a reason for them being this way...
...and said reason is, of course, our main characters being absolutely unremarkable and uninteresting, their relationship - if we can even call it one - being absolutely hamfisted into the narrative, as there is no plot to speak of otherwise.
Joseph leaves his country and follows married Marta to her own - but why? What makes her so special? We never know. Hopkin tells us how special she is, again and again, but never shows us what exactly is it that makes her special. Much of Marta's side of the story is presented in the form of her correspondence to Joseph - despite being a busy mother and researcher, she somehow finds the time to always write to him (just as she did before she came back to Poland, even if they have just met - if yo can believe that. I don't). Much of Marta's correspondence to Joseph is concerned with remarkable European women whose lives she's researching, which means that she's essentially infodumping poor Joseph with factoids regarding their lives for pages and pages on end. I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying that potential readers can skip not entire pages, but entire chapters of the book, and not miss out on anything. The fact that these two are having an affair can almost be excused, when Marta mentions her husband, who is one of the most lame male characters ever written in all of fiction. We never learn why Joseph and Marta love each other so much, and we certainly do not understand what made her marry this man in the first place - though, perhaps, her presentation of her husband as meek, submissive and uninteresting is her own way of justifying her own feelings and indecision regarding both men. Marta is torn by being divided between two men, but not too much. it seems. Or maybe I am just reading too much into poorly written characters and try to justify their existence with my interpretation...
As much as I appreciate the fact that the author is a clear Polonophile with demonstrable affection for this country, I cannot help but not see the fact that his book is flat-out boring, and despite several clever sentences offers very little substance. It is aimless, feels endless, and upon finishing it I felt as if actual weight was released from my shoulders - but it left me with no reward for the struggle I put in getting to the end.
Set in the Polish city of Kraków, the ancient capital of the country and now a popular tourist trap, Winter Under Water is the story of a bizarre love triangle - of Joseph, an Englishman who falls in love with Marta, a Polish woman that he met in England, and then followed back into Poland. There's only one problem - Marta is married and has a young daughter...
It is clear to me that Hopkin has genuine passion for Polish culture, history and language, but as a native many things about it seemed off, and exaggerated for the purpose of enchanting the reader - reading his depiction of winter made me feel as if I was in the middle of Siberia, not in a large European country in the middle of the continent. Although the time period if never explicitly stated in the novel, it is meant to be early 2000's - and you'd never have guessed it from reading the novel; there are no cellphones, and computers and modern technology are almost nonexistent - if anything more modern than a steam engine was mentioned in this novel, I must have missed it - the weather is always grey and cold, buildings decayed and crumbling. The city is populated with many interesting characters of all nationalities, who are obviously based on the author's own personal encounters in the city, but they also beg the question: why not just write a travelog? I think the answer is clear - because writing a travelog doesn't allow one to exaggerate and make things up out of the whole cloth (unless, of course, the person writing said travelog thinks that they can get away with it) and writing fiction does. Most side characters in this book are too quirky, special and unique. I understand that it is their narrative role to make Joseph feel like a stranger in another country, but how could he not feel like one, when he never meets anyone who would treat him like a normal person? I think there might actually be a reason for them being this way...
...and said reason is, of course, our main characters being absolutely unremarkable and uninteresting, their relationship - if we can even call it one - being absolutely hamfisted into the narrative, as there is no plot to speak of otherwise.
Joseph leaves his country and follows married Marta to her own - but why? What makes her so special? We never know. Hopkin tells us how special she is, again and again, but never shows us what exactly is it that makes her special. Much of Marta's side of the story is presented in the form of her correspondence to Joseph - despite being a busy mother and researcher, she somehow finds the time to always write to him (just as she did before she came back to Poland, even if they have just met - if yo can believe that. I don't). Much of Marta's correspondence to Joseph is concerned with remarkable European women whose lives she's researching, which means that she's essentially infodumping poor Joseph with factoids regarding their lives for pages and pages on end. I don't think I'm exaggerating by saying that potential readers can skip not entire pages, but entire chapters of the book, and not miss out on anything. The fact that these two are having an affair can almost be excused, when Marta mentions her husband, who is one of the most lame male characters ever written in all of fiction. We never learn why Joseph and Marta love each other so much, and we certainly do not understand what made her marry this man in the first place - though, perhaps, her presentation of her husband as meek, submissive and uninteresting is her own way of justifying her own feelings and indecision regarding both men. Marta is torn by being divided between two men, but not too much. it seems. Or maybe I am just reading too much into poorly written characters and try to justify their existence with my interpretation...
As much as I appreciate the fact that the author is a clear Polonophile with demonstrable affection for this country, I cannot help but not see the fact that his book is flat-out boring, and despite several clever sentences offers very little substance. It is aimless, feels endless, and upon finishing it I felt as if actual weight was released from my shoulders - but it left me with no reward for the struggle I put in getting to the end.
August 4, 2011
It was clear within just a couple of pages that this was an author with a formidable talent for language. There is enough lyrical prose here to keep an English Literature class going for the entire academic year. Plot-wise, things move slowly. Set in Poland around the time of that country's joining the EU it follows Joseph, a bohemian painter type, in pursuit of a Polish woman he met the summer before. Their relationship is continued mainly in letter form (our Polish heroine writes English better than most English people), and we watch as Joseph attempts to transcend nationality, telling passing Poles he is 'not foreign', much to their perplexity. I learned a great deal about Poland, its language and the ways in which Communism has left its mark on Polish society. This is what I found the most interesting. It intrigued me that the author did not name any of the cities involved, but went to the lengths, at one point, of pinpointing one of them in terms of lines of latitute and longitude. I can only conclude that he wanted the reader to consult a reference book, which is exactly what I did.
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