Night Over Day Over Night

by Paul Watkins

As Sebastian Westland journeys from childhood to the bloody proving ground of men, he loses everything by which he knows himself: his past, his innocence, finally his name. His struggle to survive a war he scarcely comprehends is rendered in the urgent, beautifully spare, memorable prose of a born storyteller.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, Literary Fiction, Literature, War

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 1988

About the author

Paul Watkins is an American author who currently lives with his wife and two children in Hightstown, New Jersey. He is a teacher and writer-in-residence at The Peddie School, and formerly taught at Lawrenceville School. He attended the Dragon School, Oxford, Eton and Yale University. He received a B.A. from Yale and was a University Fellow at Syracuse University, New York. His recollections of his time at the Dragon School and Eton form his autobiographical work Stand Before Your God: An American Schoolboy in England.

Writes crime fiction set at the birth of Stalin's Russia under Sam Eastland.

Reviews

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Quite blown away by the end of this one. Yes, it's a war story, told from the point of view of a 17 year old German who ends up in the Waffen SS in 1944. Remember that for later.

The first thing that got me was the opening. Coincidentally, I started this immediately after finishing Nick Arvin's Articles of War (I'm on a war novel kick at the moment...don't ask). One of my peeves with Articles was the overly sentimental love story between the 17 year old protagonist and a pretty French girl. This story has "love story" subplot too, but a more twisted, unhealthy one between a school kid (Sebastian) and an older married woman, and it's just rotten with emotional manipulation. Finally, some realism! On page one, Sebastian tries to leave her. She tells him to go ahead, find a cow-faced farm girl. They throw things. And then "She ran over to the mess of perfume on the floor and splashed her hand in it. Then she ran at me and spread it on my coat. She grabbed me by the neck and wiped the smell of the perfume through my hair and across my face. 'She'll smell us. She'll smell us and then she'll know. You belong to me.' "

By now, I'm thinking "this isn't what I expected. It's better".

There's a great complex story here, following young Sebastian through his training and into the Battle of the Bulge. The final battle stretches over several days and was for me a difficult, unrelenting read. And yet I was surprised at how much I'd grown to empathize with Sebastian and his companions, and found myself (uncharacteristically) heartwrenched by what happens to them.

It seemed to me the author really knew his "stuff"--that is, the training and equipment, what it looked like, how it was used--to a surprising level of detail (even the type of paint on the Tiger, or how to pull the pin in a stick grenade). Impressive, considering the author was in his mid-20s when he published. My only tiny quibble, however, were a few minor "American" details that occasionally jarred me out of the story. For instance, at one point Sebastian is eating his lunch at school out of a paper bag--German schools even today end before lunchtime. Students go home for lunch and there are no afternoon classes. The other was the proliferation of private automobiles (also culturally American). Sebastian's older lover, who I assumed was middle class, owned a car and was still driving it around in late 1944, when even the military didn't have gasoline--where did she get hers? I also think the inclusion of the characters' responses to the racial policies of the day would have brought them more historical texture and complexity (...and complicity).

Overall, a gripping & unforgettable experience despite a few stumbles.

[Brad Erickson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful, intense novel from the perspective of a 17 year old German soldier in the last months of WW2. Slightly reminds me, in its intensity and movement and perspective, of All Quiet On the Western Front. 4.5 stars.

[Michiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can a teenage British boy write a book about the ardenne battle that feels like a account by someone that has lived through it? It is a raw book, changes you after reading it.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have greatly enjoyed the works of Paul Watkins that I've come upon, and looked forward to reaching back and checking out this, his first novel -- the novel which brought him some acclaim.

Fortunately this was not my first venture into the works of Paul Watkins or I likely never would have read more.

In the previous books of Paul Watkins that I've come across, his protagonists are all of the same ilk, rather dry, melancholic sorts, but they've all had goals ... something to strive for or something to discover. Sebastian Westland here seems lost. In all aspects of his life, he is lost. But more than that, he doesn't even seem to mind being lost. I was tempted to think that he was searching for a way to stay alive, but I don't know that this would be true.

With a character who is lost and doesn't care, and a setting and character background that is so incredibly foreign, what then is there to hold the reader to the story?

My recommendation is to pass on this and try one of Watkins' other books.

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

World War 2 as seen from the perspective of a young German SS enlistee, Sebastian Westland. He comes of age just in time to participate in the final assault known as The Battle of the Bulge. His experiences are told in a matter-of-fact style. Through the brutal weeks of training camp and the horrific events of battle, Watkins gives very little emotional depth to our main character, Sebastian. Plenty of excellent gritty detail throughout, but not much feeling.
Friends are killed, no comment.
Take shoes and clothes from prisoners in the freezing snow, no comment.
Kill your commanding officer, no comment.
A good war novel, not great.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best WWII fiction book I have ever read. Told from the perspective of a young German who has no choice but too enlist late in the war when it is already almost over. It manages to humanize a Nazi SS man. Read it and you will see what I mean. A non stop Action Cabaret.

['Lana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book from the moment I unearthed it. It was dark (as the genre suggests) but had an unmistakle humane side to dealing with WWII from a perspective we don't normally see. Had me laughing and crying in quick succession. A wonderful story and a joy to read.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humane yet unflinching in its handling of the moral ambiguity of war, this fictional account of a young SS soldier's experiences at the close of WWII is mesmerising. One of the few works of fiction to make an indelible mark on me.

[Gregory Lamb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read almost all of Paul's novels. This one stands out among them all as the most creative. The mood and dialog are superb and the historical aspect of the story is intriguing.

[Sean Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Among the most unusual war novels I've read, full of nuance and in the end a sense of horror. Seemed like a darker version of "Platoon."

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really wonderful view of the end of the war from a young German soldier's perspective. I've give it 4.5 if I could.

[Shannon Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly written- great story of a surreal experience that many went through

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sebastian Westland’s progress, from 1944 Bad Godesberg student through 13 weeks of SS army training in late 1944 to the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge, is convincingly portrayed in this 1988 novel. It's all realistic with some powerful images, historical veracity (except for a German civilian regularly using a car), a large range of characters particularly his fellow recruits who are all individualised, and compelling descriptions of bombardment and the confusion of battle. It all shows the terror and waste of war in a thought-provoking read.

[Jordan Welsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was something interesting i read very fast. There's a sense of real absenceness in this book, Sebastian feels almost detached to everything until when it all starts hitting the bricks when they face combat. Don't know why but it really struck a chord with myself.

[Kim Tumblod · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was 17. It's less entertaining when you grow older. I loved it though.

[Tom]

Battlefield fiction is a tough niche to sustain for more than a few pages. Yet, in his debut novel, author Paul Watkins keeps the reader engaged for nearly 300 pages as he follows a young German SS recruit marching into the Battle of the Bulge to near-certain death. Watkins, fresh out of Eton and Yale, was just 23 when he penned “Night over Day over Night” back in 1988. Although he had researched many European battlefields, he had never fought in a war himself, which makes his vivid tale all the more amazing.
The story is told through the first-person voice of Sebastian as he leaves a training camp and heads to the front. Along the way, there are a couple of final trysts with his hometown lover, an older married woman, a foreshadowing that he probably won’t return to enjoy ordinary domestic life.
One weakness in the narrative is that the secondary characters, Sebastian’s fellow soldiers, are just sketchily drawn, so their personalities tend to blur together. It’s difficult to remember who might be Sebastian’s best buddy and who is just another guy in the platoon. As they are killed off, one by one, Sebastian keeps his emotions in rigid check. Only once or twice does he give way to tears or screaming. By the end, he is simply numb.
In sum, the novel depicts the insanity and randomness of war -- scores of lives wasted to gain control of a miserable village that will be left behind the next day. Whatever the soldiers do to survive and continue marching hardly matters. Their fate hangs on the life of Hitler. Once he is gone, their lives have become meaningless.