The Great Level

by Stella Tillyard

A ‘magical, haunting’ (Philippa Gregory) novel of a tragic love affair in a threatened worldIn 1649, Jan Brunt, a Dutchman, arrives in England to work on draining and developing the Great Level, an expanse of marsh in the heart of the fen country. It is here he meets Eliza, whose love overturns his ordered vision and whose act of resistance forces him to see the world differently. Jan flees to the New World, where the spirit of avarice is raging and his skills as an engineer are prized. Then one spring morning a boy delivers a note that prompts him to remember the fens, and confront all that was lost there.‘The most beautiful historical novel you’ll read all year… Extraordinary’ Simon Schama‘Richly involving… The story of a strange and passionate relationship’ Guardian‘If you want to be utterly transported to another time, another place, read The Great Level. A haunting depiction of love and difference’ Amanda Vickery

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

242 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 5, 2018

About the author

Stella Tillyard is a British novelist and historian. She was educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her bestselling book Aristocrats was made into a miniseries for BBC1/Masterpiece Theatre, and sold to over twenty countries. Winner of the Meilleur Livre Etranger, the Longman-History Today Prize, and the Fawcett Prize, Tillyard has taught at Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, London. She is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. Her latest novel is Call Upon the Water (published in the UK under the title The Great Level).

Reviews

[Beata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I read the review in The Guardian, I have wanted to read this book ..... the story, set in the mid of the 17th century, of Jan Brunt, a Dutch engineer who comes to East Anglia to drain the marshes , is told in a most beautiful prose .... Jan is the narrator and describes his undertaking with love, as for him shaping the land is something more than just making it available for agricultural purposes although fields which are ploughed and give fruit are part of his vision ... His engineering efforts are not centred on money, although he is hired by a group of entrepreneurs who see profit in these drained land. Jan combines his skills and artistry .... And the Fens enchant him ... so does the local woman whom he meets and begins to love .... Jan finds his place on earth in New Amsterdam, which becomes New York, and where he leads modest, solitary life. I liked Eliza, who, though she begins as a slave on tobacco fields, is intelligent and makes her way in the New World. This is a marvellous, marvellous historical novel ...... I literally was unable to put this novel down ...... and it'll stay with me for a long time ..... what else could a reader ask for? ...........

[Will Byrnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

That is what I believed: that time nibbles away at the future, and in that moment puts the present behind its back. The past retreats as each present moment joins it, on and on. Yet that is far too simple. Inside us, time sways backwards and forwards from now to then, here to there, and nothing of it is lost or goes away, but it all hangs everywhere, translucent in the air. Some men turn away, and walk on, saying that the past contains only their former selves and ghosts of people and deeds. Others, like myself, live every day with it. One minute I am in Nieuw Amsterdam, the next pulled on a string into the other time that comes with me, so that here on the Heere Gracht, or as I walk across the marketplace, you and I talk.

========================================

Looking back is a game for fools and not one that I like to play.

It is 1664. Jan Brunt, a reclusive Dutch bachelor and engineer, lives in what will soon become New York. When he receives a letter announcing the arrival of an old friend, he looks back to the greatest professional and personal challenge of his life, the first his work as an engineer on one of the greatest European development projects of the pre-industrial age, The Great Level, a draining of five hundred square miles of wetland in southeastern England and transformation of it into arable farmland. The second, the relationship he forms with a local woman while working on that vast endeavor, the love of his life. His story flips back and forth between these two periods.


Stella Tillyard - image from BBC

The Great Level is an historical novel of a time, during an ongoing English Civil War, when there was much turmoil, and much change happening in the world. It offers powerful portraits of significant places of the era, London of the interregnum, for example, with surreptitious street vendors peddling images of a decapitated King Charles, and a very visible military presence, of the sort one might expect in an occupied country. Another picture, of what is now East Anglia, shows its idyllic appeal as a natural place, in which the residents fight no wars against the natural order that provides them their livelihoods, and then later offers a dark view of the modernization, the denaturing of the place, with the use of hordes of slave laborers, prisoners of war from England’s ongoing battles. We get a look at 1664 New York, well, Niew Amsterdam, Manatus Eylandt, as the Dutch development of it grows northward, when Wall Street was still a wall, and the swampy edges of the island, as well as many wet inland spots beckoned the real estate developers of the time, and provided ample employment for an experienced Dutch engineer. We witness its handover to the English, who rename it for a crown favorite. And we get a look at the Virginia of the time, heavy with indentured labor, not yet so heavy with slaves. It appears that in the latter 17th century, every place is in need of draining, and conversion of wet land at the edges of solid land is de rigeur for the advancement of certain sorts of civilization, regardless of how that land provided for the residents, who are regarded as primitives, whether they are English fenlanders or Native Americans. Colonialism both at home and abroad requires denigration of the displaced residents.


The fens - image from The Guardian

Eliza is one such. During his early paddling through the vast area to be redesigned in The Great Level, Jan comes across a group of local women bathing. One disrobes as he draws near, unaware. Virginal Janny is shocked

So I see her as I have never seen a woman, her whole nakedness, half in my plain sight, half reflected in the water. And in the same instant, or so it feels, she lifts her head and sees me there. Her furious eyes strip me of everything and make me as naked as herself.

Well, not quite. Mortified Janny is smitten at the first instant of seeing his personal siren. When I look up I see the mere, the water and the sky, all unchanged. But I know that everything is altered and translated. I spin the coracle, work abandoned and paddle back to Ely, heavy with whatever is inside me. Guy never had a chance. Of course, he is bewitched in the way many a young man can be. (I was young once, I know) From that day on I live a different life. Something has happened to me…straight away I accept and ingest it. The woman I saw, who saw me, has taken up residence inside me… They begin to encounter each other on the water, then closer, then closer, then, well, you know, they become an item.

Each has something to teach the other, she the ways of the fenfolk, who make use of the bounty of their watery land. Like Professor Doolittle, although not to win a bet, he teaches her to read, write, very much at her request. He is making her over, as his company is making over the land. But she is no passive recipient. He teaches her also how to measure, in essence how to be an engineer. One might see Eliza not only as a siren figure but as a personification of the land itself.

From that day the sun shines on everything in the world. It feels to me as if I have a new knowledge, and that the change that came over me when you first fixed me with your glance was the beginning of it. This knowledge is not from a person or a book. It is a knowledge of what is, neither sacred nor profane, but just the world itself.

Already open to such vision, he notes more and more of the nature of the place as he spends more time with Eliza.

Stand still in a full silence and it’s loud with noises. A heron takes flight; he creaks like a ship in sail. Ducks scuffle in the reeds. I hear the beat of wings, the movement of creatures in the grass, water rippling, and the wind that accompanies me everywhere, sighing and roaring. Nature, that seems so quiet, pours out its songs. Even in the darkness there is a velvet purr of sound, of moles underground and field mice above.

One of the powerful elements of the novel is the portrayal of Eliza as a powerful woman, not only surviving in the perilous world of men, but using the knowledge she gains to survive the challenges she faces on two continents, and to secure what she wants from the universe, and maybe take a shot or two at what she perceives as dark forces.

One of the lesser elements of the book is the static nature of Jan. He is a bit stiff, personally, while possessing a naturalist’s feel for the untrammeled world. He has some notions of the sort of life he would like to build for himself, but seems unable to adapt to changes in his circumstances, remaining withdrawn and solitary. I hoped for more development of Jan’s character. Both Jan and Eliza are mostly about business, but Eliza seems much the livelier character of the two.
Jan goes through little character development, only from a young engineer to an experienced and confident one. He remains stand-offish, and sinks into the swamp of his unwillingness to act.


The fens - image from The Guardian

They share an appreciation for the beauty of the land, whether the fenlands of the Great Level or the new, exciting lands of the New World. Those are lyrical passages.

This is a novel of man in and versus nature, of colonialism at home and abroad, of both people and landscapes being subdued by political and monetary forces. Land as a source of power and freedom is central. Consideration is given to how one perceives time, Jan holding to a notion that time is a flexible thing, that one can inhabit multiple times simultaneously. This is contrasted with a New World perspective, that disdains any sort of rearward vision, and focuses on material success.

While Jan’s story makes up the bulk of the book, as he addresses his story to Eliza, she gets a chance to narrate towards the back of the book. I would have preferred to have seen their perspectives alternated, instead of being presented so separately, and would have liked learning much more about Eliza’s life before her home turf was so assaulted. A greater balance between their two tales would have been most welcome.

There are elements of excitement and danger, as the prisoners forced to work on the Great Level are less than willing, but are held in check by a dark sort who would look perfectly lovely in an SS uniform. The locals, as well, are not ecstatic about seeing their entire way of life bulldozed out of existence, and do not all endure it peacefully. Eliza’s experience is rich with peril, and we want her to find a way to survive.

Bottom line is that The Great Level is a fascinating look at several places at a time in history most of us do not think about or see much in our diverse readings and entertainments. It is a worthwhile read for that alone. It offers a thoughtful look at the appeal of both nature untrammeled and the satisfying power of taming landscape, counterflows within individuals, as well as in the larger context. The love story is wonderful, for a time. But Jan seemed, despite his lyrical feelings for nature, just too withheld. You can rub two sticks together, but there will not always be a spark. There was one here, for a while, but after the initial heat, the ember never graduated to flame. That said, there is much to like here. And it probably won’t drain all your resources to check it out.

In the summer I may paddle on for days. I catch fish and travel as the wildmen do until I reach the far end of the island where it breaks into numerous inlets and beaches. Then I walk down to the open ocean and feel myself to be not a man but a part of nature, as is a star, or a dolphin that leaps for joy out in the bay. Far away round our earth lies the old world, while here I stand on the new. Waves rush up to my feet and then pull back, marbled with sand and foam.

Review posted – October 11, 2019

Publication dates
-----UK – July 5, 2018 - by Chato Windus
-----USA – September 17, 2019 – as Call Upon the Water - by Atria Books


=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and GR pages

Her personal site is not particularly current.

Tillyard is a historian, best known for her bio of the Lennox Sisters, The Aristocrats, which was made into a very successful mini-series in 1999. In addition to her historical works, Tillyard published her first novel, Tides of War, in 2011.

Items of Interest
----- STREET PLAN OF NEW AMSTERDAM AND COLONIAL NEW YORK. - from the NYC Landmarks Preservation commission
-----The Guardian - ‘Weirder than any other landscape’: a wild walk in the Fens - by Patrick Barkham
-----Evening News - Norwich raised historian to release new book - by Rosanna Elliott

The author said: “Growing up in Norwich I was certainly aware of the fens, and I remember passing Ely often on the way to visit my grandparents in Cambridge. The great skies of East Anglia have always been inside me, and I still love flat landscapes and marshes.
“I am sure that inspired my choice of the fens when I thought about climate change, flooding and the changing use and exploitation of land and people.”
“There are little details in the book that come from my family history in Norwich,” said Tillyard, “Jan, my hero, buys boots from Norwich, where there are fine leather workers who have begun to settle there, fleeing from persecution in France.
“This is what my own Huguenot ancestors did. They were leather workers who by the 18th century had set up in Elm Hill in Norwich. The business eventually became Norvic Shoes, with a large factory in St George’s Plain.

[Ingrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. Historical facts mixed with a personal story which I enjoyed very much. The main characters are not worked out in depth. The author observes them throughout their lives and relates the observations to the reader. It's a fairytale style of writing, but well done, I felt I was there.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now this should have been a book I enjoyed.

It has chapters set in my place of birth (Kings Lynn) and many others set at the very foundation of the City I visit monthly (New York – as it transitions from New Amsterdam)
Golden Hill
The Kings Lynn (and Ely) part is around the draining of the Fens – a landscape which has inspired great writing such as Fen by Daisy Johnson, Waterland by Graham Swift and Paul Kingsnorth's The Wake.

The New York part similar in many ways to the setting of Francis Spufford’s exuberant debut novel .

Further the book is by a respected historian and set in one of the most fascinating periods of English (and early Colonial) history – the revolution and restoration. Its main narrator is an engineer – just like the wonderful Dublin Literary and Goldsmith winning Solar Bones by Mike McCormack.

Returning to this book ...

The main character and main first party narrator of the book is a Dutchman Jan Brunt – who, with his engineering knowledge developed in the dams and polders of Holland, accepts a position in 1649 as one of the lead engineers on the project to drain the marshes in the Fens around Ely.

Each part of the book starts with a section set in Nieuw Amsterdam, where a largely solitary and withdrawn Jan, still acting as an advisor on water drainage, is confronted with a note promising a visit from someone he has not seen for many years – which in turn causes him to reflect on the events of the Great Level.

The Great Level parts are full of details of the drainage – perhaps the most interesting element is the heavy use of forced labour (firstly Irish and later Covenanter prisoners of war of Cromwell). Sadly though the actual engineering and drainage elements themselves do not come to life – they are neither entertaining or informative and I felt I would have been much better served by a non-fictional treatment of the Great Level. Another element is the almost pagan nature of the marsh dwellers – captured in Eliza a fey, almost ghost like woman who visits him and with whom he forms an intense relationship: however I found this part rather strained credibility.

The sections in the American colonies are stronger – and particularly a whole part which switches to the first party voice of Eliza – an Eliza who is a far more interesting and compelling character and whose hints of her reappearance bring into life the depths of Jan’s character. Her transformation from the character of the first part is best described as like the Doolittle of Pygmalion - presumably deliberately given her first name, but was weakened for me by her somewhat fantasy like presence in the Great Level sections.

So certainly an interesting book but one which felt short of the Great Level of my expectations – the sections set in the UK draining my enthusiasm as efficiently as Jan does the Fens.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stella Tillyard’s The Great Level is an absolute stunner. It’s everything that I want in an historical novel: a completely immersive reading experience, feeling submerged in a previously unknown historical epoch and previously unknown historical locales. After Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones, whoever would have thought that another novel about a civil engineer could be so fully absorbing, especially one located in seventeenth century England and Manhattan. Tillyard recounts the struggles of Dutch civil engineers, supported by wealthy gentry, prisoners, and soldiers, struggle to reclaim arable land from the fenlands surrounding the Isle of Ely. Tillyard invents fully believable characters—and especially Jan Brunt and Eliza—who involve us in their lives.

Jan's voice is especially convincing and powerful. Here he speaks of his work: "But my pleasure, when I talk of my work, has a darkening edge. It has come to me that for one world to be made, another must die. Now, as my vision begins to come into being, I am filled with sadness as well as joy. I have seen that this unimproved world has its own way of being which will will be lost. It has, even, its own splendor." And here Jan speaks of memory: "It is said that the contrary of to forget is to remember, yet that axiom sounds now like something learned at school, a verse recited or a catechism, just a story in language. The contrary of to forget, I see now, is to be a part of, to live with and to share. I watch the ocean disappear behind me and know that a life without a past is a thin one, a life starved of voices and nourishment. I will not forget; I will let memory live. . ."

The Great Level for me is also a testament to the power of browsing in an excellent bookstore. Almost all of what I read now is by less than two handfuls of favorite novelists—Brookner, Green, Modiano, Roth, Rhys, Robinson—or from recommendations gleaned from book reviews, literary friends, or prize lists. But I discovered The Great Level on a table with recently published fiction in Toppings and Company, with a lovely dustjacket and an inviting “signed first edition” ribbon (no sticker, thank you very much).

One small quibble, and one which I hope Chatto & Windus addresses in a future edition. The Great Level is a novel that demands illustrative endpapers and hand-drawn maps of both the Great Level and Manatus Eylandt.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jan Brunt is a Dutchman who moves from the Netherlands to England to work on the drainage of the Fens around Ely. Years later he's living in New Amsterdam and thinking back to his time in England in the 164os/50s when the country was still in tumultuous times following the civil war. I found this a little wordy at times and the story often moved slowly but it was beautifully written and an interesting story. My only quibble is that the text was rather small and it felt a bit of a strain to read it.

[Kinga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jan Brunt arrives in Norfolk to drain The Fens and increase the amount of arable land, funded by Norfolk's famous son: Oliver Cromwell. In Norfolk, he meets and starts a relationship with Eliza, who later tells her story and becomes a three-dimensional character on a page. The story eventually moves to New Amsterdam, where we find Jan a bit of a recluse, still earning his way as an engineer. I was fascinated by the story of draining The Fens, as Norfolk is just north of Suffolk where I live. The engineering and work involved in bending nature to human endeavour has always fascinated me and I wanted to find out more about how you stop water from spreading in a low-lying piece of land. Ideally, I would have loved a couple of maps: one of Norfolk and one of New Amsterdam, showing the difference between the modern-day maps we are familiar with. Those short-comings aside, this was a great book.

[Tina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m sure this is worth more than my 2 stars as it’s beautifully written. It’s just for me.

[Charlotte Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are two problems with this book; one and its pace and two the ending. Mostly told from the point of view of the engineer Jan Brunt, the story creeps along at a frustrating pace until the second voice of Eliza is introduced. She is brave, intelligent and curious and ultimately she turns a punishment into an opportunity.

I can't help but feel that if Eliza's point of view and indeed her story was introduced a little earlier that this story would have been more rounded and engaging. For too long she is just a cardboard cut out character, we know too little of her history and her motivations. The people of the fens must have been worried about the draining of the fans and fearful for their futures, this fact is made much of at the beginning of the book, but then is never really fully examined. I feel this is a great shame and could have been explored and given voice to by Eliza.

[Mitch Karunaratne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about land drainage isn't everyones cup of tea, but I loved it! I know this part of the world well, and have spent many professional years photographing it - so to spend time in words with someone who clearly and intimately knows the area, can feel the land and absorb the senses and power of the very unique landscape - was a real privilege. The final third of the book - one we left the Fenland area - didn't have the same power for me, but in the Fens section I was blown away - I've never read anything so powerful about this part of the land.

[Zoe Radley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow she evokes so much life and vivid details of the fens, Netherlands as well as the new land (America) in the early part of the 17th century. Wow what a novel, haunting and breathtaking and just rich in detail I wanted to savour every page. This is one book I wanted to finish and yet did not want it to end... I might be tempted to buy it.

[Kirsty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This sounded as though it would be a fascinating read, but I got about 50 pages of the way through before giving up on it. I found the narrative voice stilted and dull, and simply was not interested enough to continue.

[Owen Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

can’t lie got bored - couldn’t get into it, couldn’t get to grips with the present tense fsr idk fuck it maybe I am just stressed and couldn’t take on any new info might just go read about knausgaard’s dead dad again instead bosh

[Kate Hughes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very few redeeming features. I enjoyed the last 20% but it was a battle to get there, and the ending itself was disappointing

[Keith Redhead & Wootton Bookworms · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Great Level by Stella Tillyard
The Great Level by Stella Tillyard is a historical novel set in the 1600’s. Jan Brunt is a Dutch engineer who has an opportunity to ply his trade in England. Through a family connection he is introduced to Cornelius Vermuyden and is to work under another Dutchmen to drain the Great Level, land acquired by General Cromwell following the English civil war. The Venture is financed by ‘Gentleman Adventurers’.
Jan is a quiet man, from a reserved, non-tactile family. The author describes the family from a portrait depicting his departure from Holland. Jan could be considered on the spectrum. He is well qualified, capable of understanding mathematics and surveying, maps and charts. He takes pride in embellishing the end product with motifs and creations to enhance the expected outcome. However, he has no experience of running such a huge project and little experience of relationships with others and perhaps the real world.
He finds post-Civil war London ruined “God has deserted this place”. He questions who owns the great levels and Vermuyden informs him “The land belongs to the realm formerly the king”. It is “inhabited by lazy and barbarous people who trap eels and other such trash foods”.
For anyone interested in Fenland it is a fascinating read. The landscape before the Fens were drained is described by Jan as he spends time alone taking measurements from his coracle where, in this landscape, he finds peace and tranquillity. It is on one of these surveying journeys that he encounters one of the Fenland people, Eliza and his life changes profoundly.
The book is brilliantly written. Chapters switch in time between the fenland and New Amsterdam. Many themes are encountered including land ownership, capitalism, engineering, the use of prisoners of war as slaves to build projects. There is rebellion and mystery, passion, racism, adventure opportunity and liberation. There is also a reflection on the merits and demerits of progress and human attitudes towards it. Tillyard captures this skilfully as Jan describes his journey “Though my canoe is long enough for 2 men, I propel it with ease with a single paddle first one side and then the other. The Wildman like to face forwards in their canoes and see clearly what they are approaching. I do the same, yet I still prefer the pull of the oars and to look as we do in memory back to where I started. I fancy that therein lies a difference between an old world and a new”.
We thoroughly recommend this book which stimulated our interest to read more from this author and also this period of time. 8/10

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's surprising that the draining of the English Fens in the mid-seventeenth century hasn't inspired more novelists. It's an event with plenty of material: a country still reeling from a brutal civil war and regicide, the culture clashes between the locals and the Dutch engineers brought over by the King to get the job done and between old established ways of life and the emerging modern world, between religion and science and so on. Stella Tillyard makes the most of this rich seam of history in The Great Level, which follows the lives of two characters, Jan Brunt, a Dutch surveyor and engineer, and Eliza, a local fen woman whose paths cross only briefly but whose stories remain interlinked over many years. In a story that ranges back and forth across time and place (taking in Amsterdam, Ely, King's Lynn, New Amsterdam (New York) and a Virginia Plantation, this is highly effective storytelling set against a fascinating period of British history. It has an extra resonance for me as I was born and brought up not far from the Fens and now live on the edge of the Humberhead Levels, another fenland area drained by Vermuyden and his Dutch engineers shortly before he embarked on his project to reclaim the Great Level, and which bred similar local resentment and resistance.

[Amy Mischa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tore thru it at speed but then it's the Fens + New Amsterdam + the mid 17th century, the special move a book can pull off to catch my attention. But was it good? Well, yes, tho I kept wishing it were a different book. I wanted more characters, more time, more pages, more scenes, more more more. Is it fair to judge a book for not being the one you wanted it to be? I struggle with that q when reviewing. On some level it's a fair question: we want a bad book to be a good one. But do we always want a failure to be a success? Not if it would change the nature of the attempt. In this case, I think, I would have liked more risk, more unearthliness, more daring. Would a fuller, longer, grander version of this one have been a better, a greater, a 5 star one? Would it have fallen apart and becoming boring, a 2 star affair with some nice ideas but a boggy execution? Would the risk of the latter be worth the chance at the former? Or is it more productive, does it put more solid literature into the world, to sluice out the excess and drain it off, and make neat, worthwhile little novels?
I'm settling with 4 stars, in many ways the most cowardly score. If I were reviewing myself, as a reader, in this case, I would not award myself so high a score.

[KateKing58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book group choice, selected after one of my friends heard someone enthusing about it in a second-hand book shop. A very happy accident!

Usually we start the meeting with general chat, but this time we jumped straight in. We weren't much taken by Jan Brundt, who we found cold, distant and passive. For us, Eliza was the power and the enigma at the heart of the book.

We were frustrated that her voice was heard only after she was deported to America. It is a powerful voice, that of a practical, pragmatic, resilient, ambitious woman. We could hear from her words how much Jan meant to her, this man who didn't try to control or own her, who respected her independence, and who relished her intelligence. But there was so much more that we wanted to know. At what point in the relationship did she become a spy, when did she pass on the information that helped the Fenmen destroy the drainage channel, and how did she feel about the deaths that action caused?

This is a beautiful, atmospheric book, with a strong sence of place and time. But the primacy given to the less interesting protagonist means 4 rather than 5 stars from me.

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars, in the end, I think, for this book which did provide the most evocative visit to this corner of the UK since Graham Swift's "Waterland", but still wasn't quite perfect. The narrator, repetitive as he is, unable to convince he's living in the time of Pepys as he is, gives us a way in to an extraordinary undertaking, for he's a Dutch engineer and Cromwell has indirectly employed him to drain the Fens, the Levels of the title between Ely and the North Sea coast. But lo and behold, a woman has got in the way... The book proves itself "woke" (yeuch) about colonial thoughts, and the use of slave labour as Cromwell was wont to use, but with or without the additional scenes in later New York as the Dutch quite quickly lost hold on that city, it still provides with a very strong and enjoyable narrative. Until it changes, for a woman has got in the way... Yes, it's better on the Fens than on Feminism, but it's still worth considering.

[Graham X. · Rating 4 out of 5]

An evocative story linked to the draining of the fens around the English Wash, with a prequel in Holland (I'm being geographically precise here) and and a postscript in the N American colonies. There's a great sense of place, wherever the action is taking place, and the characters seem plausible for their era yet not incomprehensible to a modern reader. The main character is sometimes frustrating to read about, but he would have been frustrating to know, so what can you do?
I thought I knew something of the local history as well as something about Cromwell's Irish campaign, but I didn't know there was a connection. That kind of historical detail and wider social setting are a highlight of the book, but the basic plot and characters are mysterious and compelling in themselves. It's not a thriller, though the plot is complex and strong, so if you like atmospheric and thought-provoking stories I recommend it.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very atmospheric historical novel about a Dutchman, Jan Brunt, who comes to be part of a project to tame the water courses in the fens in East Anglia, just after the English Civil War. Some of the descriptive writing is brilliantly done, conjuring up scenes like Dutch paintings. The detail of the project is also interestingly conveyed. The scenes in East Anglia were my favourite parts of the book, there is a parallel narrative told by Jan about his later life in New Amsterdam, which becomes New York in the course of the book, which is interesting but less compelling. A third strand describes the later story of the woman who became his lover in East Anglia, which seemed a bit fantastical. But overall definitely recommended.

[Sue Fleming · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent achievement by the author. The book is well researched and historically accurate, but the facts do not take over from the story. Set partly in England at the end of the Civil War and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and partly in New Amsterdam as it is taken over by the English and renamed New York, the story follows Jan Brunt, a Dutch engineer, who works on the draining of the Fens and later goes to America. Throughout the book the characters, whether overseers, Irish and Scottish lalourers and prisoners, Fen folk, indentured laborers in the New World or landowners are true to life. The novel is a love story but it is much more than that. It is a story of its time.

[Theresa Crawforth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written, but I struggled to be gripped or taken in by the story. My nature railed against the idea of draining the lands, knowing what it is now and wishing for its wildness to have never been taken away. I did like the last few chapters. They engaged me and I wanted to know the future of the characters. It did embrace the complexities of lives, as it's so easy to see history in 2D, without the thoughts and feelings of the people who lived it. Eliza was complicated though unexplained, until her time in Virginia. Interesting choice to never fully explain her thoughts about her relationship with Jan.

[Brenda Stones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would totally recommend this book. The context of fenland Britain alternating with New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century was totally absorbing - a kind of Graham Swift's Waterland meets Francis Spufford's Golden Hill.
You learn so much, while also relishing the author's wise comments on human nature, seamlessly interwoven.
My one comment might be on the structure, and the late intervention of the female protagonist's point of view; I think I might have preferred the single viewpoint of the Dutch engineer, with whom we'd become so familiar...

[Jo Marchant · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so beautifully written and I adored the references to the local are in which I live, although the knowledge is somewhat painful - understanding much more now of the pain and suffering which built the area. I had never understood the draining process and although I am not an expert by any means this books has explained it though thoroughly without being too technical.

It is a brutal and beautiful story and speaks to us on many levels, least not that of the planet and nature and what we should and should not do.

A stunning read - thank you Stella.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of this novel is very good. Young Dutch engineer, Jan Brunt, arrives in England in May 1649 to help survey and drain the Fenland and there is plenty of information of interest in the process including the use of POW labour. 1660s New Amsterdam, where he self-exiles, is also fascinatingly described. Eliza, a woman from the Fens with whom he has a less-than-believable relationship, tells her story of rising to prosperity from servitude in the New World. The historical detail and mind-set are compelling, the interactions less so

[Shirley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book narrated by Jan moves slowly, but when the point of view moves to Eliza, there is a distinct change of pace and style. The description of the Fens where the first part takes place brings the reader into the setting, and this is a delight to read. Whilst Eliza’s story draws the reader into her thoughts and feelings, her motivations for her actions before she left the Fens are not resolved.

[Booksnaps · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book narrated by Jan moves slowly, but when the point of view moves to Eliza, there is a distinct change of pace and style. The description of the Fens where the first part takes place brings the reader into the setting, and this is a delight to read. Whilst Eliza’s story draws the reader into her thoughts and feelings, her motivations for her actions before she left the Fens are not resolved.

[Carole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read but rather superficial covering of the main characters. The detail of draining the fens was interesting, but the appearance of Eliza and it seemed magic travel over very long distances stretched the imagination. Still a good tale till it got to the end. Didn't appreciate being left hanging

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

someone please let me know the difference between this and ‘call upon the water’. I’d love to know.

I found it hard to actually get into this book but I loved the concept enough to find myself thoroughly invested in every historical and environmental aspect bar the romance… longer rant @a.fen.bookshelf