Subject: THE WATERWORKS by E. L. Doctorow

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper)
Date: Fri, 21 Oct 1994 15:10:24 GMT

THE WATERWORKS by E. L. Doctorow
          Random House, ISBN 0-394-58754-5, 1994, 253pp, $23
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper

     It's an all-too familiar pattern: An author not known for science
fiction or fantasy writes a book which IS science fiction or fantasy.
It is far better than most of the books marketed as science fiction or
fantasy, but the SF community doesn't notice it and when Hugo
nomination time rolls around, I and perhaps a half dozen other lonely
souls are the only ones who nominate it.  It happened with Gore Vidal's
LIVE FROM GOLGOTHA, it happened with Alan Lightman's EINSTEIN'S DREAMS,
and I guarantee that as night follows day it will happen with
E. L. Doctorow's WATERWORKS.

     THE WATERWORKS is definitely science fiction, although this is not
confirmed until the last quarter of the book.  And Doctorow is not
certainly not enamored of science, nor are his characters.  As
protagonist Martin Pemberton describes a scene, "I became aware of the
atmosphere of his laboratories, without seeing anything in particular
going on there--two or three rooms with doors open between them, and a
faintly chemical smell in the air.  All the light came from gas
jets....  There were glass cabinets for instruments ... stone-top
cabinets inset with iron sinks ... boxy machines on wheels with cables
and gears and tubing.  I remember a square wooden chair with leather
straps at the armrests and an iron head brace....  The walls were
draped in some brownish napped material, velour or velvet.  To me this
was the menacing furniture of science."

     The novel is superficially about Pemberton's search for his
father, whom he spots in a Municipal coach after his (father's)
supposed death and funeral.  What it is really about is the New York of
the 1870s, about people's attitudes towards power, and about the
transformations--political, economic, social, and technological--that
New York City was undergoing.

     I say this is science fiction, but it would also fall, I believe,
in the category of magical realism, of which there are not many
practicioners in this country.  The only two other such authors who
come to mind are John Crowley and Mark Helprin.  The latter also wrote
in the milieu of 19th Century New York, but where Helprin is lavish,
Doctorow is spare.  But even with few words, Doctorow can paint a
complete picture in the reader's mind of the world of which he writes.
Painting a picture of an alien world is what science fiction authors
are supposed to do, of course, and so this is an aspect that should
appeal to the science fiction reader even if there were no scientific
content.  I highly recommend this to fans of magical realism, literary
science fiction, and 19th Century science.  (And make a liar out of me
by getting this on the Hugo ballot!)

%A   E. L. Doctorow
%T   Waterworks, The 
%I   Random House
%C   New York
%D   1994
%G   ISBN 0-394-58754-5
%P   253pp
%O   hardcover, $23.00

--
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
"The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice,
and the desire for personal independence--these are the features of the Jewish
tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it."  --Albert Einstein