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Graham Swift 1949 he was educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge and later the University of York. The first, The Sweet Shop Owner (1980), is narrated by disillusioned shopkeeper Willy Chapman, and unfolds over the course of a single day in June. The narrator of his second novel, Shuttlecock (1981), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, becomes obsessed with his father's experiences during the Second World War.
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Waterland, his acclaimed third novel, was published in 1983
Waterland, his acclaimed third novel, was published in Narrated by history teacher Tom Crick, it describes his youth spent in the Norfolk fens during the Second World War. These personal memories are woven into a greater history of the area, slowly revealing the seeds of a family legacy that threatens his marriage. The book won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. It was followed by Out of this World (1988), the story of a photojournalist and his estranged daughter, and Ever After (1992), in which a university professor makes a traumatic discovery about his
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History teacher Tom Crick, the narrator of Graham Swift's Waterland, has stopped teaching the curriculum and started telling his class stories about his family and ancestors in the Fens.. Crick criticizes the mythical quality often ascribed to history. History is not simple like the story, history is disjointed and confusing like the ramblings of a middle-aged storyteller, and it leaves the historian with "more mysteries, more fantasticalities, more wonders and grounds for astonishment" than he begins with. The stories of him and his family in the fens are entwined in the yarn of history, as much as the French Revolution is.
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In Waterland, Graham Swift presents two ages of Tom Crick, his youth and his middle-age, and constructs a story that points out the connections between Tom, curious student of life and books, and "old Cricky" the teacher of disillusioned youth. Childhood's story speaks of awakening, discovery, warding off fear. Adulthood's story describes the need to tell the story of change, the plunge into history. Crick's history lesson to his students unfolds as a lesson to the reader as well.
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the structure of Waterland itself undermines linear progress
the structure of Waterland itself undermines linear progress. It is a text of self-reflection and cross-connection; it is Post-Modern. Employing a technique of deconstruction,Waterland questions the sensibility of Descartes' declaration ("I think, therefore I am„) by suggesting levels of connection between "world" history and "personal“ overly simplistic. History is recognized as a cycle of progression, regression and constant, agonizing return
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Waterland was followed by Out of this World (1988), the story of a photojournalist and his estranged daughter, and Ever After (1992), in which a university professor makes a traumatic discovery about his Swift's sixth novel, Last Orders (1996), which won the Booker Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), recounts a journey begun in a pub in London's East End by four friends intent on fulfilling a promise to scatter the ashes of their dead drinking-partner in the sea. A film adaptation of the novel starring Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins was first screened in 2001. The story makes much use of flashbacks to tell the convoluted story of the relationships between a group of war veterans who live in the same corner of London, the backbone of the story being the journey of the group from Bermondsey to Margate to scatter the ashes of Jack Dodds into the sea, in accord with his last wishes. The narrative is split into short sections told by the main charactersTT
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His novel, The Light of Day (2003), is the story of a murder, a love affair and a disgraced former policeman turned private detective. Tomorrow (2007), explores complex themes of parenthood, coupledom and identity via the personal thoughts and memories of the protagonist, Paula, as she lies awake one night in bed. His latest novels are: Wish You Were Here (2011) ,Mothering Sunday: A Romance, (2016) Short stories Learning to Swim (1982) Chemistry (2008)[6] England and Other Stories (2014)
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