| The Waterworks | |
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1st edition |
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| Author(s) | E. L. Doctorow |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Postmodern Historical novel |
| Publisher | Random House |
| Publication date | 1994 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
The Waterworks is an novel by E. L. Doctorow, written in 1994.
Contents |
The setting of the novel is New York in 1871. Martin Pemberton, a freelance journalist, was at odds with his father Augustus, who died a few years ago. After his father's death, Martin sees his father, briefly and accidentally in a public bus (omnibus) as it drives past him. Martin begins to make inquiries but suddenly disappears. His employer and editor McIlvaine, begins looking for him. In a search for clues and connections, McIlvaine interrogates several characters including Martin's fiancée, Emily Tisdale, Martin's stepmother, the painter Harry Wheelwright and the Reverend Charles Grimshaw. As soon as McIlvaine approaches police officer Edmund Donne for help, they begin to realize the full extent of Augustus Pemberton's game. Again and again they come back to the Croton Aqueduct. Soon McIlvaine and Donne learn that Augustus Pemberton has faked his death and together with other plutocrats of the city – are being kept alive by the dangerous and intelligent doctor and scientist Dr. Sartorius. Colluding with the historical character of William Tweed Sartorius has realized many of the keys to extended, perhaps eternal life. Its dark secret is that young children must be sacrificed for their blood and somatic cells. Dr. Sartorius considers himself innocent of their actual deaths, as each child taken "died from fright" and not from his nefarious medical attention. Martin Pemberton, who has been imprisoned by the Doctor, is freed by Donne and returns to his family. However, Martin has fallen ill and becomes deranged by his Stockholm syndrome fascination with Doctor Sartorius. In the meantime, Sartorius is brought to the insane asylum on Blackwell's Island, where he continues his experiments, but upon himself. Without Sartorius' twisted scientific experiments, the half-dead plutocrats of the city, including Augustus Pemberton – die. The entire city of New York learns of the plot and becomes fascinated by the scientific racketeering. This is implied to be one of the many causes of Mr Tweed's real-life imprisonment. However, the public never comes to know the full extent of Dr. Sartorius' experiments.
The first-person narrator shows a very negative image of the city he lives in – and he shows the readers an authentic view on the New York in 1871. He describes the corruption by William Tweed (whose picture we know from Thomas Nast's cartoons, published in Harper's Weekly) and he describes the child poverty, the calamities of the newsboys and a lot of buildings and streets how they looked at this time. He cites Walt Whitman for showing that his New York is another one.
The novel was less successful than Doctorow' books Billy Bathgate and Ragtime, which were also filmed. But it shares with them the alliance between history and fiction. Some characters appear in other works of the author, for example Dr Sartorius in The March. Doctorow's father loved Edgar Allan Poe and named his first son after him; Doctorow told a journalist that Waterworks was written in Poe's honour.[1] Already in 1984 Doctorow has written a story about the Croton Aqueduct with the title Waterworks (in the collection Lives of the Poets). This is the story of McIlvaine, who watched the child who drowned in the reservoir.
The descriptions of child poverty are evocative of the novels by Charles Dickens. Dickens himself visited New York in the early forties and wrote the Book "American Notes". Another possibe source is George G. Fosters New York by Gas-light and Other Urban Sketches (1850).
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