I’ve just finished “Dirt Music”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330490265/junius-20 (“UK link”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330490265/junius-21 ), having read “Breath”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312428391/junius-20 (“UK link”:http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330455729/junius-21 ) a few days back. I can’t remember a novelist grabbing me so tightly recently, or giving me such pleasure, or, sometimes, pain. I’ve never been to Australia, never mind Western Australia, I don’t care about surfing and not much about fishing. It really doesn’t matter. Winton is all about life, regret, sensation, grief, commitment, and working out what (and who) matters and what doesn’t. No plot spoilers here. I’m set to read everything else he’s written.
{ 8 comments }
Clifton 10.05.09 at 6:56 am
Winton’s “The Riders” is also excellent. It was short-listed for the Booker some years back.
Emma (the first one) 10.05.09 at 7:52 am
The Riders is one of the most gripping books I’ve ever read. And Cloud Street, at least for an Australian, is like disappearing into another decade, so familiar and yet so strange. He really is a national living treasure.
Clifton 10.05.09 at 7:23 pm
Yes Emma, I totally agree – I read it when it first came out – and it still haunts me like few works of fiction do.
Dr Zen 10.05.09 at 11:51 pm
Not so fond of the The Riders but Cloudstreet is an Australian classic, and Winton’s whole catalogue is well worth reading. Dirt Music’s evocation of WA was particularly stirring, Winton at his best, I thought.
BlackMage 10.06.09 at 9:05 am
Cloudstreet is a must, even if perhaps less tightly edited than it could have been.
Maria 10.06.09 at 1:38 pm
Good for you, Chris! I’ve been meaning to write something like this for the past two years. I started with Cloudstreet, the most magical novel I think I’ve ever read.
It’s amazing to me that Tim Winton isn’t a literary megastar in the northern hemisphere. When his books work, they’re transcendent. When they don’t, it just seems because all of life is in them, and life’s just messy as well as beautiful.
I was working for a few weeks in Sydney a couple of years ago, and used to listen to the local NPR/BBC 4 variant. During a programme on environmentalism and fishing rights, Tim Winton was interviewed as a local expert. I couldn’t believe my ears – not just Winton’s expertise, more the idea that such a god-like literary figure was mixing with us mere mortals.
I hope I don’t spoil Winton for anyone with such over the top praise. But he really is that good, and it’s a mystery (and a delight) that he’s not a global legend.
Doug K 10.07.09 at 3:18 am
my brother lives and fishes in WA, so I am surprised not to have heard of Tim Winton before. Thank you for the pointer. We both care more than is reasonable about fishing, which seems likely to add another dimension of enjoyment to the reading.
Craig Lawton 10.07.09 at 4:12 am
Dirt Music is the best Australian novel ever written!!! :-)
He captures our speech and our landscape better than anyone I’ve read.
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