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Breath

Ruling the waves

Tim Winton
Picador, 205pp, £16.99,

Philip Hensher

Wednesday, 30th April 2008

Philip Hensher reviews Tim Winton's latest novel

Tim Winton is a prodigy among novelists, publishing his first novel when barely out of his teens and one of the great masterpieces of world fiction when only just 30. Like many such novelists — Thomas Mann and Javier Marias come to mind — his later work has tended to explore exquisite technical points, inviting his readers to exert their capacities within a structure unfamiliar and often

cryptic. The Turning, his previous book, seemed, like Confessions of Felix Krull, to challenge the reader to bring a high level of cunning to match his own virtuosity. Like many such writers, too, he has retained a degree of respect for fictional textures of lucid simplicity. Breath is the work of a writer of unusual technical command, but it presents no more challenge than a picture window on a huge tranquil sea. In an odd way, it reads somewhat like his first books, written by a novelist who, to a peerless degree, has learnt how to do it.

Australian literature in English has, since Marcus Clarke, been of absorbing interest and flavour. If classical Australian art, despite its high merits, has remained a specialised taste, the literature, at its best, has married a keen awareness of its new world with a wonderful native turn of phrase. Australian English must be the most consistently inventive and creative arm of the language — I would rather be shipwrecked with a good dictionary of Australian slang than with any other reference work. The best Australian writers — and Winton stands alongside Peter Carey — have delved deeply into the speaking Australian voice, and produced narratives with the swing and power of great poetry.

Winton’s great subject is a natural one, the forces of water pressing against the fringe of Australian civilisation. Dirt Music, a sullen, unforgettable story of sexual obsession and pointlessness, plays itself out between the bored wife of an industrial-scale fisherman and the worst sort of fisherman-poacher, morally the lowest of the low. The Turning is haunted by the pressure of the sea; whatever the curious and shape-shifting construction of the narrative, looking at the small town life from a bewildering number of angles, the sea is always a steady presence.

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Campbell

May 25th, 2008 2:59am

An excellent review- have just finished the novel and am about to start again, 30 minutes after finishing. I adore the fact that each of Winton's novels are more pared back than the previous- the isolation of the W.A. coast, and existence, are echoed in the writing. For mine, his ability to capture the experience of being an Aussie male is both vital and unmatched.

Pam

June 1st, 2008 1:11am

Similarly, before I could put "Breath" down, I had to go back to the beginning to find how the journey had begun. I loved it. I agree there is an element of Winton's "having learnt how to do it" but the language and tone, the insite and perceptiveness are pure
Winton, and it touches me.