A fine turn
I'm so glad to have finally had the chance to read a Tim Winton book. So many times, while speaking to people about their favourite authors, Tim Winton’s name always gets mentioned. To be honest, I have known for a very long time how well versed and creative he was, just by what others said. The descriptions of his books and the characters he brings to the page, have been the topic of many discussions. Therefore I have already felt like I knew how well he wrote and how his prose was so “eloquent and raw.” With so many books to read, and new authors to find and enjoy I just didn’t feel the need to pick up a Winton book at all. How glad I am now, given the opportunity to read his latest, The Turning, to be one of those people who raves about this extraordinarily competent Australian novelist.
The words that spring to mind (and believe me it is hard to do his writing justice and put his talent down to adjectives), however I would say his raw, emotive, real life stories and characters are what sets him apart. I am a huge fan of nice, soft books, stroking my imagination and taking me to places I want to go. Winton’s stories are not this at all – he commands your trust, while he throws you into desolate places with characters living real, severe lives. I didn’t want to read much of the book at first, because the stories were not pleasant and did nothing but flare up negative emotions. With such brutal honesty depicted effortlessly in his writing, I wanted to give up, but I didn’t because the characters and their plights intrigued me. With each story, alive with imagery, he touches on many pessimistic emotions whilst writing about adolescence/parenthood, love/hate, hope/despair, pain/joy. Let me warn you…you will feel emotionally drained after this read, it is not easy but is so well worth it.
The Turning is a series of short stories beautifully woven together, intricately layered and cleverly written. Set in Western Australia, the harsh rural conditions dominate as much as the harsh characters and their lives. You truly feel the grit of the land. The stories focus on all ages, and genders and the difficulties associated with them. Winton has a magical way of allowing the reader to still find beauty in the harsh surrounds and situations. He makes you realise that beauty and peacefulness can simply be the touch of a loved one, the warmth of the sun on your face, first love – even if all of these are found in the negatives that might consume. Over the course of the book, the stories are pieced together, to give a big, overall picture. Winton has utilised the individual stories to really personalise and draw the reader in, allowing them the time to really delve deep into many character’s minds and issues, not just a main character or two. The short stories give Winton time to draw you into each situation and become emotionally involved -with more characters to write about, more feelings are created.
The battler’s blocks. In the early sixties, that’s what they called the meagre grid of limestone streets of my childhood. Suburban lots scoured from bushland so that immigrants from Holland,England and the Balkans, and freckly types like us, barely a generation off the farm, could build cheap houses. Our street wound down a long gully that gave on to a swamp. A few fences away the grey haze of banksia scrub and tuart trees resumed with its hiss of cicadas and crow song. Houses were of three basic designs and randomly jumbled along the way to lead an air of natural progression rather than reveal the entire suburb’s origins in the smoky, fly-buzzing office of some bored government architect. Our homes were new; no one had ever lived in them before. They were as fresh as we imagined the country itself to be.
The Turning, winner of the Christina Stead Award 2005, is probably not a good Christmas holiday read, while you are relaxing down by the beach, or having to deal with any big happy family gatherings you have planned – it is however one to definitely put on your list of things to read and tackle in the New Year. It is certainly one of the best thought-provoking novels I have read this year.
Michelle Perry
