"Breath" by Tim Winton

[Lucky Al]

i was going to pipe up and say i'm a big tim winton fan, but then i remembered that i've only read the turning. can i still be a fan? some things from the stories in the turning have stuck in my head for ages, like the girl with the finger missing and the boy who sinks into the pond on the old car. i really felt for vic lang, but i wanted him to stay a boy longer.

[creased]

But give me Andrew McGahan any day

Ditto to that, absoloutely loved Praise read Last Drinks a couple of years ago, was pretty close to home for me, must chase down his others. Honest and Gritty gotta love it or relate to it

[collnarra]

kem nunn's novels are perfect for making into cheap action movies that go straight to video, if movies still go to video these days.

no, they go straight to DVD. And if you want to launch into a literary pissing contest ..... I can't be bothered.

Dogs of Winter captured surfing well, I thought.

JG

[Lucky Al]

i loved the surfing in dogs of winter, but i thought all the characters were on steroids!

[AlbyAl]

"Tim Winton is massively overrated. His recent novels are not bad, but no better than not bad. His early work is fcuking awful, but its reputation basks undeservedly in the critical glow cast upon the later novels. He's yet another Australian artist whose popularity reflects the infantile need for Australians to see "our stories" beamed back at us in sentimental, knockabout terms. He also has no idea how to finish a novel; the ending of Dirt Music was so bad that I threw the book across the room".

Discuss.

I'm agreeing with this - but hanging on the fence a bit as well: a whole section of the OZ reading public like the comfy reflection, and Mr Winton is a skilled scribe in many respects - so him and his bank manager probably enjoyed the overrate. Publishing is such a 'business' with sales ruling and overruling the issue of quality.

What it means to me though - is that the Great Australian Surf Novel is yet to be written. All those crap weekend magazine articles about learning to surf, short stories of mums taking it up, bad films about the local lads and their matey bonds need to be swept aside and a new genre - call it Rip Lit - should step forward.

And another thing - I want to know what sort of board Winton rides. That's important for me being slightly shortboard-fascist. Does he do big closeout barrels just for the frickin view - I want to know.

[Lucky Al]

not to literarily piss where no one else is literarily pissing (sorry collnarra!), but i also loved the surfing in tijuana straits, even though there wasn't much of it. i enjoyed a lot of that book - the tijuana factory stuff, the pynchon kind of character with his mushroom farm in the valley by the border, the mystic surf spot tales. it even kept me up late reading at night. but the ending with the chase and shootout along the river to the sea - i almost put the book down, it was such a disappointment. i love much of kem nunn's writing, but his storytelling goes hollywood at crucial moments.

[Lucky Al]

don ought to get on the phone to winton's agent, so he can jump on the forum for a chat with us. we'd all buy his latest book after a good chat with him, for sure!

[AlbyAl]

don ought to get on the phone to winton's agent, so he can jump on the forum for a chat with us. we'd all buy his latest book after a good chat with him, for sure!

Yeah - but, again, we'd be asking 'im about his board(s), whether he prefers single or single-to-double concave and can he backdoor a peak properly. What's his worst wipe-out? If it was half a bottle of tequila after publishing a short story about bodysurfing, I'm reserving judgement a bit.

Here's another Literature Exam Topic: " A good writer of surf literature (Rip Lit) needs also to be a skilled surfer, in order to draw properly on the unique experiences of serious surfing."

Discuss with examples, and don't let the water dripping from your nose smudge the Exam Paper.

[Lucky Al]

australia is full of rippers, but little rippers who love to read and write (lit-rippers) i reckon would be thin on the ground. is the great australian surf novel ever going to come?!

[Lucky Al]

kem nunn and tim winton have both had shark attacks in their stories! i predict... that the great australian surf novel will not feature a shark attack!!!

[AlbyAl]

kem nunn and tim winton have both had shark attacks in their stories! i predict... that the great australian surf novel will not feature a shark attack!!!

Yes and Yes Al

The Great Surf Novel WILL come! And you are exackally right - no silly shark attack is required. You can tell these land-lubber writers sitting around thinking ... " Hmmm, the ocean .... what exciting stuff happens in the ocean?"

Pffffttt

[Lucky Al]

but those stories were set in northern california (nunn) and southwestern australia (winton): shark territory. shouldn't we let the attacks go, then?

what about a stint in kerobokan, would there be a place for that in the great australian surf novel?

[AlbyAl]

This would be possible L Al - different locations shouldn't be ruled out for the Great Australian Surf Novel - just the drab cliches, and the expected narrative and character figures ... unless of course a bit of decent parody or social commentary is woven in ... like this ... (and I won't be giving up the day job) ...

So I have always remembered the wise advice of shapers across the years, after being told by Tracks in 1974 that shapers are the keepers of wisdom. I remember Owl telling me, long time back, while shaping me a stinger swallow-tail single-fin, that women in the surf should be respected, encouraged, spoken to with care. He scratched his beard, and went on to explain that they are just so different from us crude, sex-hungry young blokes - more emotional, sensitive, and in search of lasting relationships on deeper levels.

“Remember respeck the chicks in the surf .” he drawled.

I watched as he carefully blended the rails, and, with master’s hands added a delicate tucked-under chime to help release water through the middle of the board.

All this stayed with me, etched into memory alongside explanations of foils and rail-lines, entry rockers and tail vee.

***

One day, paddling out at the local in autumn, two unknown surf babes in bikinis were cruising the rip, neatly picking off the sucky left-handers and smoothly carving them through to shore. The water was already cooling, and I had already retreated to a wetsuit, while these two sat in their tiny string bikinis apparently oblivious to the temperature and clouds overhead. They weren’t local, but had no trouble in commanding the break.

The water played on their brown skin; long hair cascaded down toned backs skilled at paddling. I was in awe of their beauty, and paddled closer. They ignored all the male surfers – intensely focused on surfing the shallow peak.

I paddled closer again.

I saw her face, the younger one, and an intensity I had never known welled from inside my chest. The smooth wet symmetry of her face flowed in to my eyes.

I paddled closer to her side.

As my mouth, slightly dry, quivered open to speak, the sage advice of Owl came back to me. I sat up on my board, quite close to her, and said …

“Er, like, will you marry me?”

My voice squeaked, and she turned and creased her face at me as if I was dog-turd-on-a-plate. “Faaaarrk” she uttered under her velvety breath, and paddled away with pace, her taut buttocks pulsing with each stroke. A few chuckles from the locals followed, and, Ken – bearded and about sixty told me “No, but I will.” A grommet said I could have his mum, since she was single, pregnant, and unemployed up at the housing commission flats. He dropped in on me as I tried to make my escape, and I thought I heard him utter “Go home and flog it, mate” as he pulled over the shoulder.

***

Yes, the wisdom of shapers. Maybe I misinterpreted. Maybe Owl meant something different. Maybe. The ocean plays tricks on us. There is no pity in the surf.

[Nick Carroll]

F**k the Great Aussie Surf Novel.

Surfing and the weird lives it's led to is in no need of fictionalising -- just ruthless, slightly crazy, at times painfully honest and passionate recounting. I predict the great Australian surf book will be a memoir, or something close to it.

ps despite what I said about writing being difficult, and the implication that criticism should be done with a scalpel and not an axe... Kem Nunn's whole oeuvre sucks.

[Lou]

Kem Nunn's whole oeuvre sucks.

Amen to that. 'Dogs of Winter' is one of the most hackneyed & cliched books that I've ever half-read. Dreadful.

My pick vis-a-vis a great Australian 'surfing' novel is Brett D'Arcy's 'The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks':

http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/dspace/bi ... 8/1/47.pdf

I'm looking forward to reading 'Breath'- being short is a good sign, since Winton excels at the short story format ('The Turning' is so superior to 'Cloud Street' and 'Dirt Music', both of which start well but ramble feebly to unsatisfactory endings).

[willie]

I want to like Tim Winton but i could just never get into cloudstreet. I got over it so quick, I didnt care about fish or the family in that stupid house. I kept asking myself what is the point of reading it.

I was however 18 and had to study it as part of the HSC..that may have had something to do with it.

I will give breath a go..

There is one surefire way to ruin a book, and that is to read it as a HSC text.

What school does to book reading pretty much equates to what Hitler did to the Jews, Amin did to Ugandans, Mugabe to Zimbabwe, Pol Pot to the ...... well you get my drift etc

I once read a HSC text in the summer holidays and really enjoyed it, then I had to read it again during term and couldn't do it.

It's the knowledge that you aren't reading for joy, you are reading knowing that you are going to have to answer non-sequiturs created by teachers who pretend to understand the post modern deconstructionist guff they come up with. It is shameful what the education system does to reading.

Good point oldman, but i guess in my case i actually enjoyed all the books i read for school and analyzing it
it made me realise how much more there is to the book and the deeper creativity authors have.
theres so much you can miss without analyzing a book, and i think analyzing it makes it all the more interesting

but thats just me.

[Lucky Al]

you don't have the unknown surf babe farting a watery fart through her bikini bottom as she paddles away, albyal?

[Lucky Al]

'kem nunn's whole oeuvre sucks' - those words are like music to my ears (which admittedly never stop ringing and are often full of gritty, smelly crud)! how about an axe-wielding review essay for our journal, nick?