Cloudstreet
I blogged about Tim Winton's Cloudstreet ; I thought I saved a draft, was going to finish it up, and ZAP: it's not there. So here's the super-short version. Great book. I don't think I've read an Australian novelist. The jacket of the original 1991 edition says that this book "confirms Winton as one of Australia's major writers..." Wow, I guess I should be reading other Australian writers because Winton is great. The book reads like poetry almost as often as it reads as prose. It's both character-driven and has really poignant plot vignettes. If I have any criticism, it's that it reads like short stories and not really like a novel with a central character, turning point, reversal and so on. Or maybe the house on Cloud Street is the main character. Hmm. Winton did say in an interview that for him, central to writing were two things: 1) place -- if the place isn't real, characters can't come alive and 2) childhood. Speaking of w