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 which, here's a great quote about

Childhood:
She still remembers her own bare running feet on the dirt of the home paddock when the world was a place given by God for the pleasures of children, when all that was good was unbroken."

Other Great Quotes:

Ambition:
"Ambition... it squeezes us into corners and turns out ugly shapes."

Books:
What do you get out of em, anyway?
Some idea of how other people lived their lives... A look at real people.

Belief:
“Everythin’s easier to believe in when it comes a man’s way.’

Jails
The gaols are full of blokes we'd swear are different to us. Only difference is, they did things you and me just thought about.

Strangeness:
Oh, nothing's really strange. Strangeness is ordinary if you let yourself think about it. There's been queerness all your life.

One last cool thing about the book. Two years ago my son -- who was 16 at the time -- went to the library and picked the book up off the shelf knowing nothing about the author or the novel. He'd been trying to talk me into reading it ever since. I'm glad I did.