Reviews of Breath
Bradley Winterton in the "Tapei Times": "Winton is clearly pushing the boundaries of the dangerous sports genre to include, despite the everywhere laconic style, some questioning thoughts. His conclusions are usually ambivalent, and indeed ambiguity characterizes his attitudes in other spheres as well...So -- pro or anti surfing in possibly lethal situations? Pro or anti teenage drug use? Pro or anti the outer reaches of sexual experimentation? Winton offers a sphinx-like stare, and his final position on all these issues remains a fascinating, but to the last undivulged, secret."
Tom Sutcliffe, in an article about surprises in the world of the arts in 2008, is amazed that the Winton's book didn't make the Booker long list.
According to Nielsen BookScan, Breath sold 126,000 copies in Australia in 2008.
Short Notices
"Meeting in the aisle" weblog: "I am the first to admit I am not a member of the Tim Winton Fan Club, though I do read his stuff and even like it when I do and seem to tear through them with alarming speed for someone who tries desperately to make books last longer. The four hours it took me to make it from cover to cover for this book is a case in point - I still had 7 HOURS on a bus to go -- and would have loved to have taken longer. I think I read Winton's books so quickly because I am one, in a sense." I'm not sure how that works.
"Words and Flavours weblog: "Can breathing be more than a requirement for life and become an addiction? In Breath, Tim Winton plays on our attachment to that fundamental action to explore his characters' addictions to the extreme and the dangerous."
The novel made "Seth's Notable List" for 2008: "The more time that goes by since my reading this book -- back in July-- the more I realize that it's really staying with me."
Review of The Turning
The "into the quiet" weblog: "The Turning is a mind-blowing read. Truly. It's actually a collection of short stories, but it transcends this form and slowly and strikingly becomes a novel. As soon as I finished it I wanted to read it again."
Review of An Open Swimmer
"Tall in the land of stories" weblog: "Winton's style is sparse, and his prose stripped, pared, bordering on brutal. Language and words serve inadequately his task of bringing to paper the feelings and emotions of people, the sweeping grandeur and irresistible, immutable forces of nature. The land he lives in, the world his characters inhabit, is ancient, an overpoweringly forceful existence that pre-dates man. Perhaps, in a primordial land, about an ancient earth, one can only speak in stunted words, half-sentences, broken thoughts. Perhaps, with those long-buried memories of humans at the mercy of the elements, the half-remembered/half-forgotten terrors of existence haunting like the distant sounds of the sea, one can only write like Tim Winton. His humour is sardonic, and often oblique. In his world, in our world, emotions are simple."
Review of Dirt Music
"Flourless chocolate cake" weblog: "Unlike Cloud Street, which is difficult to engage in initially, Dirt Music is easy to immerse yourself into immediately...Personally I am not a great fan of metaphorical writing and tend to prefer a rollicking read. Winton provides both in this novel. While the plot was thin in some spots, this did not take away any of the suspense and I found that I did not want to put it down."
Film Adaptation of Dirt Music
The current rumour is that Russell Crowe will replace Heath Ledger in the cast. The Internet Movie DataBase still has Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz signed up.
The director, Phillip Noyce, has told "The Australian" newspaper that production won't start until at least 2010. Something to do with a certain Baz Luhrmann film hogging all the Outback air it seems.
