The result? Writing that reaches a new-found power. There are no bells and whistles here this is the antidote to those who dislike (or are at least a little weary of) the pyrotechnics of Dave Eggers, Junot Diaz, Jonathan Safran Foer and their ilk. In the Miles Franklin Award-winning (I warned you!) Breath, the prose is pared back to raw essentials – and what wonderful essentials they are. You not only see the environment and people he depicts, you feel them. Reading Winton is an engaging, physical experience. That pretty much sums him up doesn’t it? Well, the answer, as it turns out, is both yes and no. Oh, and, of course, the Miles Franklin Award sticker on the front cover! Perhaps this is why it has taken me some time to come around to reading the wonderful Breath. Every time a new Tim Winton novel comes out I somehow find myself thinking, Ah, another story set in a coastal town in Western Australia, with a small cast of off-beat, earthy (yet never quirky), and slightly ‘broken’ characters, many of whom are known by their nickname, written in trademark ‘muscular’ prose with warm humour, and always, always the use of the word ‘saurian’ – an ever-present friend that has become so much of a trademark that it borders on a tic*.
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