Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Breath by Tim Winton

by
May 2008, no. 301

Breath by Tim Winton

Hamish Hamilton, $45 hb, 216 pp, 9780241015308

Breath by Tim Winton

by
May 2008, no. 301

One of the intriguing things about Breath, Tim Winton’s first novel in seven years, is that it has a number of affinities with his very first book, An Open Swimmer (1982). Both are coming-of-age novels that attempt to capture some of the confusion and melancholy of youth. Both feature boyhood friendships which the characters outgrow. In both, the main protagonist, whose parents are emotionally distant, is drawn to a mystically inclined father-figure. And both novels have scenes in which an older woman makes sexual advances toward the young hero, with threatening overtones, although An Open Swimmer is coy on this point.

There are also, as you would expect, significant differences between Winton’s precocious but rough-hewn début and the mature, polished work that is Breath. In An Open Swimmer, Jerra Nilsam and his friend Sean are facing the choices and responsibilities of early adulthood; the narrator of Breath, Bruce ‘Pikelet’ Pike and his mate Loonie are in their mid-teens. The father-figure is not a grizzled hermit who smokes pages from his Bible, but a former professional surfer named Sando, who instructs the boys on the finer points of his sport and is given to lecturing them about its deeper meaning.

James Ley reviews 'Breath' by Tim Winton

Breath

by Tim Winton

Hamish Hamilton, $45 hb, 216 pp, 9780241015308

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.