Tim Winton: Dark Rubbled Places (Where There Is Only Crucifixion)

Abstract

I am caught in the dark rubbled places of Tim Winton's writing. Held by the magic of his imagination, lulled by the lyricism of his prose, I read of the ordinary, the inarticulate and the powerless within an Australian landscape. Winton, the author of 13 books, is an enigmatic contemporary writer, who tackles questions of spirituality, God and meaning. For many he is a writer of families, growing up, and fairly nondescript events in domestic life. Winton recreates the Australian idiom for children, gamblers, fishermen, bushmen, pub-crawlers and so on, making his characters and their ordinary familiar lives accessible to the reader. Winton's writing is observational and images the traditionally unrepresented, that is, people who are trapped in the breaking and the destroying of life. For according to Winton, to exist demands creation and destruction. This is the central energy which explodes/implodes readerly assumptions.