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The Turning
The author of Dirt Music and The Riders captures the urgency of memory and the way an entire life can be shaped by one event from the past in this capsule of connected stories set on the coast of Western Australia.
Tim Winton's stunning collection of connected stories is about turnings of all kinds—changes of heart, slow awakenings, nasty surprises and accidents, sudden detours, resolves made or broken.
Brothers cease speaking to each other, husbands abandon wives and children, grown men are haunted by childhood fears. People struggle against the weight of their own history and try to reconcile themselves to their place in the world.
With extraordinary insight and tenderness, Winton explores the demons and frailties of ordinary people whose lives are not what they had hoped.
Tim Winton's stunning collection of connected stories is about turnings of all kinds—changes of heart, slow awakenings, nasty surprises and accidents, sudden detours, resolves made or broken.
Brothers cease speaking to each other, husbands abandon wives and children, grown men are haunted by childhood fears. People struggle against the weight of their own history and try to reconcile themselves to their place in the world.
With extraordinary insight and tenderness, Winton explores the demons and frailties of ordinary people whose lives are not what they had hoped.
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2004
260 people are currently reading
4074 people want to read
About the author
Tim Winton
75 books2,326 followersTim Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the small country town of Albany.
While a student at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It went on to win The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, and launched his writing career. In fact, he wrote "the best part of three books while at university". His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his career and economic future were cemented.
In 1995 Winton’s novel, The Riders, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award three times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992) and Dirt Music (2002). Cloudstreet is arguably his best-known work, regularly appearing in lists of Australia’s best-loved novels. His latest novel, released in 2013, is called Eyrie.
He is now one of Australia's most esteemed novelists, writing for both adults and children. All his books are still in print and have been published in eighteen different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio. On the publication of his novel, Dirt Music, he collaborated with broadcaster, Lucky Oceans, to produce a compilation CD, Dirt Music – Music for a Novel.
He has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece but currently lives in Western Australia with his wife and three children.
While a student at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It went on to win The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, and launched his writing career. In fact, he wrote "the best part of three books while at university". His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his career and economic future were cemented.
In 1995 Winton’s novel, The Riders, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award three times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992) and Dirt Music (2002). Cloudstreet is arguably his best-known work, regularly appearing in lists of Australia’s best-loved novels. His latest novel, released in 2013, is called Eyrie.
He is now one of Australia's most esteemed novelists, writing for both adults and children. All his books are still in print and have been published in eighteen different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio. On the publication of his novel, Dirt Music, he collaborated with broadcaster, Lucky Oceans, to produce a compilation CD, Dirt Music – Music for a Novel.
He has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece but currently lives in Western Australia with his wife and three children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 479 reviews
June 3, 2015
Anything Tim Winton writes manages to leave me with a homesickness so deep that when I’m done, I want to quietly push his book across the table and pretend it didn’t happen. His prose is as achingly beautiful and raw as the coast, and his characters flounder around in a quiet melancholy.
8 years I’ve been away from home, Tim, 8 years, and one paragraph from you and it’s as if I never left.
8 years I’ve been away from home, Tim, 8 years, and one paragraph from you and it’s as if I never left.
July 21, 2019
Öncelikle YüzKitap’a hakkını vermek lazım, yine çok doğru bir tercih yaparak Dönüş’ü yayınlamışlar. Tim Winton müthiş bir yazar, en azından Dönüş özelinde bunu söyleyebilirim.
İnsana yaşamın belirli bölümlerinde büyük, önemli, yıkıcı görülen olayların ya da yaşantıların, hayatın bütünü ölçeğinden bakıldığında daha kabul edilebilir olduğunu anlatan çok güçlü bir bakış açısı buldum ben öykülerde.
Özellikle bazı karakterlerin farklı öykülerde yaşamlarının farklı dönemlerinde anlatılması, onların ya da çevresindeki insanların zaman içerisinde yaşamlarında meydana gelen değişimleri izlemek çok keyif vericiydi.
Yayınevlerimizin ileriki zamanda Cloudstreet’i, Breath’i, Dirt Music’i yayınlaması ümidi ile.
İnsana yaşamın belirli bölümlerinde büyük, önemli, yıkıcı görülen olayların ya da yaşantıların, hayatın bütünü ölçeğinden bakıldığında daha kabul edilebilir olduğunu anlatan çok güçlü bir bakış açısı buldum ben öykülerde.
Özellikle bazı karakterlerin farklı öykülerde yaşamlarının farklı dönemlerinde anlatılması, onların ya da çevresindeki insanların zaman içerisinde yaşamlarında meydana gelen değişimleri izlemek çok keyif vericiydi.
Yayınevlerimizin ileriki zamanda Cloudstreet’i, Breath’i, Dirt Music’i yayınlaması ümidi ile.
October 17, 2013
Hearing film director Bob Connolly being interviewed about the film adaptation of this volume of short stories made me pay attention to Winton, which I haven’t done since reading and loving Cloudstreet more than fifteen years ago.
The Turning consists of seventeen interconnected short stories, each of which deals with a significant moment in the life of the central protagonist – a moment of change, of insight or of revelation – which reflects the “turning” of the title. One character, Vic Lang, appears in nine of the stories and all of the stories take place in or are in some way connected to the fictional town of Angelus, which is based on the real town of Albany, where Winton spent his teenage years. The stories are told in different voices and from different perspectives and are not in chronological order. So, for example, the stories featuring Vic Lang consist of first and third person narratives (as well as a second person narrative, if I remember correctly) related both from Vic’s perspective and from the perspective of other protagonists and an episode dealing with Vic as an adult may be followed by one which deals with him as a teenager or as a child.
If this sounds confusing, it isn’t. Sometimes it takes a while to work out that a particular scene has already been described from a different perspective in an earlier story and occasionally it’s not immediately clear that a story involves a character you already know. However, these moments of disorientation enrich the overall reading experience. This is not a collection of randomly put together short stories, or even just a collection of short stories with a similar theme. It’s a short story cycle, which almost forms a novel in episodic form, with a complex narrative structure to complement the difficult issues with which it deals. And there are some difficult issues here: spousal abuse, alcoholism, dysfunctional family relationships, grief and loneliness among them.
Winton writes so beautifully that it takes my breath away. There’s not a word wasted in these stories, which are told in a mixture of the Australian vernacular and, well, poetry. His description of the setting - a small coastal town – is perfect and the inner life of the varied characters – men, women, children, teenagers – is conveyed with sensitivity and economy. To some degree Winton reminds me of John Steinbeck. Not that their writing style is all that similar. However, a hallmark of both novelists is a deep connection with landscape, compassion for human frailty and an ability to create empathy for even the least attractive of their characters. Reading Steinbeck and Winton is an experience not just for the intellect but also for the heart. In recent times I've made made a project out of reading Steinbeck's work. I intend to do the same with Winton, starting with his latest novel, Eyrie.
October 1, 2012
Years ago I accompanied a friend to a dance performance in New York City. A dancer-choreographer from California, she’d come east especially to see the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. They danced to John Cage’s three note composition 4’33”. From my point of view, there wasn’t much going on. The performers padded onto the stage, took a position, and maintained it for the duration of what seemed to me like mostly silence. I sat bewildered, but my friend leaned forward in her seat transfixed. She gasped at times and at the end applauded rapturously.
“That’s as close to technical perfection as the human body can get,” she whispered.
Reading The Turning by Tim Winton, I had an experience similar to my friend’s: eager, at times gasping, enraptured. Winton’s writing is as close to technical perfection as the written word can get. Like the Merce Cunningham dancers were to my friend, I found every page of The Turning a masterclass in technique. And yet there’s nothing fancy or inaccessible about his stories. They are familiar and real.
The Turning is a collection of short stories, all loosely connected though each is written in different voice and perspective at varying points in time. I’ve heard that Winton writes each story several ways before settling on the final version, an approach that’s evident here. One story, for example, is written in the first person when the character is a boy; there’s also a story about him written in the third person many years later; yet another gives a stranger’s view of him as a teenager during a bus ride.
These multiple perspectives raise some interesting questions. ‘What do we know?’ and ‘how do we know what we know?’ are two that wind their way through this work. Children’s lives are full of things they don’t understand, Winton says over and over. “Something important [is] out of reach, the way everything is when you’re just a stupid kid and all the talk is over your head”.
Winton is most interested in getting to the moment in someone’s life when understanding dawns, sometimes in a flash, sometimes slowly and painfully. In one story, an unnamed character faces his role in a tragic accident and comes to realise “The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.”
Such moments of understanding arrive, but not until there have been many moments of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Vic, a troubled teenager, observes: “Everything you know and all the things you half know hang on you like the pressure of sleep.” When the moment of understanding does arrive and is finally recognised, it brings an opportunity for change — a turn in the course of a life. Many of these stories offer this kind of turning, but always at an emotional price. (And sometimes at a physical price —The Turning is full of amputations and disfigurements.)
For some, the chance arrives late. Vic, as a grown man, reflects, “I’d had years of boyhood bewilderment…In the end there was only a closed-down resignation, the adult making-do that I’d grown into.” Vic feels as helpless at forty-four as he did as a boy and still doesn’t “know the first thing about saving himself.” Then, the unexpected occurs, the tiniest event on the least likely of days; with it, hope.
Like an incoming swell (and real life), these stories rise, break, fall, churn, and drag with violence, drawing one to the breathless dark, tossing one up to the surface just in time. There is desperation, sure, but these stories reveal the emotional beauty and the fraught delicacy of the human struggle for understanding.
As the reader in me closes the book, there are sighs and goose bumps and a tingling at the back of my neck. The writer in me stands and applauds.
“That’s as close to technical perfection as the human body can get,” she whispered.
Reading The Turning by Tim Winton, I had an experience similar to my friend’s: eager, at times gasping, enraptured. Winton’s writing is as close to technical perfection as the written word can get. Like the Merce Cunningham dancers were to my friend, I found every page of The Turning a masterclass in technique. And yet there’s nothing fancy or inaccessible about his stories. They are familiar and real.
The Turning is a collection of short stories, all loosely connected though each is written in different voice and perspective at varying points in time. I’ve heard that Winton writes each story several ways before settling on the final version, an approach that’s evident here. One story, for example, is written in the first person when the character is a boy; there’s also a story about him written in the third person many years later; yet another gives a stranger’s view of him as a teenager during a bus ride.
These multiple perspectives raise some interesting questions. ‘What do we know?’ and ‘how do we know what we know?’ are two that wind their way through this work. Children’s lives are full of things they don’t understand, Winton says over and over. “Something important [is] out of reach, the way everything is when you’re just a stupid kid and all the talk is over your head”.
Winton is most interested in getting to the moment in someone’s life when understanding dawns, sometimes in a flash, sometimes slowly and painfully. In one story, an unnamed character faces his role in a tragic accident and comes to realise “The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.”
Such moments of understanding arrive, but not until there have been many moments of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Vic, a troubled teenager, observes: “Everything you know and all the things you half know hang on you like the pressure of sleep.” When the moment of understanding does arrive and is finally recognised, it brings an opportunity for change — a turn in the course of a life. Many of these stories offer this kind of turning, but always at an emotional price. (And sometimes at a physical price —The Turning is full of amputations and disfigurements.)
For some, the chance arrives late. Vic, as a grown man, reflects, “I’d had years of boyhood bewilderment…In the end there was only a closed-down resignation, the adult making-do that I’d grown into.” Vic feels as helpless at forty-four as he did as a boy and still doesn’t “know the first thing about saving himself.” Then, the unexpected occurs, the tiniest event on the least likely of days; with it, hope.
Like an incoming swell (and real life), these stories rise, break, fall, churn, and drag with violence, drawing one to the breathless dark, tossing one up to the surface just in time. There is desperation, sure, but these stories reveal the emotional beauty and the fraught delicacy of the human struggle for understanding.
As the reader in me closes the book, there are sighs and goose bumps and a tingling at the back of my neck. The writer in me stands and applauds.
October 6, 2017
avustralya'da perth'in ıssız kasabası angelus'ta geçen çocukluğa, aileye, acılara, geçmeyen travmalara dair öyküler. aslında öyküler kasabadaki 3-5 kişinin etrafında dönüyor, farklı anlatıcılardan, farklı zamanlardan bir olayı takip edebiliyor okuyucu. o nedenle ara vererek değil bir anda okunması lazım ama oldukça kalın ve peş peşe bu kadar depresif öyküyü okumak bazen zorlayıcı olabiliyor. depresif derken kötü anlamda kullanmıyorum ama her insanın taşıdığı yaraları kanırttığı öyküler bunlar. kalkan kabuklardan sonra yara tekrar kanıyor.
bazı öykülerdeki şiddet okuyucunun bile canını acıtıyor. ve 1970'lerde avustralya'nın bugünkünden çok farklı bir halde olduğunu görmek, kasabaların değişimini gözlemlemek de ilginç. tabii ki o bambaşka doğa, yüzlerce bitki, ağaç adı, balinalar, köpekbalıkları, bataklıklar... okurken çevirmen seda çıngay mellor'a bol bol teşekkür ettim.
sonuç olarak yüz kitap'ı, bize hiç bilmediğimiz öykücüleri tanıtmasını çok seviyorum.
bazı öykülerdeki şiddet okuyucunun bile canını acıtıyor. ve 1970'lerde avustralya'nın bugünkünden çok farklı bir halde olduğunu görmek, kasabaların değişimini gözlemlemek de ilginç. tabii ki o bambaşka doğa, yüzlerce bitki, ağaç adı, balinalar, köpekbalıkları, bataklıklar... okurken çevirmen seda çıngay mellor'a bol bol teşekkür ettim.
sonuç olarak yüz kitap'ı, bize hiç bilmediğimiz öykücüleri tanıtmasını çok seviyorum.
November 2, 2024
4.5/5
Another phenomenal Winton short story collection that is captivating, beautiful, and raw.
This cluster of stories reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle. Some of them are obviously connected, others have a hint of a detail that links it to the wider story being told, and a few don't have an obvious association... yet (I'll pay more attention if I re-read).
They all have in common a theme of change or turning, as the title hints at. Winton captures those moments of turning; whether it be turning to love, escape, obsession, forgiveness, or regret; with a preciseness that captures the deeply intense moments of being human.
I also wonder to what extent these stories are biographical. In 'Long, Clear View' the main character, Vic, sits by a window pointing an unloaded rifle at those who pass by. Last week I read Winton's memoir, The Boy Behind The Curtain, and the first chapter has Winton reminiscing about himself doing the very same thing as a 13 yr old boy. The writing and tone in both the memoir and story are very similar as well. Just a hunch, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were other elements of the Vic character that resembled Tim's life. Vic's dad is a traffic cop, Tim's dad was a traffic cop...
While all the stories were memorable, it was the titular story that has stuck with me. It painted a situation that is sadly pervasive across Australia and didn't shy away from exploring the cruel turnings in human relationships.
Another phenomenal Winton short story collection that is captivating, beautiful, and raw.
This cluster of stories reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle. Some of them are obviously connected, others have a hint of a detail that links it to the wider story being told, and a few don't have an obvious association... yet (I'll pay more attention if I re-read).
They all have in common a theme of change or turning, as the title hints at. Winton captures those moments of turning; whether it be turning to love, escape, obsession, forgiveness, or regret; with a preciseness that captures the deeply intense moments of being human.
I also wonder to what extent these stories are biographical. In 'Long, Clear View' the main character, Vic, sits by a window pointing an unloaded rifle at those who pass by. Last week I read Winton's memoir, The Boy Behind The Curtain, and the first chapter has Winton reminiscing about himself doing the very same thing as a 13 yr old boy. The writing and tone in both the memoir and story are very similar as well. Just a hunch, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were other elements of the Vic character that resembled Tim's life. Vic's dad is a traffic cop, Tim's dad was a traffic cop...
While all the stories were memorable, it was the titular story that has stuck with me. It painted a situation that is sadly pervasive across Australia and didn't shy away from exploring the cruel turnings in human relationships.
November 18, 2020
Küçümseme,bağımlılık yapan bir histi.
Normalde öykü kitapları okumayı pek beceremem ama bu sefer bunu başarabildim fakat bu benden kaynaklı değil içinde cidden çok iyi öykülerin olduğu bu kitaptan kaynaklanıyor.Kendi adıma kitaba adını veren Dönüş ve Boner McPharlin öykülerini okuduktan sonra sanki 500 sayfalık bir kitap okumuşum hissi verdi.Yüz kitap’a ayrıca teşekkür ederim.
Normalde öykü kitapları okumayı pek beceremem ama bu sefer bunu başarabildim fakat bu benden kaynaklı değil içinde cidden çok iyi öykülerin olduğu bu kitaptan kaynaklanıyor.Kendi adıma kitaba adını veren Dönüş ve Boner McPharlin öykülerini okuduktan sonra sanki 500 sayfalık bir kitap okumuşum hissi verdi.Yüz kitap’a ayrıca teşekkür ederim.
February 24, 2021
A splendid collection. Winton skillfully portrays the deadend hometown which gets under your skin and festers. You can leave but you can never escape. At times the jargon was unfamiliar (tracky dacks) but this just improved the local atmosphere.
Like the peppermint trees, which were everywhere, this book is unabashedly Australian, but also manages to evoke those dying small towns found in many countries all over the world. It's this combination of the universal and the particular that makes Winton such a compelling writer.
Like the peppermint trees, which were everywhere, this book is unabashedly Australian, but also manages to evoke those dying small towns found in many countries all over the world. It's this combination of the universal and the particular that makes Winton such a compelling writer.
September 12, 2018
Anlatmasını bildin mi her şey hikaye dedirten kitap oldu. Yaşam dediğin nedir ki, iç içe geçmiş öykülerden başka mesajı vardı sanki. Anlatım güzeldi. Çevirmenin de katkısı çoktur. Seda Çıngay Mellor. Bu ismi bir yere not etmek lazım. Bir on gündür bana yoldaşlık eden kitabı bitirdim ama ileride bu öyküleri özlerim diye düşünüyorum. İyi hissetirdi. Korkularımı ve sıkıntılarımı büyütmemem gerektiğine inandım. Ayna vazifesi gördü öyküler. Yetersizliklerimle, acizliklerimle, nispeten barışmama neden oldu...
December 21, 2022
Tim Winton's gifts are much in evidence here, as he tackles a whole host of hard-luck losers spread across the western beaches of Australia. I can't think of any other author who'd sound credible comparing the ugliness of his cousins to carpet sharks:
He then has some more fun with the word woebegone, comparing it to wobbegong, which is the aborigine name for this particular shark. You come to expect this sort of thing from this author.
In this collection of short stories, Winton shows the perils of desire. Not just physical desire, though that certainly gets its share of pages, but also the desire to be more confident, the desire to have two functioning parents, the desire to run away, and some unexpected ones -- the desire to learn to read in adulthood, for example. His prose is, as usual, effortless and invisible while pulling you in.
For all that, the short-story format doesn't play to his strengths, I don't think. Few authors have the skill to sustain one's interest in a single story over hundreds of pages; that skill is wasted here on these small chunks of narrative, typically twenty pages or less, which seem to stop just when you're feeling drawn in. There are several characters who pop up again and again, and we get to follow them through their lives, but it never quite felt like enough, knowing what he's capable of. Still, prepare to set life aside for a few hours when you pick this one up, because you won't be coming back anytime soon.
He then has some more fun with the word woebegone, comparing it to wobbegong, which is the aborigine name for this particular shark. You come to expect this sort of thing from this author.
In this collection of short stories, Winton shows the perils of desire. Not just physical desire, though that certainly gets its share of pages, but also the desire to be more confident, the desire to have two functioning parents, the desire to run away, and some unexpected ones -- the desire to learn to read in adulthood, for example. His prose is, as usual, effortless and invisible while pulling you in.
For all that, the short-story format doesn't play to his strengths, I don't think. Few authors have the skill to sustain one's interest in a single story over hundreds of pages; that skill is wasted here on these small chunks of narrative, typically twenty pages or less, which seem to stop just when you're feeling drawn in. There are several characters who pop up again and again, and we get to follow them through their lives, but it never quite felt like enough, knowing what he's capable of. Still, prepare to set life aside for a few hours when you pick this one up, because you won't be coming back anytime soon.
June 20, 2025
Sadece 5 yıldız değil, yıldızlı 5 aynı zamanda. Olive Kitteridge'den beri bana aynı tadı veren bir şeyler okumamıştım, Tim Winton özgünlüğünden fire vermeden başarmış bunu. Aynı birkaç karakterin senelere yayılan hikayeleri üzerinden hem Avustralya taşrasına ve oranın insanlarının yaşayışına hem de aşk, arkadaşlık, ebeveyn, kardeşlik ilişkilerine tanık oluyoruz. Öyküler zaten kendi başlarına da çok iyi metinler ama kitaba bir bütün olarak baktığımızda ortaya çıkan eser de ayrıca muhteşem. Bu yüzden üzerinde öykü yazsa da ara vermeden okunması elzem bir kitap. Seda Çıngay Mellor'un çevirisi de harika. Öykülerde aile içi şiddetten uyuşturucu ve alkol bağımlılığına birçok şey betimlenerek anlatıldığı için okuması, devam etmesi bazen zor geldi ama sonuç olarak benim son zamanlarda okuduğum en iyi eserlerden biri oldu Dönüş.
November 30, 2014
This collection of seventeen stories, set in the fictional Western Australia whaling town of Angelus, shows ordinary people searching for redemption in their broken, mismatched, violent, tedious lives. Tim Winton, with raw and beautiful prose, asks you not to flinch or to forgive but to witness these characters, their choices, and the circumstances, and to draw your own conclusions about the future of their souls.
Nine of these stories focus on the Lang family. In no chronological order, we see the turmoil that besets the Langs, mostly through the eyes of Vic, as an adolescent, a young man, a father and husband. By shifting chronology, narrative voice, and character perspective, Winton gives us a 360 view of a community, a family, and a man.
Other stories intertwine, as well. The gut-twisting The Turning show us characters as adults- the broken bully Max Leaper and his wife, Raelene, who is searching for a way out of herself. We then encounter Max and his brother as boys in Sand, and again as adults in Family, where redemption arrives in a flash of copper hide and gnashing teeth.
It's difficult to recommend individual stories, particularly when so much is to be gained from reading the sum. I was moved by each, though the longer stories, such as Boner McPharlin's Moll; Small Mercies; Long, Clear View and Commission resonated more deeply because of greater character development.
Tim Winton, in novel and in short story, writes about families. He is interested neither in politics nor in history lessons. He is concerned with showing the extraordinary within the most ordinary. He has a particular brilliance with the perspectives of children, capturing their wisdom and sensitivity and showing them at play and in pain, with tenderness and clarity.
The writing in this collection is more personal than Cloudstreet, his epic family tale, and is completely absent of the mysticism that shimmers at the edges of The Riders and Cloudstreet. It is natural, flowing, and flawless.
Nine of these stories focus on the Lang family. In no chronological order, we see the turmoil that besets the Langs, mostly through the eyes of Vic, as an adolescent, a young man, a father and husband. By shifting chronology, narrative voice, and character perspective, Winton gives us a 360 view of a community, a family, and a man.
Other stories intertwine, as well. The gut-twisting The Turning show us characters as adults- the broken bully Max Leaper and his wife, Raelene, who is searching for a way out of herself. We then encounter Max and his brother as boys in Sand, and again as adults in Family, where redemption arrives in a flash of copper hide and gnashing teeth.
It's difficult to recommend individual stories, particularly when so much is to be gained from reading the sum. I was moved by each, though the longer stories, such as Boner McPharlin's Moll; Small Mercies; Long, Clear View and Commission resonated more deeply because of greater character development.
Tim Winton, in novel and in short story, writes about families. He is interested neither in politics nor in history lessons. He is concerned with showing the extraordinary within the most ordinary. He has a particular brilliance with the perspectives of children, capturing their wisdom and sensitivity and showing them at play and in pain, with tenderness and clarity.
The writing in this collection is more personal than Cloudstreet, his epic family tale, and is completely absent of the mysticism that shimmers at the edges of The Riders and Cloudstreet. It is natural, flowing, and flawless.
September 15, 2019
Avusturalya’nın bir kasaba iç içe geçmiş hayatların iç içe geçmiş öyküleri. Her gün bir öykü okuyarak gitmiş olmama rağmen ağırlığı ile ruhsal olarak zorlandım. Dramalar, acı üstüne acılar dönmeden hayatın karşısında insanın ne kadar çaresiz ne kadar aciz kalabileceğini ve bunun başlı başına bir yıkım olduğunu gösteriyor. Sinirlenmiyor ya da ağlamıyorsunuz okuduklarınız karşısında, sadece sayfa sayfa çöküyorsunuz. Ayrıca bir kitabın hikayelerin geçtiği ortak mekanı bu kadar net bir şekilde aktarabildiğini uzun zamandır görmemiştim. Yine Yüz Kitap’tan yine muazzam bir kitap olmuş.
November 25, 2008
What Alistair MacLeod did for Cape Breton in Island, Tim Winton has done for Western Australia in The Turning. This is not to say that Winton writes like MacLeod. He doesn't. But both writers have created story collections that bring to life the corner of the world they know best, and in a quietly elegant way.
The Turning shows us working class Australian people trying to keep body and soul together in a stark and beautiful landscape. The time frame is mostly from the 1970s on.
This is one collection of short stories that should be read in the order they are presented in the book. They're not chronological, but all of the stories are connected in some way, if only tangentially. For want of a better description, I think of this as a novel in short story form. As you work your way through, a picture finally emerges and makes a complete story of the book. There are many points of view and time frames, but it all works. Many of the stories are told from the POV of disaffected teenagers, which Winton has really nailed down.
Two I especially liked:
1) Boner McPharlin's Moll: This one's long enough to be a novella, and I was blown away by Winton's ability, as a male, to capture the inner workings of teenage girls. Not just that, but it's a great, complete story overall.
2) Cockleshell
The Turning shows us working class Australian people trying to keep body and soul together in a stark and beautiful landscape. The time frame is mostly from the 1970s on.
This is one collection of short stories that should be read in the order they are presented in the book. They're not chronological, but all of the stories are connected in some way, if only tangentially. For want of a better description, I think of this as a novel in short story form. As you work your way through, a picture finally emerges and makes a complete story of the book. There are many points of view and time frames, but it all works. Many of the stories are told from the POV of disaffected teenagers, which Winton has really nailed down.
Two I especially liked:
1) Boner McPharlin's Moll: This one's long enough to be a novella, and I was blown away by Winton's ability, as a male, to capture the inner workings of teenage girls. Not just that, but it's a great, complete story overall.
2) Cockleshell
July 6, 2013
Not too long ago I woke up early one morning, tidied my room, left my phone and a note on my desk, took my car, and left home. It was aimless, really. Didn't get much further than my daily commute. Wandered around antique shops, ate at a taco place with a Grade B sticker on the window that I hadn't noticed until after I'd already ordered (not bad actually), stumbled on a cemetery and sat among the headstones until closing time, checked in at a motel and soaked in the bath for hours until I got up and into bed still naked and shivering wet and wrinkly and pale... What I mean by all this rambling and TMI is that Tim Winton writes about searching and pain and the struggle to understand how we get from there to here in our lives in such an evocative and recognizable way that reading this book reminded me of that day-- of driving home the next morning to find my family sleepless and frantic, and of the way we huddled and cried together trying to understand the why of anything.
Best read in grassy fields and a big sky overhead.
Best read in grassy fields and a big sky overhead.
March 22, 2016
I admit it's taken me a long time to finish this book of short stories, but I read the second half in one sitting and it was only then that I began to fall in love with it as it was only then that I realised the stories are linked. To be fair to myself I was reading the stories in the first half of the book weeks or months apart so I'd forget the characters/incidents that linked them. But in the second half of the book I began to see that there is a larger picture being painted of the community.
The story I love most is Boner McPharlin's Moll - a YA story with a really great strong female lead character (something that the YA community tries to find and always ends up with an attractive girl/woman who fights but never kills and is basically a 'good' person). Anyway, Boner McPharlin's Moll is a much more interesting female lead.
If I have any whinge it's that I think that the stories might benefit from being in a different order as I struggled to get involved at the beginning and I only continued because of the quality of the prose - the writing is beautiful - rather than an emotional attachment to the characters. In the second half I did become very emotionally involved.
The story I love most is Boner McPharlin's Moll - a YA story with a really great strong female lead character (something that the YA community tries to find and always ends up with an attractive girl/woman who fights but never kills and is basically a 'good' person). Anyway, Boner McPharlin's Moll is a much more interesting female lead.
If I have any whinge it's that I think that the stories might benefit from being in a different order as I struggled to get involved at the beginning and I only continued because of the quality of the prose - the writing is beautiful - rather than an emotional attachment to the characters. In the second half I did become very emotionally involved.
August 6, 2018
Wow, what vivid writing. My mouth dropped flipping through the pages of the first story.
For example...
BIG WORLD
The story starts with two boys failing their high school exams. They start working at a meat factory, eventually deciding to buy a used VW and head North.
It's a survival thing, making yourself a small target...His old man preferred him to be a dolt. My mother expected me to be an academic.
This story is both deep and extremely beautiful when it comes to Winton's descriptions of people and nature around. For everyone interested in exploring the East Coast of Australia, this is the perfect collection.
This is a description of one of the boys, for example:
He's got a face only a mother could love. One eye's looking at you and the other eye's looking for you. He's kind of pear-shaped, but you'd be a brave bugger calling him a barge-arse
The internal state on the road up North:
The sunlight is creamy up here. Standing at the roadside with it roasting my back and arms through the heavy shirt, I don't care that picking guavas and papaya doesn't pay much more than hosing the floor of an abattoir. If it's outside in the sun, that's fine by me. We'll be growing things, not killing them. We'll move with the seasons. We'll be free.
I don't think I've ever read a more picturesque teenage attraction.
...Briony Nevis. For two years we're sort of watching each other from a distance. Sidelong glances. She's flat-out beautiful, long black hair like some kind of Indian. Glossy skin, dark eyes. She's funny in a wry, hurt kind of way, and smart. In class she goads me, says I'm not as stupid as I make out. I kiss her once at a party. Well, maybe she kisses me. Hair like a satin pillow-slip. Body all sprung as though she's ready to bolt. A long, long kiss, deep and playful as a conversation.
For example...
BIG WORLD
The story starts with two boys failing their high school exams. They start working at a meat factory, eventually deciding to buy a used VW and head North.
It's a survival thing, making yourself a small target...His old man preferred him to be a dolt. My mother expected me to be an academic.
This story is both deep and extremely beautiful when it comes to Winton's descriptions of people and nature around. For everyone interested in exploring the East Coast of Australia, this is the perfect collection.
This is a description of one of the boys, for example:
He's got a face only a mother could love. One eye's looking at you and the other eye's looking for you. He's kind of pear-shaped, but you'd be a brave bugger calling him a barge-arse
The internal state on the road up North:
The sunlight is creamy up here. Standing at the roadside with it roasting my back and arms through the heavy shirt, I don't care that picking guavas and papaya doesn't pay much more than hosing the floor of an abattoir. If it's outside in the sun, that's fine by me. We'll be growing things, not killing them. We'll move with the seasons. We'll be free.
I don't think I've ever read a more picturesque teenage attraction.
...Briony Nevis. For two years we're sort of watching each other from a distance. Sidelong glances. She's flat-out beautiful, long black hair like some kind of Indian. Glossy skin, dark eyes. She's funny in a wry, hurt kind of way, and smart. In class she goads me, says I'm not as stupid as I make out. I kiss her once at a party. Well, maybe she kisses me. Hair like a satin pillow-slip. Body all sprung as though she's ready to bolt. A long, long kiss, deep and playful as a conversation.
October 26, 2013
Western Australian cliche after cliche - no surprise for Winton, Australia's most overrated author, but even the whirlwind (willy-willy?) of terrible similes can't mask just how bad some of these stories are. Winton writing as a 14 year old girl is so excruciating, you need to turn your head away. I'm sure these will work better as film, but why bother?
March 12, 2011
The Turning is a collection of 17 interrelated short stories which, in their collectivity, could actually be seen as a novel built around the fictional town of Angelus, in Western Australia. Published between Dirt Music and Breath, the volume is another tour de force from the Australia writer who has twice been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
The stories, as all of Tim Winton’s adult works starting certainly with Shallows, are sharply wrought. There is not a wasted word and those words that float across the page create expertly crafted visions of the human condition unfolding in the harsh environment of Western Australia. Winton’s creations do struggle. They are people of flesh and blood who struggle painfully to escape the torments of their youthful years. There is that determinism in Winton’s universe: few of his people escape untarnished the physical and social environments of their time in Western Australia, in Angelus. Vic Lang, whose history is told in some way in 9 of the stories, notes at one point in his odyssey: “I sat there and hated myself, hated him [=his father] too for making me the dour bastard that I am, forged in shame and disappointment, consoled only by order. Childless. Resigned.”
There is both a fatalism and a sadness that threads through the entire book. Not one of his creations escapes untarnished. Vic Lang, Peter Dyson, Fay Keenan, Max Leaper, Bob Lang, Jackie Martin, Boner McPharlin—these and the other people who crowd his stories can never cut their roots to the past.
The stories, as all of Tim Winton’s adult works starting certainly with Shallows, are sharply wrought. There is not a wasted word and those words that float across the page create expertly crafted visions of the human condition unfolding in the harsh environment of Western Australia. Winton’s creations do struggle. They are people of flesh and blood who struggle painfully to escape the torments of their youthful years. There is that determinism in Winton’s universe: few of his people escape untarnished the physical and social environments of their time in Western Australia, in Angelus. Vic Lang, whose history is told in some way in 9 of the stories, notes at one point in his odyssey: “I sat there and hated myself, hated him [=his father] too for making me the dour bastard that I am, forged in shame and disappointment, consoled only by order. Childless. Resigned.”
There is both a fatalism and a sadness that threads through the entire book. Not one of his creations escapes untarnished. Vic Lang, Peter Dyson, Fay Keenan, Max Leaper, Bob Lang, Jackie Martin, Boner McPharlin—these and the other people who crowd his stories can never cut their roots to the past.
October 27, 2013
When a wave breaks, the water is not moving. The swell has travelled great distances but only the energy is moving, not the water. Perhaps time moves through us and not us through it. The past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.
tim winton is actually a genius. i feel like he understands so many things that i will just never even come close to?
the way he uses language to tell you even the most inane things is sometimes literally breathtaking.
also, i'm totally going to brag for a second and post this photo of when i got to meet him last weekend. he is a really cool person and, considering how insanely popular he is, refreshingly free from any pretension.
tim winton is actually a genius. i feel like he understands so many things that i will just never even come close to?
the way he uses language to tell you even the most inane things is sometimes literally breathtaking.
also, i'm totally going to brag for a second and post this photo of when i got to meet him last weekend. he is a really cool person and, considering how insanely popular he is, refreshingly free from any pretension.
February 21, 2018
Each short story is a slice of Australiana, sugared with colloquialisms and the usual beautiful imagery you’d expect from Winton (water, fog, fire). It’s a great read, with many touching coming-of-age stories and some hard hitting commentary on police corruption, domestic violence and class/race discrimination. I loved it, although I feel like I spent too much time piecing together the character’s tales, as they reappear in confusing order and it’s up to the reader to assemble the slices. I wonder if it’s conservative of me to wonder if this would have been better as the full cake (a novel)?
March 26, 2019
this book was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bland and the writing relied too much on descriptive language that tells us nothing. The stories end just as they get interesting and there seems like there's depth to the characters - too bad we won't ever get to read about it.
April 3, 2019
My favourite Tim Winton. Interlinked short stories , not told in order, but creating a whole work that really got inside me.
August 15, 2024
Tim Winton is one of my favourite storytellers and has some of the best one liners I hope to sprinkle into my vocabulary. “Bum over breakfast” taking the cake.
May 2, 2020
Wow. So that's an adult contemporary huh.
And let's just say it is WAY different from YA Contemporary. Where YA Contemporary is more centralised on family issues, bullying, friendships and romance, adult contemporaries (specifically The Turning given it's the only one I read) focus on those topics but in a more explicit way. The Turning intertwines the stories of different individual's lives in 317 pages. It's a really difficult book to describe given there's not necessarily a main character or a "villain" nor even a true "plot" it mainly discusses people's lives in flashbacks and in the perspective of many characters. I'm not going to go too in detail about each story but for me nothing necessarily grabbed me. Maybe that's because I was analysing the story for an English assignment but I just didn't find that excitement I was promised when I picked it up.
Additionally, I didn't necessarily find it difficult to read, it's more that I found it difficult to understand the book. Being a 17 year old, I didn't "get" the whole mid-life crisis thing going on (I get existential crisis but I never been through a mid-life one nor seen anyone go through it themselves). I just think I'm too young to understand it 100% along with the sexual references, abuse and the whole "returning back to childhood." I think that this was a book that was just a tad bit too old for me. I'm sure that if I was older and in the actual intended audience age group I would've enjoyed it a lot more than I did.
ACTUAL RATING: 2.2 STARS
And let's just say it is WAY different from YA Contemporary. Where YA Contemporary is more centralised on family issues, bullying, friendships and romance, adult contemporaries (specifically The Turning given it's the only one I read) focus on those topics but in a more explicit way. The Turning intertwines the stories of different individual's lives in 317 pages. It's a really difficult book to describe given there's not necessarily a main character or a "villain" nor even a true "plot" it mainly discusses people's lives in flashbacks and in the perspective of many characters. I'm not going to go too in detail about each story but for me nothing necessarily grabbed me. Maybe that's because I was analysing the story for an English assignment but I just didn't find that excitement I was promised when I picked it up.
Additionally, I didn't necessarily find it difficult to read, it's more that I found it difficult to understand the book. Being a 17 year old, I didn't "get" the whole mid-life crisis thing going on (I get existential crisis but I never been through a mid-life one nor seen anyone go through it themselves). I just think I'm too young to understand it 100% along with the sexual references, abuse and the whole "returning back to childhood." I think that this was a book that was just a tad bit too old for me. I'm sure that if I was older and in the actual intended audience age group I would've enjoyed it a lot more than I did.
ACTUAL RATING: 2.2 STARS
June 4, 2014
I'd been really struggling to get the reading habit back recently, after a lengthy hiatus. I started reading The Turning, at Easter before going on holiday, and forgetting to take it with me. When I got back other things seemed to take precedence, and I almost had the beginnings of some sort of book phobia. I had been really enjoying these stories, all linked to a small fictional Aussie town called Angelus, however for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to start the next story, which was by some way the lengthiest in the book.
Then one Saturday morning, I had some time on my hands and started reading that story " Boner McPharlins Moll ".
Fucking hell, it was brilliant. What was I dithering about. Brilliant , brilliant, brilliant book of short stories. Loved every sentence of Winton's writing. I need to read it again soon to appreciate all the 'links' in the stories. Love, love, love this book to death. Very special. Thanks Mr Winton for slapping me round the chops and shaking me out of my reading slumber.
Then one Saturday morning, I had some time on my hands and started reading that story " Boner McPharlins Moll ".
Fucking hell, it was brilliant. What was I dithering about. Brilliant , brilliant, brilliant book of short stories. Loved every sentence of Winton's writing. I need to read it again soon to appreciate all the 'links' in the stories. Love, love, love this book to death. Very special. Thanks Mr Winton for slapping me round the chops and shaking me out of my reading slumber.
October 15, 2017
The Turning is an excellent collection of loosely connected short stories. The wild and harsh coastline of Western Australia is a perfect backdrop to these stories about life in a working class town. I've read three of Winton's novel prior to this and he hasn't disappointed me yet.
July 29, 2024
Still so good
June 12, 2025
A collection of short stories, interconnected masterfully. Like a Picasso painting we see the characters from different angles, viewpoints, at different life stages. When I finished it I wanted to go back and start it again in case I'd missed any links. Highly recommended!
March 9, 2016
Tim Winton's Turning is so startling in its simplicity, and so moving in its depiction of ordinary that I felt I had to make an account to leave a review. The setting, although perfectly described and created, I find almost irrelevant to the film. Instead perhaps, the idea that is highlighted the most throughout all the stories is the trap of the cycle failure and disappointment.
The beautiful yet melancholic narration of relationships and personal journey in the Turning looks at the extraordinary within the ordinary. The short story the turning perhaps is the darkest in the whole book, but Winton is able to develop and sympathise with a character so well it almost brings tears to my eyes. A woman stuck in a life that can only be described as stale and consuming in all ways negative, she struggles to love her daughters, is viscously abused by her husband and lives in a small caravan in a park that oozes a sense of failure and disappointment. Meeting a woman who seems so perfect, yet so humble and kind, changes the character, she desires what this woman has, its so excruciating in the films trueness, how long it takes her to reach a sense of realisation and empowerment. The woman, who seems to live a life of nothingness, a life of irrelevance, is able to do something so immense, to stand up against her husband and find a love for her daughters, was so powerful it almost brought me to tears.
The film is by no means uplifting, in 'Boner Mcpharlings Moll' all i could muster was a feeling of utter and overcoming despair, so much that I needed to go for a walk to clear my head, trying to clear my head of the depressing realism displayed through Tim Winton's stories. A woman tries so hard to escape the staleness of her families almost pathetic cycle, struggles with her friendship with a broken boy called Boner, who her emotions change from infatuation to a pity. She leaves her town and builds herself a career, but ends up back in her birth town, with her parents dead, her abandonment of Boner who eventually dies, and her overwhelming sense of loss.
The turning does not sugar coat anything, instead despairs for the normal people, empowering yet pitying the commoners, highlighting the struggle of their everyday lives. What makes the book most powerful is all the short story's as a whole, concluded by the final line in Defender. Vic, the most prominent character in the book, featured in many stories, has been destroyed by the demons of his past. Yet, there is a small glimmer of hope, ever so small, yet it is there, "He realised that darkness had fallen, and he was actually happy."
I can not sum up the brilliance of Winton's work, as a 16 year old it puts the struggles of teenage life into perspective, it makes me feel so insignificant yet empowered at the same time, the Turning is a celebration of humanity in its rawest form.
The beautiful yet melancholic narration of relationships and personal journey in the Turning looks at the extraordinary within the ordinary. The short story the turning perhaps is the darkest in the whole book, but Winton is able to develop and sympathise with a character so well it almost brings tears to my eyes. A woman stuck in a life that can only be described as stale and consuming in all ways negative, she struggles to love her daughters, is viscously abused by her husband and lives in a small caravan in a park that oozes a sense of failure and disappointment. Meeting a woman who seems so perfect, yet so humble and kind, changes the character, she desires what this woman has, its so excruciating in the films trueness, how long it takes her to reach a sense of realisation and empowerment. The woman, who seems to live a life of nothingness, a life of irrelevance, is able to do something so immense, to stand up against her husband and find a love for her daughters, was so powerful it almost brought me to tears.
The film is by no means uplifting, in 'Boner Mcpharlings Moll' all i could muster was a feeling of utter and overcoming despair, so much that I needed to go for a walk to clear my head, trying to clear my head of the depressing realism displayed through Tim Winton's stories. A woman tries so hard to escape the staleness of her families almost pathetic cycle, struggles with her friendship with a broken boy called Boner, who her emotions change from infatuation to a pity. She leaves her town and builds herself a career, but ends up back in her birth town, with her parents dead, her abandonment of Boner who eventually dies, and her overwhelming sense of loss.
The turning does not sugar coat anything, instead despairs for the normal people, empowering yet pitying the commoners, highlighting the struggle of their everyday lives. What makes the book most powerful is all the short story's as a whole, concluded by the final line in Defender. Vic, the most prominent character in the book, featured in many stories, has been destroyed by the demons of his past. Yet, there is a small glimmer of hope, ever so small, yet it is there, "He realised that darkness had fallen, and he was actually happy."
I can not sum up the brilliance of Winton's work, as a 16 year old it puts the struggles of teenage life into perspective, it makes me feel so insignificant yet empowered at the same time, the Turning is a celebration of humanity in its rawest form.
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