false 35306 20 Luther Fox, a loner, haunted by his past, makes his living as an illegal fisherman — a shamateur. Before everyone in his family was killed in a freak rollover, he grew melons and played guitar in the family band. Robbed of all that, he has turned his back on music. There's too much emotion in it, too much memory and pain. One morning Fox is observed poaching by Georgie Jutland. Chance, or a kind of willed recklessness, has brought Georgie into the life and home of Jim Buckridge, the most prosperous fisherman in the area and a man who loathes poachers, Fox above all. But she's never fully settled into Jim's grand house on the water or into the inbred community with its history of violent secrets. After Georgie encounters Fox, her tentative hold on conventional life is severed. Neither of them would call it love, but they can't stay away from each other no matter how dangerous it is — and out on White Point it is very dangerous. Set in the dramatic landscape of Western Australia, Dirt Music is a love story about people stifled by grief and regret; a novel about the odds of breaking with the past and about the lure of music. Dirt music, Fox tells Georgie, is "anything you can play on a verandah or porch, without electricity." Even in the wild, Luther cannot escape it. There is, he discovers, no silence in nature. Ambitious, perfectly calibrated, Dirt Music resonates with suspense and supercharged emotion — and it confirms Tim Winton's status as the preeminent Australian novelist of his generation. 758076 4 7 2003 Dirt Music total:673|5:164|4:288|3:152|2:56|1:13| 673 2553 963 98 4 1 false false Sun Nov 04 15:48:08 -0800 2007 Sun Nov 04 15:54:07 -0800 2007 The poacher as a character started off seem...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Wed Jan 16 20:48:48 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 20:51:37 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Tue Jun 09 21:24:15 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 09 21:37:22 -0700 2009
It tells of Georgie, a forty year old retired nurse who surfs the net and appreciates her vodka; Jim Buckridge, Georgie's ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue May 26 17:18:58 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 10 22:04:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Sep 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 12 08:26:18 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 23 16:39:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Jun 25 16:23:33 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 25 16:24:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Feb 13 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Tue Feb 12 08:50:37 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 12 08:50:37 -0800 2008
I'd definitely recommend this book, but I think something got lost in translation for me personally since I've never been to Australia and could only try to envision the places Winton talks about in here. Landscape (geographical in its relation to human) is such...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Apr 13 04:02:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 04:02:00 -0700 2009
There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself -
Finite infinity.

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Anyway, I found Dirt Music to be a very beautifully written story and wow, did it ever put me in awe of the amazing Western Australia...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Apr 09 09:03:44 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 09:17:26 -0700 2009
As an American, I was not familiar with a lot of the Australian lingo used in the book. For example,

"carn" = come on
"arvo" = afternoon
"drongo" = idiot
"ute" =...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Aug 17 00:44:09 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 17 00:57:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Apr 03 14:35:36 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 14:39:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Nov 09 18:11:59 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 09:48:01 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Apr 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 31 02:06:43 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 03:44:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 06 17:14:01 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 17:20:01 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Fri Jun 19 09:54:39 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 19 09:57:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false true Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Thu Jan 31 13:58:05 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 31 14:12:30 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 20:25:01 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 02:36:49 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Oct 13 18:32:41 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 18:34:21 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Dec 19 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 00:53:06 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 19 12:35:47 -0800 2008 more...]]>