Breath in Aussie Readers

Jan 17, 2010 ★ Jess rated it really liked it

Shelves: 4-stars-loved-it, books-i-own, read-in-2011

I am lost for words. I have absolutely no idea what to think right now.
Was the plot intriguing or painfully realistic? Was the writing lyrical or stupid? Was the ending disgusting or heartbreaking?
I think that I will 'like it'. It was, after all, the most unique book Ive read in ages, probably ever.
It is certainly not what I expected, though still enjoyable. The four lead characters are amazing, proving to easily be the strength of this book. Each is unique. Each is exciting and un-predictabl ...more

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Feb 01, 2014 Keyvan Allahyari rated it it was ok

Shelves: australia, australian-fiction

I can probably best characterize Breath as a moderately stirring but fairly weightless read. Narrated from the point of a view of an emergency paramedics, the book reads like a loose bildungsroman centered on surfing on the beaches around Sawyer, a provincial town near Perth in Western Australia. Bruce Pike (Pikelet), the protagonist, wraps his story of his teen years, between two short chapters: a revelatory opening when he fails to save a boy from strangling himself and one last chapter in whi I can probably best characterize Breath as a moderately stirring but fairly weightless read. Narrated from the point of a view of an emergency paramedics, the book reads like a loose bildungsroman centered on surfing on the beaches around Sawyer, a provincial town near Perth in Western Australia. Bruce Pike (Pikelet), the protagonist, wraps his story of his teen years, between two short chapters: a revelatory opening when he fails to save a boy from strangling himself and one last chapter in which he summarizes his current life with all its disillusionments, pains and joys.

Winton doesn’t overpopulate his novel. Only three other characters loom heavily in the novel: Loomie a fellow teenage boy obsessed with surfing and excessive risk-taking, Sando a former professional surfer in his 3os, and Eva, Sando’s wide, an American ex-skier. After an early flashback, the narrative takes us to the sheer tediousness of life in Sawyer in the 70s and evolves as Piketet tells us about his encounters with the surfing guru and his friend in a dry and dispassionate prose. The attractively rugged nature of Sando soon turns the boys into loyal disciples of a ‘hyppified’ cult of surfing, and they find themselves in an exhilarating rivalry to prove that, despite everyone else around, they are ‘extraordinary’. As it is the case with all insatiable desires, disappointment and loss promise to be inescapable. Pikelet feels betrayed by his comrades as they leave for Bali and Java without bothering to inform him, and in the midst of desperate attempts to fight the pain of rejection, he finds himself in the seductive arms of Eva, who is equally frustrated with erratic Sando. In strangely subtle ways, the middle-aged Pikelet reflects on his failure to keep his married life going as a repercussion of the ‘creepiness’ of his adulterous relationship with his former guru’s wife.

The title plays a more than metaphorical role in the formation of the novel. On some levels, the whole book is about respiration, inhaling and exhaling, the ‘struggling’ time between the two, the fine line between life and death, and what all this signifies for Pikelet about ‘being’ as comprised of having and losing. Pain is real, so is life, Winton seems to remind us, and whenever lethargy threatens to annihilate the vigor and zest for life, pain is there to give us a good revitalizing kick.
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Jul 15, 2010 Jodie rated it really liked it

I loved this book. The surfing, the coming of age, the times of freedom. This just spoke to me. Pikelet is the perfect antagonist and Tim Winton is so lyrical. When he describes moments in the surf my whole body just responded with a deep feeling of I know that I just didn't have the words for it - Thank goodness Tim Winton does. ...more

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Nov 18, 2009 Belinda rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: aussie, books-i-hated

I read this around my 18th birthday, which in itself was an embarrassing experience that I'm glad I won't have to repeat. One of those nights when you feel sick every time someone reminds you of what you did...
ANYWAY.
This book is the kind of book, to me, that you hate with a passion while you're reading it, hate even more when you finish it, then can't remember why you hate it so much a few weeks down the line.
I feel like a bad Australian when I say I have an unfounded hatred for Tim Winton. I d ...more

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