Breath in Aussie Readers

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.
...more

Like · see review

Jan 08, 2022 Rhoda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Bruce Pike (Pikelet) is a middle age paramedic and when he is called out to a teenage adventure gone wrong, he reflects back in time to his own teenage years and how his own life could have easily gone the same way.

In typical Tim Winton writing, this book provides the reader with strong visuals of the surroundings and provides vivid and detailed descriptions of surfing in particular. As I’m not a surfer, I must admit that the detail was a bit lost on me, but could imagine that a surfer would re ...more

Like · see review

Aug 14, 2018 Tanya rated it really liked it

In the interest of full disclosure- I didn't expect to like this book. Most of the time I like my fiction light and fluffy, with a happily ever after. I don't read a lot of literature. A friend loaned me a copy though, and I recently read The Shepherd's Hut and by the end I enjoyed it so figured I'd give it a go.

And look, I kinda love Breath. It's not my usual book. It's disturbing and haunting, but it also has a kind of beauty to it. Or maybe that's just the way it makes me feel? As someone who ...more

Like · see review

Jul 11, 2010 Raylea rated it it was ok

I think that Tim Winton draws better male characters than women - this book is flooded with testosterone. If this is what it's really like to grown up an Aussie boy, heaven help them all. ...more

Like · see review