Lung capacity

What does one do on a summer holiday when faced with lots of rain and/or contaminated ocean water?

Read.

Knock over a few Reading Resolutions.

Breath by Tim Winton seems an incredibly fitting book as a supplement for a craving for a dip in the sea. Sitting on the grass atop the small dune behind the beach, with almost every fibre of my being screeching at me to ditch the sarong and dive under the waves. All except my delicate ear drum that was squeaking at me to remember 2 summers ago, with the perforated ear drum, the searing pain and the complete lack of swim time that followed. A quick google search showed that flood waters and even heavy rains bring down untreated sewage, chemical run off and the juices from animal carcasses. Reading this worked as a way to convince all the other fibres that my ear, as usual, was right.

So I settled for reading about the joys and the beauty of sliding down the face of a wave instead.

Winton seems to have the ability to discuss that which usually cannot be communicated - the inner workings of the mind of a man who is incapable of emotional articulation. I am not saying that all blokes are emotional retards, or that every single guy is mute when it comes to discussing, nay even identifying an emotion when they feel one. But lots of the boys I know are. And I know a fairly large number of males, working at The Boy Factory. In his Lockie Leonard stories, the protagonist is a teenager, discovering self-awareness and what it means to be human, male, a son, a brother, a boyfriend, a friend.

In Breath, the central character is going through the same thing. But a la The Wonder Years, we see it through his adult eyes. Told largely through flashback, mostly (but not entirely) linear in structure, we see why this middle aged paramedic is so cynical, so emotionally cut off, and yet so knowing. And a la Freud, the reasons lie in his childhood, and the formative years of his adolescent friendships.

Pikelet is falling in love for the very first time, and it is with the ocean. His mentor, the slightly dinted Sando, and his best friend, the more than slightly unhinged Loonie surf enormous waves, seek the next thrill, and approach surfing as though it is an addiction, a science, an art and a way of life. And then humanity gets in the way of it all.

My mother (who ALWAYS loves Winton) didn't like this book all that much. A bit too heavy on the adrenaline for a worry-junkie like her. Seeking out the next thrill, the next way to push ones' self to the edge, to find something within ones's self that is Extraordinary, rather than just being satisfied with the mundane things that life brings... this is the motivations behind all of the characters in the book. And I don't know that she is all that comfortable with that notion. But I get it.

As usual, Winton's poetics are rich and varied, and his ability to craft the tension is sublime. He can craft a moment on the top of a wave, mere hairs of a second, into half a page of breathless delight. The characters of this novel dive and swim and auto-asphixiate, and the reader does it with them. If a book can make you change something as innate and essential as your pattern of breathing, then it must be some pretty powerful writing.