This is a book that is largely made up of fleeting poetic impressions, loosely grouped around a storyline. In other words, I wanted to kill someone while reading it: either myself or Tim Winton, I’m not sure which. Possibly both.
Because on the one hand, I feel bad. It is sometimes very elegantly and beautifully written, and I was sort of interested in the characters, and maybe I am just missing something, as other people seem to like it. On the other hand: OH MY GOD. Just say what you want to say. Not everything has to be shadowed by the strange and wonderful other realities. I can think of many bathroom trips I have made, that were singularly unshadowed. Also, it was rather in the modern vein, in that sorrow and futility were clearly very much on the menu, and speech marks were very much not.
I read to the end of the book, but there’s the bit where I gave up, about two-thirds of the way through the book, or at Location 2996 as my Kindle helpfully tells me: “She felt pity and misery and hatred and she knew this was how it would always be. . . What are we supposed to do? he said. I dunno, she said.