Two short story collections, two very different reactions.
The Turning: Stories by Tim Winton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This collection of seventeen stories, set in the fictional Western Australia whaling town of Angelus, shows ordinary people searching for redemption in their broken, mismatched, violent and tedious lives. Tim Winton, with raw and beautiful prose, asks you not to flinch or to forgive but to witness these characters and their choices, and to draw your own conclusions about the future of their souls.
Nine of these stories focus on the Lang family. In no chronological order, we see the turmoil that besets the Langs, mostly through the eyes of Vic, as an adolescent, a young man, a father and husband. By shifting chronology, narrative voice and character perspective, Winton gives us a 360 view of a community, a family and a man.
Other stories intertwine, as well. The gut-twisting The Turning show us characters as adults- the broken bully Max Leaper and his wife, Raelene, who is searching for a way out of herself. We then encounter Max and his brother as boys in Sand and again as adults in Family, where redemption arrives in a flash of copper hide and gnashing teeth.
It's difficult to recommend individual stories, particularly when so much is to be gained from reading the sum. Each moved me, though the longer stories, such as Boner McPharlin's Moll; Small Mercies; Long, Clear View and Commission resonated more deeply because of greater character development.
Tim Winton, in novel and in short story, writes about families. Neither politics nor history lessons interest him. Winton writes to show the extraordinary within the most ordinary. He has a particular brilliance with the perspectives of children, capturing their wisdom and sensitivity and showing them at play and in pain, with tenderness and clarity.
The writing in this collection is more personal than Cloudstreet, his epic family tale, and is completely absent of the mysticism that shimmers at the edges of The Riders and Cloudstreet. It is natural, flowing and flawless.
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How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Orringer writes with confidence, but without much passion. These nine stories are perfectly constructed, and the author has a keen ear for natural dialogue, but with few exceptions, I was not moved by the characters or their dilemmas.
In each, whether the voice is first or third person (even, in the case of Note to Sixth-Grade Self, second person), the protagonist is a young girl or a coming of age adolescent. Each faces a significant loss- either of a loved one or of innocence. Very high marks to Pilgrims, a subtle homage to Lord of the Flies, and Note to Sixth-Grade Self; these stories spill out the inherent, almost innocent cruelty of children. Shrugs to Stars of Motown Shining Bright and The Smoothest Way Is Full of Stones, both centered on characters discovering and exploring their sexual selves, and When She Is Old and I Am Famous, which was entertaining but empty.
Less than the themes, which did not always resonate with me, was Orringer's writing. It's very modern and linear, clean and sharp. I admire this, but there was no place to escape and rest for a moment. The Isabel Fish and Care came very close, as the characters slipped quietly into depression or a drug-induced high. But those weren't places where I wanted to linger.