Master lacking in motivation

Tim Winton is perhaps Australia’s most well-known contemporary writer. The author of 28 books, he first wowed me when I read his multi-award winning historic novel, Cloudstreet .An amazing epic about family dysfunction and dedication, it remains one of my best loved books.

Shallows, Dirt Music, Breath: these novels and others also stand out.

It’s fair to say then that I approached his latest, The Shepherd’s Hut, already won over — almost. Sadly, it’s also fair to say that, come the conclusion of this book, my willingness to see only the best in Winton’s work had been tested somewhat.

The characterisation and plot should play to Winton’s strengths. Independent-minded, roughtongued outsider Jaxie Clackton is a classic authorial protagonist. The story transports us from his violent, deprived underclass life to the bucolic safety of former priest turned compassionate shepherd, Fintan MacGillis; symbol and parable are everywhere here.

The remarkable raw language works well in The Shepherd’s Hut. There’s such simplicity, poetry and sophistication in almost every line, this poet-reviewer wonders when Winton will charm us with a collection. In Winton’s cadent word-choice, Jaxie’s voice — and thus his being — spring immediately into life.

The Aussie landscape in the book is also characteristically vivid and emotive. Here, it’s the Outback, which Winton portrays with a craft and tenderness that only a man as closely attuned to nature as the author is could write.

His depiction conjures up a setting as rough as Jaxie; an uncompromising place in which survival is near-impossible. Yet, in the Outback’s unyielding strength the author ultimately finds the solace and sanctuary of home.

The problem, though, lies in Jaxie’s decision to flee his hometown for the titular hut. One might say that, for some, the flight is instinctual and that might well be so in Jaxie’s case. However, he spends so much time justifying it, that it forces us to validate his reasoning. And therein creeps doubt. For, be it intuitive or reasoned, Jaxie’s escape appears, upon scrutiny, ever more erroneous and implausible; a fact only magnified at the violent and muddled end.

Uneven especially in its failure to deeply mine the kind of human interaction present in Cloudstreet, Winton’s The Shepherd’s Hut still holds much that will delight; it’s just a shame it relies so heavily upon motivations by Jaxie that remain overly and unconvincingly explained.

THE SHEPHERD’S HUT

by Tim Winton (Hamish Hamilton, $45, hardback) Reviewed by Siobhan Harvey