Auckland Writers & Readers Festival
May 26 | Reviewed by Catherine Bisley

Tim Winton has worked out how to get the camel through the eye of the needle. Here are his instructions, in three simple steps:

1) Kill the camel
2) Boil the camel
3) Spit it though the needle’s eye.

In case you are recoiling at the cruel fate of the camel, or disbelieving because you’d need a mighty big pot in which to boil it, do not fear! It is only a metaphor, and as far as I know Winton has only killed the odd kangaroo, fought the good fight against cane toads and recreationally fished (but only from sustainable stocks). Winton, whose parents were fundamentalist converts in the 60s, uses the camel/ needle conundrum to describe how, over 65 days and with publishers breathing down his back, he cut the 1200 page version of Dirt Music into what you should go and buy at your local bookstore. The process was also a nice way to show that writing isn’t always Katherine Mansfield sitting at her perfectly ordered desk looking refined. There’s blood and guts and sweat involved.

Chair Stephanie Johnston introduced One Hour with Tim Winton as a retrospective. Winton quipped that such a description was a bit melancholy, as if he’d “already kicked it.” He one upped himself a few moments later “I brought my own shovel.” The first sentence of Winton’s short story “The Turning,” which is the title of the collection of stories he published in 2004 was used in the promotional material for the festival. Can’t say I dug the way the designers used his words: jumbling the letters “Raelene couldn’t stand being in the caravan another bloody minute” in different fonts, black ink on bright green. As a lead in into the hour we were to spend with him, Winton read the first couple of pages of the story. Thankfully, I was able to banish the poster version from my mind. As she walks out of the caravan, Raelene’s girls are “watching Sesame Street so loud it took the enamel off your teeth.” While Winton’s work is shot through with great description like this, what is especially striking about this excerpt he read was the encounter between Raelene and Sherry in the washhouse of the White Point camping ground. Raelene has been badly beaten by her husband Max, and spends this meeting expecting that Sherry is going to judge her, smack her in the face with her own depressing lot:

“That must have hurt” says Sherry.

While she waits, Raylene sizes up Sherry “the look said leafy suburb, Country Road, briefcase hubby…” As it turns out Sherry is talking about the stud in Raelene’s navel. She doesn’t even “wrinkle her little nose” when Raelene shows her the cruelly ironic “Handle With Care” tat in the small of her back. With the exception of Max, who gets eaten by a shark in a later story “Family,” Winton does not judge his characters. The way he read revealed his deep emotional understanding of the two women. Raelene’s gratitude is heart wrenching. The twists and turns are conveyed with a pace and shape worthy of the writing, building to the point when “Raelene could have hugged her.”

Given Winton’s non judgemental approach as an author, I was surprised when Stephanie Johnston launched a smack down on Faye from Small Mercies. “I thought my job was to just write them” said Winton. Though Faye is an addict who has abandoned her child and almost ruined her parents, stolen from them, Winton shows us Faye’s situation, her desperation: “Awful Darwinism,” the old survival of the fittest notes Winton. Then the conversation segued into Boner McPharlin’s Moll a story Winton describes as the “accidental structural absence” of The Turning. Boner is a character that hardly speaks. You’ve really got to read the story. You will see the power and glory.

Was The Turning always thought of as a collection short stories? Was it ever a novel in his mind? How did he choose the order of the stories? Judging that Winton has probably been being dragged to festivals upon festival by his publisher, I’d say he’s thoroughly sick of this question. Though it had come up in the previous two sessions I was surprised that it came up again. At one point Winton talked fondly about his grandfather. Like Sam in Cloudstreet he was a man who gave all his money to the bookies: “Catholics don’t give so much to the church. He was so devoted.” The wisdom that he had imparted to Tim was to “get it in between your ears… then the bosses can’t touch it.” Interestingly, Couldstreet was written when Winton lived in Ireland and Paris. Though he has almost drowned three times in his life, Winton spoke of how he hates being inland and away from the ocean. Winton admits to the nostalgia and longing: “a homage to Perth”

Johnson brought up the use of religious images in Winton’s work. Winton commented that though its enjoying a resurgence, Australians aren’t particularly religious: “If the PM of Australia went to church everyone would be on the phone.” He questioned how this could be when Australia “is the most sacred and spiritual continent.” This prompted some cheers from the more politically minded in the audience. Winton describes himself as a pantheist, “blood and water are not ciphers,” rather “they are meaningful in themselves.”

The discussion then turned to The Riders which I haven’t read. After more general banter about whether the characters are likable or not, (“I’m sure his mother liked him,” says Winton on Scully the central character), Johnston mentioned that the book seemed “furious” and queried if this had something to do with the feminist trends of the time. Winton was surprised: “I don’t have sexual politics”. Apparently it’s a question that crops up a lot though: “In the street, at the cash register, family gathering…” I’m interested to read The Riders but really doubt if Winton is capable of fury towards any of his characters.

In case you haven’t picked it up already, Winton had a great sense of humour. When questions were solicited from the floor, one woman praised Winton for the way he didn’t overstate characters’ back stories in Dirt Music. He laughed. The back story, he said is incidental, “daggs” that weren’t removed in the camel/needle process of editing it down from 1200 pages.

Somehow, Winton restored my faith in Aussie blokes. A job, considering Shane Warne and his ilk had systematically sullied the image I’d got on first reading Henry Lawson.