Blueback
(Tim Winton)
Like Hemingway?s The Old Man and the Sea, Tim Winton?s Blueback is a tale of one individual?s search for meaning through a relationship with the sea, and with one fish in particular. Like Hemingway?s better-known work, Blueback is short, deeply poetic and both life-affirming and heart-breaking.Winton?s story concerns a young boy who lives a self-sufficient, though basic life with his mother in a shack by the sea. Out diving one day with his mother, he encounters Blueback, a large, blue fish which, for the boy, symbolises the whole mystery of the sea and of the beauty and mystery of life. As he grows, his fascination with the sea leads him to become a renowned marine biologist who travels the world studying the oceans.However, no matter how much he studies he finds himself no nearer answering the fundamental secret of the ocean. It is only when he returns to his childhood home and dives the waters of his childhood, that he regains his sense of awe. He learns that true understanding comes from the heart, not the mind; comes from being, not knowing.Blueback, though powerful and deeply evocative, is written with simple, understated prose and a very basic plot. It is a novel, however, that like poetry, creates an intense feeling; a novel which allows the reader to share in the young boy?s sense of wonder in creation and his love and acceptance of life. It is adulthood that tarnishes this and draws a veil between him and truly living. Adulthood, with its education, career and status, gives us nothing in terms of a bond with life; this is a novel which tells us to hang on to what we had as children, the spontaneity and responsiveness to our environment.This is a truly wonderful book and one I would recommend to anyone.
Resumos Relacionados
- Civilization And The Limpet
- The Blind Assassin
- The Five People You Meet In Heaven
- The Five People You Meet In Heaven
- The Old Man And The Sea, 1952
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