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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I first read Cloudstreet when I was a teenager and remember not really liking it. At the time all I liked reading was fantasy, tawdry Virginia Andrews novels and Sweet Valley High so it really didn't hit the mark for me. This time however, I felt I was able to properly appreciate Winton's quintessential Aussie tale of family, life and love.
Cloudstreet is the story of two down on their luck working class families, the Pickles and the Lambs. Set in post WWII Australia, both families have seen their fair share of tragedy, disaster and disappointment. When the Pickles inherit 1 Cloud Street, they take on the Lambs as tenants and both families attempt to resolutely ignore the other while they deal with their own problems, not realising just how much they need each other.
It's fun, it's joyful, it's sad and it's real. Winton has this great down to earth writing style with a bit of wry humour that makes his characters all the more believable. Probably the most Aussie book you'll ever read - good luck on interpreting the slang if you're not Australian!
Cloudstreet is the story of two down on their luck working class families, the Pickles and the Lambs. Set in post WWII Australia, both families have seen their fair share of tragedy, disaster and disappointment. When the Pickles inherit 1 Cloud Street, they take on the Lambs as tenants and both families attempt to resolutely ignore the other while they deal with their own problems, not realising just how much they need each other.
It's fun, it's joyful, it's sad and it's real. Winton has this great down to earth writing style with a bit of wry humour that makes his characters all the more believable. Probably the most Aussie book you'll ever read - good luck on interpreting the slang if you're not Australian!
I'd had this on my to-reads because it'd been on a list of best second person perspective books. Spoilers: it shouldn't have been on the list. There are little passages here and there which break out of the traditional third person mold, but otherwise it's a pretty straightforward story narratively.
I read it anyway because I don't like DNFs, and it turned out to be not bad. It's not a book for people who like well-plotted and well-paced stories. It's a book for people who will watch all 8234728 episodes of a family drama (爱, anyone?). Because it is a family drama - two families stuck in the same house over twenty years.
The most important thing happens in the first few chapters (). Everything else that happens essentially stems from this event. It's nice to see the characters growing and their ideals changing, although I think the time devoted to different characters was disproportionate, and some of the character decisions made no sense.. It's also nice to think of the house itself as a living, breathing thing, but this concept only came out when I read the postscript and not through the writing.
Wouldn't read it again because it's not my kind of book, but perfectly servicable.
I read it anyway because I don't like DNFs, and it turned out to be not bad. It's not a book for people who like well-plotted and well-paced stories. It's a book for people who will watch all 8234728 episodes of a family drama (爱, anyone?). Because it is a family drama - two families stuck in the same house over twenty years.
The most important thing happens in the first few chapters (
Spoiler
Fish nearly drowningWouldn't read it again because it's not my kind of book, but perfectly servicable.
A bit too slow-moving for my personal taste, and I found it difficult to distinguish between the characters. This is clearly a classic but just not for me.
it goes to show our nation’s self-deprecation that when hearing all the praise for this book i had a hard time believing it. on finishing this book i continued to have a harder time still admitting it.
weaving ugly australiana and australianisms into mesmerising prose is a feat in and of itself. there were times where i genuinely felt i couldn’t pull my eyes away from the pages. plenty of unwavering beauty in such banal PERTH moments and times i was just rocked to tears (sam & rose’s ~shaving~ interaction).
telling stories so australian but so universal is yet another undeniable feat. i finished this book on a balcony in barcelona and despite the obvious difference in location, i could feel these characters living here. living anywhere. filled with truly human experiences front to back.
it’s just us and us and us and..
weaving ugly australiana and australianisms into mesmerising prose is a feat in and of itself. there were times where i genuinely felt i couldn’t pull my eyes away from the pages. plenty of unwavering beauty in such banal PERTH moments and times i was just rocked to tears (sam & rose’s ~shaving~ interaction).
telling stories so australian but so universal is yet another undeniable feat. i finished this book on a balcony in barcelona and despite the obvious difference in location, i could feel these characters living here. living anywhere. filled with truly human experiences front to back.
it’s just us and us and us and..
Tim Winton could write a shopping list and I'd find it interesting (I think I've said that before). My love affair began years ago after I picked up a battered copy of The Riders at a book sale and I've read most of his work.
I initially made heavy work of Cloudstreet - it lacked Winton's normal searing intensity. I wondered if it was the length (coming in at over 500 pages it's double to length of most of his novels) because while well-written and compelling, the novel was overall like a watercolour compared to Winton's other work that I've come to know as intense, absorbing and all-consuming.
Speaking with others who've read this the general opinion seems to be that if this is the first Winton you've read you'll love it. If it's not, you might be left wanting.
Approach Cloudstreet as a good, contemporary Australian work of fiction rather than another gripping Winton read. In fact, forget it's Tim Winton and let yourself enjoy the story without his credentials.
Also, don't buy the edition with the film tie-in cover (it was the only one available in-store at my time of purchase) because the synopsis of the book has been rewritten for a mainstream TV-watching audience and does the book absolutely no favours.
In truth, I'd probably prefer to give this three and a half stars.
I initially made heavy work of Cloudstreet - it lacked Winton's normal searing intensity. I wondered if it was the length (coming in at over 500 pages it's double to length of most of his novels) because while well-written and compelling, the novel was overall like a watercolour compared to Winton's other work that I've come to know as intense, absorbing and all-consuming.
Speaking with others who've read this the general opinion seems to be that if this is the first Winton you've read you'll love it. If it's not, you might be left wanting.
Approach Cloudstreet as a good, contemporary Australian work of fiction rather than another gripping Winton read. In fact, forget it's Tim Winton and let yourself enjoy the story without his credentials.
Also, don't buy the edition with the film tie-in cover (it was the only one available in-store at my time of purchase) because the synopsis of the book has been rewritten for a mainstream TV-watching audience and does the book absolutely no favours.
In truth, I'd probably prefer to give this three and a half stars.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
I found Cloudstreet pretty slow going at first. It has a dreamy quality to that makes it easy to become distracted while reading, and there are a lot of characters to keep in mind. But before too long I started to care about what was going to happen next and I felt my attention being drawn in by Winton's prose rather than sliding away from it.
Cloudstreet is a family saga that sees two families living in the same house over a period stretching from WW2 to the 1960s. It paints a vivid picture of poverty in Western Australia at this time and the various ways in which people can respond to it. The Pickles family fall into addictions (each one has a different vice) that gradually degrade their lives. The Lambs, on the other hand, find meaning in running a shop in true Protestant work ethic style. Interestingly, neither family really 'gets out' of poverty despite these vastly different responses to it.
It is the richness of Winton's writing that makes Cloudstreet remarkable. The key family members have deep inner lives but even the side characters are highly credible, and Winton is the master of conjuring up a glut of objects:
"On the long grassy bank beneath peppermint trees and the cavernous roots of the Moreton Bay figs, they lay blankets and white tablecloths which break up in the filtered sunlight and they sprawl in their workclothes and stockings, rollers in, buns half out. Out of the crates come hams, cold chickens, lettuce salad, hardboiled eggs and asparagus, potato salad and shredded carrot, chutney, bread, a jar of anchovies and a vat of pickled onions. Lemonade, Coke, ginger beer, squeezed juices and a hip flask of Chateau Tanunda."
Now that's a picnic! Ultimately, though, it is the spirituality and the magical realism that I think will stick with me. The characters in Cloudstreet do not presume that everything should be explicable to them, and so events such as people glowing or ghosts appearing elicit as little curiosity as the weather. The reader comes to accept that miraculous things can happen, even in the course of a seemingly unremarkable life. By teaching us this, Winton drives home the point that no life is truly unremarkable - in fact it is the very mundanity of day after day, step after step, that makes life so extraordinary.
Cloudstreet is a family saga that sees two families living in the same house over a period stretching from WW2 to the 1960s. It paints a vivid picture of poverty in Western Australia at this time and the various ways in which people can respond to it. The Pickles family fall into addictions (each one has a different vice) that gradually degrade their lives. The Lambs, on the other hand, find meaning in running a shop in true Protestant work ethic style. Interestingly, neither family really 'gets out' of poverty despite these vastly different responses to it.
It is the richness of Winton's writing that makes Cloudstreet remarkable. The key family members have deep inner lives but even the side characters are highly credible, and Winton is the master of conjuring up a glut of objects:
"On the long grassy bank beneath peppermint trees and the cavernous roots of the Moreton Bay figs, they lay blankets and white tablecloths which break up in the filtered sunlight and they sprawl in their workclothes and stockings, rollers in, buns half out. Out of the crates come hams, cold chickens, lettuce salad, hardboiled eggs and asparagus, potato salad and shredded carrot, chutney, bread, a jar of anchovies and a vat of pickled onions. Lemonade, Coke, ginger beer, squeezed juices and a hip flask of Chateau Tanunda."
Now that's a picnic! Ultimately, though, it is the spirituality and the magical realism that I think will stick with me. The characters in Cloudstreet do not presume that everything should be explicable to them, and so events such as people glowing or ghosts appearing elicit as little curiosity as the weather. The reader comes to accept that miraculous things can happen, even in the course of a seemingly unremarkable life. By teaching us this, Winton drives home the point that no life is truly unremarkable - in fact it is the very mundanity of day after day, step after step, that makes life so extraordinary.