Port Fairy bookclub review: Eyrie

[box] Bluestone recently profiled the Last Thursday Book Club in Port Fairy and invited members of the group to tell us about their book of the month. This month, BRIGID FOARD, is in the chair: [/box]

port fairy book club — Brigid Foard (right), who is a member of The Last Thursday Book Club, in Port Fairy, gives us the rundown on Tim Winton’s latest novel.

[quote]

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]im Winton’s Eyrie commanded much discussion between the members of The Last Thursday book club, in Port Fairy this month.

The mark of a good read can often be the ripple effects of discussion when there are no easy answers, no comfortable resolutions of character or motive. The ambiguous elements of Eyrie are its strength, with Winton going to great lengths to avoid sentimentality and cliché.

Our discussion ranged from what really was the stain on the carpet at the start of the text, to was Tom Keely trying to save himself by helping Kai?

Eyrie is a thought provoking work dealing with themes such as redemption, class and the future of Australian society (more specifically, WA).

Most agreed that this is the most thrilling of Winton’s books in that it had that page turning effect on most of us.

I felt that Keely’s mother Doris was one of Winton’s more convincing female characterisations to date. The humour in the novel was something we all remarked upon. There are some hauntingly beautiful images in the novel which I will remember for years to come (surely testament once again to the work’s quality).

Winton has once again structured his writing around a few motifs: in ‘Eyrie’ they are birds, flight, falling; in ‘Breath’ – breathing, resuscitation, water.

This structural formula serves as both a functional and aesthetic framework, (including the title) and in my opinion solidifies the work as a classic.

Eyrie is one of those works that stays with your consciousness and makes you really think.”