fnLOCAL

I discovered Tim Winton’s work after hearing him on one of Tony Delroy’s Nightlife shows on ABC local radio. The book at the time was his new release Breath (and he has just won his FOURTH Miles Franklin Award for it) but the library didn’t have it or it was already out. Many of his other books were taken too so I picked up a large-print copy of Dirt Music. It was like eating a gourmet meal after years of living on beans on toast. Full, rich, intelligent, poetic, illustrative. A satisfying read, but a little bit too Hollywood OTT towards the end for me.

While reading Dirt Music I came across a whole heap of words I had rarely or never heard before. Fascinated, I made a list of them as I read…

welter
sarcoma
corralled
imbibed
miasma
corniche
prophylactic
cur
sphinctery
carapaces
ephemeral
visceral
histrionic
ornery
antipodean
acquisitive
obverse
dreck
complicit
octane
fastidious
trepanning
semillion
thrum
puce
foetid
detente
circumspect
apropos
pellucid
adenoidal
frenetic
voluble

For me, the best bits of Dirt Music were the illustrations that Tim made with words.

it gave her about as much pleasure as a childhood dose of codliver oil (p5)

frighten the mascara off people (p12)

watches it shunt the tin bowl across the dirt
(p52 describing a dog eating from a bowl)

its tail drummed against the fender
(p8 a great verbal illustration of a happy dog)

they tread the current of the mirage
(p62 trees on a hot landscape)

runs like a kid at bathtime
(p199 about a second-hand car)

the diesel bowser continues to roll its eyes at the Kenworth
(p220 verbal illustration of a Kenworth truck filling up on fuel)

Closer to the road, on scree slopes the colour of dry blood, the smooth white trunks of snappy gums suspend crowns of leaves so green it’s shocking.
(p220 colour!)

The wallaby blurs away the moment he moves.
(p246 I like the unusual verb of ‘blurs’ to describe the motion instead of bounds/jumps)