The Shepherd’s Hut, by Tim Winton

The Shepherd’s Hut, by Tim Winton

5 September 2019, The Hop Pole: book choice AA, apols MT.

I chose this book because I am fond of the Australian outback and really enjoyed Cloudstreet and Dirt Music by Tim Winton. I think he writes beautifully about Australia with evocative prose which brings land and people to life - like his compatriot and Nobel Laureate Patrick White - but in a more lively and contemporary way.

He starts his books with a place – in this case the salt flats of Western Australia (WA) – and here gives us a tale of survival and self-discovery, trust and faith, penance and salvation, masculinity and the possibility of redemption.

Most of the group found it compelling stuff from the start with a great sense of place and suspense all the way through. 

RV wanted to keep reading, thought the characterisation was excellent, Jaxie’s voice authentic, Winton’s language wonderful, and that the book was full of interesting ideas and descriptions. He found Winton reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy in the way they capture place and people:

Just before a summer storm one time when the Cap was away shooting horses and sawing them up into prime Angus beef. The sky was black and the paddocks the colour of bread. 

However, the end was far too quick and disappointing. Overall, a little thin despite all the positives, and didn’t seem to live up to the high praise in the long list of review quotes at the end of the book.

WM, who grew up in rural NSW, found the prose evocative and Jaxie’s language perfectly apposite, enjoying the “whole immediacy of the book”. He found Jaxie’s character believable and the descriptions of the bush good. He wondered if commitment issues might explain Jaxie’s delay in ending Fintan’s torture and noted that Lee was probably also unstable in view of her behaviour including her shaved head. Overall, great, a striking book, really enjoyed it.

CW, who has an Australian brother and lived there for a year, including months camping crossing the Nullarbor Plain, enjoyed the vocabulary and thought the characters were fantastic – spot on, their voices real and natural and enjoyed the contrast between them. He found Jaxie clever with intuitive ideas and excellent survival skills – ironically something he had learnt from Captain Wankbag. He really enjoyed the tension and suspense throughout and also commented on how Jaxie was right to be so scared of the drugs culture. However, he felt disappointed as the book ended too quickly and would like to have seen Jaxie getting out with the priest so they could have survived together allowing the opportunity for confession. He thought the signposts towards the end of the book eg: “If I’d known now…” broke the suspense, but absolutely loved the characters and the atmosphere of the outback.

SC came to the book unaware of the author or the setting and with the title conjuring up for him the type of expensive garden office installed by David Cameron for writing his memoirs. Not until page ten was he in Australia and although he found the language a distraction at the start and thought it could have been a bit more nuanced, he then got thoroughly immersed in it and totally drawn into the plot. He had huge empathy for Jaxie and wondered if Fintan was more myth than character – a cypher for Jaxie. He thought the scene with the two of them sitting on the salt flat discussing the stones and the moon was fantastic, but lost interest after the sudden plot change with the drugs gang. The magic of the middle of the story was undermined by the need to wrap it up. Overall, thoroughly enjoyed it.

CB, arriving promptly from Manchester despite British Rail, smartly besuited and with suitcase, found it a satisfying read with fantastic energy, excitement and tension. He loved the way Jaxie’s character emerged through his vernacular language, and how his relationship with Fintan emerged subtly and sensitively despite the brutality of their outback environment. However, he felt cheated not knowing why Fintan had been exiled, and that the torture scene didn’t work other than as a plot vehicle. Overall, like a fine meal, the book was enjoyable at the time but didn’t stay with him. There was nothing important about it. Enjoyable but not enduring. 

MW, suitcase-free, but just off the plane from Glasgow, found it a compelling and enjoyable read and, like RV, disagreed with the reviews at the end of the book which called it a masterpiece. It gave him the flavour of the old road movies with not much plot – all about the experiences of the characters on the road. Like those characters whose backgrounds are hazy or absent, we don’t get to know Fintan’s crime. The relationship between Jaxie and Fintan was the dominant theme, and he found this original and enjoyed it. He didn’t like the intrusion of the real world when the gangsters turned up with their mull farm and torture. He didn’t find Jaxie particularly likeable or engaging and the style took a bit of getting used to, but the relationship between the two actually was interesting and well observed and developed. The priest’s big secret, hinted at rather than disclosed, formed a large part of the relationship, with Jaxie’s subtle character development the other main theme. Overall, enjoyable – good but not great. 

JH, bang on time despite having submitted himself to the vagaries of Britain’s mass transit system from the smoke of Shoreditch, and who had lived for three years in Australia, started by saying that this was not the Australia he knew. The only member of the group to have read some Winton before, he enjoyed Breathbut absolutely hated Cloudstreet, and this book didn’t start well for him. After twenty pages he though ‘sod it’ and only tried again after seeing SC’s email calling it a ‘right, rollicking read’. He then picked it up again and read it in one go, finding it hard to put down and really enjoying it. Some lovely use of language and imagery. He wondered who the book was about – was it a parable about Fintan with Jaxie as the centurion while Fintan was dying on his cross. Was the story about Fintan, who he found the more interesting character, rather than about Jaxie?

MT, heading southwest with his bicycle courtesy of Great Western Railway, emailed from his carriage to say he had initially hated the book passionately.  He didn’t like the bad language, the un-PC comments eg. ‘spastic’, the writing style and all the words he had no idea of e.g. roo, euro etc. He didn’t like the abrupt change of time, and after 20 pages found it agony but slowly kept going. He even started to enjoy it slightly and found bits actually enjoyable. He liked Jaxie’s growing relationship with his cousin Lee and the sadness about the last bits of that. The violent father reminded him of past violent fathers.  The wild camping perked up when he met the priest and he enjoyed that. The discussion about God was good as well. The tension at the end was well done as well. In the end, not a bad book and the strange words made sense in the end.

AA had wanted to introduce those who hadn’t read Winton before to his beautiful prose, but this story is narrated by Jaxie rather than Winton. However, I thought the narration by Jaxie worked well – and I enjoyed his often humorous phrasing and way of seeing things, and his raw style seemed to fit with the brutality of the landscape and life in the desert. And I liked the directness of Jaxie’s young voice – hearing exactly what he is thinking:

I tried to get me thoughts straight while I went. But there was too many of them. Then for a long time, hours it was, I had no thoughts at all. And when they come back it was like fuzzy radio.

And although we couldn’t have Winton as the narrator his style was still evident and there were bits of more lyrical prose and not just when Fintan was speaking:

The heat and salt and flies. A place so empty a fella’s thoughts come back from it as echoes.

I was so tired the swag felt like a sponge that soaked me up. I went to sleep like someone disappearing from the earth, like rain sopped into dust

I enjoyed the dialogue with its contrast of Jaxie’s teenage street slang with his aggressive jerky delivery, and the much older priest with his more formal language with its Irish and priestly tones:

I am in earnest, boy. Get fucked, I said still laughing.

I thought the two main characters and their relationship were fascinating.  Jaxie always on the alert, full of bravado, wanting to show how tough he is to scare people off, and tough, resourceful, and resilient with great intuition. And also impetuous - really still a child just wanting to be understood – and to be safe. I think Winton develops him really well as he learns to replace the suspicion and hostility which have protected him with trust, and to recognise and accept kindness. And he tells us about Lee, perhaps his only point of reference and a Quixotic quest, given that they are cousins and the size of the body count. And Fintan with his constant chatter, and his need to confess constantly thwarted in his dreams just as he is able to start.

Overall, the characters and place stayed with me, but not on a level with Cloudstreet or Dirt Music, as like CB, I didn’t find it an important book.

Many of us thought the creation of the priest and his hut worked well and the group was split on whether or not it would have been better to learn exactly how he had transgressed. And most were surprised by the intrusion of the outside world with the discovery of the mull factory and concerned by Jaxie’s delay in intervening to save Fintan. Like MT, RV and CB thought the discussions about religion worked well:

But I suspect that God is what you do, not what or who you believe in. Well. Whatever.

Scores: RV 7.25, WM 8.3, CW 7.5, SC 5.5, CB 6.5, MW 7.3, JH 7.3, MT 6, AA 7.5