Book Review: "Cloudstreet" by Tim Winton

“Life was something you didn't argue with, because when it came down to it, whether you barracked for God or nothing at all, life was all there was. And death.”

- Cloudstreet by Tim Winton

I had heard of this book before and had seen it around my recommendations lists and yet, for some reason I never thought to read it until now. It is one of those books that you had wished you read before but no, you waited and waited, ignoring it whilst it sat there. It's almost like judging a book by its cover if the cover was invisible to you as you scrolled through for more popular texts. Wasn't it Murakami who said that if you only read what everyone else is reading you can only think what everyone else is thinking? I think so. I don't know how many people have read this book but I sure do hope it is more people than scroll past it like I did.

Sam Pickles works the hardest labour job you can imagine and one day, he wakes up smelling the scent of his dead father. We are thrust back into his past where, as a child he would sleep next to his father who drank port before bed every night. He wakes up one day to realise his father was dead and we see that now, as an adult, when he wakes with that air, it is an omen or a shadow.

Through the fishing world of the grand Australian landscapes, we see people who lose their limbs, people who drown and seem to come back from the dead and a house with more than twenty rooms handed over to a family after a woman tried to open it up, only to find that one of her maids had committed suicide. At the beginning of the day the family is rich, but by the end they are poor again.

Alongside this we have the wife, Dolly Pickles who is struck with sadness almost constantly. Her husband's accident plus the gambling plus the big house and plus everything else that happens makes her seem more folorn than she ever lets on. When the Lamb family turns up at her door, there is something more going on and she can feel it. The Lambs were about to move in and make their mark on her property and she did not like it one bit.

The Lambs have their own greivances though as they have two sons who are clearly unlike each other but, one owes the other everything. Nicknamed 'Quick' and 'Fish' Lamb, the boys are the most interesting characters in the whole book by a flying mile and they have a brotherhood that cannot possibly be broken. Quick looks after Fish and guards him carefully with his father telling Quick that he should allow his brother some freedom and happiness because they owe him the world.

Fish Lamb is a beautiful character written into a story and slowly becoming the front and centre of it. As the Lambs take to the house and go forth into the world, his role and his world start to expand and become the main aspects of what we read. It is really interesting and possibly the best part of the book. Fish Lamb is a fun, wonderful and beautiful character without a bad bone in his body. If you're looking for your hook character then this is it. The author has done some brilliant work here.

The book's ending is amazing too but I won't talk much about that because I don't want to give any spoilers. But as the book goes on, the ending starts to make more and more sense. Right at the end, there is a certain feeling of realisation that you will get and I would highly suggest savouring it.

All in all, I loved this book. It was beautifully written, very interesting to read and the characters were deep, intricate and meaningful human beings that were written so well you could have mistaken them for real people. My favourite character in this book will always be Fish Lamb, the wonder of his expanding world is really quite something.