“Maybe we'd all be much more effective communicators if we all shut up more.”

The bins are out, Geilston Bay, August 2021.

Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton

After delivering a rather scathing critique of Dalton's last book - All Our Shimmering Skies - I am glad that I succumbed to the badgering of my darling wife to give his much-praised debut a chance. She is correct. This is the infinitely superior book.

I suspect that this is largely because Dalton is treading more familiar ground. Unlike the new book, there's an authenticity to the place and characters despite the shaggy dog tale that emerges. This is a likeable coming of age tale that will have appeal to anyone with memories of growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in 1980s Australia.

There's a heart to what could have been a bitter and unpleasant tale. Still, Dalton pulls no punches, and there are no shortage of triggers for anyone who grew up in violent, tumultuous households. I appreciated the sophistication that the author has sensitively explored the concept of how young people cope with childhood trauma. I particularly liked Poppy Birkbeck, the high school guidance counsellor, who runs against type in playing a positive role in the boys finding a way forward in life.

While the final few chapters stretch credulity, I enjoyed the novel very much. Well worth your time!

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Comments

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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