BreathBreath
Title rated 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 69 ratings(69 ratings)
Book, 2008
Current format, Book, 2008, 1st American ed, No Longer Available.Book, 2008
Current format, Book, 2008, 1st American ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsFalling under the spell of an enigmatic extreme-sports surfer, a thrill-seeking pair of western Australian adolescents is initiated into a world of high-stakes adventures and dangerous boundary testing involving such activities as swimming in storm swells on remote and shark-infested reefs.
Falling under the spell of an enigmatic extreme-sports surfer, a thrill-seeking pair of western Australian adolescents is initiated into a world of high-stakes adventures and dangerous boundary testing.
Breath is set in a country recovering from a brutal and divisive civil war between north and south. The war may be over but people's memories are long and hatreds are slow to fade.
A teenage boy, Jamie, is knocked off his bike and dies in a city street. His father, Geoff Andrews, manager of the main hospital, is asked if he will allow one of Jamie's lungs to be removed and flown north for a transplant. He agrees, and the mercy mission begins: six hours to get the lung out of one body and into another.
As the night unfolds, and the plane travels through storms across the war-ravaged country and over the border, we see the drama from three different perspectives: Andrews, grieving for the son he perhaps never knew well enough - this one single death overwhelming, even after the deaths of so many; the lung's recipient, Baras, an old man fighting for breath, and life - a northerner with blood on his hands; and in the turbulent sky between them, Jude, the young pilot, who is closest to Jamie - or at least to his breath, his spirit, his voice.
A novel about violence and vengeance, and what must take their place, Breath is a moving and timely examination of the fractures of war and grief and the long struggle towards peace and reconciliation.
Tim Winton is Australia’s best-loved novelist. His new work,Breath, is an extraordinary evocation of an adolescence spent resisting complacency, testing one’s limits against nature, finding like-minded souls, and discovering just how far one breath will take you. It’s a story of extremes—extreme sports and extreme emotions. On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrillseeking and barely adolescent boys fall into the enigmatic thrall of veteran big-wave surfer Sando. Together they form an odd but elite trio. The grown man initiates the boys into a kind of Spartan ethos, a regimen of risk and challenge, where they test themselves in storm swells on remote and shark-infested reefs, pushing each other to the edges of endurance, courage, and sanity. But where is all this heading? Why is their mentor’s past such forbidden territory? And what can explain his American wife’s peculiar behavior? Venturing beyond all limits—in relationships, in physical challenge, and in sexual behavior—there is a point where oblivion is the only outcome. Full of Winton’s lyrical genius for conveying physical sensation, Breath is a rich and atmospheric coming-of-age tale from one of world literature’s finest storytellers.
Falling under the spell of an enigmatic extreme-sports surfer, a thrill-seeking pair of western Australian adolescents is initiated into a world of high-stakes adventures and dangerous boundary testing.
Breath is set in a country recovering from a brutal and divisive civil war between north and south. The war may be over but people's memories are long and hatreds are slow to fade.
A teenage boy, Jamie, is knocked off his bike and dies in a city street. His father, Geoff Andrews, manager of the main hospital, is asked if he will allow one of Jamie's lungs to be removed and flown north for a transplant. He agrees, and the mercy mission begins: six hours to get the lung out of one body and into another.
As the night unfolds, and the plane travels through storms across the war-ravaged country and over the border, we see the drama from three different perspectives: Andrews, grieving for the son he perhaps never knew well enough - this one single death overwhelming, even after the deaths of so many; the lung's recipient, Baras, an old man fighting for breath, and life - a northerner with blood on his hands; and in the turbulent sky between them, Jude, the young pilot, who is closest to Jamie - or at least to his breath, his spirit, his voice.
A novel about violence and vengeance, and what must take their place, Breath is a moving and timely examination of the fractures of war and grief and the long struggle towards peace and reconciliation.
Tim Winton is Australia’s best-loved novelist. His new work,Breath, is an extraordinary evocation of an adolescence spent resisting complacency, testing one’s limits against nature, finding like-minded souls, and discovering just how far one breath will take you. It’s a story of extremes—extreme sports and extreme emotions. On the wild, lonely coast of Western Australia, two thrillseeking and barely adolescent boys fall into the enigmatic thrall of veteran big-wave surfer Sando. Together they form an odd but elite trio. The grown man initiates the boys into a kind of Spartan ethos, a regimen of risk and challenge, where they test themselves in storm swells on remote and shark-infested reefs, pushing each other to the edges of endurance, courage, and sanity. But where is all this heading? Why is their mentor’s past such forbidden territory? And what can explain his American wife’s peculiar behavior? Venturing beyond all limits—in relationships, in physical challenge, and in sexual behavior—there is a point where oblivion is the only outcome. Full of Winton’s lyrical genius for conveying physical sensation, Breath is a rich and atmospheric coming-of-age tale from one of world literature’s finest storytellers.
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- New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
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