This novel, winner of Australia's prestigious Miles Franklin
Award, has great ambitions. Not only does it aspire to depict a
community in crisisan old whaling port now the scene of a Save the
Whales protestbut also to ponder such matters as guilt and
innocence, responsibility, damnation and redemption, the urge to
suicide, and the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon their
children. When writing about the troubled marriage of his central
characters, Cleve and Queenie Cookson, or about the anti-whaling
confrontations out on the open sea, Winton brings his book alive.
But his grandiose strivings hurt it. Too many minor characters,
often mere stereotypes, appear for the sake of thematic concerns
rather than as an integral part of the narrative. And the symbolism
telegraphs the story's conclusion. Promising, well-intentioned, but
only passable. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph,
Mass.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text
refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this
title.