You look at a glass of water, so does your mate, you're parched, so are they, it's icy cold, littles drips coming down the side, one of you look at it, just as, you know… a glass of water, that you want to drink. The other however, sees through the water, they see the reflection of the water, they perceive a different water, a water that "has, gives and reflects life." A source of revelation and regeneration.
Good morning All, Tim Winton's 1991 classic family saga Cloudstreet, is of much similarity where you can perceive things differently, but only if you really pay attention, only if you see beyond the initial glance. In the coincidental realisation of life's complexity and truth. we often are anchored to ourselves and embedded in a pretend reality that blocks the flow of our own and society's growth. Our lives meander and curve. It is up to us to clear past conflict and unwanted debris to channel our lives in a prosperous direction. Winton examines, in his river like cyclic continuity structure, how we, as individuals and as a collective, reconcile our past through the coexistence of characterisation, setting, and structure in order to allow the insight of life beyond the initial glance.
We all know about Australia and its ongoing progression of Reconciliation among Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians? For those of us who read the book, we know that the Pickle and Lamb families undergo a process of unification within the 'great continent of a house.' Seeing the metaphoric similarity? Winton tells his story much like European Australians told theirs with terra nullius. You know oxymoronically a respectable woman owned that house (or so she tells herself) she cheated several people to get it. Winton establishes an allegory with the house and its history of white and indigenous relations. He subtly alludes to federation (1901, coincidently the same year as Oriel's birthday) and a superior western society that deemed aboriginals as flora and fauna. Mistakably manifested in the animal imagery of the indigenous girls crawling, dying from ant poison and having a deathly snarl on their face.
The history of division is personified in the woman hitting the middle C key, symbolic of knowing one truth and being blind towards aboriginal ideology. The shadows and 'sad, trembling house,' become a motif of the existence of the past and cannot disband until the reconciliation of indigenous and Western peoples occurs through acceptance of the past and renewal for the future.
Winton expresses attempts of reconciliation through the repetition of the biblical indigenous man. To some a nuisance to characters and of no sense, to others an unofficial guide to characters in luring them home. He tells Quick, "This isn't your home. Go home to your home." And to Sam, "You shouldn't break a place. Places are strong, important." Neither character enjoyed the truth or the realisation of it being true, but truth is a catalyst in achieving reconciliation and enabling a prosperous future and Winton asks us to do the same, to realise and become aware. As only then will we as a whole be able to prosper.
In clearing past conflict and allowing reconciliation to transpire, the reimbursements begin to take place in a prosperous direction. Such being the symbolic birth of Wax Harry, where the personification of the, "house breathing its first painless breath in half a century." and the, "spirits on the wall are fading, fading, finally being forced on their way to oblivion, free of the house, freeing the house, leaving a warm, clean sweet space among the living, among the good and hopeful." The house was unanchored along with the people within and were perceived by the simile, "like a ship under full sale."
Now, either Tim Winton has created a complete fictional book that contains a made-up house that has feelings, OR in his learning of seeing beyond the initial glance. He has attempted to construct a symbolic replica of our nation and its populace, proposing a solution to its division and removal of pretend reality to achieve unity resulting in a healthy future. Therefore, implying that if only you are to realise life's complexity and truth, we are able to be unanchored and free from neglectful conflict to provide a positive flow of our own and Australian societies growth.
Remember that glass of water… it's warm now, it's not cold and the bloke before who saw it as a glass of water still sees it as a glass of water, he just doesn't want to drink it, because it's warm. The other however still sees everything that he did before. A source of revelation and regeneration.