Tim Winton Literary Dinner

Last night my Dad and I went to that Tim Winton literary dinner thing that I posted about a couple of weeks ago. It was really good, I enjoyed the night a lot. It was in a ballroom thing in a flash high rise hotel in the city-- not the sort of place I find yourself in every day. Tim Winton was really interesting to listen to. He is such a down to earth, humble sort of guy, and had a lot of good stuff to say. He was mainly talking about his new book, Breath.

He was also taking questions from the audience, and he gave a really cool reply to the question he probably gets asked over and over-- why do his books seem to leave so much up in the air at the end. He said that he didn't like books that carry you to bed, tuck you in, give you your warm cup of Horlicks, kiss you goodnight, turn out the lights, shut the door and return in five minutes to check on you-- meaning that there is nothing for you to do or engage in as a reader; you've consumed the book, and now you don't need to think about it again.

He wants you to get in to the characters and try and fill in the gaps and speculate on what was left unsaid, to think about it after you've finished reading. As Iv'e said before, I love a nicely tied up ending, but I liked his reasoning.

It was also really nice to do something, just my dad and I. We got to chat about a lot of stuff that probably usually wouldn't come up. I have to say for a 'literary dinner' the dinner part was pretty light on-- a little box about the size of your fist, with a couple of squiggly little bits of raw something or other, wrapped in some rubbery plant from the ocean, topped with a few black icky fish eggs. Yeah, that's going to fill me up. Thank goodness for the late night drive through medium Big Mac meal.