Rating: 
Summary: Good writing, not much plot, incomplete characterizations
Review: This is the first book by Tim Winton that I've read and, based on his beautiful writing alone, I'll probably seek out another book by him. However I can't recommend that anyone read this one because despite the writing, the plot is pretty boring and the characterizations are incomplete. This novel tells the story of a love triangle between Jim - a successful fisherman, Georgie - his live-in lover, and the town outcast named Luther Fox who makes his living as a poacher. The character of Georgie is most complete and even she is a bit of an enigma to the reader all the way to the end. The most complex character of the three is Jim and we know very little about his interior feelings until the last quarter of the book when he hints at all sorts of rage and need for redemption. We never quite find out where all this is coming from, however. As a love story, the book strikes out because Luther and Georgie spend most of the story apart from each other, making for a lot less tension than the author thinks is there. The book starts out promising and judging by the really beautiful writing, you'll think "there's gotta be a payoff here somewhere." By the time I got to the last quarter of the book though, I realized there is no payoff, just some great descriptive writing, unrealized characters and a plot with nowhere to go.
Rating: 
Summary: Splendid - Crackles from the page
Review: This novel hummed to me in such a strong voice, I found myself slowing down my pace in order to relish the experience. There is something intriguing about Australia, almost a mirror image of the United States but dramatically different. As in Dermot Bolger's "Father's Music," the music metaphor and its connection to the people in the story makes it almost a character in itself. The descriptions of the land are so vivid, you almost feel the dust in your throat. But what made this book soar for me was its ruminations on the nature of love. Not romantic love, but love warts and all -- the lost love of a man for his family, the lessening of love between a man and a woman, the complicated love a woman feels for her own highly dysfunctional siblings. I recommend this book, without any reservation.
Rating:
Summary: Ever been To West Australia? You'll love this book
Review: Tim Winton has a special way with words. Reading this book makes you smell the Indian Ocean in Broome, suffer from the heat there, smell Swan River in Perth...The story of Georgie, Jim and Luther makes your heart go out to Georgie and Lu, although the Luther's part of the story at times is a bit to weird for my taste. This book is not a fast read. It makes you want to savour every page and it lingers with you, long after you have finished reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A Gem that Doesn't Hold the Light
Review: Tim Winton has an indisputable gift for language; seldom will you find more cleverly turned phrases or richer metaphors and similes, but "Dirt Music" is ultimately too opaque and self-indulgent. The language remains rich, but the story loses its way and the last 100 pages seem more the ramblings of a sunstruck psychedelic than an eloquent writer with a compelling story to tell. Most of the action takes place in the close-knit Western Australia fishing village of White Point, which is populated by characters who have a spiritual kinship to a dozen of Steinbeck's. Georgie Jutland, a well-traveled, well-worn forty-something ex-nurse from a dysfunctional family, is adrift in a brackish pool of indecision about her life and which man she wants to devote it to. Jim Buckridge, a stoic, widowed father of two young sons, stands tall and straight among them-a master fisherman and a strong, silent type who Georgie pities more than loves. Luther (Lu) Fox is a poacher of the first water whose crippled psyche draws Georgie like cat hair to a black sweater. But the Foxes are outcasts in this rough and tumble community while the Buckridges are its respected pillars. When the inevitable triangle forms, Lu is victimized in a particularly cruel way and Georgie is cast into a limbo darker than any she's ever known. Lu departs and Georgie's live-in relationship with Jim and his boys is flayed and filleted. Winton's long description of Lu's journey then not only leads the story off the beaten track, but off the track altogether. After forty or fifty pages of that, I no longer cared what happened to any of the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Dirt Music Man
Review: Tim Winton is an Aussie through and through. I wouldn't give Dirt Music the same amount of credit as Cloudstreet, however, they are both wonderful novels. I thought that Dirt Music started to drag a little towards the end and started to have a "Castaway" feel to it when Luther Fox is hiding in the Gulf/ stranded on the island. That bit could have been cut in half and still maintained the story line. But overall I was pleased with this read and always enjoy Tim Winton's poetic writing style: "She wondered what it might be like to live in his mind, in a world without forgiveness."
Rating:
Summary: An earth moving story
Review: Tim Winton's books are not light and easy. His characters are the walking wounded, scarred marred and often barely surviving. He besets them with harsh tragedies, violent accidents, abandonment. Sometimes their situations are so dire that you might want to put the book aside and go into the fresh air just to know that life isn't as bleak and cruel as he paints it. When you return to the narrative, wary and battle weary the chinks of light begin to appear. Dirt Music reduced me to tears - Fox the sole survivor of a brutal family accident, an outcast of a harsh unforgiving Australian community finds love and redemption of a sort through Georgie, a woman who is as adrift as he. The novel is surprisingly suspenseful, so I won't write any more of the actual events, but God is it good! Tim Winton stands with Janette Turner Hospital as a major talent who has sprung from the arid ground of Australia.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful
Review: While this book does tend to be a little slow in spots, it is worth it to be able to experience the beautiful decriptions and beautiful tortured characters created by Winton.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: Winton has impressed me before, but he's outdone himself with this luminous and lucid novel. He evokes the harsh landscapes of Western Australia effectively and makes them vivid and almost palpable. The prose is a joy to read, and the characters are compelling. I'm not sure I've ever read anything that so eloquently captures the powerful--sometimes too powerful--effect that music can have on musicians and listeners, and it's all the more impressive that he does this while also creating a gripping story and believable, totally human characters.
Rating:
Summary: Stays With You
Review: Winton's characters and heartbreaking prose stay with the reader long after the last page is turned. Georgie and her men are so complete in their rendering that the reader forgets that this is fiction. The Australin cast and setting defy the stereotype and allow us to sink into a psyche and space that would otherwise be unknown to us. Thankfully. In my top 10 for 2002!... Truly brilliant.
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