#081 Leaning Towards the Light
Recovering masculinity, meaning & true power, with writer Tim Winton
I had this conversation with Tim Winton back in 2018, but it’s been front of mind for me again in recent weeks, as we enter a moment of reckoning on gender-related inequality and violence – certainly in a big way in Australia right now, and of course more broadly in the wake of the #MeToo movement, and so many others over a long period of time. It also continues to invoke a kind of personal reckoning. You’ll hear more from me on this at the start of this episode.
Title slide image: Tim Winton (source: https://www.penguin.com.au/authors/tim-winton).
“It’s amazing to see how capitalism and machismo, extractive, you know, of fossil capital, as some people like to call it ‘the fossil economy’, is so neatly bound up in machismo and narrow versions of masculinity. It’s not a nurturing way of seeing the world. It’s not a sustainable way of seeing the world. It’s not good for people and it’s not good for the planet.”
To many of you, Tim won’t need an introduction. He is one of the world’s most brilliant, authentic and awarded writers, and is regarded as a National Living Treasure here in Australia. For those less aware of Tim, his brief publisher bio is below.
Tim and I both reveal some pretty raw parts of our journeys here, in recovering a masculinity worth the term. And this framed the back half of our conversation on his ongoing efforts to help protect the World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef. Particularly, at this time, Exmouth Gulf – in effect, the Reef’s nursery.
This episode comes to you from back on the shores of Exmouth Gulf, which looks doubly magnificent in the wake of the recent successes of the Protect Ningaloo project. But the future of this region, and so many others, is still so bound up in our culture of damaged masculinity. Our national parliament is enough to demonstrate that. But of course, it’s not just about parliament, it’s about the systems and stories across the board that have generated, perpetrated and legitimised this for too long.
Back in May 2018, I wondered if Tim agreed that the grounds for positive change seemed to be getting more fertile. And here we are now, with gutsy women taking a stand everywhere, and gutsy men looking to do what’s right. In this context, at this moment, it feels like the wisdom Tim brings to the table here is worth releasing into the world again.
Tim Winton has published twenty-nine books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel, An Open Swimmer, won the Australian Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for Shallows, Cloudstreet, Dirt Music and Breath) and twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for The Riders and Dirt Music). He lives in Western Australia.
Click on the photos below for full view. Taken on the shores of Exmouth Gulf, while recording the introduction to this episode. All photos taken by Anthony James.
Get more:
Books by Tim Winton.
The Shepherd’s Hut, Tim’s latest novel, set in Western Australia.
Breath, Simon Baker's film adaptation of another of Tim's award-winning novels (which premiered in Sydney the night before this conversation).
Get involved in the campaign Protect Ningaloo.
Music:
The System, by the Public Opinion Afro Orchestra.
Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.