Customer Reviews

The Riders

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I wanted to like this book, I really did. It's an interesting premise but the book sets the reader up for something and then totally fails to deliver on it. You learn nothing that you didn't already know at the start, which is nothing.

You spend the first eighty pages or so with Scully fixing up his house in Ireland for his seven-year-old daughter and wife who are supposedly coming to meet him. Eighty pages of him scrubbing, grouting, plastering, shoveling, painting, broken by some chatty interludes with a minor character Peter Keneally. Unless you're Joyce or Nabokov or Proust there is no way to make these mundane activities compelling for eighty pages. I would have forgiven Winton at forty pages, but at eighty it's just too dull and the attempt at plot build-up totally off kilter.

Finally, the first climax comes: Scully goes to pick up his wife and child at the airport and only the child emerges from the plane. Where is his wife? We all want to know, of course, as we've spent eighty pages waiting for her and listening to Winton tell us how much Scully is looking forward to it, but his daughter won't tell him, despite the fact that Winton gives us a brief scene with the child on the airplane (which airplane is just another one of the unsolved mysteries in this book) with her mother, so we KNOW at some point the child was with her. Billie, his daughter, will never tell him, and after a while, for no reason that I can possibly discern, other than Winton's attempt to keep up the novelty of "suspense", Scully stops asking her about it. Would you do this as a parent? Wouldn't you find some way to coax this vital info out of your seven-year-old child? But I guess the info isn't so important to Winton.

Scully then decides, as though he's a private detective -- why he doesn't spend his money on a professional we'll never know, but then Winton wouldn't have a novel -- to go look for her. And he takes his daughter with him! Imagine that! A guy dragging his seven-year-old all around Europe. (Nobody in the novel even questions how abusive and unfair this is -- even after the girl suffers a vicious dog attack.) Scully flocks to Greece where he meets a variety of extremely frustrating drunks and bohemians who REFUSE to answer a question directly or provide him (or us) with any tangible information. The story at this point becomes Monty Pythonish, it's so absurd. Here is a desperate man looking for his wife and a cynical friend just toys with him: "Where is she?" "She? She?" "Come on Arthur. [...]." "Oh dear."

Winton deliberately tantalizes us with the bare bones of a thriller without giving us any of the meat such a genre requires. Why? Is he being postmodern? That could be his defense, but then why does he try so hard at being "realistic"?

Then Scully meets a woman, Irma, en route to Italy, who, based ona photo she plucks from his wallet, claims she saw his wife at a hotel in Greece with another woman. Aha, the reader says. Finally, a morsel of information -- we're halfway through the book now -- might be given. Another false lead. Scully doesn't believe her, I guess because Irma's a bit of a floozy, and so he hardly probes into the idea of his wife being with a woman, hardly probes into any idea at all and yet insists on going from city to city of his expat past with his daughter. He refuses to pack it in.

Other coincidences abound that leave you and the characters NOWHERE and with NO ANSWERS. Scully finds himself a murder suspect in Greece, but he flees before any authority has a chance to apprehend him. Why this intrigue? An attempt to keep the pages turning, I guess. A telegram is sent to an Amex office in Florence, purportedly from his wife, telling him to meet him in Paris. She doesn't show. Was it a hoax? Why doesn't she come? Don't expect answers.

I found this book to be contrived, implausible, and in the end, utterly frustrating. Scully's relationship with his wife, with his past, who he thought she was, who he thinks he is, are not remotely explored, not even superficially a la Paul Auster, and are certainly not dramatized. Scully's entire "voyage" has no point, no catharsis, no resolution. It's a big shaggy dog story.

There are strengths: some of the prose is brisk and effective, the secondary characters are quite good and memorable, especially Peter Keneally and Irma, etc. The dialogue is top-notch, and unlike the story, real.

It just fails to add up to a story.

Tim Winton's "The Riders", a Booker Prize nominee, is one of the most impressive novels I have read all year. It is a brilliantly crafted and expertly executed literary achievement by one of Australia's most promising modern young writers. Preparing to start a new life with his wife Jennifer and young daughter Billie in Ireland, Scully's life is blown apart when he goes to the airport to meet his family but finds only Billie and no message from his missing wife. With Billie in tow, he travels to Greece, France and the Netherlands in search of Jennifer but unbeknown to himself begins a journey of self discovery that will alter the course of his life in ways he never envisaged. The Scully you meet in the first few chapters, giddy with happiness and anticipation as he toils to make habitable a ramshackle old place he has bought to begin a new life with his family, is so "up" and vibrant a life force, you feel a palpable sense of hurt watching his slide downhill. But redemption awaits around the corner. While Jennifer, a shadowy figure, remains an enigma, her disappearance forces Scully to come to terms with feelings of betrayal and to recognise that it is perhaps impossible to truly know another human being. The unknowability of the human heart, arguably the novel's central theme, is powerfully captured in the recurring image of riders on white horses, all spendiferously dressed, but still and silent and oblivious to all as they line up for parade in the night. The gradual role reversal we witness in the adult-child relationship between Scully and Billie only deepens the sense of pathos evoked by new circumstances as they unfold. Billie, quiet and uncommunicative, but who proves ultimately to be the quicker learner of life's lessons, ends up taking charge. She quite literally controls the purse strings by the end of the story. Winton's language is colourful and he uses imagery to dazzling effect. His minor characters (eg, Irma, Alex and Pete) are also memorable. They remain sharply etched in our minds long after they have been written out of the plot. Irma, arguably Scully's saviour, may be a damaged soul but she possesses the essence of humanity absent from the sophisticated but calculating Jennifer. "The Riders" is such a rare and haunting beauty of a novel I can only recommend other readers to take their time enjoying it. Richly deserving of its Booker Prize award nomination. Go get it !

Now I would hate to rubbish Tim Wintons latest tome outright because frankly, it was a compelling read. I couldn't put it down till I had turned the last page, this is true. However this urgency was inspired more by my desperation to get the tale of doom and gloom over and done with, then out of a desire to gallop along with the protagonist to an enlightening conclusion.

Wintons novel is no less then a Victorian tale of melodrama and sentimentality. Charlie boy would have been proud! The protagonist -- Scully, is introduced as a pathetic, doting husband, all too earnest and well intentioned. We know from the start that he is a victim having been abandoned by his wife to bring up little daughter Billy (echoes of Oliver, little Dorrit and poor Joe haunt her characterisation) in a ruined Irish cottage. The novel follows his frantic scramble across Europe searching for his illusive spouse with little Billy knocking along behind with resolute maturity. Clearly she is the real victim and one might even be inspired to feel sympathy for her if it weren't for the overwhelming metaphors and allegories and several lashings of pathos.

Everything that can happen to this desperate pair, does happen, till the reader is simply overloaded and exasperated. Scully is quite the anti hero -- with his disfigured face, wounded eye and scarred builders hands. Co incidentally Billies favourite comic is Victor Hugos' 'Hunch Back of Notre Dame'. It is hardly surprising then that on a cold Christmas night in Paris, Scully (drunk and penniless) is persuaded to take refuge in the Cathedral by his pleading daughter? Bells tolling about their heads...

The laboured metaphors plod through the body of the book till at the last moment what better symbol to sum up failure then the proverbial sinking ship.

By this stage I was crying for mercy!

Now to be fair to Charles Dickens who is one of the great classical writers, there is a place for Victorian Melodrama -- even today. What surprises me is that The Riders was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1995. I find it astounding when you see how much intelligent, sensitive, modern literature goes unnoticed in the marketplace today, that The Riders should be singled out for such praise.

My opinion of the Booker Prize has waned somewhat I fear.

THE RIDERS By Tim Winton A HARD RIDE

Fred Scully is not what you would term a romantic hero in the traditional sense of the word. He is more of a stumble bum/antihero, the kind you would probably avoid eye contact with. In the skilful hands of Winton however, he assumes epic proportions as he struggles to reclaim his shattered life.

An expatriate Australian, he has worked diligently to set up his new home in Ireland in preparation for the return of his wife and daughter from Western Australia. However when the fateful day arrives only his daughter is there to meet him at Shannon airport. Scully is as dumbfounded as the authorities as to the whereabouts of his wife Jennifer.

Thus begins a tale or two as Scully and Billie try to trace her movements across Europe. It is a Europe far removed from popular fiction. This is a Europe of the downtrodden and the dispossessed, the avant garde of the New Order. Scully battles prejudice, greed and apathy in his attempts to discover Jennifer's whereabouts and in the process discovers love in the most unlikely place. The relationship between father and daughter is a series of defining moments that takes the idol of the sensitive new age guy and lays him to rest. Here is earthiness and tenderness once denied the snag, skillfully and artfully told.

A powerful read, it is a tribute to Winton that he has captured the entire continent in the scope of a novel such as The Riders. I found it impossible to put down.

Written by Alastair Rosie

Winton is clearly an outstanding writer. I could not put this book down, and yet I continually felt a little at sea, wishing someone would explain to me what was going on. The book is written with such passion that the reader enters into a kind of situational madness, in which she or he descends with the protagonist, Scully, into the emotionally-charged confusion brought about when his wife disappears. Apparently she has abandoned him and their child, but why, and for what? Scully chases around Europe with their child as he tries to find his wife and the answers to these questions. I only wish Winton had cleared up more of the mystery.

I just finished The Riders last night; I stayed up for most of the night finishing it, actually. I still cannot decide if I actually liked it -- I know the story didn't have a good resolution and I know I had a lot of unanswered questions when I put the book down, but I'm still trying to figure out whether or not this is a book I enjoyed.

The story was interesting, for sure. A mother abandons husband and child without explanation or clues, and the reason for her leaving is never truly addressed in the novel. The reader gets hints at where she might be: is she in Greece, at the beck and call of an expat painter past his prime? Is she cavorting around with another woman? Is she in Paris, teasing her husband and child with promises of a meeting and a full disclosure? Or is she in Amsterdam, living in a dilapidated houseboat? Around Paris, the reader realizes that Scully (the husband) is on a futile quest, even though he himself cannot see that. As he tumbles further and further into a psychotic state, his small daughter Billie attempts to hold him together. She, too, knows that the mother will never be found, and she doesn't really care.

At the beginning of the novel, I sympathized with Scully, and I wanted him to find resolution. As the novel progressed, however, I was irritated by him -- I wanted him to take his damaged daughter back to Ireland and for them to give up the quest that was driving him mad. Better yet, they should have returned to Australia, back to a place they knew.

So this is an interesting book, and a riveting read. But there's so much left unsaid that it's really difficult to "enjoy," because you are not left satisfied at all. You don't want the book to continue, but you'd love to see an "epilogue" that tells you what really happened to Jennifer, if Scully and Billie stayed in Ireland, what happened to the expat painter, what happened to the strange Irma... most of all, however, you want to understand the significance of the book's title, and the mysterious "Riders" who make their appearance twice in the book without further development.

A strange book, overall.

The riders--"seen and unseen, patient, dogged faithful in all weathers and all worlds, waiting for something promised, something that was plainfully their due...",come to represent an unfathomable mirage that keeps haunting Scully through his darkest hours. Believing his wife to have abandoned him and their daughter for a reason, Scully goes on a chase of rampange in pursuit of a shapeless promise and nameless due. A compelling tale into the deep realm of one man's psyche, Winton does a fabulous job penetrating through the surface of reality in search of the source of a deadly obsession. Dragging his 7-year-old daughter by his side, The Riders is also a tale of love, of what little is remained of a family unity. Only through his love buried in his own troubled spirit, does Scully rises above a maze of deception painted by his own blind obsession. A mystery with no ending, be prepared to find yourself in owe of the ungraspable nature of human nature.

This book, while not perfect, definitely holds the reader's attention from beginning to end. The main character, Scully, is a modern-day Quasimodo, a misfit in a world of masks and deception, someone who has but sheer will and a good heart--and a savagely loving daughter--to go on. His quest to find his wife who has apparently abandoned her husband and daughter is a dramatic, at times breathless, depiction of what it's like to realize one knows little about those one thought one knew the most. The writing occasionally annoyed me (too self-conscious at times for my taste) but I was willing to let it slide, so harrowing did I find Scully's journey. And as much as I adore Paris, having lived there a year I must, hélas, attest to the accuracy of his less-then flattering portrait of the City of Light.

This book gave me a unique opportunity to evaluate my position as a reader.. is it a spectator sport or am I a participant in the ring with the characters.. "All for one, and one for all" is Scully's motto, and his tailspin adventure with he and his daugher in search of the woman whom abandoned them both include those brave enough take the dive down with him to feel the desparation and frustration of loss for reasons unknown. It isn't a book that we can close with a clean, crisp ending. It will unnerve you to know end as you wonder what the hell happened, just as Sully will wonder for the rest of his life. The very real character trudge through this tale of loss, and redemption in unexpected forms. It's not a story to be taken for face value where the details are dim, but for the deeper, darker lessons, which are painful enough in real life that we can't even bear in a book! Don't ponder so much on what you learn (or don't) about the characters and the plot.. but instead focus on your reaction to the story and what it teaches you about yourself.

said the Australian in his broad accent, and then swallowed. I was worried for his health, having been told as a child never to awllow chewing gum as it would stay in my stomach for 7 years and wrap around my intestines. Winton was wearing jeans, and maroon suit jacket and cowboy boots. His here extended to his waist. He was not what I had expected, but then I wasn't sure what I had expected: I knew he was a house-husband, surfer, born again Xtian, surfer, and award winning author. I also knew Cloudstreet was the best book I had read in '95. Winton was on a promotional tour of New Zealand for The Riders and he visited the University I was studying at. I guess I'm digressing big time here, so I'd better get to the point. Sure enough, in the course of his visit, someone asked what happened to Fred Scully's wife (as I noticed a few people have done here). To me this really is missing the point of the story. The story isn't about what happened to the wife, or about the wife at all, its about Scully. Winton depicts characters (and his really are "characters' - good Ozzie blokes) in a way that resounds with truth and sincerity. He pulls no punches and shoots form the heart. Riders is a beautiful story in terms of description, yet stormy (without wanting to be too obvious metaphorically obvious) in terms of plot. Support Australasian authors, read it. PS: Winton's reply to the question re: Sully's wife, a perfect "I don't know"