Cloudstreet
Encyclopedia
Cloudstreet is a novel by Australia
n writer Tim Winton
. It chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street, in a suburb of Perth
, over a period of twenty years, 1943 - 1963. It was the recipient of a Miles Franklin Award
in 1992.
, the Korean War
and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
. The novel takes place during the prime ministership of Robert Menzies
, where Australia was, for the most part, comfortable and conservative, characterised by backyard barbecues, by wives - who were no longer needed for the war effort - consigned to the home, and by the growth of the Australian dream of owning a new home. World events influence the Lambs and Pickles, but distantly, like an echo that sends ripples across the surface of their lives. The novel focuses on the domestic, and this serves as the filter through which history is measured. The most prominent historical character within Cloudstreet is the Nedlands monster, whose real name is Eric Edgar Cooke
, a serial killer whom the book states single-handedly "made Perth into a real city". He represents an alternative aspect of life, his journey used in juxtaposition with Quick Lamb's journey.
Cloudstreet is one of the many novels studied in New South Wales
' Higher School Certificate Advanced English Course (in Module B: Critical Study of Texts), and is also popular in other state senior secondary English curricula. In Western Australia, it is studied as a Year 11 WACE English Literature text, Year 12 English (Course of Study) 3A/3B text and the play adaptation, as a Year 12 WACE Drama Studies text. It is also a text on the VCE Literature course in Victoria, where it is considered alongside Enright's play adaptation. It is also a book on the IBDP list.
and Justin Monjo
, the theatrical adaptation opened in Sydney under the direction of Neil Armfield
. Seasons followed in Perth, Melbourne, London, Dublin, New York and Washington DC, with the Company B cast touring the production until 2001 with minimal recasting. A lengthy adaptation at 5 and a half hours, the play attracted rave reviews around the world. The adaptation is published by Currency Press
.
The television miniseries Cloudstreet
is an adaptation of the book, filmed in 2010 in Perth with Matthew Saville
as the director. The first episode of the miniseries premiered at 8:30pm AEST on the 22nd of May 2011 on Showcase
.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n writer Tim Winton
Tim Winton
Timothy John "Tim" Winton , is an Australian novelist and short story writer.-Life:Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the regional city of Albany....
. It chronicles the lives of two working class Australian families who come to live together at One Cloud Street, in a suburb of Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
, over a period of twenty years, 1943 - 1963. It was the recipient of a Miles Franklin Award
Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin , who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career ...
in 1992.
Plot summary
Precipitated by separate personal tragedies, two families flee their rural livings to share a "great continent of a house", Cloudstreet, in the Perth suburb of West Leederville. The two families are contrasts to each other; the Lambs find meaning in industry and in God’s grace; the Pickles, in luck. The Lambs’ God is a maker of miracles; the Pickles’ God is the ‘Shifty Shadow’ of fate. Though initially resistant to each other, their search and journey for meaning in life concludes with the uniting of the two families with many characters citing this as the most important aspect of their lives. As a novel, Cloudstreet is tightly structured, opening and ending with a shared celebratory family picnic - a joyous occasion which, ironically, is also the scene of Fish’s long sought-after death or return to the water. The novel is narrated effectively by flashback "in the seconds it takes to die" by Fish Lamb, or the 'spiritual' omniscient Fish Lamb, free of his restricting retarded state. As such the novel gives a voice to social minorities, the Australian working class and the disabled.Major themes
Winton's novel is very much an exploration and celebration of life and what it means. Every character undergoes a personal journey, some longer, harder and more greatly resisted than others. Though a constant feature of all the characters' journeys is the realisation of the importance of family and belonging within it. It illustrates a relationship between family and identity. Spirituality is also important in Cloudstreet, as an exploration of both community and the search for meaning. There are many occurrences within the novel that would be labelled supernatural or irrational and are not completely explained - we, as people, are not going to understand everything that happens in the world around us. The novel is nostalgic for a time where Winton feels there was a greater sense of family and home. All the characters are in search for a place for which they define as somewhere that a loving relationship can exist.Historical Context
Cloudstreet is framed by many key events in world history, including World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
. The novel takes place during the prime ministership of Robert Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
, where Australia was, for the most part, comfortable and conservative, characterised by backyard barbecues, by wives - who were no longer needed for the war effort - consigned to the home, and by the growth of the Australian dream of owning a new home. World events influence the Lambs and Pickles, but distantly, like an echo that sends ripples across the surface of their lives. The novel focuses on the domestic, and this serves as the filter through which history is measured. The most prominent historical character within Cloudstreet is the Nedlands monster, whose real name is Eric Edgar Cooke
Eric Edgar Cooke
Eric Edgar Cooke nicknamed The Night Caller was an Australian serial killer. From 1959 to 1963, he terrorised the city of Perth, Western Australia, by committing 22 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths....
, a serial killer whom the book states single-handedly "made Perth into a real city". He represents an alternative aspect of life, his journey used in juxtaposition with Quick Lamb's journey.
Literary significance & criticism
Cloudstreet received critical acclaim both in Australia and overseas.Cloudstreet is one of the many novels studied in New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
' Higher School Certificate Advanced English Course (in Module B: Critical Study of Texts), and is also popular in other state senior secondary English curricula. In Western Australia, it is studied as a Year 11 WACE English Literature text, Year 12 English (Course of Study) 3A/3B text and the play adaptation, as a Year 12 WACE Drama Studies text. It is also a text on the VCE Literature course in Victoria, where it is considered alongside Enright's play adaptation. It is also a book on the IBDP list.
Theatrical and television adaptations
Adapted for the stage by Nick EnrightNick Enright
-Life:He was drama captain of St Ignatius' College, Riverview in 1964, where, like Gerard Windsor and Justin Fleming, he was taught by Melvyn Morrow. At that school, he won the 1sts Debating Premiership in both 1966 and 1967....
and Justin Monjo
Justin Monjo
Justin Monjo is an Australian screenwriter, television producer, and actor, best known for his work on Farscape.He is the son of children's author F. N. Monjo III and the great-great-grandson of arctic furrier F. N. Monjo. Monjo wrote Adrian Pasdar's film debut screenplay Cement and worked on...
, the theatrical adaptation opened in Sydney under the direction of Neil Armfield
Neil Armfield
Neil Geoffrey Armfield AO is an Australian director of theatre, film and opera.Born in Sydney, Armfield was the youngest of three boys. The son of a factory worker at the nearby Arnott's biscuit factory he was brought up in the suburb of Concord adjacent to Exile Bay...
. Seasons followed in Perth, Melbourne, London, Dublin, New York and Washington DC, with the Company B cast touring the production until 2001 with minimal recasting. A lengthy adaptation at 5 and a half hours, the play attracted rave reviews around the world. The adaptation is published by Currency Press
Currency Press
Currency Press is Australia's only specialist performing arts publisher and its oldest independent publisher still active. Their list includes plays and screenplays, professional handbooks, biographies, cultural histories, critical studies and reference works....
.
The television miniseries Cloudstreet
Cloudstreet (TV series)
Cloudstreet is an Australian television drama miniseries for the Showcase subscription television channel, which first screened from 22 May 2011, in three parts. It is an adaptation of Cloudstreet, an award-winning novel by Australian author Tim Winton...
is an adaptation of the book, filmed in 2010 in Perth with Matthew Saville
Matthew Saville
Matthew Saville is an Australian television and film director, who began his career working as a titles designer for many Australian television series...
as the director. The first episode of the miniseries premiered at 8:30pm AEST on the 22nd of May 2011 on Showcase
Showtime Australia
For the American service, see ShowtimeShowtime Movie Channels is an Australian pay-TV movie service, available on the Foxtel, Optus and Austar TV platforms, the service consists of five original channels , three HD simulcasts For the American service, see ShowtimeShowtime Movie Channels is an...
.
Cast
- Dolly Pickles - Essie DavisEssie DavisEssie Davis is an Australian actress. Born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania, she is the daughter of locally famed artist George Davis.She emerged from the Old Nick Company at the University of Tasmania in the late 1980s and has gone on to appear in Hollywood movies. She is a graduate of the National...
- Sam Pickles - Stephen Curry
- Rose Pickles - Emma BoothEmma Booth (actress)Emma Booth is an Australian model-turned-actress. From Perth in Western Australia, the former teen model and TV star played a significant role in the 2007 film Introducing the Dwights, opposite Brenda Blethyn.-TV and Movies Career :...
- Young Rose Pickles - Lara RobinsonLara RobinsonLara Robinson is an Australian child actress, works on films, television series, and theaters. She has appeared in a remake of an 1978 Australian thriller Long Weekend starring Claudia Karvan as well as an American science fiction drama, Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne...
- Ted Pickles - Sean KeenanSean Keenan (actor)Sean Keenan is an Australian television actor best known for his leading role in two seasons of the Australian children's television series, Lockie Leonard in 2007 and 2010....
- Young Ted Pickles - Will Mattock
- Chub Pickles - Shannon LivelyShannon LivelyShannon James Lively is an Australian actor who has recently finished producing the second series of The Sleepover Club. He graduated in the class of 2009 from Corpus Christi College, Bateman. He has finished working on a new Australian television series entitled Wormwood...
- Young Chub Pickles - Reece Sardelic
- Lester Lamb - Geoff Morrell
- Oriel Lamb - Kerry FoxKerry FoxKerry Fox is a New Zealand actress. She came to prominence playing author Janet Frame in the movie An Angel at My Table directed by Jane Campion, which gained her a Best Actress Award from the New Zealand Film and Television Awards....
- Fish Lamb - Hugo Johnstone-Burt
- Young Fish Lamb - Tom Russell
- Quick Lamb - Todd LasanceTodd LasanceTodd James Lasance is an Australian actor and is best known for his role as Aden Jefferies in the Australian soap opera Home And Away.-Personal life:...
- Young Quick Lamb - Callan McAuliffeCallan McAuliffeCallan McAuliffe is an Australian actor. He starred in the American feature films Flipped and I Am Number Four. He will also star in the 2012 films, The Great Gatsby and Paradise Lost.-Life and career:...
- Young Hat Lamb - Freya Tingley
- Hat Lamb - Siobhan Dow-Hall
- Lon Lamb - Adam Sollis
- Red Lamb - Amanda Woodhams
- Young Elaine Lamb - Annie Smith
- Elaine Lamb - Sarah McKellar