Brett Evans

It strikes me that Peter Temple was an exponent of that, whether or not he ever read the article or whatever, but he knew it as well, which was that, you know, you don't use adverbs.

Adverbs are against the rules of good writing.

You only ever said said.

You don't say grumbled or pleaded.

You never talk about the weather unless it's about a character relating to the weather.

It's kind of interesting having rules like that.

But when you hear them and then you read them, you go, yeah, that really works.

Because you are working harder as a reader to get what the meaning is.

And they're not giving it to you all on a plate.

And I think that keeps your antenna up.

You know, I don't like surfing and I don't like fishing and I don't worship a god.

I was going to say, I don't worship a god, but I love the novels of Tim Winton because he captures something about Australia.

But he's not like me.

And it is, it's a religious novel, obviously.

The journey and how it ends, which we won't talk about because it is a very powerful ending.

is an expression, I think, of Tim Winton's religiosity.

I believe he was brought up in an evangelical family, but he no longer is a literalist anymore, but he's still a Christian or a believer or he wants to believe.

And he puts that into his books, and it's very powerful in this book.

He's created a book about Australia, which a hardcore atheist like me gets an enormous amount of enjoyment and pleasure from, and it really made me think.

Is that the quality of the writing, though?