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Folklore – A magical story about Blueback, a fish and a boy Abel who befriends him.
Blueback – a Fable for all Ages
What you need to know before your trail
Abel lives with his mum in a coastal area in Western Australia. His life and everything he knows is centered around the sea. He and his mother Dora love the sea as it permeates everything they ever know – it is their life in every sense of the word.
Abel lost his father to the sea however – a tiger shark killed him as he was dying in Roebuck Bay – but Abel doesn’t blame the sea and it is sacred to him.
One day, he meets Blueblack, a grouper fish living in a cove who becomes his most faithful friend and confidant.
Travel Guide
Tim Winton’s name is synonymous with the sea for he writes as if water was his pen and the waves the turn of the page such is his comfort and joy of writing of the power of nature, marine life and water in all its forms.
Abel love being underwater, he was ten years old and could never remember a time when he could not dive.
The joy of finding Blueback is tainted however as Abel worries that other divers will find him and want to spear him for sport. They don’t understand the sea but then when he and his mother spot sardines being washed up on the shore,he realises that he doesn’t understand Blueback’s world either.
This world, this magical world flows like water itself under Winton’s pen –
“Tiny silver fish hung in nervous schools. Seaweed trembled n the gentle current. Orange starfish and yellow plates of coral glowed from the deepest slopes where his mother was already gliding like a bird.”
Abel is inspired to study the sea and marine life, off he goes to university to learn how to respect the marine world and live in harmony. We follow Abel as he grows and gets more knowledgeable but it is uncertain if Blueback will still be alive and if the sea will still be as untouched as it was when he was a boy.. and what he will do if not.
For information about the groper fish and other wildlife of Australia the Australian museum in Sydney is a good starting point.
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Facebook: /timwintonauthor
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