Barracuda

I'm glad Christos Tsiolkas exists - he's a writer who sets out to tackle big themes: class, race, competition and sexuality. The Slap was very successful at wrestling with these big topics while drawing a set of fascinating (if largely horrible) characters. Barracuda tries the same thing with a slightly narrower focus, centering on Danny Kelly a young, working class swimmer whose talent transports him into a privileged world (fancy high school, elite sports squads) and whose failures (both sporting and social) tear him apart. It's a bold effort, with moments of real brilliance, but the key moment where Danny's fate turns is unconvincing and his spiral downwards from there very hard to believe. You can see the point Tsiolkas is trying to show more make about the dangers of obsessive ambition and the impact of class and race on self-belief and resilience, but it all seems a bit over the top and unlikely, undermining much of what follows.

Still, there's lots to enjoy here - it's immensely readable (I knocked it off all 500 pages in a day, which is some indication) and it's refreshing to feel as though big questions about life in Australia are being addressed. Definitely worth a look. show less

There can be little doubt that Christos Tsiolkas is one of the writers of the moment when it comes to Australian fiction. His star was in the ascent from the moment his first novel, [b:Loaded|9564753|Loaded|Christos Tsiolkas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1287888301s/9564753.jpg|1197295], was turned into the movie Head On in 1998. The twenty-first century was his true time to shine, however, in an arc that begins with [b:Dead Europe|2883972|Dead Europe|Christos Tsiolkas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1323545872s/2883972.jpg|2910197] in 2005, to the scandalous success of [b:The Slap|6632916|The Slap|Christos Tsiolkas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327122830s/6632916.jpg|5464024] in 2008, and its follow-up, Barracuda, in show more 2013. This trio of novels alone will have cemented Tsiolkas's place in Australian literary history.

In many ways, it is a bittersweet victory. Tsiolkas's success lies in his unflinching assessment of the hypocrisy and moral cowardice of Australian culture, its outwardly petty but deeply painful bickering about class, ethnicity, and sexuality. As a gay man and the son of Greek immigrants, Tsiolkas is uniquely positioned to observe these things.

Barracuda itself is focused on the story of Danny Kelly, a young boy who aspires to be a world-class swimmer. He lives in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Reservoir with his trucker father (of Irish descent) and hairdresser mother (of Greek descent), as well as young siblings Regan and Theo. Danny's talents see him get a scholarship at "Cunts College" - as he and his best friend, Demet, like to call it - an elite boy's school in the old-money suburb of Hawthorn.

Naturally, Danny has difficulty fitting in at this school because of the color of his skin, his sexuality, and most of all, his working-class status. At Cunts College, Danny makes a lifelong friend in Luke, the son of Vietnamese-Greek parents who, despite similar struggles, manages to become a prefect. Danny's main interactions, however, are with his Hungarian coach, Torma, who pushes him toward excellence, and swimming buddies like Wilco or Martin Taylor. Danny has a huge crush on Taylor that has important consequences for the overall plot.

Rather than tell the story in a linear fashion, Tsiolkas jumps back and forth in time between Danny's schooldays and his life in the present, some twenty years later, when he has a job as a care worker, helping to look after people whose lives have been damaged in various ways (car accidents, etc.). In this later life, Danny (or Dan, as he now calls himself) is in a back-and-forth relationship with Clyde, his Scottish lover, who wants Dan to move to Glasgow with him.

Tsiolkas skillfully maneuvers his way between these two timelines, circling ever closer to the kernel of the repressed event that Danny does not want to talk or think about: his assault on Martin Taylor, an incident that had sent him to jail and was the culmination of a spiral of shame and failure in Danny's life.

What makes Tsiolkas a seriously good novelist is that, unlike so many other writers looking to criticize society, he does not try to preach from a moral high ground. His most sympathetic characters are never exempted from the worst aspects of the society in which they are involved. There are no innocents in Tsiolkas's novels: everyone is tainted by the eddy of prejudices that constitute modern society.

Another strength of Tsiolkas's stories is the depth of his empathy and compassion. He has the wisdom to understand the extent to which hatred - even impersonal hatreds, like class hatred - is often anchored in the perversities of the human capacity to love. This is a repeated theme in his novels, and one of his most powerful. I particularly like how this manifests itself in Tsiolkas's depiction of women. Tsiolkas is clearly a man who has a deep and appreciative knowledge of women - this is particularly true for his portrayal of Danny's mother in Barracuda.

I loved Barracuda, not only because it is a great novel, but because it reflects so much of my own upbringing. I grew up in Melbourne in the 1990s, lived in a working-class suburb, and to crown it all, got a scholarship (albeit it not a sporting one) to attend Cunts College (yes, it is very much modeled on a real school). Tsiolkas also finds a way to end the book in a satisfying way, not by some false note of redemption, but through an ingenious usage of the shifting time perspective, one that allows us to glimpse, one last time, a Danny Kelly that is free of the burden of shame. show less

An emotional, challenging read about an aspiring Olympic teenage swimming star and what happens when things don't go to plan. Danny Kelly moves school to the 'posh' scholarship, elitist school that can push him to be an Australian sporting star but although he quickly moves up the ranks an unfortunate loss challenges him to consider whether he is the 'fastest, strongest, best'.
The successful writer of The Slap creates an intriguing lead character that slowly gets under your skin even though you struggle at first to like him. The story is told in a slightly confused manner as we hear about Danny's future and his future self's story moves backwards to meet and then cross the chronological story of Danny the swimmer. At times you can be show more slightly confused and I do admit when part 2 started I wondered if we were getting a parallel story on top of everything else!! Despite the confusion the story comes together in a satisfying and intriguing manner with depth, humour and some uncomfortable moments.
The story has some brutality and sexual content that some people may be unsettled by, it definitely has a strong masculine focus, but it also has extra layers that explore politics, nationalism, sporting adulation and parental influences that add to the depth and complexity of the read.
I will certainly look to read more by Tsiolkas because it made me think and feel, he writes in a way that paints pictures and creates well rounded lead characters. show less

“I’m the strongest, I’m the fastest, I’m the best”

Swimming is not only what Danny Kelly does, it defines who he is and who he will be. His talent wins him a scholarship at an exclusive private boy’s school where, amongst his privileged rivals, he earns the nickname of ‘The Barracuda’. Danny is a winner, on track to be an Olympic champion, until the day he loses and it all falls apart.

Shifting between Danny’s past and the present using a first person and third person narrative, Tsiolkas drives the story towards the event that divides ‘before’ and ‘after’. Before, Danny was a young boy, confident, aggressive and ambitious, with the talent and the drive to be a champion. After, Danny was a young man, ashamed, show more bitter and directionless, alienated from his family, his friends and himself.

Barracuda is a story about character, the way in which it is formed, influenced and changed by family, by friends, and enemies, by experience and knowledge, and for Danny especially, by life’s triumphs and failures. It is also a story about identity and when what Danny believes about himself is proved false, he struggles to deal with the consequences. Tsiolkas exposes Danny’s dreams and hopes, his vulnerabilities and his faults with unflinching honesty and keen insight into the thoughts and emotions of both the boy, and the man.

Wider themes of the novel include those of identity, class and status in modern day Australia. The Kelly’s working class background, dad is a truck driver and mum a hairdresser, contrasts with the privileged lives of his wealthy classmates. Similarly Danny is half ‘wog’ (Greek) and half Scottish while the majority of students at C***s College are white with “their perfect smiles and perfect skin”. Danny acutely feels the divide and he is both scornful and envious.

Barracuda also raises the issue of sport and it’s contribution to Australia’s national identity. Sport is one arena where wealth and class become irrelevant, with innate talent leveling the playing field. It is Danny’s ability to out swim his peers that allows him to hold his own, and when he loses that, he also sees his opportunity to one day be of ‘them’ slip through his fingers.

Tsiolkas’s casual use of crude language has the potential to offend but I thought the distinctly Australian dialogue to be natural and appropriate. What surprised me were the moments of poetry in Tsiolkas’s writing, lyrical phrasing and evocative description contrasting sharply with the blunter passages. I do feel Barracuda was a little overlong, though I admit only rarely did I find my attention wandering.

Barracuda is a powerful novel, less sensational than The Slap, but similarly provocative and thought provoking. I enjoyed it, but I think it is a book you will either love or hate. show less

Danny Kelly is a swimmer. He is obsessed with swimming and with his dream of winning Olympic gold for Australia. Well, he doesn't care all that much about the Australia part but: winning. He cares about that a lot. The oldest of three children in a working class family, he is granted a scholarship to attend an expensive prep school where he will receive the best coaching. As hard as it is to leave his friends, especially soulmate Demet, he grabs this opportunity and blocks out everything except the goal. Initially an outcast at the new school, things shift perceptively for the better for him. He wins competitions and he wins the respect of the wealthy "golden boys" who are his class- and teammates. However, after he experiences his show more first major loss he has a meltdown which sends him into a spiral of devastating actions and consequences. As the narration shifts between then and now, first person and third person, we follow Danny's trajectory, learning the details of his life in bits and pieces.

Earnestly written and weirdly engaging, this is a novel about ambition, humiliation, and shame. It's almost a novel about forgiveness and redemption but Tsiolkas falls just short of convincingly pulling this off. Given the character he has created, pulling it off would be quite an accomplishment. Being in Danny's head is unpleasant. And at just over 400 pages, the novel spends a lot of time there. In the end, despite Tsiolkas' courageous and skillful storytelling, I wasn't certain that it had been worth it. I might read something else by him, but not for a while. show less

In this book, Tsiolkas explores what happens when our view of ourselves depends entirely on how we think others view us. He has created a harrowing story of how shame breeds anger and violence as well as a story of redemption. The main character, Daniel Kelly, desperately wants to create a certain image of himself in everyone else's mind. By making up stories about others and what they think of him, without trying to find out if there is any truth in his assumptions, and by basing his actions on these stories, Danny inflicts a great deal of pain on himself and others. It is heart-breaking to watch. Tsiolkas is a fine writer. He writes particularly well about the power of reading and books, and about class.

Having heard many good reports about Christos Tsiolkas previous novel, “The Slap” I was looking forward to reading his newest work, “Barracuda”, which is the story of a talented swimmer who is so totally focused on success that he doesn't even comprehend the possibility of failure, so that when it happens he is unable to cope.

This is a good story, struggling to be an excellent one, but it is not an easy read – primarily because the main character is such a self-centred and unlike-able person, but I also found that I was becoming irritated by the structure of the novel itself, along with the artifices employed in the story telling. It felt at times as if the author had taken the chapters and randomly shuffled them, which did show more make it hard to get a sense of where the story was going, or had been. The author also had the main character using different versions of his name at different stages of the story, as if he was trying to provide signposts.

I was also uncomfortable that the author had chosen to give his protagonist quite so many hurdles to overcome – it seemed at times that he had been given the chance to make a trolley dash around the oppressed minority storeroom and giving him as many obstacles as he could find and then throwing them all at him at once.

Overall, though, it is a good but disturbing story of a fractured life, and dealing with the many issues that the main character faces in a very realistic way, showing that there are no easy answers to some peoples problems, and that some issues cannot be resolved.

The ending, although initially feeling unsatisfactory because of the lack of resolution, could be seen as being absolutely right, in that it is asking a question that no one can truly answer for themselves.

Overall, this is an earnest and thought provoking book, but the pity is that, like the main character, it could have been so much more. show less