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Cloudstreet
Rivers, a mysterious and ever-present element of the characters’ lives, symbolize life, death, and all the unknowns that surround them. The river is especially meaningful to the Lamb family, who suffered the loss of Fish Lamb’s clever mind when he nearly drowned in a river at the beginning of the novel. As the Lambs blame God for this tragedy, the river could also symbolize the whims of a higher power who gives and takes away without offering a satisfying explanation as to why. This is reflected in the constantly shifting nature of the river, as it seems to both help and harm the families at Cloudstreet at various points in their lives. The river claims Fish’s sharp mind and eventually his life, and the son of the serial killer also drowns in the river towards the end of the novel. At the same time, however, Quick’s worldview is ultimately changed for the better after he finds out that the serial killer had a son, and Quick might have never married Rose if he hadn’t encountered her one night while rowing on the river with Fish. Quick and Fish also shared the strange experience of the river becoming a starry sky earlier in the novel, demonstrating the mysterious and beautiful potential the river holds along with its dangers. Even when the river takes Fish’s life at the end of the novel, his death is portrayed as more of a relief or an inevitability than a tragedy. The river gives Fish his mind back and offers him a glimpse of enlightenment in his final moments, and his death also lets Oriel make peace with herself and move back into Cloudstreet at last. The river literally and figuratively surrounds the family for their whole lives, carrying them through the strangeness of life and reminding them that everything comes to an end, only to begin anew.
The River Quotes in Cloudstreet
The Cloudstreet quotes below all refer to the symbol of The River. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 2
Quotes
Fish will remember. All his life and all his next life he’ll remember this dark, cool plunge where sound and light and shape are gone, where something rushes him from afar, where, openmouthed, openfisted, he drinks in river, whales it in with complete surprise.
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Chapter 4
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The sky, packed with stars, rests just above his head, and when Quick looks over the side he sees the river is full of sky as well. There’s stars and swirl and space down there and it’s not water anymore—it doesn’t even feel wet. Quick stabs his fingers in. There’s nothing there. There’s no lights ashore now. No, there’s no shore at all, not that he can see. There’s only sky out there, above and below, everywhere to be seen. Except for Fish’s giggling, there’s no sound at all.
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Chapter 8
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How you longed, how you stared at me those thundery nights when we all tossed and the house refused to sleep. It’s gone for you now, but for me the water backs into itself, comes around, joins up in the great, wide, vibrating space where everything that was and will be still is. For me, for all of us sooner or later, all of it will always be. And some of you will be forever watching me on the landing.
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Every important thing that happened to him, it seemed, had to do with a river. It was insistent, quietly forceful like the force of his own blood. Sometimes he thought of it as the land’s blood: it roiled with life and living. But at other moments, when a dead sheep floated past, when the water was pink with storm mud, when jellyfish blew up against the beaches in great stinking piles, Quick wondered if it was the land’s sewer. The city had begun to pile up over it as the old buildings went and the ugly towers grew. But it resisted, all the same, having life, giving life, reflecting it.
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Chapter 10
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I’m a man for that long, I feel my manhood, I recognize myself whole and human, know my story for just that long, long enough to see how we’ve come, how we’ve all battled in the same corridor that time makes for us, and I’m Fish Lamb for those seconds it takes to die, as long as it takes to drink the river, as long as it took to tell you all this, and then my walls are tipping and I burst into the moon, sun and stars of who I really am. Being Fish Lamb. Perfectly. Always. Everyplace. Me.
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Get the entire Cloudstreet LitChart as a printable PDF.
The River Symbol Timeline in Cloudstreet
The timeline below shows where the symbol The River appears in Cloudstreet. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
A large group of people has a picnic by a river. They seem happy and well-fed, enjoying one another’s company like one enormous family. An outside...
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Chapter 2
One night, in another town, the Lamb family rides to the river in their truck on their way to go prawn fishing. Oriel and Lester Lamb have...
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...stay on the beach, Lester, Quick, and Fish walk a large net out into the river and gather prawns. Oriel darns clothes on the beach, not minding her family’s poverty as...
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Out in the river, Fish has somehow been pulled down into the water without making a sound. When Lester...
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Chapter 3
...often has childlike screaming episodes. Fish loves spinning the knife and the sound of the river, and Rose still finds him beautiful.
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Chapter 4
...despite her quietly judgmental attitude about the whole business. The Lambs ride out to the riverside to enjoy themselves, and Quick feels relieved that his father is in a better mood...
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...of their truck. Lester suggests that Quick should row it all the way up the river to bring it home, and Oriel simply walks to truck and climbs in, slamming the...
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...struggling doesn’t give Oriel the satisfaction she was hoping for. Quick continues rowing up the river as the sun sets, starting to seriously doubt if the two of them can make...
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...look for Quick and Fish, but to no avail. He looks out into the dark water and figures that they could be anywhere, out there in the night with no idea...
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Out on the river in the middle of the night, an exhausted Quick stops rowing as Fish lies curled...
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...strange sea of stars for a while until they suddenly find themselves on the dark river again, just like before. Fish starts sobbing, disappointed that “the water” is gone. Quick holds...
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Chapter 5
...about Quick running away. Fish tells Lester that he wants to go out on the water with Quick again, and he says that they saw the stars. Lester tells him that...
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At Lester’s insistence, the Lambs once again visit the riverside to go fishing and enjoy themselves for an afternoon. Lester intends to cheer up his...
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...again recalls the memory of riding on his father’s shoulders as they trudged through the river on a dark night, long ago. Fish enters the kitchen and Lester draws basic cooking...
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Chapter 6
...the end of the week he sets out with it to go fishing on the river. He can’t help but remember the night that Fish almost drowned as he walks down...
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...of the unfortunate victims from the pictures on his wall. The trip home from the river seemed to take three hours, despite it only being a 30-minute drive. He doesn’t feel...
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Chapter 7
Out on a boat in the cool, dark water of the river, Oriel and Quick talk about the guilt that they share over Fish’s...
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Chapter 8
...to feel too worried about his reckless driving habits. They look out over the dark river in his car, and Toby calls Perth one of the strangest towns in the world,...
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...his idea as she storms out of the mansion and walks down to the dark river.
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...Quick and Fish tried to row all the way home in. While out on the river at night, it suddenly occurs to him that he could catch fish to sell in...
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...Quick on his fishing trips, but Oriel still doesn’t like Fish being too near the water. Fish reminds Quick of the time their boat sailed among the stars, and Quick realizes...
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Lester accompanies Quick on the river some nights, and Quick is grateful that his father is much quieter out on the...
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...boat and wears a makeshift belt of buoys, just in case he falls in the water. Out on the dark river, Quick idly asks Fish what they’re going to do with...
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...Quick rows on. Eventually she falls asleep. When she wakes up, they’re still on the river at night, though Fish has fallen asleep under his seat. Quick and Rose make small...
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Chapter 9
...a dream of the city burning. She sees people fleeing from the flames towards the river, but they stop at the water, afraid, and are consumed by the fire chasing them....
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Chapter 10
...during his patrols, until he spots the facedown body of a child floating on the river, near the shore. Two crying children have already spotted it, and Quick rushes out and...
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...to pack up the truck so that they can have a proper picnic by the river.
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The Lambs and the Pickleses have a loud and joyful picnic by the riverside, sprawled on blankets in the shade of the trees. The killer is hanged that morning,...
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...and laughing like a delighted child. He leans over the edge and gazes into the water, marveling at his own reflection and the colorful shimmering on the surface. Quick cries out...
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