Patrick White

liehtzu

liehtzu

Reader
The Australian writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1973 is now almost completely forgotten, and most of his books are out-of-print. But his "Voss" is one of the towering novels (even without adding: that no one's ever heard of) of the 20th century. Thomas Keneally's review in The Guardian:

Show me the way to go home | Books | The Guardian

I've also read two other great White novels, "The Tree of Man" and "The Solid Mandala," and his collection of short stories "The Burnt Ones." Anyone else?
 
Stewart

Stewart

Administrator
Staff member
I think Cocko's your man here, as he's created two threads on White's work, as per the Patrick White tag. The Tree Of Man is one I've been looking at recently in stores, but haven't fully considered buying...yet.
 
C

Cocko

Reader
Yeah, I'm going through a bit of a Patrick White phase.

I read Voss a couple of years back. Yes, I enjoyed it at the time, but the novel's true beauty only became evident as more time passed. I'm constantly surprised as how often I cast my mind back to the story. It lingers, and that is something very few authors are able to achieve. Further to the novel itself is the wonderful cover by the equally celebrated Sidney Nolan. A beautifully stark image painted on the back of a postcard and sent from England to Australia through the mail. Check it out (keep your eyes peeled for the thumb prints!).

More recently I read The Aunt's Story. Picked from a batch of six novels by White that I picked up through Ebay for $10. These editions were paperbacks from the 1970s. They were nicely packaged in comparison to some of the other editions that one might find hanging around in the book store.

I agree that White does seem to be looked over when compared to some living legends like Peter Carey and Tim Winton. But he is pretty cool by comparison (often interpreted as arrogant), not many ask for their books to be removed from the Booker Prize as to make way for younger writers.

In Australia I was under the impression that most of his work is still in print, but I could be wrong. One thing is sure, if you want to read The Aunt's Story it has just been reissued by Viking Classics with a lovely cover to entice. You can find purchasing information of the Random House site here. Or more information of the Australian classics here.

Given the publication of iconic journalist David Marr's mamouth authorised biography some years back there is a great wikipedia entry for those of us that are yet to tackle the 1,000 odd pages.

Lastly, there is a clunky website that was published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation some years back that was dedicated to White. In fact, it played on the often heard criticism, Why bother with Patrick White?

I particularly like the opinions page, we get a great insight to White and his often outspoken criticism of his country and countrymen. Another legend, Philip Adams. puts it best:

 '...Patrick's gift for hatred almost exceeded his gift for literature and, it would seem, welled not so much from vanity as self-hatred. He despised so many of us. He behaved obnoxiously. But we still wiped the clay from his feet and propped him back on his pedestal. Perched up there he grumbled away, criticising the view. But at the end of the day we had to keep Patrick enpedestalled, as our official hero. Because if we hadn't had Patrick as a hero, who the hell would we have?'
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
I'd gone through a Paddy-White-phase of my own, when I was in my late teens/early 20s, and read ALL of his novels including the really-hard-to-get Happy Valley (courtesy of the City College Library's Special Collection).

I really do believe the man could write.

His most psychologically acute novel is probably The Eye of the Storm; however, my personal favorite is A Fringe of Leaves--loved, loved, LOVED it--but then again, I'm a sucker for historical settings. The language was absolutely delicious though, as was White's usual mixture of visionary imagery and social satire. The last few chapters had me on edge.

Liehtzu--I'm sure you'll be glad to learn that interest in White's work is resurging in the States; in January of 2009 two of his novels are going to get special treatment from Penguin Classics, and I'm already in love with the covers: The Vivisector and (your favorite) Voss. At 10 bucks a copy, I'd say it's a great deal.

I once thought of writing a paper on White in my Postcolonial Lit class (some of his novels fit that category rather neatly), but gave up after a while and did Doris Lessing (The Grass Is Singing) instead--writing about White felt like trying to describe a religious experience--words simply failed me. I'm thinking of rereading some of his stuff this summer; I'll probably go with The Living and the Dead, which I always liked despite all the negativity, and The Twyborn Affair, which I find hilarious. (I wonder how many readers reach the second half of the novel thinking that...--but I'm not going to tell--DON'T read the jacket blurb, the stupid thing reveals everything).
 
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C

Cocko

Reader
As a side note, there has been a long running debate over the last few years about White and Lascaris's home at 20 Martin Road, Centennial Park, Sydney. It raises interesting questions about White's legacy in our country, or more to the point the legacy of the arts.

It is summed up in this article several years back when Highbury last went to auction.

It is a wonderful house in one of the nicest inner city locations in Sydney (albeit one of the smallest houses on the street these days), no wonder White asked for his ashes turfed out the front on the park.

For those who like Google's street view, check it out.
 
S

spooooool

Reader
see also "riders in the chariot". I read most of White in my twenties, but "riders.." is not long out in an NYRB edition
 
Stewart

Stewart

Administrator
Staff member
I've just been looking at White's bibliography. Jeez, he didn't like small books, did he?
 
E

Eric

Former Member
As for his house, they should always clamp a preservation order on the property of a major author as soon as he or she dies. Otherwise the property speculators and other philistine riff-raff will exploit it for its "cultural heritage value" (read: property value) or, more likely, knock it down to build ten profitable flats. Money rules, OK?

(For example, the pathetic plaque on a wall somewhere on Tavistock Square does little justice to my namesake who once lived there. Sadly, this is almost the exact spot where that bus was blown up, too. It was from that building, on the site of one once lived in by Dickens, that doctors must have first rushed to the scene of the bombing from the British Medical Association headquarters.)

I wasn't aware that White's books were all so long.
 
C

Cocko

Reader
I also recently read Three Uneasy Pieces which is really just three short stories, published not long before White's death. I loved it, especially as the book runs just 60-odd pages of which the longest is an autobiography of sorts told through the eyes of an aging man, ironic given Marr's opus.

For those looking for something less in stature, maybe pick it up on Abe.
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
Stewart said:
I've just been looking at White's bibliography. Jeez, he didn't like small books, did he?
Click to expand...

You can always start with his two collections of short stories: The Burnt Ones (1964) and The Cockatoos (1974)--it can be intimidating to tackle something long by a writer you might not even like (incidentally, I feel the same way about Martin Anderson Nexo's Pelle the Conqueror trilogy--I've been reluctant to read it for years now).

White's longest books come, I would say, from his middle-to-late years; The Eye of the Storm being probably the lengthiest. His first two novels, Happy Valley and The Living and the Dead, and his last one, The Twyborn Affair, are all within the general 300-350 pp. range, at least in the editions that I have.
 
matt.todd

matt.todd

Reader
For those interested in getting into some Patrick White, there's an excellent website I found (while researching a paper on White's work) that provides some really useful and interesting information:

why bother with patrick white?

I particularly like A.D. Hope's views on White. "Pretentious and illiterate verbal sludge" indeed.
 
Gladys

Gladys

Reader
liehtzu said:
I've also read two other great White novels, "The Tree of Man" and "The Solid Mandala," and his collection of short stories "The Burnt Ones." Anyone else?
Click to expand...

 Having recently read the major White novels, 'The Tree of Man' defeated me and 'Vivisector' is too grim, but I adore the rest. The endings of his novels are so spectacular. I warm inside as I remember how ?Riders in the Chariot?, 'Voss', 'The Eye of the Storm' and 'The Twyborn Affair' ended.
 
J

john h

Reader
I had a White phase quite a few years back but the only ones I really connected with are "Voss" and "The Solid Mandala". The latter particularly seemed brilliantly written to me although there were certainly flashes of greatness in "Voss." "The Aunt's Story" and "Tree of Life" I couldn't get through.
 
Gladys

Gladys

Reader
I eventually grasped, and loved, The Aunt's Story but The Tree of Life remains to me a mystery. The only Patrick White that I rather dislike, yet more or less understand, is The Vivisector. I have too little empathy with Hurtle Duffield.
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
Thanks for the wonderful news. Unlike Nabokov's stupid Laura, which isn't even a book, White's lost work is something I would very much like to read.
 
Lleir

Lleir

Reader
It's a pity they're not reprinting Happy Valley, although I actually have a copy for reading. Admittedly it's one saved page-by-page probably in breach of copyright law, as I really can't be stuffed going through the hassle of having to read it at my uni as it's "internal use only", much less having to read it at the abysmally noisy State Library or paying a couple of grand for a battered copy on the open market.

Anyways, as a young man making his way through the Australian canon I've only read Patrick White's Voss and The Tree of Man at the moment, both of which absolutely enthralled me. It really is as Liam said, somewhat of a religious experience reading White.

I was particularly impressed with The Tree of Man which by all means should have been boring on the mere face of it (I mean, really, how interesting does "Great Australian Family Saga with obligatory flooding and bushfires" actually sound?) though it definitely is quite a difficult read and I did find myself having to take breaks from it every chapter or so just to take things in. I also concur with ol' A.D. Hope's notion of his prose being "verbal sludge" (though obviously without the "pretentious and illiterate" part) though as far as I'm concerned - I can think of nothing better than to trudge through that sludge. Nevertheless it's one of the few books I've found myself jotting down quotes for that I wasn't actually studying.

Liam, I also found it interesting you almost wrote about White in Postcolonial literature. I was always under the impression that it's a subject of some controversy that settler societies and their literature like Australia are considered not to "count" in the Postcolonial stakes, because of a white majority etc etc. Admittedly I'm not well up on the theory being a dopey undergrad at a university-in-decline.

Also speaking of White - you'd think it'd be easy to find his work in second-hand bookshops in Australia, being a Nobel prize winner and all.

Not on your life.
 
Liam

Liam

Administrator
Lleir said:
Admittedly I'm not well up on the theory being a dopey undergrad at a university-in-decline.
Click to expand...
Can't be in decline if it's teaching you to express yourself so eloquently, :).

Glad to have you around: we are in dire need of Aussie/Kiwi posters, since some of the ones we previously had left for fresher fields and pastures new.
 
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