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Patrick White speaks
This collection of speeches by the Australian Nobel prize-winning author have provoked extreme reactions in Australia. While members of the establishment and parts of the media have dismissed him as a bitter old man, the young and needy have responded to him with something close to adulation.
- GenresNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1989
About the author
Patrick White
83 books373 followers There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads. For the Canadian Poet Laureate see "Patrick^^^^^White".
Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author widely regarded as one of the major English-language novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born in England while his Australian parents were visiting family, White grew up in Sydney before studying at Cambridge. Publishing his first two novels to critical acclaim in the UK, White then enlisted to serve in World War II, where he met his lifelong partner, the Greek Manoly Lascaris. The pair returned to Australia after the war.
Home again, White published a total of twelve novels, two short story collections, eight plays, as well as a miscellany of non-fiction. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantages and the stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature."
From 1947 to 1964, White and Lascaris lived a retired life on the outer fringes of Sydney. However after their subsequent move to the inner suburb of Centennial Park, White experienced an increased passion for activism. He became known as an outspoken champion for the disadvantaged, for Indigenous rights, and for the teaching and promotion of art, in a culture he deemed often backward and conservative. In their personal life, White and Lascaris' home became a regular haunt for noted figures from all levels of society.
Although he achieved a great deal of critical applause, and was hailed as a national hero after his Nobel win, White retained a challenged relationship with the Australian public and ordinary readers. In his final decades the books sold well in paperback, but he retained a reputation as difficult, dense, and sometimes inscrutable.
Following White's death in 1990, his reputation was briefly buoyed by David Marr's well-received biography, although he disappeared off most university and school syllabuses, with his novels mostly out of print, by the end of the century. Interest in White's books was revived around 2012, the year of his centenary, with all now available again.
Sources: Wikipedia, David Marr's biography, The Patrick White Catalogue
Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author widely regarded as one of the major English-language novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born in England while his Australian parents were visiting family, White grew up in Sydney before studying at Cambridge. Publishing his first two novels to critical acclaim in the UK, White then enlisted to serve in World War II, where he met his lifelong partner, the Greek Manoly Lascaris. The pair returned to Australia after the war.
Home again, White published a total of twelve novels, two short story collections, eight plays, as well as a miscellany of non-fiction. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantages and the stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature."
From 1947 to 1964, White and Lascaris lived a retired life on the outer fringes of Sydney. However after their subsequent move to the inner suburb of Centennial Park, White experienced an increased passion for activism. He became known as an outspoken champion for the disadvantaged, for Indigenous rights, and for the teaching and promotion of art, in a culture he deemed often backward and conservative. In their personal life, White and Lascaris' home became a regular haunt for noted figures from all levels of society.
Although he achieved a great deal of critical applause, and was hailed as a national hero after his Nobel win, White retained a challenged relationship with the Australian public and ordinary readers. In his final decades the books sold well in paperback, but he retained a reputation as difficult, dense, and sometimes inscrutable.
Following White's death in 1990, his reputation was briefly buoyed by David Marr's well-received biography, although he disappeared off most university and school syllabuses, with his novels mostly out of print, by the end of the century. Interest in White's books was revived around 2012, the year of his centenary, with all now available again.
Sources: Wikipedia, David Marr's biography, The Patrick White Catalogue
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 4, 2023
An interesting book, short and very easy to read, a little repetitive at times as in some of his public speeches he expressed the same ideas. I did not know that P.W. was so advanced in his beliefs regarding the environment, the aborigines and other sexual & political matters. His speech about the Bicentenary was an eye opener: very short but to the point about the reasons why he did not support the celebration as it was done. What did people think of him at the time (1988)? Was he listened to? Was he ignored? He risked detention on several occasions due to his opposition to the nuclear threat and his opinions about the royal family were very colourful, to say the least.
November 5, 2020
Just really quite good.
This volume emerged in an all-too-brief period of Whitemania in Australia, which received its first seeds when he won the Nobel Prize in 1973 but didn't properly emerge until around 1981, when White published his autobiography and - given age, ill-health and other factors - stepped back from his sometimes frantic writing schedule. The writer then became a much more familiar figure in public discourse, especially in the often fraught 1980s which opened up debates on nuclear material, globalisation, the gay rights movement, and of course the eternally contested Australian bicentenary and all it stood for. From these final years in White's life, we receive a variety of subsidiary material for collectors, including analytical volumes, his late works for the stage, David Marr's gorgeous biography and accompanying collection of White's letters, and this bundle of public miscellany.
Editors Christine Flynn and Paul Brennan sought to collect every piece of writing and speaking that White had made in the public arena - noting that some could not be found. The collection commences, fortuitously, with The Prodigal Son, a 1958 piece for the journal Australian Letters. By this point, White was in his 40s, with two largely forgotten early novels, a third - The Aunt's Story - which had proven too outré for provincial Australians - and two further novels, The Tree of Man and Voss, recognised masterpieces across the English-speaking world even if not everyone quite understood the point. Most of his output lay ahead of him, and White's mystique was further aided by a) the still rudimentary media machine of the 1950s, and b) his decision to live somewhat in exile on a property outside of Sydney with his partner, Manoly Lascaris. (All of this would change too, in the remaining 32 years of White's life, of course.)
The Prodigal Son is a declaration in equal parts defiant and celebratory. Defiant because White makes it clear that Australia idealises the ordinary and beatifies the uncomplicated. It is a cry he would echo throughout his life for greater ambition, artistry, and - frankly - eliteness in the arts. But also this piece is congratulatory for it takes as its core subject White's decision to return to Australia after the War, and make it his home. Indeed, White is rather remarkable for this. Well into the 1950s and 60s, it was common for Australian artists and writers of even minimal talent to make their home in Europe or North America. Australia's geographic and cultural isolation, combined with its natural conservatism, low government funding for arts, and relatively small audience share, led the average citizen to care more about bush ballads or crime novels than art. While Australia had its fair share of wits and poseurs, there were very few "great" writers who chose to spend their whole life on the continent; Martin Boyd, Christina Stead, Randolph Stow, Shirley Hazzard... brilliant ex-pats were many, brilliant returnees few. Equally as importantly is White's cry that the ordinary can yield the extraordinary for a talented, insightful writer. He was determined not just to live in Australia begrudgingly, but to make it the centre of his literary oeuvre. This aim might not seem so precious to us now; the generations of writers born during and after WWII would make it acceptable. At the time, though, this was White nailing his thesis to the door of the church of Australian culture.
What follows- speeches and pieces from 1969 to 1989 - is a varied and uneven array of thoughts and arguments, for White had many varied and uneven thoughts and arguments to give. But this should be a standard volume for any collector of White's output.
This volume emerged in an all-too-brief period of Whitemania in Australia, which received its first seeds when he won the Nobel Prize in 1973 but didn't properly emerge until around 1981, when White published his autobiography and - given age, ill-health and other factors - stepped back from his sometimes frantic writing schedule. The writer then became a much more familiar figure in public discourse, especially in the often fraught 1980s which opened up debates on nuclear material, globalisation, the gay rights movement, and of course the eternally contested Australian bicentenary and all it stood for. From these final years in White's life, we receive a variety of subsidiary material for collectors, including analytical volumes, his late works for the stage, David Marr's gorgeous biography and accompanying collection of White's letters, and this bundle of public miscellany.
Editors Christine Flynn and Paul Brennan sought to collect every piece of writing and speaking that White had made in the public arena - noting that some could not be found. The collection commences, fortuitously, with The Prodigal Son, a 1958 piece for the journal Australian Letters. By this point, White was in his 40s, with two largely forgotten early novels, a third - The Aunt's Story - which had proven too outré for provincial Australians - and two further novels, The Tree of Man and Voss, recognised masterpieces across the English-speaking world even if not everyone quite understood the point. Most of his output lay ahead of him, and White's mystique was further aided by a) the still rudimentary media machine of the 1950s, and b) his decision to live somewhat in exile on a property outside of Sydney with his partner, Manoly Lascaris. (All of this would change too, in the remaining 32 years of White's life, of course.)
The Prodigal Son is a declaration in equal parts defiant and celebratory. Defiant because White makes it clear that Australia idealises the ordinary and beatifies the uncomplicated. It is a cry he would echo throughout his life for greater ambition, artistry, and - frankly - eliteness in the arts. But also this piece is congratulatory for it takes as its core subject White's decision to return to Australia after the War, and make it his home. Indeed, White is rather remarkable for this. Well into the 1950s and 60s, it was common for Australian artists and writers of even minimal talent to make their home in Europe or North America. Australia's geographic and cultural isolation, combined with its natural conservatism, low government funding for arts, and relatively small audience share, led the average citizen to care more about bush ballads or crime novels than art. While Australia had its fair share of wits and poseurs, there were very few "great" writers who chose to spend their whole life on the continent; Martin Boyd, Christina Stead, Randolph Stow, Shirley Hazzard... brilliant ex-pats were many, brilliant returnees few. Equally as importantly is White's cry that the ordinary can yield the extraordinary for a talented, insightful writer. He was determined not just to live in Australia begrudgingly, but to make it the centre of his literary oeuvre. This aim might not seem so precious to us now; the generations of writers born during and after WWII would make it acceptable. At the time, though, this was White nailing his thesis to the door of the church of Australian culture.
What follows- speeches and pieces from 1969 to 1989 - is a varied and uneven array of thoughts and arguments, for White had many varied and uneven thoughts and arguments to give. But this should be a standard volume for any collector of White's output.
February 13, 2024
30+ years after these pieces were written or spoken Australians are beginning to understand Patrick White's message. Back in 1988, the majority would have thought it unpatriotic, extreme or just socialist ranting. He wasn't alone at that time but they were a minority either sneered at or ignored by the public and the media. I saw Germaine Greer break down in tears of frustration and sadness speaking of the same small minded, stubbornly blinkered views. The Voice defeat tells us that we've moved on but we're not even yet halfway there.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews