Patrick White's Fiction Patrick White's Fiction

Home , Flaws in the Glass, Happy Valley (novel), The Burnt Ones, The Cockatoos, The Ham Funeral, The Solid Mandala

PATRICK WHITE'S FICTION PATRICK WHITE'S FICTION

The Paradox of Fortunate Failure

Carolyn Bliss

Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-18329-6 ISBN 978-1-349-18327-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18327-2

First published in the United States of America in 1986

ISBN 978-0-312-59805-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bliss, Carolyn Jane, 1947- Patrick White's fiction: the paradox of fortunate failure. Bibliography: p. Includes index. I. White, Patrick, 1912- -Criticism and interpretation. 2. Failure (Psychology) in literature. I. Title. PR9619.3.W5Z584 1986 823 85-14608 ISBN 978-0-312-59805-1 To Jim, who understood how much it meant to me Contents

Preface lX

Acknowledgements Xlll

List of Abbreviations XV

1 Australia: the Mystique of Failure 1

2 The Early Works: Anatomy of Failure 15 Happy Valley 15 The Living and the Dead 24 The Aunt's Story 35 TheTreeofMan 49

3 The Major Phase: the Mystery of Failure 60 Voss 61 Riders in the Chariot 82 The Solid Mandala 99 The Vivisector 115

4 The Later Works: the State of Failure 133 The Eye ofthe Storm 136 A Fringe ofLeaves 153 The TwybornAffair 168

5 Style and Technique: the Discipline of Failure 184 Stylistic preferences 187 Narrative stance 192 Imagery and structure 197 Genre and tradition 200 The shape of failure 204

Vll Vlll Contents

Notes 208

Bibliography 232

Index 249 Preface

The 1973 award of the Nobel Prize for literature to the Australian novelist Patrick White focused world attention on a body of fiction which many believe will one day rank with the best produced in the twentieth century. From his birth, White has been as much a citizen of that greater world which honoured him as he is of Australia. Although descended from generations of large landholders in Australia's Hunter Valley, he was born in London. His Australian parents had taken an extended honeymoon following their marriage in 1910, and their first child, Patrick Victor Martindale, was born to them on 28 May 1912. At the end of that year, they returned to Australia, where a daughter, Suzanne, was born in 1915. Patrick was first sent to Cranbrook School in Sydney, then, because of severe asthma, to Tudor House in Moss Vale. At thirteen, he was taken back to England to be enrolled at Cheltenham College near Gloucester, where he spent four appar• ently miserable years. While there, however, he did write the poems which were later collected as Thirteen Poems. Returning to Australia in 1929, he went to work as a jackeroo, 1 first near Adaminaby in the Monaro district (roughly the setting of Happy Valley and of part of The Twyborn Affair), then on an uncle's property near Walgett. While so employed, he began writing fiction, but nothing from this period survives. In 1932, he again went to England, to read history at Cambridge, but soon changed his emphasis to modern languages. The Cambridge years, in contrast to those at Cheltenham, seem to have been happy ones, full of travel, friends and productive creative efforts. There he wrote the poems which later appeared in the privately printed collection The Ploughman and Other Poems. He also wrote plays and sketches for the theatre, some of which were later performed in Australia and London.

lX X Preface

Coming down from Cambridge in 1935, White took a bedsitter in Ebury Street, Pimlico, and continued writing plays, fiction and poetry. An Australian painter, Roy de Maistre, broadened his exposure to art and music, and he continued to travel extensively. For a time, he entertained hopes of a career in the theatre, but these were disappointed. With other projects he had more success, publishing a short story, 'The Twitching Colonel', in 1937; a poem, 'The House behind the Barricades', in 1938; and his first novel, Happy Valley, in 1939. That same year he took Happy Valley to America, finding a publisher for it in Viking Press, and while there began his next book, The Living and the Dead, finishing it on a later visit to New York. With the outbreak of war, he returned to England to serve in the RAF intelligence forces, mainly in the Middle East and Greece. In his autobiographical essay 'The Prodigal Son', White explains that at this time he reassessed his accomplishments to date, found them minimal and 'experienced those first sensations of rootlessness which Alister Kershaw has deplored and explained as the "desire to nuzzle once more at the benevolent teats of the mother country" '.2 VJ Day found him in Greece, from which he went back to London and thence to 'the mother country' for which he increasingly longed. After a preliminary visit, he decided to resume permanent residence but returned once more to London to settle his affairs. While there, he wrote The Ham Funeral, the first of his plays to survive. He also submitted for publication his third novel, The Aunfs Story, begun in London after the war and finished en route to and in Australia. Upon moving back to Australia in 1948, White took a house at Castle Hill on the outskirts of Sydney with a Greek friend, Manoly Lascaris, whom he had met during the war and whom he now describes as a man 'of immense moral strength, who became the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design'.3 The two raised flowers, vegetables, Schnauzer dogs, and Saanen goats. Disappointed over the Australian reception of his work, he did not publish another novel until The Tree of Man in 1955. But Voss followed quickly thereafter (in 1957) and since then novels have appeared at fairly regular intervals: Riders in the Chariot in 1961, The Solid Mandala in 1966, The Vivisector in 1970, The Eye of the Storm in 1973, A Fringe of Leaves in 1976, and The T wyborn Affair in 1979. He has also written more plays, numerous short stories and novellas (two collections have appeared), a screenplay and an autobiography. Preface Xl

Disturbed by the infringement of burgeoning Sydney on Castle Hill, White and Lascaris moved in 1963 to Centennial Park, which seemed to offer green space protected from urban encroachment. Subsequently, that protection was threatened by plans to turn Centennial Park into a sports arena, and White became politically active and visible as never before over this and other issues such as Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, uranium- and sand-mining projects, the possibility of nuclear war, and the rise and fall of the Whitlam Australian Labor Party government. He also drew great attention, much of it unwelcome, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973. He has used the prize money to establish a fund to honour and assist other Australian writers and has further proved his generosity by establishing scholarships for aboriginal students and donating paintings to the New South Wales Art Gallery.4 White's achievements and the world recognition accorded them are hard to reconcile with his continued obscurity among many readers of English-language fiction, particularly in the United States. This book is in part an effort to address this problem by bringing White and his work to the greater attention of scholars of English-language literature as well as the many uninitiated readers whom his fiction would delight, intrigue and deeply move. The book argues that the meaning and inevitability of failure in human experience offer an illuminating avenue of approach to White's fiction and can be seen as informing it thematically, stylistically, structurally and generically. In fact, the possibility that personal failure can promote a paradoxical success within a wider, transpersonal context is seen as a central tenet of White's philosophy of life. Attention will be centred on the novels, with references made to the short stories and novellas where these are particularly relevant. The plays and poetry will be treated only parenthetically. This choice of emphasis is dictated by the relative quality of White's work in these genres and reflects an evaluation with which he would probably concur. Except perhaps in the matter of his plays, for White seems irresistibly drawn to the theatre. He once disclaimed further interest in play-writing, because bringing a play to the stage involves 'too many difficulties and warring personalities destruc• tive of one's own'.5 In the furor following the Adelaide Theatre Guild's 1961 production of his play The Ham Funeral, he went so far as to send a letter to the editor of Nation declaring, 'One thing Xll Preface at least The Ham Funeral has taught me, and that is: never to write another play.'6 Yet he has since seen six more plays into production, the latest as recently as 1983, and has also written the screenplay for the 1978 film The Night the Prowler, based on his short story of the same name. In a 1980 interview, he even hinted at another film script in the offing.7 Yet his work in the dramatic media is simply not as impressive as his fiction. Nor can his short stories stand up to his novels, as White himself acknowledges. In an interview published in 1969, he says of short stories, 'I don't really like writing them so much .... All my effects are cumulative, and one doesn't really have the time to get the effects you want.'8 Similarly, his poetry is comparatively constricted in scope. Nor is there very much of it, and the little there is White seeks to disown. In 1935, an edition of 300 numbered copies of his The Ploughman and Other Poems, containing thirty-three poems, was privately financed and published by Sydney's Beacon Press; and research has turned up a collection called Thirteen Poems, written in 1927-29, but perhaps not 'published' in any real sense at all.9 White is not anxious to claim either of these volumes. 10 In fact, rumour has it that he wants to recall copies of The Ploughman and Other Poems from Australian libraries and has even tried to 'buy' them back with offers to will certain of his papers to the library in exchange for the offending volume. The poems are certainly not bad enough to warrant this treatment, but they should not be taken as representative of his mature effort. White has proved himself as a poet in his fiction, for, as Thelma Herring has said, he is among 'those who have tried to extend the frontiers of the novel in the direction of poetry'. 11 Thus the novels should and will be the focus of interest and evaluation.

Following the Acknowledgements is a List of Abbreviations used in the text and notes. Citations to White's works will be made parenthetically by page number and by the indicated abbreviation, where necessary. The Bibliography begins with a complete, chronological listing of White's published work and indicates the editions which were used in preparing this study.

C.B. Acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is due to Patrick White and to his publishers and agents for permission to quote copyrighted passages from the following works by Patrick White.

Excerpts from Happy Valley (London: Harrap, 1939; New York: Viking Press, 1940), reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown (Aust.) Pty Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from The Living and the Dead (London: Routledge, 1941; New York: Viking Press, 1941; Toronto: Macmillan, 1941), reprinted by permission of jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Pen• guin Inc. Excerpts from The Aunt's Story (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948; New York: Viking Press, 1948; Toronto: Macmillan, 1948), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from The Tree of Man (New York: Viking Press, 1955; Toronto: Macmillan, 1955; London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1956), reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc. and Curtis Brown (Aust.) Pty Ltd. Excerpts from Voss (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1957; New York: Viking Press, 1957; Toronto: Macmillan, 1957), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from Riders in the Chariot (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961; New York: Viking Press, 1961), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from The Solid Mandala (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1966; New York: Viking Press, 1966), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from The Vivisector (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970; New York: Viking Press, 1970), reprinted by permission ofJonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc.

Xlll XIV Patrick White's Fiction

Excerpts from The Eye of the Storm (London: Jonathan Cape, 1973; New York: Viking Press, 1974), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from A Fringe of Leaves (London: Jonathan Cape, 1976; New York: Viking Press, 19 77), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from The Twyborn Affair (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979; New York: Viking Press, 1979), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc. Excerpts from Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait (London: Jonathan Cape, 1981; New York: Viking Press, 1982), reprinted by permission of Jonathan Cape Ltd and Viking Penguin Inc.

I should also like to acknowledge the advice, assistance, encouragement, and critical acumen of Jon Stallworthy and Daniel Schwarz, without whom this book would never have seen publication. I am further indebted to the help of Mary Ann Radzinowicz and Walter Slatoff, and to the stimulating exchange of ideas with a number of Australian scholars and intellectuals, particularly Manning Clark, Alan Lawson and Manfred MacKenzie. Finally, thanks are owing to Joan Fox of Pymble, Australia, for her help in tracking down necessary research materials and to Dr and Mrs William R. Bliss for their unfailing faith in this project and its author. List of Abbreviations

AS The Aunt's Story (1948; repr. New York: Avon, 1975). BO The Burnt Ones (1964; repr. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968). C The Cockatoos (1974; repr. New York: Viking Press, 1975). ES The Eye of the Storm (1973; repr. New York: Avon, 1975). FG Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait (New York: Viking Press, 1981) FL A Fringe of Leaves (1976; repr. New York: Viking Press, 1977). HV Happy Valley (1939; repr. New York: Viking Press, 1940). LD The Living and the Dead (New York: Viking Press, 1941). RC Riders in the Chariot (1961; repr. New York: Avon, 1975). SM The Solid Mandala (1966; repr. New York: Avon, 1975). TA The Twyborn Affair (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979). TM The Tree of Man (1955; repr. New York: Avon, 1975) V Voss (1957; repr. New York: Avon, 1975). VS The Vivisector (1970; repr. New York: Avon, 1975).