The life story of the Nobel Prize-winning author tells of his influential relationship with his Australian homeland and describes how his creative moods were often accompanied by savage fits of temper and a passion for privacy.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
An admirably readable biography of the Nobel Prize-winning author of Voss , The Tree of Man , and many other books, this work is full of detail on White's family and prosperous background, the events and people in his life, his writing habits, his religious beliefs, his cantankerousness and temper, his causes and doubts, his attraction to the theater, and much more. White helped Marr gain access to people and material, even authorizing him to collect his letters, "the backbone of this book." Marr deals intelligently with important issues (among them, White's rootedness in and dissatisfaction with Australia, his sense of himself as an outsider, his relation to his mother, and, in particular his homosexuality, which White considered central to his novelistic and theatrical ability), avoiding psychoanalytical speculations and other intrusions. White reviewed the book shortly before he died, finding it "so painful he often found himself reading through tears. He did not ask Marr to change a line."--Richard Kuczkowski, Dominican Coll., Blauvelt, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
The sleeper biography of this and recent years, Australian journalist Marr's book has more than amplitude and its subject's blessing (White actually got to read most of the book before his death in 1990) going for it: It is an unusually calm, unstraining, unjaded, and even curious work, fascinated with Patrick White but never fawning over or using him (he'd have been hard to use this way anyway) as an illustration of an artistic or psychological conclusion the biographer has come to. Like many of the best Nobel winners of recent decades, White- -who wrote some of the most extraordinary prose of the century--is more known by name than read. But rather than academically reintroducing us to White's great achievement, novel by novel, Marr wisely sticks to using the books as clues to White's life. It's a procedure that can mislead yet here doesn't--for White himself was never false, played no games with his life and art, made no toying distinctions or feints. Wealthy, homosexual, asthmatic, brutally candid, White looked to follow or start no circle; he was traumatically educated in England, served in the African campaign in WW II, and then--with his lover and companion of what would be 40-some years, the beautifully named Greek, Manoly Lascaris--he returned to a puritanical, philistine Australia to do his major work. His love/hate affair with Australia is the book's undertheme- -but it merely contributes to what is most unmistakable about White as seen by Marr: the incomparably high fidelity of the man-- artistic, personal, social. Generous yet monastic by temperament, White struggled with doubt and pride in a refreshingly premodern way--all of which Marr captures. And as the best literary biography ought to do, this one sends us hungrily back to the novels--to see what they encompassed but also, too, to relish how the complexity of the author's own character boosted their art. Superb. (Thirty-pages of photographs.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous biography about a not very likeable person,
By saliero (NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Patrick White: A Life (Hardcover)
I found the biog hard to put down, unlike White's fiction which I find easy to put down! Marr has written a scholarly yet entertaining biography, and you really feel you come to know something about an Australian icon - our only Nobel laureate in literature.In everything i have read (including White's own portrait of himself, Flaws In The Glass) he comes across as a horrible man - a misogynist, but with some political principles with which I might agree. Nevertheless, that is not the point of literature, or art, to be loved by one and all. White's voice certainly added immensely to the cultural life of this country, and it is worth getting to know something about his life and works. Marr's book is an excellent place to start.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Biography re read,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Patrick White: A Life (Hardcover)
Having read this many years ago, I had difficulty in obtaining a copy to re read it. Amazon to the rescue! I found this book just as intriguing as I did when I first read it.Well written and accurate!
5.0 out of 5 stars
A superbly crafted biography of Patrick White,
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This review is from: Patrick White: A Life (Paperback)
The Learning Process: Some Creative ImpressionsIn his own memoir, 'Flaws in the Glass', Patrick White described himself thus: "I am not an intellectual. There is nothing cerebral about me; if I have something to give it is through the senses and my intuition." The great steadying and stimulating influence in his life was Manoly Lascaris, whom he met in July 1941 at a party in Alexandria, while he was serving in the Air Force and Manoly was a member of the Greek armed forces. Manoly was the great love of his life, and despite terrific rows, and Patrick's tantrums, their relationship lasted a lifetime. Each had a clearly defined role, but they both 'worked like peasants' at Dogwoods; ploughing, milking, washing, ironing, weeding and cooking - and they had the everpresent dogs to care for. Later, when they moved to 20 Martin Road, Manoly gardened while Patrick wrote, looked after domestic side of things and handled the finances. Patrick's relationship with his mother was complex. She was a dominating personality, as he was also - and they clashed. He resented her attempts to control his life, and never forgave her for exiling him to Cheltenham College. It was there he discovered his homosexuality. 'He had no doubt:' "I never went through the agonies of choosing this or that sexual way of life. I was chosen." 'He responded to the discovery with fear and self-disgust.' His easy going father, on the other hand, was an acceptable parent. But above all, Patrick White was a writer from the start - his adolescence - but a perverse one. Although prepared to accept accolades as his due, he refused the honours others wished to bestow upon him, even returning the Order of Australia, he received from the detested Sir John Kerr. Although something of a showman, with a love of the theatre and the performers, and a prolific playwright, he was shy and reclusive much of his life. He became involved in various campaigns, notably the plan to build an Olympic stadium, which would involve bulldozing not only his Martin Road house, but many others as well. He unwillingly made the first of his public speeches by supporting Jack Mundey's green ban - and the battle for the parks - which was eventually won. He marched in opposition to the war in Vietnam and "had stood with poets and trade union officials on the platform of the Assembly Hall in Melbourne late in 1981 to launch People for Nuclear Disarmament" 'and on Palm Sunday 1982 he led a march through Sydney and addressed a crowd of 30,000 for half an hour in the rain, calling for a ban on the mining of uranium and the destruction of both nuclear and conventional weapons.' "So our work will not be done until we have eradicated the habit of war." It seems strange, therefore, that there is no indication in the book of White's attitude to the invasion and brutal occupation of East Timor by Indonesia, something his hero, Whitlam wasn't concerned about either - but White's attitude to both politics and religion are sometimes at odds with his rigid and censorious personality. Originally a conservative, he turned abruptly to the left - like Donald Horne - when Governor General Sir John Kerr sacked the Whitlam government. White was outraged and used his ability as a writer to pour scorn on Kerr, as he did on almost anyone who crossed him, even former staunch friends such as Geoffrey Dutton and Sidney Nolan. For such a practical and iconoclastic personality, White's religious beliefs seem strange, almost medieval. He believed, for instance, in astrology, and the miracles of Mary MacKillop. This is a huge and spellbinding book by the brilliant essayist and biographer, David Marr, about a paradoxical, complex, acerbic human being who made and destroyed friendships with just about everyone, yet maintained a wonderful and unique relationship with his partner for life, Manoly Lascaris. From his first successful novel, 'Happy Valley' to his late 'self-portrait', 'Flaws in the Glass', Patrick White was an Australian literary icon with his many highly esteemed novels, plays, and stories, winning the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973 for his novel, 'The Eye of the Storm'.
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