Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the great novels, May 11, 2004
This epic about a man's journey into the heart of the Australian desert and into his own heart and mind is a classic of modern literature. Johann Ulrich Voss, though he remains always just beyond the reader's grasp as a character, is as memorable as any great figure in modern literature. If Marlow and Kurtz in Heart of Darkness were one man, this would be him.The novel is also a love story about two people who go beyond the mediocrity of their surroundings to embark on interior journeys where they learn to know themselves and unite with each other in spirit. For 80% of the novel I was gripped, running home from college to read more and more. My only qualm would be the ending, as the tension dissipates and the last 80 pages or so peter out under the excessive Christian symbolism. But there is no way that a potential reader should be put off by this assessment Sentence for sentence, word for word, Patrick White is as good a prose stylist as I've ever read. The phrase "tour de force" could have been invented for this book.
|
|
|
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cardboard Characters Set In The Australian Frontier, But Excellent Prose, January 21, 2007
Patrick White gained fame as the Australian Nobel prize winner in literature, and as a person with a prickly or what some call a difficult personality. He was educated at Cambridge but then settled and wrote in Australia after World War II. He has about a dozen novels and I have read two of them, the other being The Tree of Man which is set in rural but agricultural Australia, not in the Outback as is Voss.
This is a good novel, and it deserves 5 stars. After a dozen pages or so it becomes clear to the reader that White has an unusual style and he is a gifted writer. There is no question about his writing ability.
This particular story starts off in Sydney in the mid-19th century, and White uses real street names and locations in central Sydney, just east of Darling Harbour. Since the same streets still exist today, his setting and references to the city bring a high degree of realism to the story.
The plot is about a man and a woman who become engaged by mail after meeting. Voss is the man, and he leads a voyage of discovery into the Outback, north and west of Sydney. The plot involves the hardships of the trip, the interaction among the characters travelling with Voss, the natives, and what takes place in Sydney with his fiancee while Voss is away on the trip.
The discouraging feature of White's writing is that the characters seem stiff or cardboard, a bit lifeless. Voss is not a man to show much emotion or talk. So, there are many passages where White simply describes the activities. That gives the book - especially in the middle - a dry feel. This was reinforced for me when I read The Tree of Man where White has a similar strong male protagonist, the farmer; but there, White goes into much more depth with the man's personality in the novel.
The tale has a strong and a surprise ending, and the novel picks up as the story closes.
Overall, I enjoyed the read and would recommend the book. It is not a quick read nor is it compelling stuff to digest, but it is an interesting and well written novel.
|
|
|
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Voss: journeys of exploration, January 25, 2007
This novel opens in Sydney, 1845, with the German explorer Voss preparing to cross the Australian continent. This physical aspect of the novel is loosely based on the ill-fated expedition of Ludwig Leichhardt.
Prior to leaving Sydney, Voss meets Laura Trevelyan. Laura is the niece of one of Voss's patrons and is perhaps the only person apart from Voss himself who perceives that his journey is a challenge of will as much as a geographical journey of discovery. Voss and Laura, despite only meeting four times before he departs, form a spiritual bond which strengthens during the course of the novel.
The novel is about discovery, about triumph and about failure. The physical elements of the journey describe many of the challenges facing explorers within central Australia at the time and combines elements of human suffering and religious metaphor.
The intense relationship between Laura and Voss develops during the course of the journey, and is conducted both through letter and telepathy.
This novel can be read as a simple story of an ill-fated expedition. Alternatively, it can be read as one man's challenge to the physical world, and of the good and evil in each of us.
By the end of the novel, the discovery seems clear, the triumphs and the failures are obvious. Or are they? Perhaps it depends on which viewpoint you choose to adopt.
I recommend this novel to anyone who wants to read well written literature which, under the guise of telling a story, invites the readers to confront their own thinking. The choice is yours.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Patrick White
by Patrick White
by Aravind Adiga
by Patrick White
by Joseph O'Neill
