PATRICK

WHITE

White was born in Knightsbridge, London, to an English-Australian father and an English mother. His family later moved to Sydney, Australia when he was six months old. At the age of ten White was sent to Tudor House School, a boarding school in Wales, in an attempt to abate his asthma. It took him some time to adjust to the presence of other children. At boarding school he started to write plays. Even at this early age White wrote about noticeably adult themes. White struggled to adjust to his new surroundings at Cheltenham College, in Gloucestershire. He later described it as "a fouryear prison sentence". White withdrew socially and had a limited circle of acquaintances.

After the war White once again returned to Australia, buying an old house in Castle Hill, now a Sydney suburb but then semi-rural. Here he settled down with Lascaris, the Greek he had met during the war. They lived there for 18 years, selling flowers, vegetables, milk, and cream, as well as pedigreed puppies. During these years he started to make a reputation for himself as a writer, publishing The Aunt's Story and The Tree of Man in the US in 1955 and shortly after in the UK. The Tree of Man was released to rave reviews in the US, but, in what was to become a typical pattern, was panned in Australia. White had doubts about whether to continue writing after his books were largely dismissed in Australia (three of them having been called un-Australian by critics), but, in the end, decided to persevere. His first breakthrough in Australia came when his next novel, Voss.

Plot summary The novel centres on two characters: Voss, a German, and Laura Trevelyan, a young woman, orphaned and new to the colony of New South Wales. It opens as they meet for the first time in the house of Laura's uncle and the patron of Voss's expedition, Mr Bonner. Johann Ulrich Voss sets out to cross the Australian continent in 1845. After collecting a party of settlers and two Aborigines, his party heads inland from the coast only to meet endless adversity. The explorers cross droughtplagued desert then waterlogged lands until they retreat to a cave where they lie for weeks waiting for the rain to stop. Voss and Laura retain a connection despite Voss's absence and the story intersperses developments in each of their lives.

Laura adopts an orphaned child and attends a ball during Voss's absence. The travelling party splits in two and nearly all members eventually perish. The story ends some twenty years later at a garden party hosted by Laura's cousin Belle Radclyffe (nee Bonner) on the day of the unveiling of a statue of Voss. The party is also attended by Laura Trevelyan and the one remaining member of Voss's expeditionary party, Mr Judd. The strength of the novel comes not from the physical description of the events in the story but from the explorers' passion, insight and doom. The novel draws heavily on the complex character of Voss.

Symbolism The novel uses extensive religious symbolism. Voss is compared repeatedly to God, Christ and the Devil. Like Christ he goes into the desert, he is a leader of men and he tends to the sick. Voss and Laura have a meeting in a garden prior to his departure that could be compared to the Garden of Eden. A metaphysical thread unites the novel. Voss and Laura are permitted to communicate through visions. White presents the desert as akin to the mind of man, a blank landscape in which pretensions to godliness are brought asunder. In Sydney, Laura's adoption of the orphaned child, Mercy, represents godliness through a pure form of sacrifice. There is a continual reference to duality in the travelling party, with a group led by Voss and a group led by Judd eventually dividing after the death of the unifying agent, Mr Palfreyman. The intellect and pretensions to godliness of Mr Voss are compared unfavourably with the simplicity and earthliness of the pardoned convict Judd. Mr Judd, it is implied, has accepted the blankness of the desert of the mind, and in doing so, become more 'godlike'.

THEMES The Breakdown of Social Norms The inclusion of the convict, Judd, in Vosss party, and his subsequent elevation to leader; The servant Rose Portion not only staying on in a middle-class family when pregnant, but also Laura adopting the baby; The catastrophic breakdown of Aboriginal social norms, especially in Jackies behaviour; In Ralph Angus, the compassion for the convict began to struggle with the conventions he had been taught to respect (p292) - The grazier apologises to the convict for Vosss rudeness; the way that traditional morality is abandoned; and the questioning about God and religion.

The Sense of Alienation Lauras from society and family; Vosss from society and his homeland and language he even wants to be alone when the expedition is out in the middle of nowhere; Jackie and (at least initially) Dugald from their own people; and Judd choosing not to return to civilisation for so long The sense of spiritual loneliness Laura prays but not to a kind and loving God; and The personification of vast distances and a hostile landscape.

Stylistic features The discontinuous narrative, jumping from Laura in Potts Point, Sydney, to Voss in the unknown inland, and back again. Its more pronounced in later chapters. Antiphraxis (ironic figures of speech, words meaning their opposite, like the pieces of paper reduced to being like a mob of cockatoos meaningless chatter when Vosss letter is profoundly serious (p220). Parataxis short sentences juxtaposed without any obvious connection, like the spaniel being preferable to children. Children are little animals that begin to think by thinking of themselves. A spaniel is more satisfactory. (p221)

Its included in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and the summary of Voss suggests an enticing story. What was distinctive about Voss is that the novel is an example of High Modernism which according to Norton celebrates personal and textual inwardness, complexity, and difficulties and this movement was out-ofdate by the end of the 1920s. Alternatively, according to Wikipedia, High Modernism is characterised by the Great Divide i.e. a clear distinction between capital-A Art and mass culture, and it places itself firmly on the side of Art and in opposition to popular or mass culture

This was the first time in literature that a writer has understood with such sensitivity the Aboriginal world view, kinship and the vulnerability of their way of life? Here is Dugald en route, meeting up with his people and trying to explain his burden: These papers contain the thoughts of which the whites wished to be rid, explained the traveller, by inspiration: the sad thoughts, the bad, the thoughts that were too heavy, or in any way hurtful. These came out through the white mans writing stick, down upon paper, and were sent away. Away, away, the crowd began to menace and call With the solemnity of one who has interpreted a mystery, he tore them into little pieces The women were screaming, and escaping from the white mans bad thoughts. Some of the men were laughing.

Only Dougal was sad and still, as the pieces of paper fluttered around him and settled on the grass, like a mob of cockatoos. Then the men took their weapons, and the women their nets, and their dillybags, and children, and they all trooped away to the north where at that season of the year there was much wildlife and a plentiful supply of yams. The old man went with them, of course, because they were his people, and they were going in that direction. They went walking through the good grass, and the present absorbed them utterly. (p220)