Patrick White

Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, conformist society. Influenced by the modernism of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, he developed a complex literary style and a body of work that challenged the dominant realist prose tradition of his home country, was satirical of Australian society, and sharply divided local critics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 and is the only Australian to receive it. Born in London to affluent Australian parents, White spent his childhood in Sydney and on his family's rural properties. He was sent to an English public school at the age of 13, and went on to read modern languages at Cambridge. After graduating in 1935¹ he embarked on a literary career. His first published novel, Happy Valley (1939¹), was awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. In World War II he served as an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force. While stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1941, he met Manoly Lascaris, who became his life companion and, as White later wrote, "the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design." In 1948 White returned to Australia, where he bought a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney.…

Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian novelist and playwright who explored themes of religious experience, personal identity and the conflict between visionary individuals and a materialistic, conformist society. Influenced by the modernism of James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, he developed a complex literary style and a body of work that challenged the dominant realist prose tradition of his home country, was satirical of Australian society, and sharply divided local critics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973 and is the only Australian to receive it. Born in London to affluent Australian parents, White spent his childhood in Sydney and on his family's rural properties. He was sent to an English public school at the age of 13, and went on to read modern languages at Cambridge. After graduating in 1935 he embarked on a literary career. His first published novel, Happy Valley (1939), was awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society. In World War II he served as an intelligence officer in the Royal Air Force. While stationed in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1941, he met Manoly Lascaris, who became his life companion and, as White later wrote, "the central mandala in my life's hitherto messy design." In 1948 White returned to Australia, where he bought a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney. There he wrote the two novels, The Tree of Man (1955¹) and Voss (1957), that brought him critical acclaim in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the 1960s he wrote the novels Riders in the Chariot (1961) and The Solid Mandala (1966), and a series of plays, including The Season at Sarsaparilla and A Cheery Soul, that had a major impact on Australian theatre. White and Lascaris moved to Sydney's Centennial Park in 1964. From the late 1960s White became increasingly involved in public affairs, opposing the Vietnam War and supporting Aboriginal self-determination, nuclear disarmament and environmental causes. His later work includes the novels The Eye of the Storm (1973) and The Twyborn Affair (1979) and the memoir Flaws in the Glass (1981). ==Childhood and adolescence== White was born in Knightsbridge, London, on 28 May 1912. His Australian parents, Victor Martindale White, a wealthy sheep grazier, and Ruth (née Withycombe) were in England on an extended honeymoon. The family returned to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. As a child he lived in a flat with his sister, a nanny, and a maid while his parents lived in an adjoining flat. In 1916 they moved to a large house, "Lulworth", in Elizabeth Bay. At the age of four White developed asthma, a condition that had taken the life of his maternal grandfather, and his health was fragile throughout his childhood. , Sydney At the age of five he attended kindergarten at Sandtoft in Woollahra, close to their home. His mother often took him to plays and pantomimes and White developed a life long love of the theatre. Nevertheless, White felt closer to his nurse, Lizzie Clark, who taught him to tell the truth and "not blow his own trumpet". In 1920 he attended Cranbrook School but his asthma worsened. Two years later he was sent to Tudor House School, a boarding school in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, where it was thought the climate would help his lungs. White enjoyed the freedom provided by the school where discipline was lax. He read widely from the school library, wrote a play and excelled at English. In 1924 the boarding school ran into financial trouble, and the headmaster suggested that White be sent to a public school in England. In April 1925 his parents took White to England to enrol in Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire. In his first years at Cheltenham he was withdrawn and had few friends. He found his housemaster to be sadistic and puritanical, and White's certitude of his own homosexuality increased his sense of isolation. He later wrote of Cheltenham, "When the gates of my expensive prison closed I lost confidence in my mother, and [I] never forgave." One of White's few pleasures was the time spent at the Somerset home of his cousin, the painter Jack Withycombe. Jack's daughter Elizabeth Withycombe became a mentor to him while he was completing his first, privately published, volume of verse, Thirteen Poems, written between 1927¹ and 1929. White also became friends with Ronald Waterall who was two years his senior at Cheltenham and shared his passion for the theatre. He and White would spend their holidays in London seeing as many shows as they could. White asked his parents if he could leave school to become an actor. His parents compromised and allowed him to leave school without taking his final examinations if he came home to Australia to try life on the land. But their son had already changed his mind on his future profession and was determined to become a writer. In December 1929 White left Cheltenham and sailed to Sydney. He spent two years working as a jackaroo on sheep stations at Bolaro in the Monaro district of New South Wales and at Barwon Vale in northern New South Wales. The landscapes impressed White and he wrote two unpublished novels during this time: "The Immigrants" and "Sullen Moon". White's uncle, who owned Barwon Vale, convinced White's parents that their son was not suited to the life of a grazier. White's mother was happy for him to become a writer but she wanted him to have a career as a diplomat as well. On this basis his parents agreed to send him to Cambridge. While studying for the entrance examinations, White completed a third unpublished novel, "Finding Heaven". ==Europe, America and war== From 1932 White lived in England, studying French and German literature at King's College, Cambridge. There he began a love affair with a fellow student that lasted until White graduated. White wrote poems, some of which were published in the London Mercury. He spent his holidays in France and Germany to improve his languages and read Joyce, Lawrence, Proust, Flaubert, Stendhal and Thomas Mann with admiration. He made a pilgrimage to Zennor in Cornwall where Lawrence wrote Women in Love and the visit inspired further poems. A collection was published as The Ploughman and Other Poems in an edition of 300 in Sydney in 1935 but received little critical attention and was later suppressed by White. A play, Bread and Butter Women, was given an amateur production in Sydney the same year. On White's graduation in 1935 his mother wanted him to embark on a diplomatic career but he was determined to stay in England and become a writer. His mother relented and his father granted him an allowance of £400 a year. He moved to London's Pimlico district where, in 1936, he met the Australian painter Roy de Maistre. De Maistre briefly became White's lover and remained a mentor and friend. White later said that de Maistre had encouraged him to break from naturalistic prose and write "from the inside out." White began work on the novel Happy Valley, partly based on his experience working as a jackaroo. In 1937 his story "The Twitching Colonel" was published in the London Mercury. His father died in December, leaving him a legacy of £10,000 that enabled him to write full-time in relative comfort. He started work on a play, Return to Abyssinia, and wrote skits for revues which were produced with moderate success. He completed Happy Valley and the novel was accepted by the British publisher George G. Harrap and Company in 1938. Happy Valley was published in early 1939 to generally favourable reviews which encouraged White to go to America to find a publisher there. White arrived in New York in April and travelled across the country. He visited Taos, New Mexico, where he viewed Lawrence's ashes and met Frieda Lawrence. He then moved to Cape Cod where he worked on a novel, The Living and the Dead, partly based on his life in London. When the Second World War broke out in September, White took the first available ship back to England where he continued to work on his new novel. In early 1940 White heard that Ben Huebsch, the head of the American publisher Viking, had accepted Happy Valley. Huebsch had published Lawrence and Joyce in America and White was delighted with the connection to these writers. Huebsch was to become one of White's main literary supporters. White decided to travel back to New York for the publication of Happy Valley and to complete the new novel. Happy Valley was published in June to favourable reviews. Huebsch also accepted the now completed novel The Living and the Dead for publication. White returned to London where, in November, he was called up to an intelligence unit of the Royal Air Force. He was stationed at Bentley Priory during the Blitz before being transferred to North Africa in April 1941. He subsequently served in Egypt, Palestine and Greece. While stationed near Alexandria in July 1941 he met Manoly Lascaris, who was waiting to be recruited to the Royal Greek Army. Lascaris was to become White's life partner. Following the war White was determined to leave England to avoid "the prospect of ceasing to be an artist and turning instead into that most sterile of beings, a London intellectual." White's preference was to live in Greece but Lascaris wanted to start a new life in Australia. White relented because, "It was his illusion. I suppose I sensed it was better than mine." Before leaving for Australia White began work on a novel The Aunt's Story, inspired by a painting by Roy de Maistre. He sent the completed typescript to his American publisher in January 1947. In March, his play Return to Abyssinia opened in London to polite reviews. White missed its short season because he was in Australia making preparations for his permanent return. He returned to London and began a new play, The Ham Funeral, inspired by the William Dobell painting "The Dead Landlord". White sailed back to Australia in December 1947. During his voyage The Aunt's Story was published in the United States to very favourable reviews and strong sales. Critic James Stern's review in the New York Times Book Review was enthusiastic and Stern would go on to be one of White's major champions in America. ==Return to Australia== White arrived back in Australia in February 1948. He and Lascaris moved to a small farm purchased by White at Castle Hill, now a Sydney suburb but then semi-rural. He named the house "Dogwoods", after trees he planted there. He and Lascaris worked the farm and sold flowers, vegetables, milk and cream as well as pedigree schnauzer puppies. The reviews of The Aunt's Story in the British and Australian press were less enthusiastic than those in America, and White was unable to interest theatres in Australia or overseas in producing The Ham Funeral. He was making slow progress on the novel which was to become The Tree of Man and was discouraged at his prospects of success as a writer. He also questioned his decision to return to Australia. In late 1951 White had a religious experience that gave him a belief in God and the inspiration to recommence work on The Tree of Man (published in 1955). He described the novel as an attempt to suggest "every possible aspect of life, through the lives of an ordinary man and woman." The Tree of Man and his following work Voss (1957) established White's favourable critical reputation in Britain and America. White, however, was embittered by what he considered a hostile critical response in Australia. Following his international success White continued to live and work on his farm in Castle Hill. He gave few interviews and usually declined requests for public appearances, promotion of his work, and invitations for his membership of literary and cultural organisations. He entertained a close circle of friends at his home but always felt himself to be an outsider: "first as a child with what kind of strange gift no one quite knew; then a despised colonial in an English public school; finally an artist in horrified Australia." In 1961 his novel Riders in the Chariot was published, and was his first to receive almost universal critical praise in Australia. Meanwhile, White's interest had returned to the theatre. The Drama Committee of the Adelaide Festival had recommended The Ham Funeral as the festival's main theatrical production for 1962. The festival governors, however, rejected the play citing concerns about "a piece of work which quite fails to reconcile poetry with social realism" and a scene involving an aborted foetus in a dustbin. The controversy led to a successful amateur production of the play in Adelaide followed by a professional production in Sydney. White was inspired to write three further plays which were given professional productions: The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962), A Cheery Soul (1963) and Night on Bald Mountain (1964). In 1963 White's mother died in London and his share of the estate allowed him to buy a house in Centennial Park, near the centre of Sydney, the following year. Before leaving Dogwoods, White had bought up every copy of his early published poems he could find and burnt them along with most of his manuscripts, papers, letters and journals. White was working on The Solid Mandala, a novel about twins, Waldo and Arthur Brown, who represent contrary aspects of his own character. He was becoming interested in Tarot, astrology, the I Ching and Jungian psychology, and these interests are reflected in the novel. Following its publication in 1966, White declined the Britannica Award for Literature and Miles Franklin Award for the novel and stated he no longer wanted his works considered for awards. White had long had an interest in art and music, describing himself as "something of a frustrated painter, and a composer manqué." The core of his art collection was works by his friends Sidney Nolan and de Maistre but he collected works by emerging Australian artists such as James Clifford, Erica McGilchrist, and Lawrence Daws and some established artists like Brett Whiteley. In early 1967 he began work on The Vivisector, a novel about a painter, Hurtle Duffield, who exploits human relationships for his art. After the novel was published in 1970¹, Nolan believed Duffield was based on him, but White denied this, stating that Duffield was a composite of his own character and the working life of the artists John Passmore and Godfrey Miller. White was becoming more politically engaged at this time. He was opposed to Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war, and in December 1969 he participated in his first political demonstration, breaking the law by publicly inciting young men not to register for military conscription. The following year he campaigned against censorship and gave evidence in favour of the publication of Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint at obscenity trials in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1972 the New South Wales government announced a plan to build an Olympic stadium near Centennial Park. White participated in the anti-development protests, giving speeches at a rally in June. White had been on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1969. In 1971, after the prize was awarded to Pablo Neruda, he wrote to a friend: "That Nobel Prize! I hope I never hear it mentioned again. I certainly don't want it; the machinery behind it seems a bit dirty, when we thought that only applied to Australian awards. In my case to win the prize would upset my life far too much, and it would embarrass me to be held up to the world as an Australian writer when, apart from the accident of blood, I feel I am temperamentally a cosmopolitan Londoner". ===Late work and declining health=== In late 1984 White was hospitalised due to osteoporosis, crumbled vertebrae and glaucoma resulting from his long-term use of cortisone to treat his asthma and chest infections. Although he was still mentally agile, his physical health and mobility were declining. He had recovered sufficiently by January 1985 to recommence work on a new novel, Memoirs of Many in One, which he described as a "religious" and "bawdy" novel about senility. Posing as the editor of the memoirs of Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray, White felt free to explore various aspects of his own character. The novel was published in Britain on 1 April 1986 and sharply divided critics. Salman Rushdie wrote to White in 1985, praising the novel Voss: "I cannot think when last a book so moved me." By this time, however, White was tired of praise for the novel as he rated several of his other works more highly. The completed opera Voss opened at the Adelaide Festival in March 1986 to general critical acclaim. White, however, boycotted the premiere because the festival had invited the Queen to attend. He attended the Sydney premiere later that year and judged it: "a stupendous occasion." In April 1987¹ White's new play, Shepherd on the Rocks, opened at Adelaide in a production directed by Neil Armfield. White attended and deemed it a success. He had also written three short prose poems which were published as Three Uneasy Pieces in late 1987. White was determined that none of his works would be published or performed in 1988¹ which was the bicentenary of British settlement in Australia. He also urged a boycott of all official celebrations of the event, stating: "circuses don't solve serious problems." White was hospitalised with pneumonia in August 1988. A nurse stayed at his home for the remainder of his life and he no longer had the strength to attend protest rallies. In June 1989, a selection of his public statements, speeches and interviews was published as Patrick White Speaks. In October, the Sydney Theatre Company staged a successful revival of The Ham Funeral directed by Neil Armfield. White attended the premiere in his last public appearance. In July 1990 White contracted pleurisy and suffered a bronchial collapse. He refused to be hospitalised and died at home at dawn on 30 September. ==Influence and legacy== Critic Susan Lever considers White a pivotal figure in Australian literature, stating that he made the novel, rather than poetry, the pre-eminent literary form. He "transformed the possibilities of the Australian novel by demonstrating that it was a place to test ideas against complex spiritual, psychological and emotional experience, not only an avenue for national storytelling." Australian novelists influenced by White include Thomas Keneally, Thea Astley, Randolph Stow and Christopher Koch. Lever argues that the following generations of novelists were more influenced by recent trends in world literature. Novelist David Malouf states that White's "High Modernism" is a literary form that has become unfashionable but that this could change. In 2018, novelist Christos Tsiolkas argued that White was an important figure in Australian literature who hadn't received enough attention in recent decades. Writing in 2024, critic Martin Thomas noted that critical and public interest in White had declined. The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize which White founded in 1975¹ with the prize money from his Nobel prize. It is awarded to writers who have made a significant contribution to Australian literature. The Patrick White Indigenous Writers Award is for Indigenous students in New South Wales from Kindergarten to year 12. It is run by the Aboriginal Education Council which was a beneficiary of Patrick White's estate. The Sydney Theatre Company sponsors the Patrick White Playwrights Award and Fellowship in honour of White's contribution to Australian theatre. In 2006 the National Library of Australia acquired a large quantity of White's manuscripts. These included an unfinished novel, The Hanging Garden, which was published in 2012¹. The Art Gallery of New South Wales owns a 1940 portrait of White by de Maistre, and Parliament House, Sydney, owns a 1980 portrait by Brett Whiteley. A portrait of White by Louis Kahan won the 1962 Archibald Prize. White donated much of his own collection of Australian art to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. As of 2024 there is no museum or institution dedicated to White's life and work. His former residence, "Dogwoods", at Castle Hill is privately owned but has a commemorative plaque and the surrounding streets are named after him. His former Sydney residence at Centennial Park is privately owned but is heritage listed. White is commemorated by the Patrick White Lawns adjacent to the National Library of Australia in Canberra. In 2006 a hoaxer submitted a chapter of White's novel The Eye of the Storm to a dozen Australian publishers under the name Wraith Picket (an anagram of White's name). All of the publishers rejected the manuscript and none recognised it as White's work. In 2010 White's novel The Vivisector was shortlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize for 1970. In 2011 Fred Schepisi's film adaptation of the novel The Eye of the Storm won The Age Critics Award for the best Australian feature at the Melbourne International Film Festival. ==List of works== Novels Happy Valley (1939) The Living and the Dead (1941) The Aunt's Story (1948) The Tree of Man (1955) Voss (1957) Riders in the Chariot (1961) The Solid Mandala (1966) The Vivisector (1970) The Eye of the Storm (1973) A Fringe of Leaves (1976) The Twyborn Affair (1979) Memoirs of Many in One (1986) The Hanging Garden (2012) (Unfinished, posthumous) Collections of short stories The Burnt Ones (1964) The Cockatoos (1974) Three Uneasy Pieces (1987) Poetry Thirteen Poems, under the pseudonym Patrick Victor Martindale (Sydney: Privately printed, c. 1929) The Ploughman and Other Poems (Sydney: Beacon Press, 1935) Plays Bread and Butter Women (1935) Unpublished. The School for Friends (1935) Unpublished. Return to Abyssinia (1948) Unpublished. The Ham Funeral (1947) prem. Union Theatre, Adelaide, 1961. The Season at Sarsaparilla (1962) A Cheery Soul (1963) Night on Bald Mountain (1964) Big Toys (1977) Signal Driver: a Morality Play for the Times (1982) Netherwood (1983) Shepherd on the Rocks (1987) Screenplay The Night the Prowler (1978) Autobiography Flaws in the Glass (1981) ==Honours and awards== White's numerous honours and awards include: 1941: Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society for Happy Valley 1955: Gold Medal of the Australian Literature Society for The Tree of Man 1957: Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss 1959: W. H. Smith Literary Award for Voss 1961: Miles Franklin Literary Award for Riders in the Chariot 1973: Nobel Prize in Literature 1973: Australian of the Year, National Australia Day Council 1975: Companion of the Order of Australia (AC, civil division). (Resigned in 1976) White was offered a knighthood in 1970, but declined it. ==Notes== ==References== ==Further reading== A Conversation with Patrick White, Australian Writers in Profile, Southerly, No.3 1973 Barry Argyle, Patrick White, Writers and Critics Series, Oliver and Boyd, London, 1967 Peter Beatson, The Eye in the Mandala, Patrick White: A Vision of Man and God, Barnes & Noble, London, 1976 John Docker, Patrick White and Romanticism: The Vivisector, Southerly, No.1, 1973 Simon During, Patrick White, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, VIC, 1996. Michael Wilding, Studies in Classic Australian Fiction, Sydney Studies in Society and Culture, 16, 1997 Ian Henderson and Anouk Lang (eds.) Patrick White Beyond the Grave, Anthem Press, 2015 Helen Verity Hewitt, Patrick White and the Influence of the Visual Arts in his Work, Doctoral Thesis, Dept. of English, University of Melbourne, 1995. Clayton Joyce (ed.) Patrick White: A Tribute, Angus & Robertson, Harper Collins, North Ryde, 1991. Alan Lawson (ed.) Patrick White: Selected Writings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, 1994 Irmtraud Petersson, New "Light" on Voss: The Significance of its Title, World Literature Written in English 28.2 (Autumn 1988) 245-59. Laurence Steven, Dissociation and Wholeness in Patrick White's Fiction, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Ontario, 1989. Elizabeth McMahon, Brigitta Olubas. Remembering Patrick White : contemporary critical essays, Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York, 2010. Denise Varney, Patrick White's Theatre: Australian Modernism on Stage, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 2021. Stephen Michael Sasse, Companion notes to the Aunt's story by Patrick White, WriteLight, 2012. Cynthia Vanden Drissen, Writing the nation : Patrick White and the indigene, Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York, 2009. William Yang, Patrick White: The Late Years, PanMacmillan Australia, 1995 ==External links== Patrick White – Existential Explorer—essay by Karin Hansson at the official Nobel Prize website. Why Bother With Patrick White?—excerpts from White's novels, as well as a range of critical interpretations of his work and personal remembrances of White as a man, courtesy of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Patrick White reappraised from the Times Literary Supplement Online catalogue of the documents and manuscripts acquired by the NLA. Patrick White on Trove

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