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Four plays by Patrick White
Ham Funeral (6 men 4 women), Season at Sarsaparilla (9 men 7 women), A Cheery Soul (10 men 18 women), Night on Bald Mountain (5 men 4 women).
Unknown Binding
First published October 1, 1965
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About the author
Patrick White
82 books369 followers There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads. For the Canadian Poet Laureate see "Patrick^^^^^White".
Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author widely regarded as one of the major English-language novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born in England while his Australian parents were visiting family, White grew up in Sydney before studying at Cambridge. Publishing his first two novels to critical acclaim in the UK, White then enlisted to serve in World War II, where he met his lifelong partner, the Greek Manoly Lascaris. The pair returned to Australia after the war.
Home again, White published a total of twelve novels, two short story collections, eight plays, as well as a miscellany of non-fiction. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantages and the stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature."
From 1947 to 1964, White and Lascaris lived a retired life on the outer fringes of Sydney. However after their subsequent move to the inner suburb of Centennial Park, White experienced an increased passion for activism. He became known as an outspoken champion for the disadvantaged, for Indigenous rights, and for the teaching and promotion of art, in a culture he deemed often backward and conservative. In their personal life, White and Lascaris' home became a regular haunt for noted figures from all levels of society.
Although he achieved a great deal of critical applause, and was hailed as a national hero after his Nobel win, White retained a challenged relationship with the Australian public and ordinary readers. In his final decades the books sold well in paperback, but he retained a reputation as difficult, dense, and sometimes inscrutable.
Following White's death in 1990, his reputation was briefly buoyed by David Marr's well-received biography, although he disappeared off most university and school syllabuses, with his novels mostly out of print, by the end of the century. Interest in White's books was revived around 2012, the year of his centenary, with all now available again.
Sources: Wikipedia, David Marr's biography, The Patrick White Catalogue
Patrick Victor Martindale White was an Australian author widely regarded as one of the major English-language novelists of the 20th century, and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature.
Born in England while his Australian parents were visiting family, White grew up in Sydney before studying at Cambridge. Publishing his first two novels to critical acclaim in the UK, White then enlisted to serve in World War II, where he met his lifelong partner, the Greek Manoly Lascaris. The pair returned to Australia after the war.
Home again, White published a total of twelve novels, two short story collections, eight plays, as well as a miscellany of non-fiction. His fiction freely employs shifting narrative vantages and the stream of consciousness technique. In 1973, he was awarded the Nobel Prize "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature."
From 1947 to 1964, White and Lascaris lived a retired life on the outer fringes of Sydney. However after their subsequent move to the inner suburb of Centennial Park, White experienced an increased passion for activism. He became known as an outspoken champion for the disadvantaged, for Indigenous rights, and for the teaching and promotion of art, in a culture he deemed often backward and conservative. In their personal life, White and Lascaris' home became a regular haunt for noted figures from all levels of society.
Although he achieved a great deal of critical applause, and was hailed as a national hero after his Nobel win, White retained a challenged relationship with the Australian public and ordinary readers. In his final decades the books sold well in paperback, but he retained a reputation as difficult, dense, and sometimes inscrutable.
Following White's death in 1990, his reputation was briefly buoyed by David Marr's well-received biography, although he disappeared off most university and school syllabuses, with his novels mostly out of print, by the end of the century. Interest in White's books was revived around 2012, the year of his centenary, with all now available again.
Sources: Wikipedia, David Marr's biography, The Patrick White Catalogue
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November 7, 2019
It has become fashionable in recent years to regard Patrick White - Australia's greatest novelist - as also a great playwright. White struggled to get his plays staged until middle-age, and even then they remained a sort of touchstone of the literati rather than genuine popular successes. Indeed, it was not really until after his death - when these 2 volumes were published - that the plays began to take on a certain mysticism. Since the turn of the century, they have been performed and discussed more regularly.
On the one hand, this is wonderful. White's canon deserves deeper study and more exposure. The Ham Funeral was a pivotal moment in Australian theatre, and The Season at Sarsaparilla is perhaps the best example of White's views on life for the general reader.
At the same time, I must confess to being something of an iconoclast. I don't think any of the other six of White's plays (A Cheery Soul and Night on Bald Mountain in this volume; his later four works in the second volume) have much worth. And Ham, for all its power, is - like so many breakers of tradition - beginning to show its age as it is superseded by children and grandchildren who could fully revel in the New Theatre rather than relying on the combination of shock value and youthful experimentation.
Still, if you're a fan of White, you owe it to yourself to read the first two plays, and perhaps Night on Bald Mountain. They were pivotal moments in his creative life and certainly in his public life (no doubt many of those who attended his plays as a mark of prestige had never actually read his novels!). The curmudgeon of the 1950s and '60s began to come out of his shell as the 1970s wore on. Once he became a luminary, indeed, the elderly White devoted much time to theatre. (So much so, some have argued, that it deprived us of his last novel - the incomplete The Hanging Garden!) He felt that he had found a medium in which he could truly smash idols, in which he could gain that much-desired attention of the younger generations (even though they often confused him), and which caused him much less angst than writing novels.
The Ham Funeral remains shocking on stage but can be dense on the page, aside from the beautiful monologues of the main character. Season perhaps fares the best, with its echoes of dry suburban Australia, its contrasting of neighbours each hiding their sins and fears from the other, and its brutal takedown of "good" (aka censorious and rigid) society. White is often at his best when burning with righteous anger, and perhaps this is why it will be the most lasting of his works.
On the one hand, this is wonderful. White's canon deserves deeper study and more exposure. The Ham Funeral was a pivotal moment in Australian theatre, and The Season at Sarsaparilla is perhaps the best example of White's views on life for the general reader.
At the same time, I must confess to being something of an iconoclast. I don't think any of the other six of White's plays (A Cheery Soul and Night on Bald Mountain in this volume; his later four works in the second volume) have much worth. And Ham, for all its power, is - like so many breakers of tradition - beginning to show its age as it is superseded by children and grandchildren who could fully revel in the New Theatre rather than relying on the combination of shock value and youthful experimentation.
Still, if you're a fan of White, you owe it to yourself to read the first two plays, and perhaps Night on Bald Mountain. They were pivotal moments in his creative life and certainly in his public life (no doubt many of those who attended his plays as a mark of prestige had never actually read his novels!). The curmudgeon of the 1950s and '60s began to come out of his shell as the 1970s wore on. Once he became a luminary, indeed, the elderly White devoted much time to theatre. (So much so, some have argued, that it deprived us of his last novel - the incomplete The Hanging Garden!) He felt that he had found a medium in which he could truly smash idols, in which he could gain that much-desired attention of the younger generations (even though they often confused him), and which caused him much less angst than writing novels.
The Ham Funeral remains shocking on stage but can be dense on the page, aside from the beautiful monologues of the main character. Season perhaps fares the best, with its echoes of dry suburban Australia, its contrasting of neighbours each hiding their sins and fears from the other, and its brutal takedown of "good" (aka censorious and rigid) society. White is often at his best when burning with righteous anger, and perhaps this is why it will be the most lasting of his works.
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