What do you think?
Rate this book
Memoirs of Many in One by Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray
The last Patrick White novel published in his lifetime, Memoirs of Many in One presents the eccentric, often fantastical recollections of the ageing actor, Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray. These are ‘edited’ by the writer Patrick White, her friend and executor, who is often the target of her scorn. Witty and affecting, Memoirs reveals another side of White’s fiction even as it echoes many of the themes running through his work.
‘A strong case could be made for White as the finest and most profound novelist anywhere in the world now working in English…Memoirs of Many in One will fascinate any reader.’ Washington Post
‘A last work in which everything that was serious in the early books suffered a final daring transformation to burlesque: not least of all the author, that impossible person Patrick White.’ David Malouf
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
1 person is currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Patrick White
74 books360 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
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 12, 2018
Brilliant but to most I suppose indecipherable, because one of the two things the author ever feared has been by-passed for an ascension above the material world where neither senility nor madness mean anything and the only sin is rationality. Wickedly barbed and dangerously clever satire like no other and a very unexpectedly sardonic conclusion to one of the most distinguished literary careers of the twentieth century.
December 3, 2019
Gloriously and anarchicly insane, the last novel published in White's lifetime is, unexpectedly, very funny. Wonderful.
January 24, 2021
I can’t believe I’m giving a Patrick White book 3 stars. Patrick White is tasked with writing the memoirs of a fictional older family friend, Alex Gray, who has dementia and is cared for by her unmarried daughter. The humor came from Alex Gray’s delusions of grandeur and the situations in which she found herself, but too much of it was her outlandish, disjointed memories and it just didn’t work for me.
January 14, 2020
"The figure [in the photograph] is mine, limbs daubed with Nile silt, crimson talons, lacquered toenails... But the face has come out blurred, it could be anybody's."
A strange one. A great example of "late style" in literature, the turn to self-parody (Patrick White appears as the "editor" of an elderly friend's memoirs, and, boy, does she bring him down to size), the comedic (in a classical sense) view of the world, and the labyrinthine nature of the prose.
There are some blissfully funny sections of this novel, especially Alex Gray on tour in a theatre troupe, as well as some moments of buried poignancy. At the same, this is a deeply odd novel and certainly not an example of White at his height.
To read again.
A strange one. A great example of "late style" in literature, the turn to self-parody (Patrick White appears as the "editor" of an elderly friend's memoirs, and, boy, does she bring him down to size), the comedic (in a classical sense) view of the world, and the labyrinthine nature of the prose.
There are some blissfully funny sections of this novel, especially Alex Gray on tour in a theatre troupe, as well as some moments of buried poignancy. At the same, this is a deeply odd novel and certainly not an example of White at his height.
To read again.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews