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The Eye of the Storm
Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-socialite in her eighties, has a mystical experience during a summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her. From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and longing that fester within family relationships.
608 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1973
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1309 people want to read
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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
August 12, 2025
Patrick White was a psychologically bottomless writer and in his merciless analysis of the family relationships in The Eye of the Storm he is gloomily and colourfully sarcastic.
Dreaming to inherit big money a son and a daughter return to their terminally ill mother but even on her deathbed she remains a tyrant and keeps ruling with an iron fist.
Strong willpower always makes the weak obey and cringe.
‘When I spoke of my mother’s “deathbed” I was exaggerating – I think. I don’t believe she’ll die till she wants to. And I suspect she doesn’t want to. What makes any strong-willed old person decide to die is something I’ve never worked out.’ He looked round at the other faces, none of which, with the possible exception of Janie’s, was giving attention to what he had to say. ‘I haven’t had much experience of the old and senile; in fact I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid that sort of thing.’
Dreaming to inherit big money a son and a daughter return to their terminally ill mother but even on her deathbed she remains a tyrant and keeps ruling with an iron fist.
She also knew she had no desire to die however stagnant her life became: she only hoped she would be allowed to experience again that state of pure, living bliss she was now and then allowed to enter.
Strong willpower always makes the weak obey and cringe.
March 4, 2016
More like 4.5. Eye isn't quite what I expected. My favorite White novels are plutonium-dense, deeply flawed in some way (i.e., there are totally gratuitous events, or the characters never seem to interact in any meaningful way--either on the realistic plane of, you know, dialogue, or on the intellectual plane of "what does this holocaust survivor have to do with this indigenous Australian aside from the obvious, and the obvious really doesn't take 500 pages to point out?"), but so singularly odd that I can't imagine doing without them for the rest of my life. Eye, on the other hand, is only moderately dense (reading it's kind of like sipping a Burgundy when you're expecting an Australian Shiraz), involves lots of character interaction on both planes, and has only one very slightly gratuitous event. So it's 'better' in that way. It's just not as interesting.
But 'not as interesting' as, say, Riders in the Chariot is still plenty interesting. White's ability to hold black comedy, cynicism, and mysticism together in a novel centering around three of the most horrific human beings to ever "grace" the house of fiction is amazing (for the record: a mother who intentionally undermines her children, a daughter who can't decide if she's a French aristocrat or an ocker ozzie, and a son who's a famous, aging actor). The people in the book talk to each other, and they don't go on huge mystic travels, and they don't get crucified. They're just people. In that way, this is much more humane than his other work, and that fits nicely with the conclusion, which should be trite, but somehow works. As Mrs Hunter very slowly dies, we read:
"Now surely, at the end of your* life, you can expect to be shown the inconceivable something you have always, it seems, been looking for. Though why you should expect it through the person of a steamy, devoted, often tiresome Jewess standing on one leg the other side of a veil of water (which is all the human vision amounts to) you could not have explained. Unless because you are both human, and consequently, flawed." [526]
That might come off a bit silly out of context, but after 500 odd pages of the horror, it's rather uplifting. Not to say the horror doesn't have its moments, too:
"Alone, Dorothy was already quailing for the kind of sentimental weaknesses a raking of the past might uncover. At the Judgement, too, you stand alone: not only Basil [her brother], all other sinners will contrive to be late. Your only hope in the present lies in indignation for whatever disgusts most: from faecal whiffs, breath filtered through mucus, the sickly scent of baby powder." [355].
*: nerdy literary technique point: White's use of the second person is really, really fascinating. Not quite stream of consciousness, not quite direct address to the character, not quite the character addressing herself.
But 'not as interesting' as, say, Riders in the Chariot is still plenty interesting. White's ability to hold black comedy, cynicism, and mysticism together in a novel centering around three of the most horrific human beings to ever "grace" the house of fiction is amazing (for the record: a mother who intentionally undermines her children, a daughter who can't decide if she's a French aristocrat or an ocker ozzie, and a son who's a famous, aging actor). The people in the book talk to each other, and they don't go on huge mystic travels, and they don't get crucified. They're just people. In that way, this is much more humane than his other work, and that fits nicely with the conclusion, which should be trite, but somehow works. As Mrs Hunter very slowly dies, we read:
"Now surely, at the end of your* life, you can expect to be shown the inconceivable something you have always, it seems, been looking for. Though why you should expect it through the person of a steamy, devoted, often tiresome Jewess standing on one leg the other side of a veil of water (which is all the human vision amounts to) you could not have explained. Unless because you are both human, and consequently, flawed." [526]
That might come off a bit silly out of context, but after 500 odd pages of the horror, it's rather uplifting. Not to say the horror doesn't have its moments, too:
"Alone, Dorothy was already quailing for the kind of sentimental weaknesses a raking of the past might uncover. At the Judgement, too, you stand alone: not only Basil [her brother], all other sinners will contrive to be late. Your only hope in the present lies in indignation for whatever disgusts most: from faecal whiffs, breath filtered through mucus, the sickly scent of baby powder." [355].
*: nerdy literary technique point: White's use of the second person is really, really fascinating. Not quite stream of consciousness, not quite direct address to the character, not quite the character addressing herself.
February 20, 2014
I'm on page 287 and, while not exhausted, I feel dishevelled. This is my first Patrick White book, although I've seen a few plays and so I knew to expect a pithy serving of wordplay mixed with a jaded and disappointed view of humanity.
But, he was a Nobel Prize winner as well as the holder of numerous literary prizes and a one-time Australian of the Year, so I knew that I was supposed to approach the altar with the right amount of respect.
And, he's good. His writing and observations, when they hit the mark are fabulous and nearly hum with resonance and truth. The stream of consciousness interludes often add clues to behaviours and help to flesh out some of the characters. His writing is so dense and full and lush and intense and convoluted that I feel like I am struggling with a really rich meal where the flavours are oh-so-fabulous, but too-too-rich. It feels like truffles and dark meats and millions of flavours and cream and... burp...
And, he doesn't seem to like people very much. Like, not at all. I get the feeling that he barricaded himself in his house at Centennial Park, Sydney against the great unwashed. The grasping hordes of philistines, try-hards, social climbers, wishy-washy do-gooders and the lesser classes.
I will persevere, but I need a cleansing sorbet of hope and redemption...
Page 371 and no sign of the storm that we are supposed to be in the eye of. A couple of unlikeable siblings poncing about in the mother country - all sniffy and precious because the coffee is crap and the people act as mirrors that reflect their own sense of hollow fraudulence. They want mummy (the equally unlikeable and unloveable Elizabeth Hunter) locked up in a nursing home and have tried to enlist the aid of the old family solicitor (who, it seems was jumped on many years ago by Lizzy). Why he didn't just tell them to get lost is beyond me. But, nobody is saying what they really think, everybody is sputtering about and... I'm bored with the lot of them.
But like an explorer in the jungle, I progress in the hope of finding gold at the end...
Page 501 and I am still following round Patrick White's monsters as they flog themselves with guilt and self loathing. Elizabeth's two brats are especially tedious - self pitying and overwrought they see the world around them as a giant stage apon which they can act out their self hatred and unhappiness. They are so awfully self absorbed and self reverential, but without anything that could make them humorous or entertaining.
Elizabeth is a frill necked lizard - with her neck expanded and ready to attack. Too monstrous to die yet apparently.
Oh no. I was wrong. Page 552 and she's dead... on the commode. We're on the homeward stretch and I am still shouting for a good editor and a scotch whiskey.
Page 608 and it is done. I feel like I deserve a bloody medal. The last chapter was a celebration of misery, loneliness, alliances dashed, exposed weaknesses plastered over and covered with pearls. Positions of class were restored. Nobody escaped without having a large scabrous scar carved out of their happy place. All around was sighs, death, dull duty, loss, loss and more loss. Poor old Patrick was indeed a "shit" - a cynical, unhappy talented soul who used his powers for evil glee. Where is the hope?
But, he was a Nobel Prize winner as well as the holder of numerous literary prizes and a one-time Australian of the Year, so I knew that I was supposed to approach the altar with the right amount of respect.
And, he's good. His writing and observations, when they hit the mark are fabulous and nearly hum with resonance and truth. The stream of consciousness interludes often add clues to behaviours and help to flesh out some of the characters. His writing is so dense and full and lush and intense and convoluted that I feel like I am struggling with a really rich meal where the flavours are oh-so-fabulous, but too-too-rich. It feels like truffles and dark meats and millions of flavours and cream and... burp...
And, he doesn't seem to like people very much. Like, not at all. I get the feeling that he barricaded himself in his house at Centennial Park, Sydney against the great unwashed. The grasping hordes of philistines, try-hards, social climbers, wishy-washy do-gooders and the lesser classes.
I will persevere, but I need a cleansing sorbet of hope and redemption...
Page 371 and no sign of the storm that we are supposed to be in the eye of. A couple of unlikeable siblings poncing about in the mother country - all sniffy and precious because the coffee is crap and the people act as mirrors that reflect their own sense of hollow fraudulence. They want mummy (the equally unlikeable and unloveable Elizabeth Hunter) locked up in a nursing home and have tried to enlist the aid of the old family solicitor (who, it seems was jumped on many years ago by Lizzy). Why he didn't just tell them to get lost is beyond me. But, nobody is saying what they really think, everybody is sputtering about and... I'm bored with the lot of them.
But like an explorer in the jungle, I progress in the hope of finding gold at the end...
Page 501 and I am still following round Patrick White's monsters as they flog themselves with guilt and self loathing. Elizabeth's two brats are especially tedious - self pitying and overwrought they see the world around them as a giant stage apon which they can act out their self hatred and unhappiness. They are so awfully self absorbed and self reverential, but without anything that could make them humorous or entertaining.
Elizabeth is a frill necked lizard - with her neck expanded and ready to attack. Too monstrous to die yet apparently.
Oh no. I was wrong. Page 552 and she's dead... on the commode. We're on the homeward stretch and I am still shouting for a good editor and a scotch whiskey.
Page 608 and it is done. I feel like I deserve a bloody medal. The last chapter was a celebration of misery, loneliness, alliances dashed, exposed weaknesses plastered over and covered with pearls. Positions of class were restored. Nobody escaped without having a large scabrous scar carved out of their happy place. All around was sighs, death, dull duty, loss, loss and more loss. Poor old Patrick was indeed a "shit" - a cynical, unhappy talented soul who used his powers for evil glee. Where is the hope?
April 7, 2024
A book I read trying to impress a girl, but she ultimately married an engineer who could put together her brass bed. I have never read another Patrick White.
October 23, 2022
'Ochiul furtunii' - literatură de stat la gura sobei cu ea (și cu mă-ta), împletind șosete, fulare, veste. O carte pe care nuștiucui aș putea s-o dăruiesc, după lectură. Cu alte romane pare mai ușor - au imprimată în paginile lor figura tot mai bine conturată a viitorului cadorisit. Uneori realizezi asta de la primele file.
O carte a gesturilor. Dialoguri tensionate, mimică grăitoare, vizite, lovituri molcome de teatru. Oameni izbiți de soartă, adăpați la ultimul firicel de promisiune pe care viața l-ar putea prelinge în raza lor vizuală.
Scene de interior. Dostoievski. Dramaturgie. Schimburi amare de replici. O lume incurabilă, damnată. Până și salvarea li se dovedește fatală personajelor. Nici unul nu se alege cu ceea ce își dorește cu adevărat. Averea moștenită nu poate compensa neglijarea maternă timpurie, anii pierduți ai copilăriei, familia destrămată.
Lectura romanului ăstuia m-a stors, m-a exasperat. Atâta cinism! Atâta neîndurare! Nici o mântuire. Personaje caricaturizate. Grotesc cât încape. Descompunere, urâțenie - fizionomii la care te „uiți” printr-o lupă filatelică. Fiecare trăsătură, fiecare defect - mărite de zece ori. Chiar și frumusețea arată hidos la scara asta!
Mintea aproape că mi-a stat în loc, scrâșnind împotmolită în deșertul de ură și resentimente al romanului lui White.
O carte a gesturilor. Dialoguri tensionate, mimică grăitoare, vizite, lovituri molcome de teatru. Oameni izbiți de soartă, adăpați la ultimul firicel de promisiune pe care viața l-ar putea prelinge în raza lor vizuală.
Scene de interior. Dostoievski. Dramaturgie. Schimburi amare de replici. O lume incurabilă, damnată. Până și salvarea li se dovedește fatală personajelor. Nici unul nu se alege cu ceea ce își dorește cu adevărat. Averea moștenită nu poate compensa neglijarea maternă timpurie, anii pierduți ai copilăriei, familia destrămată.
Lectura romanului ăstuia m-a stors, m-a exasperat. Atâta cinism! Atâta neîndurare! Nici o mântuire. Personaje caricaturizate. Grotesc cât încape. Descompunere, urâțenie - fizionomii la care te „uiți” printr-o lupă filatelică. Fiecare trăsătură, fiecare defect - mărite de zece ori. Chiar și frumusețea arată hidos la scara asta!
Mintea aproape că mi-a stat în loc, scrâșnind împotmolită în deșertul de ură și resentimente al romanului lui White.
June 30, 2022
Patrick White is an astonishing writer, but his books are not always easy to approach. This novel I started many times but I never got far. Books can be mysterious creatures, can they not? Sometimes they grab you and other times leave you cold.
For whatever reasons, the next time I started this book the voice spoke to me clearly and there you have it: an elderly women and her life in Australia. I was in her head and saw and felt everything she lived through in her long miraculous tumultuous life, all her deceit, generosity, pettiness, hopes and fears. Everything.
For whatever reasons, the next time I started this book the voice spoke to me clearly and there you have it: an elderly women and her life in Australia. I was in her head and saw and felt everything she lived through in her long miraculous tumultuous life, all her deceit, generosity, pettiness, hopes and fears. Everything.
May 20, 2013
I haven't given this novel five stars and I suspect I have withheld the last star to teach the author a lesson for forcing me to acknowledge his genius despite my own discomfort. It doesn't normally take me so long to read a book. But like an adult child reluctantly drawn to yet another interminable and strained Christmas dinner - or to a death-bed in this instance! - I was in equal parts attracted and repelled by Patrick White's relentless narrative, his atrociously painful insights, his tortuous language-of-the-psyche.
I only hated the old cow at the centre of it a little more than I was exasperated and disgusted with every other character. But then I loved them too. Emphasis on those other characters here. For the integral 'She', the hideous Elizabeth, there was not so much love - but then isn't White a devilishly intelligent interpreter of character, Elizabeth's, her minions', and the reader's. The dying Elizabeth is the misting mirror in which the motivations and foibles of those around her are clearly visible for one fleeting and horrifying moment before the reflection disappears forever. The younger reader may miss some of the historical nuances of 1970s Australia, but those of us born in the Antipodes in the mid-twentieth century will still feel a creeping familiarity.
I am a basic creature and generally reject the more advanced literary sculptings for more basic story-telling. But this work was monumental on a variety of levels. It annoyed me that I couldn't put it down, but I walked away feeling both stripped and vindicated; and that is a testament to the brilliance of Mr White, (although I still reserve my right to sulk and with-hold that last star on paper at least). Death comes to us all, we all take our turns as witnesses and penultimately as star protagonists. I feel that this novel gives a truly remarkable illumination into the psychic impact of the death-ritual on everyone involved. Damn and bless you Mr White, in equal measure. I shall be searching for your work again.
I only hated the old cow at the centre of it a little more than I was exasperated and disgusted with every other character. But then I loved them too. Emphasis on those other characters here. For the integral 'She', the hideous Elizabeth, there was not so much love - but then isn't White a devilishly intelligent interpreter of character, Elizabeth's, her minions', and the reader's. The dying Elizabeth is the misting mirror in which the motivations and foibles of those around her are clearly visible for one fleeting and horrifying moment before the reflection disappears forever. The younger reader may miss some of the historical nuances of 1970s Australia, but those of us born in the Antipodes in the mid-twentieth century will still feel a creeping familiarity.
I am a basic creature and generally reject the more advanced literary sculptings for more basic story-telling. But this work was monumental on a variety of levels. It annoyed me that I couldn't put it down, but I walked away feeling both stripped and vindicated; and that is a testament to the brilliance of Mr White, (although I still reserve my right to sulk and with-hold that last star on paper at least). Death comes to us all, we all take our turns as witnesses and penultimately as star protagonists. I feel that this novel gives a truly remarkable illumination into the psychic impact of the death-ritual on everyone involved. Damn and bless you Mr White, in equal measure. I shall be searching for your work again.
September 6, 2014
I finished reading this just in time for the release of the Fred Schepsi film.
I was hoping, as I began reading Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm, that there would be heaps of erudite reviews out there in cyberspace, to help me make sense of it so that I didn’t write anything really inane here. Alas, no, hardly anybody has tackled it so at this stage I am free to interpret it any way I like and few but experts skulking in academia will be any the wiser. I expect I’ve missed heaps. Patrick White’s books are like that, and that’s what makes them so good. Each time I re-read one, especially if in the interim I’ve stumbled on some other work of literature that’s he’s referenced, I enjoy it more because I notice new things…
The Complete Review found The Eye of the Storm ‘impressive’ and recommends it for readers with ‘staying power’. Anderson Brown in Puerto Rico had a go at it, intrigued by the exotic idea of a Nobel Prize winning author being ’an Australian, no less’. But apart from noting that White’s ‘terrain is the nature of consciousness’ approached in a ’painterly’ way, he doesn’t have a lot to say in his review. Martha Duffy at Time thought it ‘pallid and self-indulgent’ and wished that ‘that the storm would blow every bit of it away’. (She was a journalist who started in fashion magazines and a royal watcher, so make of her vehemence what you will).
It is Alan Lawson, at the ABC website about White who makes the connection between King Lear and this novel.
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
I was hoping, as I began reading Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm, that there would be heaps of erudite reviews out there in cyberspace, to help me make sense of it so that I didn’t write anything really inane here. Alas, no, hardly anybody has tackled it so at this stage I am free to interpret it any way I like and few but experts skulking in academia will be any the wiser. I expect I’ve missed heaps. Patrick White’s books are like that, and that’s what makes them so good. Each time I re-read one, especially if in the interim I’ve stumbled on some other work of literature that’s he’s referenced, I enjoy it more because I notice new things…
The Complete Review found The Eye of the Storm ‘impressive’ and recommends it for readers with ‘staying power’. Anderson Brown in Puerto Rico had a go at it, intrigued by the exotic idea of a Nobel Prize winning author being ’an Australian, no less’. But apart from noting that White’s ‘terrain is the nature of consciousness’ approached in a ’painterly’ way, he doesn’t have a lot to say in his review. Martha Duffy at Time thought it ‘pallid and self-indulgent’ and wished that ‘that the storm would blow every bit of it away’. (She was a journalist who started in fashion magazines and a royal watcher, so make of her vehemence what you will).
It is Alan Lawson, at the ABC website about White who makes the connection between King Lear and this novel.
To read the rest of my review, please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...
September 9, 2019
It's hard for me to believe this author is not better known in the US. His prose are pretty astounding. This is the fourth of his novels I've read and it vies to become my all time favorite. Nearly every page has some astute psychological rendering and always with perfectly chosen words, sharp images, and sometimes exquisite dream sequences.
It has taken me quite a while to finish this book, but that is because I am taking all the time I need to digest its art. If you are looking for a breezy, interesting story with attractive characters and recognizable morality, you'd probably not enjoy this book. If you are looking for the stroke of dramatic genius, you'll not be disappointed.
Story telling is one thing, one can find it in many media: movies, music, television, they all can serve that purpose very well, but the literary novel is its own craft which demands poetry and eloquence, and when that is served well, as it is in this book, than you have something special, something more than just story telling. It's a performance.
For many this kind of artistry gets in the way of the story. That makes me sad to think of how ordinary things must be for this kind of satisfaction. Don't misinterpret my words, I have no qualms at all with whatever anyone enjoys, my taste is surely hard for some to understand, I just firmly believe Patrick White had talents few have ever come close to.
A question to leave you with: compare Hemingway to White, for example, can this exemplify the difference between story telling and art?
It has taken me quite a while to finish this book, but that is because I am taking all the time I need to digest its art. If you are looking for a breezy, interesting story with attractive characters and recognizable morality, you'd probably not enjoy this book. If you are looking for the stroke of dramatic genius, you'll not be disappointed.
Story telling is one thing, one can find it in many media: movies, music, television, they all can serve that purpose very well, but the literary novel is its own craft which demands poetry and eloquence, and when that is served well, as it is in this book, than you have something special, something more than just story telling. It's a performance.
For many this kind of artistry gets in the way of the story. That makes me sad to think of how ordinary things must be for this kind of satisfaction. Don't misinterpret my words, I have no qualms at all with whatever anyone enjoys, my taste is surely hard for some to understand, I just firmly believe Patrick White had talents few have ever come close to.
A question to leave you with: compare Hemingway to White, for example, can this exemplify the difference between story telling and art?
October 1, 2013
After much effort and commencing this book several times I managed to finish. It’s a very satisfying read though it can be hard going because of the stream of consciousness, which gives insight into the main characters as the narrative unfolds inside their minds (and so we can’t escape intimacy with them, or feeling what they do), and often with the ailing Elizabeth Hunter, her mind wanders into the past. The story is about those who gather at Elizabeth’s sick bed, those who nurse her and her adult children who have long departed to Europe but who return to Sydney, not so much out of affection, but for their inheritance. Most of the characters are weak and vulnerable, and terribly flawed but it doesn’t seem to matter whether they draw our empathy or whether we like them. Basil has been knighted for his contributions to stage and Dorothy is a princess (granted his acting career in going down the gurgler and her prince left her), and when they come to Elizabeth’s bed side, she wields such influence over them that they may as well be little children. Dorothy compares her mother’s love to a jewelled scabbard in which a sword is hidden, and she could easily thrash it about and cut off your ears, fingers ‘or worse impale the hearts of those who worshipped.’ Elizabeth is controlling, cruel and vain, and you wonder whether she has known love, which is very different to us knowing that she has known sex. She loved her husband Bill in a way, as she nursed him in his last days.
It didn’t help that I saw the film version before I picked up the book and that the film was insipid. My partner who saw it with me wanted his money back. Stick with the book, as White is a great intellect, and his prose style is sweeping and sublime, rather like a painter with his brush painting broad strokes, but sometimes you want to come close and take in the details or the way the strokes create the illusion, and White allows you that. The detail of one event - the eye of one storm is described by Dorothy quite early on (on her way over from Europe, the plane experienced turbulence and the Dutch passenger beside her explained what an eye of a storm was), that jogs a similar experience in her mother’s mind when she hears it. She was caught in the eye of a storm on an island once, when she had to rely on her wits to survive, whereas it was usually her beauty and vanity (or the accoutrements of ‘society’ such as her status as a wealthy grazier’s wife and the wealth that came with it) that got her by. Elizabeth attempts to describe her eye of the storm to Dorothy though Dorothy nursing old hurts thinks her mother is just trying to trump things over her again and doesn’t really want to hear, closes off in jealousy – why does she get to experience that calm and saving grace? ‘That too!’ As if her beautiful and willful mother hasn’t had enough, or taken enough from her. It would have been an opportunity for Dorothy to ‘know’ her mother and to share some closeness as women; and in any case their conversation is interrupted. But would they have pursued it? This ‘eye’ stripped Elizabeth down to Nature, and her true self. The allusions to dolls (those that Elizabeth remember from her childhood and attempts to drown), the societal doll she becomes, the theatrical doll made up by Nurse Manhood, the not quite mum that Basil can’t bring himself to kiss without horror, or the doll’s head on Elizabeth’s shoulder that is shaken and terrorized in the storm, are its counterpart … Quite masterful.
It didn’t help that I saw the film version before I picked up the book and that the film was insipid. My partner who saw it with me wanted his money back. Stick with the book, as White is a great intellect, and his prose style is sweeping and sublime, rather like a painter with his brush painting broad strokes, but sometimes you want to come close and take in the details or the way the strokes create the illusion, and White allows you that. The detail of one event - the eye of one storm is described by Dorothy quite early on (on her way over from Europe, the plane experienced turbulence and the Dutch passenger beside her explained what an eye of a storm was), that jogs a similar experience in her mother’s mind when she hears it. She was caught in the eye of a storm on an island once, when she had to rely on her wits to survive, whereas it was usually her beauty and vanity (or the accoutrements of ‘society’ such as her status as a wealthy grazier’s wife and the wealth that came with it) that got her by. Elizabeth attempts to describe her eye of the storm to Dorothy though Dorothy nursing old hurts thinks her mother is just trying to trump things over her again and doesn’t really want to hear, closes off in jealousy – why does she get to experience that calm and saving grace? ‘That too!’ As if her beautiful and willful mother hasn’t had enough, or taken enough from her. It would have been an opportunity for Dorothy to ‘know’ her mother and to share some closeness as women; and in any case their conversation is interrupted. But would they have pursued it? This ‘eye’ stripped Elizabeth down to Nature, and her true self. The allusions to dolls (those that Elizabeth remember from her childhood and attempts to drown), the societal doll she becomes, the theatrical doll made up by Nurse Manhood, the not quite mum that Basil can’t bring himself to kiss without horror, or the doll’s head on Elizabeth’s shoulder that is shaken and terrorized in the storm, are its counterpart … Quite masterful.
October 15, 2017
Possibly because I was in my early twenties when I read this work, I simply could not understand the personal dynamics between the protagonist (a nasty matriarch) and the various people in her entourage that she bullied. My reaction was that the victims had only themselves to blame. One never needs to live in Sodom and Gomorrah. One can always leave. There is always an angel to help you flee.
April 15, 2018
Nobel Prizewinner Patrick White's THE EYE OF THE STORM is long, complex, has a large cast of characters, and brilliant. As we follow elderly Elizabeth Hunter on her journey to her death, the people around her, nurses, lawyer, servants, middle-aged children, are on their own less final journeys. White's style turns the story of their journeys into a kaleidoscope of color and emotion. Sometimes, individual characters become intensely unlikable, but not for long. Soon, we come to understand that person just enough to at least temporarily change our feeling, even if we don't necessarily approve of him or her. I read the book slowly, allowing time to appreciate the style and to absorb the emotional context around the action. It's not an easy book, but a powerful one.
June 24, 2021
Būtų buvusi perpus trumpesnė, gal ir visai kieta knyga būtų! Bet, matyt, prieš 50 metų už 300 psl Nobelio neduodavo.
Autoriaus meistriškumas jaučiasi, bet visi veikėjai tokie nemalonūs, pavargau klausydama. O dar ir skaitovė pridėjo "žavesio" skaitydama vos ne visą tiesioginę kalbą isterišku virkaujančiu balsu. Tiesa, iš konteksto atrodo, kad taip ir turi būti, nes dauguma personažų būtent tokie ir yra. Bet pradžioje tai net krūpčiojau nuo tų verksmingų dejonių.
Žodžiu, jei kas ryšitės, nesitikėkite lengvo skaitinio.
Autoriaus meistriškumas jaučiasi, bet visi veikėjai tokie nemalonūs, pavargau klausydama. O dar ir skaitovė pridėjo "žavesio" skaitydama vos ne visą tiesioginę kalbą isterišku virkaujančiu balsu. Tiesa, iš konteksto atrodo, kad taip ir turi būti, nes dauguma personažų būtent tokie ir yra. Bet pradžioje tai net krūpčiojau nuo tų verksmingų dejonių.
Žodžiu, jei kas ryšitės, nesitikėkite lengvo skaitinio.
May 30, 2019
Deep and rich. At times it reminded me of Ulysses, at times of Iris Murdoch, but most often it seemed like Outback Bellow. In short, it's a masterpiece.
May 8, 2021
This is the first book I have read by Patrick White and it was... a complex and not very palatable one, but I understand all of his writing dances along the surface of a deep, bottomless pool of almost visceral but subtle contempt for humanity. The disappointment and disenchantment with people that the author appears to feel are palpable at every step, but the gaze is also so disturbingly accurate that you can't look away from it, it fascinates, mesmerizes, and persuades.
Reading it is enjoyable, though, it's not a depressing experience. It's almost decadent in its misanthropy, much like the main character the book revolves around, an old lady who enjoys making others feel miserable, with a metaphorical glass of bubbly in hand.
I was fascinated by many of the insights the book highlights, even though you can tell that the author doesn't like people very much. In spite of the misanthropy (or, as cynics would say, precisely because of it), his observations of human psychology ring very true.
I also liked the way that the book proposes some pretty progressive themes through the unapologetic way that Elizabeth always refused to be tied down in the expectations society had of her. In a way, the book could be read in this key, that it's a story about a woman who refuses labels and conforming and who decides to be her own person at every step, even if the result is a completely unlikeable person who could be described as a monument of selfishness.
The thing is, that the people around her who could be cast as the victims of her unapologetic and relentlessly selfish behavior are not more likable either, so we can't really sympathize. They are just as entitled and self-serving as she is, only much weaker and cast as quite pathetic. As I said, it's not a story written by someone who likes people very much :)
--------------------------------
A few quotes I loved:
“The worst thing about love between human beings is that when you are prepared to love them they don't want it; when they do it's you who can't bear the idea.”
"'I will never understand why Anglo-Saxons reject the warm of the family.'
'They're afraid of being consumed. Families can eat you.
'Something will always consume: if not the family then it's the incinerators,' Mrs. Lipman moaned."
“Lal Wyburd would naturally have interpreted as selfishness every floundering attempt anybody made to break out of the straitjacket and recover a sanity which must have been theirs in the beginning, and might be theirs again in the end. That left the long stretch of the responsible years, when you were lunging in your madness after love, money, position, possessions, while an inkling persisted, sometimes even a certainty descended: of a calm in which the self had been stripped, if painfully, of its human imperfections.”
Reading it is enjoyable, though, it's not a depressing experience. It's almost decadent in its misanthropy, much like the main character the book revolves around, an old lady who enjoys making others feel miserable, with a metaphorical glass of bubbly in hand.
I was fascinated by many of the insights the book highlights, even though you can tell that the author doesn't like people very much. In spite of the misanthropy (or, as cynics would say, precisely because of it), his observations of human psychology ring very true.
I also liked the way that the book proposes some pretty progressive themes through the unapologetic way that Elizabeth always refused to be tied down in the expectations society had of her. In a way, the book could be read in this key, that it's a story about a woman who refuses labels and conforming and who decides to be her own person at every step, even if the result is a completely unlikeable person who could be described as a monument of selfishness.
The thing is, that the people around her who could be cast as the victims of her unapologetic and relentlessly selfish behavior are not more likable either, so we can't really sympathize. They are just as entitled and self-serving as she is, only much weaker and cast as quite pathetic. As I said, it's not a story written by someone who likes people very much :)
--------------------------------
A few quotes I loved:
“The worst thing about love between human beings is that when you are prepared to love them they don't want it; when they do it's you who can't bear the idea.”
"'I will never understand why Anglo-Saxons reject the warm of the family.'
'They're afraid of being consumed. Families can eat you.
'Something will always consume: if not the family then it's the incinerators,' Mrs. Lipman moaned."
“Lal Wyburd would naturally have interpreted as selfishness every floundering attempt anybody made to break out of the straitjacket and recover a sanity which must have been theirs in the beginning, and might be theirs again in the end. That left the long stretch of the responsible years, when you were lunging in your madness after love, money, position, possessions, while an inkling persisted, sometimes even a certainty descended: of a calm in which the self had been stripped, if painfully, of its human imperfections.”
January 1, 2023
Wish we had more Australian authors of the same calibre as Patrick White, Gerald Murnane and Les Murray. We have many fine writers who stand tall in the literary scene of their generations, but very few who can go head-to-head with the true greats of world literature. Eye of the Storm may just be White's masterpiece.
December 6, 2014
This was a boring read, I felt like I was forcing myself to read it and that's normally my que to stop reading it. Don't get me wrong well written, but as I am reading it I keep thinking "Ok, get to the point". For me, it felt like ramblings of everyday life rather than an actual story.
July 28, 2025
This is White’s first novel after ‘The Vivisector’, a tour de force and to my mind his greatest novel. EotS was probably what pushed the Swedes over to awarding him the Nobel Literature Laureate in 1973. They were not that wrong as within the first couple of pages you know you are in the hands of a master.
The novel follows the events leading up to and after the death of Mrs Elizabeth Hunter, her two children and assembled nursing care, and through flashback and reminiscences the path of her and their lives. Mrs Hunter was a powerful woman accustomed to the use of power with the intellect to back it up. Now she finds herself at the disposal of others whilst her active mind and tongue continue to assert her belief in herself and her knowledge of life. She has been nursed at home for 15 years by three dedicated nurses; the snobby and tactless Sister Badgery, the everyday youthfulness of Flora Manhood and the saintly De Santis.
Elizabeth was married to the landowner and grazier Alfred who everyone knew as Bill. Their relationship was complex and eventually unsatisfactory, Elizabeth moving to the city with the two children whilst Alfred remained at the ranch and Kudjeri, the family house. He loved her more than she could respond to and she had to escape, though not enough to divorce, but to live a separated lifestyle in acceptance of what each other was, to an existence where she could indulge her power, taste and persona.
This is fertile ground for a writer like Patrick White to dissect the characters and get inside their virtues and vices and he does it quite brilliantly. There is this sense of malevolent decrepitude over all of it – the house, the rooms, the park – and the condescension of an uber-female that no one could quite touch throughout her life, who were all beneath her superiority which still has an uncertain element to it and reflects on her existence in the world. She was and still remains to a vast extent all-powerful through her past position and present wealth. This impressive ‘superiority’ of the mother has totally destroyed or perverted any chance of self-assurance in her offspring.
The novel appears to hinge on the ‘eye of the storm’ – that central total calmness in the very heart of madness and chaos all around, whether that is, as experienced by Elizabeth, a meteorological phenomenon which becomes a psychological phenomenon for her, or as the sustenance of ‘life-as-is’ in the case of her daughter who will retain her stillness despite the disaster of her French marriage and subsequent life. Sir Basil has yet to meet his ‘eye of the storm’ consistently dodging it with his act-toring frittery. The mother, of course, is the only one to retain her sense of peace in the bedroom where she lies whilst all the rest feel uncomfortable like schoolchildren in the face of a bullying overbearing teacher.
And both these offspring are aware of her past and present power (and yet both of them need her to relieve their impecunity) so they endure what becomes an embarrassing torment whilst hatching a scheme to deprive Elizabeth of her power by moving her from her possessions which are the outward signs of her power, to a nursing home to fade away finally and die unloved and unattended. Dorothy says that she must always remember that ‘Mother is an evil, heartless old woman’ whilst Sir Basil sees his mother as ‘evil, brutal and destructive’.
There is something quite deliciously scurrilous about the writing, a phenomenal hate-fest in which nobody escapes the vivisector’s scalpel, even, in fact necessarily the minor characters. Each one of the nurses is dissected, Badgery less so but still illuminated for the dowdy snob she is. Flora Manhood stands like Young Australia, similar to the part played by Alison Kelly, the air hostess in John Fowles’ ’The Magus’ - sexually active, independent and desperately seeking a future in an uncertain environment which she does not control. And the night nurse De Santis is played out as a saintly angel who is one of the few to fundamentally understand Elizabeth without having had access to the life that she has led. All the nurses are somehow carnal and sensuous and to a degree embarrassed by that sensuality. They all seem wracked to a degree by some kind of guilt. And yet still White manages to convey hilarity into all this pompous narcissism. His portrayal of the dinner party that Dorothy deigns to attend, where everybody appears to be drunk with the hostess finally passing out, is masterful in its underplaying.
It is White’s vehicle (yet again!) to examine Australia, gender characteristics and humanity in all its diverse qualities – the womanly woman, the manly neat wifely women, the stupid men with their assumed machismo, the butch dikes, the closeted, all wrapped in a Lear-like colonial conflagration. It is for White as if all the best people – women and men – are all dreadful!! The hateful, the ugly, dirty, having suffered and thus able to understand and inflict suffering; a man’s man and therefore someone who can’t forgive the ‘otherness’ of women. Elizabeth is the anti-maternal single-minded, independent woman.
It is like a Kenneth MacMillan ballet where sex and death are never far from the surface. Death is always lurking there as the unseen Black Angel to be averted at will, to the appreciation of Death – the moment of death. From fear of embracing to the opinion of those observing, someone accepting the death of another, their ‘second-hand’ vice of judgement. Though is Death is always lurking throughout this novel it is never explicit. Whereas sex is potentially everywhere as an underlying need and stratagem whether flippant and casual or merely as a forbearer to pregnancy. Early on there is the suggestion that both the mother and daughter see that sex is for male pleasure, that it is something that is to be endured for the woman on the path to propagating. It is absolvent of passion, yet encompassing too of lust. Dorothy experiences ‘motherhood by proxy’ when the two return to Kudjeri and meet the new tenants of the house and estate, where the previously upper-class wife has fallen for the stockbreeder brute and now mothers an unnumbered set of children down to the porridge-smearing infant and the one on the way already in the belly. ‘For most women, I think, sexual pleasure is largely imagination’.
There are times when you have to put it down and just breath. It is unrelenting in its dissection of human frailty with White’s clear prose (though at times he appears tempted off into the realms of Joycean suggestive dream-like prose). It is also long and might have done with a little editing. But…. Can you see Patrick White falling for the ministrations of a sub-editor? I thought not too. Therefore you have to follow it all the way through. And at the heart of it is of course the Eye of the Storm. This is a very thorough novel, for me, not up to the Vivisector but still a terrific piece of writing.
This is no affectionate look at ageing and power and family relationships. This is brutal vivisection. But what a feat. Does anybody bother to read Patrick White now?
The novel follows the events leading up to and after the death of Mrs Elizabeth Hunter, her two children and assembled nursing care, and through flashback and reminiscences the path of her and their lives. Mrs Hunter was a powerful woman accustomed to the use of power with the intellect to back it up. Now she finds herself at the disposal of others whilst her active mind and tongue continue to assert her belief in herself and her knowledge of life. She has been nursed at home for 15 years by three dedicated nurses; the snobby and tactless Sister Badgery, the everyday youthfulness of Flora Manhood and the saintly De Santis.
Elizabeth was married to the landowner and grazier Alfred who everyone knew as Bill. Their relationship was complex and eventually unsatisfactory, Elizabeth moving to the city with the two children whilst Alfred remained at the ranch and Kudjeri, the family house. He loved her more than she could respond to and she had to escape, though not enough to divorce, but to live a separated lifestyle in acceptance of what each other was, to an existence where she could indulge her power, taste and persona.
’His friends all referred to him as ‘Bill’. Most of his life he had spent trying to disguise himself as one of the costive, crutch-heavy males who came to discuss wool and meat: so slow and ponderous, like rams dragging their sex through a stand of lucerne. There were also the would-be cuddly fe-males making up to ‘Bill’, unaware how immaculate he was.’Pure Patrick White, acutely observed and knowing with an underlying queer bitchiness to it.
This is fertile ground for a writer like Patrick White to dissect the characters and get inside their virtues and vices and he does it quite brilliantly. There is this sense of malevolent decrepitude over all of it – the house, the rooms, the park – and the condescension of an uber-female that no one could quite touch throughout her life, who were all beneath her superiority which still has an uncertain element to it and reflects on her existence in the world. She was and still remains to a vast extent all-powerful through her past position and present wealth. This impressive ‘superiority’ of the mother has totally destroyed or perverted any chance of self-assurance in her offspring.
’If physical strength was letting her down, her capacity for cruelty would never fail her. At her most loving, Mother had never been able to resist the cruel thrust. To have loved her in her prime of beauty, as many had, was like loving or ‘admiring’ rather, a jewelled scabbard in which a sword was hidden: which would clatter out under the influence of some peculiar frenzy, to slash off your ears, the fingers, the tongues, or worse, impale the hearts of those who worshipped. And yet we continued to offer ourselves, if reluctantly.’Her children are Sir Basil, the renowned but money-fraught knighted actor who left and made his name on the stage in the ‘mother country’. And Dorothy, now known as the Princess Dorothy de Lascabanes, having unsuccessfully married into French nobility and spent most of her adult life in France. Sir Basil has become the archetypical actor – a shape-shifter able to assume personas and beliefs at will to assimilate into any environment for his own benefit. Dorothy has become the virginal noble snob outside of the country of her birth and continues to exude that same ’froideur’ wherever she is.
The novel appears to hinge on the ‘eye of the storm’ – that central total calmness in the very heart of madness and chaos all around, whether that is, as experienced by Elizabeth, a meteorological phenomenon which becomes a psychological phenomenon for her, or as the sustenance of ‘life-as-is’ in the case of her daughter who will retain her stillness despite the disaster of her French marriage and subsequent life. Sir Basil has yet to meet his ‘eye of the storm’ consistently dodging it with his act-toring frittery. The mother, of course, is the only one to retain her sense of peace in the bedroom where she lies whilst all the rest feel uncomfortable like schoolchildren in the face of a bullying overbearing teacher.
And both these offspring are aware of her past and present power (and yet both of them need her to relieve their impecunity) so they endure what becomes an embarrassing torment whilst hatching a scheme to deprive Elizabeth of her power by moving her from her possessions which are the outward signs of her power, to a nursing home to fade away finally and die unloved and unattended. Dorothy says that she must always remember that ‘Mother is an evil, heartless old woman’ whilst Sir Basil sees his mother as ‘evil, brutal and destructive’.
There is something quite deliciously scurrilous about the writing, a phenomenal hate-fest in which nobody escapes the vivisector’s scalpel, even, in fact necessarily the minor characters. Each one of the nurses is dissected, Badgery less so but still illuminated for the dowdy snob she is. Flora Manhood stands like Young Australia, similar to the part played by Alison Kelly, the air hostess in John Fowles’ ’The Magus’ - sexually active, independent and desperately seeking a future in an uncertain environment which she does not control. And the night nurse De Santis is played out as a saintly angel who is one of the few to fundamentally understand Elizabeth without having had access to the life that she has led. All the nurses are somehow carnal and sensuous and to a degree embarrassed by that sensuality. They all seem wracked to a degree by some kind of guilt. And yet still White manages to convey hilarity into all this pompous narcissism. His portrayal of the dinner party that Dorothy deigns to attend, where everybody appears to be drunk with the hostess finally passing out, is masterful in its underplaying.
It is White’s vehicle (yet again!) to examine Australia, gender characteristics and humanity in all its diverse qualities – the womanly woman, the manly neat wifely women, the stupid men with their assumed machismo, the butch dikes, the closeted, all wrapped in a Lear-like colonial conflagration. It is for White as if all the best people – women and men – are all dreadful!! The hateful, the ugly, dirty, having suffered and thus able to understand and inflict suffering; a man’s man and therefore someone who can’t forgive the ‘otherness’ of women. Elizabeth is the anti-maternal single-minded, independent woman.
’As for her children, she remembered them as sensations in her womb, then almost as edible, comfortingly soft parcels of fat, till later they turned into leggy, hostile, scarcely human beings, already preparing themselves for flight.’
It is like a Kenneth MacMillan ballet where sex and death are never far from the surface. Death is always lurking there as the unseen Black Angel to be averted at will, to the appreciation of Death – the moment of death. From fear of embracing to the opinion of those observing, someone accepting the death of another, their ‘second-hand’ vice of judgement. Though is Death is always lurking throughout this novel it is never explicit. Whereas sex is potentially everywhere as an underlying need and stratagem whether flippant and casual or merely as a forbearer to pregnancy. Early on there is the suggestion that both the mother and daughter see that sex is for male pleasure, that it is something that is to be endured for the woman on the path to propagating. It is absolvent of passion, yet encompassing too of lust. Dorothy experiences ‘motherhood by proxy’ when the two return to Kudjeri and meet the new tenants of the house and estate, where the previously upper-class wife has fallen for the stockbreeder brute and now mothers an unnumbered set of children down to the porridge-smearing infant and the one on the way already in the belly. ‘For most women, I think, sexual pleasure is largely imagination’.
There are times when you have to put it down and just breath. It is unrelenting in its dissection of human frailty with White’s clear prose (though at times he appears tempted off into the realms of Joycean suggestive dream-like prose). It is also long and might have done with a little editing. But…. Can you see Patrick White falling for the ministrations of a sub-editor? I thought not too. Therefore you have to follow it all the way through. And at the heart of it is of course the Eye of the Storm. This is a very thorough novel, for me, not up to the Vivisector but still a terrific piece of writing.
This is no affectionate look at ageing and power and family relationships. This is brutal vivisection. But what a feat. Does anybody bother to read Patrick White now?
September 30, 2015
My fellow blogger Louise at A Strong Belief in Wicker gave me an out when I wrote I was reading nobel laureate Patrick White's 1973 book "The Eye of the Storm" prior to seeing the movie.
"Oh dear, Patrick White is Hard. I've only read one- Fringe of Leaves. It took me 3 months to get through it. No one will think the less of you as a reader, or a person, if you have to give up!"
Would that I had listened! Louise is planning on skipping the book but seeing the film. I know this is a bit sacreligious coming from me but I think she has the right idea.The book is, as Louise says, hard. At least it was for me. White's insistence on getting inside his characters' heads and giving us a multi-page stream of consciousness of their thoughts is quite literally, hard to read. Without punctuation, the letters, the words, the phrases, the sentences blur together in a dreamlike mess. Even when he's not doing stream of consciousness I had to read and re-read and still would occasionally find myself mystified. When I could see the characters, which quite often seemed shrouded in the mist of White's language, I found a mostly unlikeable but all too human bunch: a controlling and dying mother, her two very grown children come reluctantly home looking to seal their inheritance, her solicitor, her nurses and cook, an unloved now-dead husband.
The story itself is not that unique but its universality - at least in terms of the death of a parent - is what makes it compelling: a son (Basil, an actor in London) and a daughter (Dorothy, a "French princess" by marriage) raised by a mother so selfish and withholding that her children deliberately live as far away from her as possible. Even when they return to Australia, neither one can bring themselves to stay in the house with her. They are just as greedy, and self-involved as their mother has been. There are no heroes in the book, most of the characters are small and petty and self-loathing and frightened; they plod around rather than soar. I just wish White spent less time in their heads and more time simply telling the story. En anglais, s'il vous plait. Perhaps I would have finished the book feeling transported, moved, thoughtful. Instead I was merely grateful I was done. Okay, I said to myself, get rid of all that interior crap and there's probably a good movie here. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it; Mark has promised to go with me Wednesday. Hopefully he won't discover it's not an action flick before then.
I'm a tad floored that Australian screenwriter Judy Morris was given the task of adapting this weighty tome. Not because she's an Aussie of course but because the longtime multi-talented actress (since 1949!) doesn't have a lot of writing credits - the ones she has seem to be mostly collaborative efforts on animated features ie, Happy Feet and Babe:Pig in the City. In 2010 she is also credited as being one of four writers on a project called Before the Rain, perhaps that's how she clinched the deal? If you have any knowledge about Before the Rain I'd love you to share it.
The Eye of the Storm is directed by Fred Schepisi who directed the stunning Empire Falls based on Richard Russo's equally stunning book. In that respect at least, we know we are in good hands.
"Oh dear, Patrick White is Hard. I've only read one- Fringe of Leaves. It took me 3 months to get through it. No one will think the less of you as a reader, or a person, if you have to give up!"
Would that I had listened! Louise is planning on skipping the book but seeing the film. I know this is a bit sacreligious coming from me but I think she has the right idea.The book is, as Louise says, hard. At least it was for me. White's insistence on getting inside his characters' heads and giving us a multi-page stream of consciousness of their thoughts is quite literally, hard to read. Without punctuation, the letters, the words, the phrases, the sentences blur together in a dreamlike mess. Even when he's not doing stream of consciousness I had to read and re-read and still would occasionally find myself mystified. When I could see the characters, which quite often seemed shrouded in the mist of White's language, I found a mostly unlikeable but all too human bunch: a controlling and dying mother, her two very grown children come reluctantly home looking to seal their inheritance, her solicitor, her nurses and cook, an unloved now-dead husband.
The story itself is not that unique but its universality - at least in terms of the death of a parent - is what makes it compelling: a son (Basil, an actor in London) and a daughter (Dorothy, a "French princess" by marriage) raised by a mother so selfish and withholding that her children deliberately live as far away from her as possible. Even when they return to Australia, neither one can bring themselves to stay in the house with her. They are just as greedy, and self-involved as their mother has been. There are no heroes in the book, most of the characters are small and petty and self-loathing and frightened; they plod around rather than soar. I just wish White spent less time in their heads and more time simply telling the story. En anglais, s'il vous plait. Perhaps I would have finished the book feeling transported, moved, thoughtful. Instead I was merely grateful I was done. Okay, I said to myself, get rid of all that interior crap and there's probably a good movie here. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it; Mark has promised to go with me Wednesday. Hopefully he won't discover it's not an action flick before then.
I'm a tad floored that Australian screenwriter Judy Morris was given the task of adapting this weighty tome. Not because she's an Aussie of course but because the longtime multi-talented actress (since 1949!) doesn't have a lot of writing credits - the ones she has seem to be mostly collaborative efforts on animated features ie, Happy Feet and Babe:Pig in the City. In 2010 she is also credited as being one of four writers on a project called Before the Rain, perhaps that's how she clinched the deal? If you have any knowledge about Before the Rain I'd love you to share it.
The Eye of the Storm is directed by Fred Schepisi who directed the stunning Empire Falls based on Richard Russo's equally stunning book. In that respect at least, we know we are in good hands.
February 4, 2012
'The worst thing about love between human beings....when you're prepared to love them they don't want it; when they do, it's you who can't bear the idea'... with those words, the character of Elizabeth Hunter is first etched. As my second Patrick White novel, this book allowed me to continue my fascination with words used, with incredible restraint, yet often intricately entwined. Even more so, I continue to marvel at White's ability to tap into the most basic of thoughts, often harshly jolting the reader to a point which has been avoided, albeit sub-consciously for being too selfish or too judgmental. To read Patrick White is to just be.
The character development, in particular the long and searching look at spirituality was beautiful - particularly in the characters of Elizabeth, Sir Basil Hunter, and Sister de Santis (also glimpsed briefly in Mrs Weyburd and the Lotte Lippman). The other characters remained to me, distant. Developed to enough to give body and ambience yet somewhat difficult to understand. Dorothy Hunter was obviously meant to come across as distant, desperately needing something that she never received from her mother and yet bits of possibly the 'real Dorothy' (for example on the return to childhood home 'Kudjeri') seemed dropped into the narrative. The book I think suffered from an attempt to over develop all the characters at the expense of more richly understanding certain key figures like that of Dorothy. I found myself drifting off (despite the beautiful use of words) during the discussion of Dorothy's life in France. The character of Sister Flora Manhood (in itself harshly confronting) to me added little to the overall story and again provided some drifting time when being dealt with in detail.
I will now see the movie with great anticipation of Sir Basil played by Geoffrey Rush and Elizabeth Hunter played by Charlotte Rampling. I simply loved the character of Elizabeth Hunter. Thee 'bang' at the end of the book comes from the superb narrative of Sir Basil's spirituality (as lost as it may be) after the death of his mother and the final image created of Wyburd, faithful family solicitor.
As with my first White novel, I reflect on the fact that I could not have in anyway attempted this book 20 years ago...... don't expect a quick finish, but even where tedious in narrative, savour the beauty of White's writing.
The character development, in particular the long and searching look at spirituality was beautiful - particularly in the characters of Elizabeth, Sir Basil Hunter, and Sister de Santis (also glimpsed briefly in Mrs Weyburd and the Lotte Lippman). The other characters remained to me, distant. Developed to enough to give body and ambience yet somewhat difficult to understand. Dorothy Hunter was obviously meant to come across as distant, desperately needing something that she never received from her mother and yet bits of possibly the 'real Dorothy' (for example on the return to childhood home 'Kudjeri') seemed dropped into the narrative. The book I think suffered from an attempt to over develop all the characters at the expense of more richly understanding certain key figures like that of Dorothy. I found myself drifting off (despite the beautiful use of words) during the discussion of Dorothy's life in France. The character of Sister Flora Manhood (in itself harshly confronting) to me added little to the overall story and again provided some drifting time when being dealt with in detail.
I will now see the movie with great anticipation of Sir Basil played by Geoffrey Rush and Elizabeth Hunter played by Charlotte Rampling. I simply loved the character of Elizabeth Hunter. Thee 'bang' at the end of the book comes from the superb narrative of Sir Basil's spirituality (as lost as it may be) after the death of his mother and the final image created of Wyburd, faithful family solicitor.
As with my first White novel, I reflect on the fact that I could not have in anyway attempted this book 20 years ago...... don't expect a quick finish, but even where tedious in narrative, savour the beauty of White's writing.
October 1, 2012
Nobody could say that Patrick White was not ambitious. Feel a bit hesitant to write much on this book since it's the territory of my dad and am more than happy to leave the territory to him. That said I'm in the habit of expressing my opinions here so I'll go on—though a warning, not that I believe anyone reads these reviews, don't comment with stuff about my dad's book about Patrick White. Alright?
Moving on. One can see why White was such a big deal in Australia. This is a big ambitious novel with plenty of hot literary topics: sex, death, ageing, family, incest, infidelity, gratitude, inheritance, drama, reality, immigration, labor, love, it goes on. You know when somebody is trying to write a book in the mold of King Lear it's going to be pretty hardcore. And it is. It's also really long. But White does things that probably no Australia writer had done before—mainly experimenting with his writing. There are plenty of nonsensical, stream-of-conscious paragraphs here. Narrator switches that one has to read carefully to figure out what is going on. And blurring between reality, dreams, and memories in the mind of whatever narrator is on at the moment. Things which fit in well with modernist writing, but there aren't too many modernist in Australia before 1973 I bet.
But I can see why my dad would criticize White. For one thing, it goes on way too long. For another, though there are some moving scenes and moments of sympathy with characters, generally the tone is hateful, the characters appalling, and there is no redemption at all. These isn't a criticism in itself but one does have to ask why read a 600 page book filled with people that are hated by the reader, writer, and the other characters in the book. And the writing is a bit longwinded I must say. Some of the modernist experimentation mentioned above feels a bit dated nowdays (not that many authors do it). And the long, descriptive but metaphoric sentences do seem to be too much fun and play for the author and his ego, not enough editing to make it easy, fun reading for us as well as reduce the size of the novel. Not always a bad thing believe it or not.
However, I do appreciate ambition. And though it could have been reduced I did find plenty to ponder in the relationships between dying mum (Lear, yes and no) her incestuous children, and the crazy staff that look after her. Kind of like The Corrections without the humor. But dying and ageing isn't funny, is it?
Moving on. One can see why White was such a big deal in Australia. This is a big ambitious novel with plenty of hot literary topics: sex, death, ageing, family, incest, infidelity, gratitude, inheritance, drama, reality, immigration, labor, love, it goes on. You know when somebody is trying to write a book in the mold of King Lear it's going to be pretty hardcore. And it is. It's also really long. But White does things that probably no Australia writer had done before—mainly experimenting with his writing. There are plenty of nonsensical, stream-of-conscious paragraphs here. Narrator switches that one has to read carefully to figure out what is going on. And blurring between reality, dreams, and memories in the mind of whatever narrator is on at the moment. Things which fit in well with modernist writing, but there aren't too many modernist in Australia before 1973 I bet.
But I can see why my dad would criticize White. For one thing, it goes on way too long. For another, though there are some moving scenes and moments of sympathy with characters, generally the tone is hateful, the characters appalling, and there is no redemption at all. These isn't a criticism in itself but one does have to ask why read a 600 page book filled with people that are hated by the reader, writer, and the other characters in the book. And the writing is a bit longwinded I must say. Some of the modernist experimentation mentioned above feels a bit dated nowdays (not that many authors do it). And the long, descriptive but metaphoric sentences do seem to be too much fun and play for the author and his ego, not enough editing to make it easy, fun reading for us as well as reduce the size of the novel. Not always a bad thing believe it or not.
However, I do appreciate ambition. And though it could have been reduced I did find plenty to ponder in the relationships between dying mum (Lear, yes and no) her incestuous children, and the crazy staff that look after her. Kind of like The Corrections without the humor. But dying and ageing isn't funny, is it?
September 7, 2022
An extraordinary book with out-of-this-world word-smithing and complicated foci. White, a Nobel Prize winner in literature, wrote intense novels, caring not at all about the likability of his characters - and if you want simple this isn't it. Truly a fantastic and often disturbing novel that has at its center a dying old woman whose adult children, a London-based actor son, and a divorced daughter, have come to visit. For serious readers.
April 5, 2013
Eager to right the wrong of YA fiction “Entice” (Jessical Shrivington) being the last Aussie-authored novel I read last year, I embarked (perhaps ambitiously) upon Patrick White’s “Eye of the Storm”. I had no intentions of punishing myself, but this is not a particularly easy read, and at 608 pages, is a Commitment. For those who are too weak to give this a bash, I highly recommend the recent movie adaptation.
Elizabeth Hunter is the dying matriach, living in the cruel grip of appetite. Her sight may be dimmed by age, but her vision penetrates winding corridors of years past. While she cannot control any of her bodily functions, she cunningly manipulates the emotions of others. Is she petulant and vengeful, or merely getting away with what she has always gotten away with?
The cast of supporting characters are painstakingly drawn out. Dorothy the ex-Princess, gives poverty a glamorous edge as she drapes moth-eaten furs as armour against society. Sir Basil the aging actor, gives a brilliant performance of one whose past successes fall short of his hopes for today. Then Arnold Wynburd, the loyal solicitor - always too proper, always too precise; and we find out why he approaches life with such petrified regret.
There are some rapturously written paragraphs, but every now and again, bizarre long winding unpunctuated gramatically dubious excessively flowery disjointed paragraphs representing.. streams of consciousness? THIS SEVERELY TESTED ME. A sterling example is Basil’s deconstructed dreamscape in the last chapter – I have no doubt this is a clever parody of King Lear, but I shamelessly skimmed over it nonetheless. However, that does nothing to diminish this novel. It is remarkable for its aching portraits of a few deeply flawed individuals grappling with the mysterious force called Life.
What does the eye of the storm refer to? That sudden stillness or insight before death? Before things come to a stunning climax, Elizabeth Hunter dies on the “kermode”. Death is but a great equalizer. 4 stars.
(February 2013, Kindle-on-iPad, $10.99)
Elizabeth Hunter is the dying matriach, living in the cruel grip of appetite. Her sight may be dimmed by age, but her vision penetrates winding corridors of years past. While she cannot control any of her bodily functions, she cunningly manipulates the emotions of others. Is she petulant and vengeful, or merely getting away with what she has always gotten away with?
The cast of supporting characters are painstakingly drawn out. Dorothy the ex-Princess, gives poverty a glamorous edge as she drapes moth-eaten furs as armour against society. Sir Basil the aging actor, gives a brilliant performance of one whose past successes fall short of his hopes for today. Then Arnold Wynburd, the loyal solicitor - always too proper, always too precise; and we find out why he approaches life with such petrified regret.
There are some rapturously written paragraphs, but every now and again, bizarre long winding unpunctuated gramatically dubious excessively flowery disjointed paragraphs representing.. streams of consciousness? THIS SEVERELY TESTED ME. A sterling example is Basil’s deconstructed dreamscape in the last chapter – I have no doubt this is a clever parody of King Lear, but I shamelessly skimmed over it nonetheless. However, that does nothing to diminish this novel. It is remarkable for its aching portraits of a few deeply flawed individuals grappling with the mysterious force called Life.
What does the eye of the storm refer to? That sudden stillness or insight before death? Before things come to a stunning climax, Elizabeth Hunter dies on the “kermode”. Death is but a great equalizer. 4 stars.
(February 2013, Kindle-on-iPad, $10.99)
May 6, 2018
I was a bit unsure of what rating to give this book.
It started out really, really slow. The scene setting for each character, from the old matriarch through to the nurses, cook, her children and solicitor, was pretty long winded. You do get an overview of this woman and how she has manipulated her family over many years.
Then the rest of the book wasn't took bad. Yes it was still long winded, but you were invested and felt you had to keep going to find out what happens in the end.
So what does happen in the end? Not much (hence the low rating). I was expecting something more dramatic to happen at the end, like her leaving her fortune to someone else, but nope, it all turns out normal with the kids inheriting. The biggest surprise was who took the ring and the Cook's actions at the end.
I can understand why others have given it high ratings but this book really wasn't my thing.
It started out really, really slow. The scene setting for each character, from the old matriarch through to the nurses, cook, her children and solicitor, was pretty long winded. You do get an overview of this woman and how she has manipulated her family over many years.
Then the rest of the book wasn't took bad. Yes it was still long winded, but you were invested and felt you had to keep going to find out what happens in the end.
So what does happen in the end? Not much (hence the low rating). I was expecting something more dramatic to happen at the end, like her leaving her fortune to someone else, but nope, it all turns out normal with the kids inheriting. The biggest surprise was who took the ring and the Cook's actions at the end.
I can understand why others have given it high ratings but this book really wasn't my thing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2021
A well written, descriptive, character based novel about 86 year old Elizabeth Hunter, her son, Sir Basil Hunter, and her daughter Dorothy, Princess de Lascabanes. Elizabeth Hunter is ill and her adult children arrive from overseas to Elizabeth’s grand old house in suburban Sydney, Australia. Elizabeth is rich and has a cook, two nurses and a housekeeper to look after her. Basil and Dorothy want to put their mother into an old people’s home.
Patrick White’s strength is the very well described characters and their conversations with one another. There is little plot momentum! Patrick White fans, of which I am one, should find this book a very rewarding reading experience.
This book was first published in 1973.
Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973. He is the only Australian author to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
Patrick White’s strength is the very well described characters and their conversations with one another. There is little plot momentum! Patrick White fans, of which I am one, should find this book a very rewarding reading experience.
This book was first published in 1973.
Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973. He is the only Australian author to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.
February 4, 2014
A very challenging book to read, as the narrative is not self-explanatory and includes a lot of strange metaphors, a fair amount of French and German (didn't understand the German, but my understanding of the French helped a lot with the book, so I'm guessing I missed something in the German parts), and often goes into a stream of conciousness with missing punctuation.
If it wasn't for the extremely well built characters, I would have given up on this book a long time ago. However, the characters with their complex emotions kept me going and gave me satisfaction at the end - even if I really felt sorry for each and every one of them.
If it wasn't for the extremely well built characters, I would have given up on this book a long time ago. However, the characters with their complex emotions kept me going and gave me satisfaction at the end - even if I really felt sorry for each and every one of them.
October 20, 2017
How can you not love Elizabeth Hunter?
December 11, 2019
Yes yes it won the Nobel Prize in ‘73 but it is NOT as described. Old lady does not get struck by lightning and change somehow. Book is all over the place. He does stream of consciousness. Bunch of nasty self centered characters. Book goes on and on. Near ending tries to shock you. Don’t recommend.
August 25, 2020
Not an easy read. I'm sure I missed a lot with all the stream of consciousness. But brilliant. The characters are woven together nicely and glimpses into past and current dynamics, struggles, choices is cleverly done.
August 12, 2025
A reread after nearly 50 years, still very good bar a few words we wouldn’t use today. Recommended.
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