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Writers on Writers #3
On Patrick White
Award-winning writer Christos Tsiolkas tackles one of Australia’s greatest novelists, Patrick White.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative, crisp and written from a practitioner’s perspective, the series starts a fresh conversation between past and present, and writer and reader. It sheds light on the craft of writing, and introduces some intriguing and talented authors and their work.
In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative, crisp and written from a practitioner’s perspective, the series starts a fresh conversation between past and present, and writer and reader. It sheds light on the craft of writing, and introduces some intriguing and talented authors and their work.
96 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2018
3 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Christos Tsiolkas
38 books980 followersChristos Tsiolkas is the author of nine novels: Loaded, which was made into the feature film Head-On, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe,which won the 2006 Age Fiction Prize and the 2006 Melbourne Best Writing Award. He won Overall Best Book in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2009, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award, long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize and won the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal for The Slap, which was also announced as the 2009 Australian Booksellers Association and Australian Book Industry Awards Books of the Year.
Barracuda is his fifth novel. Merciless Gods (2014) and Damascus (2019) followed.
He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.
Barracuda is his fifth novel. Merciless Gods (2014) and Damascus (2019) followed.
He is also a playwright, essayist and screen writer. He lives in Melbourne.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 25, 2022
Christos Tsiolkas gives his insights to Patrick White writings in his On Patrick White novella. This series of Writers on Writers by one Australian on another’s works raises a variety of insights – so in essence you get two for the price of one. Interestingly, Christos starts by contrasting their divergent cultural backgrounds, with his Greek peasant ancestry and White’s landholding white Australian squattocracy. Yet he also acknowledges the influence of White’s life partner Manoly Lascaris, a former Greek army officer. In discussing White’s works, Christos discussion includes aspects of landscape, spirituality, sensuality, exile, migrants, emptiness of Australia and the progressive movements he supported. Tsiolkas comprehends the nuances of Patrick White and his most significant contribution to literature, that includes a Nobel Prize for Literature. A concise analysis of White’s works makes this a four-star read rating. Given there are more titles, over time they too will be enjoyed.
August 6, 2023
An interesting, brief discussion of Patrick White’s nine novels. Tsiolkas states that White wrote three of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, ‘The Tree of Man’, ‘The Solid Mandala’,and ’The Eye of the Storm’. He provides short quotes from a number of the novels, making some interesting observations about each of the novels.
He concludes this short book by stating, “Patrick White, accused of misogyny and misanthropy but the writer of some of the greatest female characters in fiction. Patrick White, the child of a long-vanished squattocratic past, whose sympathy lay with the migrant and the outsider and who made these outsiders the centre of his fiction…” (page 90, Black Inc edition).
This book was first published in 2018.
Patrick White won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. The only Australian to win this prize.
He concludes this short book by stating, “Patrick White, accused of misogyny and misanthropy but the writer of some of the greatest female characters in fiction. Patrick White, the child of a long-vanished squattocratic past, whose sympathy lay with the migrant and the outsider and who made these outsiders the centre of his fiction…” (page 90, Black Inc edition).
This book was first published in 2018.
Patrick White won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. The only Australian to win this prize.
September 29, 2018
My rating here is quite biased: I am totally in favour of anyone who praises and recommends the novels of Patrick White.
This book is one of the Writers on Writers series in which leading Australian writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Christos Tsiolkas, one of Australia’s more successful writers in a number of fields, has a Greek migrant background, and his particular insights sheds new ways of appreciating White and his work. His re-reading of a number of White’s works sheds new light on aspects both of his contribution to Australian and world literature, both when they were written, and now.
The main theme one finds over and over again in White’s novels concentrates on individuals who inhabit “strange” worlds which are very much their homelands but in which they are actually, or perceive themselves to be, more peripheral, like outsiders. These individuals are of many types, loved/hated, creative/destructive, cherished/despised, intelligent/ignorant, simple/complicated, gender-specific/gender-fluid, etc. often with no discernible unifying quality except one: the ability to encounter strange mystical experiences where their individuality is central and not peripheral, and with which they are familiar but do not necessarily understand.
Tsiolkas rightly sees a connection here with the Australian, and increasingly global, reality of a significant element of the migrant experience, and also gives proper recognition to the influence of White’s lifelong companion Manoly Lascaris in this achievement. The image of individual suffering and humanism suffused with exalted mystical insight is both stunning and humbling at the same time.
This is an excellent introduction for those not familiar with White’s works, and a valuable reminder that we should never take for granted what we have in them — something to cherish for ourselves and to share with the world.
[Note to the publisher: My copy of this book contains 95 pages of large, wide-spaced text, yet within these few pages, I discovered a number of typos regarding the titles of some of Patrick White’s novels. As far as I can tell, The Aunt’s Story managed to get through relatively unscathed, except for p. 10, where it appears incorrectly as An Aunt’s Story. On p. 43, there is a reference to the non-existent play A Night in Sarsaparilla; this could be a reference to Night on Bald Mountain, but I suspect it really should be A Season at Sarsaparilla. Finally, White’s first book Happy Valley was unfortunately given the wrong title The Happy Valley in all of its six mentions in the text: p.17, p.18 (twice, once in the text, once in the footnote), p.22, p 24, and p.90. Not good enough!]
This book is one of the Writers on Writers series in which leading Australian writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Christos Tsiolkas, one of Australia’s more successful writers in a number of fields, has a Greek migrant background, and his particular insights sheds new ways of appreciating White and his work. His re-reading of a number of White’s works sheds new light on aspects both of his contribution to Australian and world literature, both when they were written, and now.
The main theme one finds over and over again in White’s novels concentrates on individuals who inhabit “strange” worlds which are very much their homelands but in which they are actually, or perceive themselves to be, more peripheral, like outsiders. These individuals are of many types, loved/hated, creative/destructive, cherished/despised, intelligent/ignorant, simple/complicated, gender-specific/gender-fluid, etc. often with no discernible unifying quality except one: the ability to encounter strange mystical experiences where their individuality is central and not peripheral, and with which they are familiar but do not necessarily understand.
Tsiolkas rightly sees a connection here with the Australian, and increasingly global, reality of a significant element of the migrant experience, and also gives proper recognition to the influence of White’s lifelong companion Manoly Lascaris in this achievement. The image of individual suffering and humanism suffused with exalted mystical insight is both stunning and humbling at the same time.
This is an excellent introduction for those not familiar with White’s works, and a valuable reminder that we should never take for granted what we have in them — something to cherish for ourselves and to share with the world.
[Note to the publisher: My copy of this book contains 95 pages of large, wide-spaced text, yet within these few pages, I discovered a number of typos regarding the titles of some of Patrick White’s novels. As far as I can tell, The Aunt’s Story managed to get through relatively unscathed, except for p. 10, where it appears incorrectly as An Aunt’s Story. On p. 43, there is a reference to the non-existent play A Night in Sarsaparilla; this could be a reference to Night on Bald Mountain, but I suspect it really should be A Season at Sarsaparilla. Finally, White’s first book Happy Valley was unfortunately given the wrong title The Happy Valley in all of its six mentions in the text: p.17, p.18 (twice, once in the text, once in the footnote), p.22, p 24, and p.90. Not good enough!]
March 17, 2020
Patrick White is one of my favourite authors and the effect of reading this was to bring his works back to life in my memory and now I want read them all over again. All of them. Tsiolkas took me to the heart of White's particular voice as only one who can really connect with this prickly, complex, lyrical, powerful and deeply humane writer can. Personally I think making a reader want to read or reread the writer written about is the best thing a critical or literary analysis or reading experience or biographical work can do. This is a very satisfying mix of all these responses.
January 19, 2019
Even though I don’t read that many books by men, I’m a Tsiolkas completist and I am currently trying to make my way through all of Patrick White’s novels too. This book was an easy, satisfying, nourishing read for that reason. I did get confused by the timeline and the structure didn’t quite coalesce for me, but it was a decent long form essay regardless.
March 16, 2023
Christos Tsiolkas’s take on Patrick White is intelligent and perceptive, and highly readable. He covers most of the important works and clearly admires the great novelist. His critique of The Tree of Man, for which White won the Nobel Prize, is just about perfect summed up as ‘the power and intensity of timelessness’.
Tsiolkas gives the reader an interesting anecdote about his time at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in the UK where feels defensive on behalf of Australia when he calls The Tree of Man ‘one of the great novels’ that does not ‘require that lousy adjective “Australian”. This is such a pedantic and perplexing, even contradictory statement, by one who says he felt shame for taking such a long time to read this book.
Patrick White helped define the term ‘cultural cringe’ and he certainly understood it because it seeps through the pores of his writing, as surely as the themes of his writing were conditioned by his sense of place. The disavowal of the qualifier, “Australian” by Tsiolkas is almost insulting because without the enhancement of this adjective we do not identify ourselves.
Finally, l take umbrage to Tsiolkas using the qualifier, “mongrel” to refer to Australia as a ‘mongrel nation’. We are a rich nation of many definable cultures - indigenous and multicultural.
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Tsiolkas gives the reader an interesting anecdote about his time at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in the UK where feels defensive on behalf of Australia when he calls The Tree of Man ‘one of the great novels’ that does not ‘require that lousy adjective “Australian”. This is such a pedantic and perplexing, even contradictory statement, by one who says he felt shame for taking such a long time to read this book.
Patrick White helped define the term ‘cultural cringe’ and he certainly understood it because it seeps through the pores of his writing, as surely as the themes of his writing were conditioned by his sense of place. The disavowal of the qualifier, “Australian” by Tsiolkas is almost insulting because without the enhancement of this adjective we do not identify ourselves.
Finally, l take umbrage to Tsiolkas using the qualifier, “mongrel” to refer to Australia as a ‘mongrel nation’. We are a rich nation of many definable cultures - indigenous and multicultural.
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
January 3, 2019
Finished: 03.01.2019
Genre: non-fiction (96 pg)
Rating: A
Conclusion:
This is a short but comprehensive companion of
Patrick White's best known novels. I would recommend it to
anyone who is about to read White's books.
Patrick White was the child of a squattocratic past
....but his sympathies lay with the migrant and outsider.
This is the center of his fiction.
He created an imaginative language that one calls Australian.
Genre: non-fiction (96 pg)
Rating: A
Conclusion:
This is a short but comprehensive companion of
Patrick White's best known novels. I would recommend it to
anyone who is about to read White's books.
Patrick White was the child of a squattocratic past
....but his sympathies lay with the migrant and outsider.
This is the center of his fiction.
He created an imaginative language that one calls Australian.
March 30, 2022
short and sweet!
May 9, 2019
I was thinking about Patrick White earlier this year when this caught my eye. It turned out to be fortuitous when we discussed Barracuda in our reading group. Tsiolkas writing about White helped me understand what also drives him as a writer, particularly his interest in outsiders. While he and White have a connection in both being homosexual, Tsiolkas is provocatively ‘out there’ whereas White was discreet about his sexual preferences. In other ways their lives couldn’t have been more different - White coming from the colonial squatter class and Tsiolkas from a Greek immigrant family. However, Tsiolkas also gives a great deal of credit to Manoly Lascaris, White’s life partner, for helping White understand the immigrant perspective and link that to his ‘outsider’ characters. Tsiolkas is passionate about the continuing relevance of White’s literature. His analysis of particular novels and the quotes he chooses pay tribute to White’s genius. I recommend this to anyone interested in writing and particularly Australian literature.
March 3, 2020
Although it did have some insights into Patrick White, it reminded me why I generally never read literary criticism. Words like deconstruction, or postmodernism irritate rather than illuminate.
January 31, 2025
To me, to read Patrick White is to experience the sublime. This is a reminder to revisit. Also, I respect Tsiolkas.
“Patrick White, the un-Australian writer who did more than any other writer in the twentieth century to create an imaginative language that we can call Australian, who unshackled us from the demand that we write as the English do, who recognised, through his own alienation and also through his profound love for his partner, that we were a migrant and mongrel nation forging our own culture and our own language.”
“Patrick White, the un-Australian writer who did more than any other writer in the twentieth century to create an imaginative language that we can call Australian, who unshackled us from the demand that we write as the English do, who recognised, through his own alienation and also through his profound love for his partner, that we were a migrant and mongrel nation forging our own culture and our own language.”
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews