Patrick White Letters - Hardcover

White, Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226895033 ISBN 13: 9780226895031

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1996

Synopsis

"Letters are the devil, and I always hope that any I have written have been destroyed."—Patrick White

Patrick White spent his whole life writing letters. He wanted them all burnt, but thousands survive to reveal him as one of the greatest letter-writers of his time. Patrick White: Letters is an unexpected and final volume of prose by Australia's most acclaimed novelist. Only a few scraps of White's letters have been published before.

From the aftermath of the First World War until his death in 1990, letters poured from White's pen: they are shrewd, funny, dramatic, pigheaded, camp, and above all, hauntingly beautiful. He wrote novels to sway a hostile world, but letters were for friends.

The culmination of ten years' work and reflection by David Marr, author of the well-received biography Patrick White: A Life, the volume tells the story of White's life in his own words. These are the letters of a great writer, a profound critic, a gossip with the sharpest eyes and tongue, a man who loved and hated ferociously, a keen cook, an angry patriot, and a believer never free of doubt.

"A literary milestone."—Kirkus Reviews

"Mean-spirited and brilliant, the 600 letters collected here offer real insight into the life of the Nobel-Prize winning Australian author. White's venom is matched by his torment, and the whole volume is redeemed by outstanding writing."—Publisher's Weekly ("Best Books 96")

"[T]hose who come to these letters after having read Marr's biography will expect more than shop talk from the master novelist. They will expect the bracing bitchiness of a master curmudgeon. And they will not be disappointed."—Frank Wilson, Philadelphia Inquirer

Patrick White (1912-1990), Australian novelist and playwright, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973. His many novels include Voss, The Twyborn Affair, and Riders in the Chariot.

About this title

About the Author

Patrick White (1912-1990) was an Australian writer and playwright who won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature. He published several novels, short story collections, and theater works during his lifetime.
 

From the Back Cover

His seventy-year correspondence from childhood in the First World War until his death in 1990 is earthy, shrewd, camp, savage, dramatic, very funny and free. White wrote novels to impress a hostile world, but most of his correspondence was written to amuse, inform, and, at times, upbraid his friends. He was an old man before he wrote fiction as easy and direct as the best of his letters. White kept no copies of his correspondence and all the letters he received were thrown away. As friends and relations died and bundles of his own letters came back to him, White destroyed them. He spoke of his perpetual shedding as a way of keeping free of the past's stale entanglements. As early as the 1950s, he urged his correspondents to burn his letters. A few of White's correspondents did so; some lied that they had; most carefully stored White's letters away. This collection, the culmination of ten years' work and reflection by David Marr, author of the well-received biography Patrick White: A Life, tells the story of White's life in his own words. These are the letters of a great writer, a profound critic, a gossip with the sharpest eyes and tongue, a man who loved and hated ferociously, a keen cook, an angry patriot, and a believer never free of doubt. Patrick White: Letters is an unexpected and final volume of prose by Australia's most acclaimed novelist writing on everything from cooking and dogs to global politics. Only a few scraps of White's letters have been published before.

Reviews

A swarming and copious selection of letters by the Nobel Prizewinning novelist and playwright. ``My life is a series of blunders and recoveries and so it will be, I expect, till the end.'' Described by his biographer Marr (Patrick White: A Life, 1992) as ``a wise man who could be stubbornly wrong,'' White (191290) acquired the epistolary habit at age four or five, never to abandon it for long. His letters, by turns irascible and fond, cover a broad range of correspondents: from friends of his youth to literary people like Christina Stead and Shirley Hazzard to public figures like Ronald Reagan; White scathingly dismissed the president's Chinese diplomacy, savaged the American taste for ``celluloid, plastic, and decadence,'' and urged Reagan to ``[drop] out from time to time to contemplate problems which seem insoluble. Probably they will remain so.'' White wanted his friends to destroy the letters they received, but it's fortunate that not all complied with his wishes, for the fullness of this inadvertent self-portrait is nearly Shakespearean. The bluntness and sporadic cruelty of White mingles with a bold and outsize warmth that give the letters an epic feel without the usual affectations of the epic. His maverick, embattled nature guided him, and the letters tingle with it as they chronicle his early wanderings, wartime service in the Middle East and Africa, lifelong partnership with onetime Greek soldier Manoly Lascaris, and pattern of friendships won and forsworn. His love-hate relations with Australia were perhaps emblematic of his character, but so was a blitheness that led him to send thanks in 1940 to an American boyfriend: ``That little G-string you presented me with last year is a great help in a New York heat wave!'' Marr offers useful commentary; drawings of the craggy-faced novelist also lend a charm to these pages. A literary milestone. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Australian novelist, playwright, and poet White, who won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, wrote scores of letters?600 of which appear in this volume. Dating from 1918 to 1989, the letters begin with a wish list to Santa and a charming child's note (1919) addressed to "The Fairies." Acutely reflecting White's personal and professional life, these letters are edited and linked with unobtrusive editorial comment by White's biographer (Patrick White: A Life, LJ 3/1/92) to create an epistolary autobiography. A biographical dictionary of correspondents (including lovers, friends, publishers, family members, critics, etc.) is a useful touch. Strongly recommended for all literature collections, but unnecessary for those who own the British or Australian edition (Cape, 1994).?Janice E. Braun, Mills Coll. Lib., Oakland, Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226895033
• ISBN 13: 9780226895031
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 688
• Editor: Marr David