Patrick White, the 1973 Nobel Laureate In Literature
The Only Australian Nobel Laureate In Literature (Thus Far)
If, like me, you didn’t know the name Patrick White (1912-1990), you’re not alone.
Born in London, White moved to Australia as an infant. He describes his years at the prestigious Cheltenham College (public and boarding school) in England as "a four-year prison sentence." He started writing plays during his time there.
Hoping to quell his literary ambitions, his parents urged him to spend time working the land as a jackaroo.
The painter Roy De Maistre became a good friend and was “what I most needed, an intellectual and aesthetic mentor."
Considered one of the most important 20th century writers in the English language, he is known for his rich and complex narrative, stream of consciousness, and profound themes of obsession, disillusionment, and the search for meaning. His works also explore the many insights to be gained from living, as Americans and Australians did, on the knife’s edge of civilization.
Patrick White was an intensely private man. While in the British Royal Air Force, he served as an intelligence officer in Egypt, Palestine, and Greece during WWII. He met Greek army officer, Manoly Lascaris in the Middle East and they became life-long partners, living first in Cairo, then on a small farm near Sydney.
In his later years he refused to be considered for any additional literary prizes to give younger writers a chance to be recognized.
"That Nobel Prize!" He hoped to expose "the machinery behind it...DIRTY," he said of the Nobel Prize, and by now it is increasingly clear. With the prize money from it, he established the Patrick White Award for under-recognized established creative writers.
Patrick White actively opposed literary censorship, and Australia's costly self-harm inflicted by joining the Vietnam War.
In his book Flaws In the Glass he takes a close look at his own sexuality, the arm's length relationships within his birth family, and Australia's subservient stance toward the UK.
His most famous novels:
The Living and the Dead (1941) - Set in London, the novel delves into the fraught social identities, expectations, and terrible loneliness of urban dwellers. Like William Makepeace Thackeray, White deals with the tragi-comedy that is upper and upper-middle-class British life with satire.
The Tree of Man (1955) - This is the life of Stan Parker, a simple, hardworking Australian family man who must endure the endless challenges of life in the Outback, including economic troubles. It is a beautiful and introspective look at love, loss, faith, and meaning.
Voss (1957) - Set in 19th-century Australia, Voss is an ill-fated German explorer who pines after Laura Trevelyan, a lady he barely knows, yet he maintains a profound spiritual connection with her on his dangerous expedition.
Riders in the Chariot (1961) - Set in the 1950s in Australia, this is the fascinating story of 4 suburban acquaintances who do not realize that in the grand scheme of things, they share a special purpose as fellow riders in Ezekiel’s biblical chariot of fire. With a nod to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the plot reveals the ignorant insistence and ossified prejudice of almost everyone in blocking the genius of those who sense the infinite in everything, with dire consequences for civilization.
The Nobel Committee described his work as being “for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature.”
Oddly, his work was always very well received abroad, but was severely criticized in Australia as being “un-Australian.” Voss was his first book to be embraced by his homeland.