'This volume marks the birth centenary of a giant amongst contemporary writers: the Australian Nobel prize-winning novelist, Patrick White (1912–1990). It proffers an invaluable insight into the current state of White studies through commentaries drawn from an international galaxy of eminent critics, as well as from newer talents. The book proves that interest in White’s work continues to grow and diversify.
'Every essay offers a new insight: some are re-evaluations by seasoned critics who revise earlier positions significantly; others admit new light onto what has seemed like well-trodden terrain or focus on works perhaps undervalued in the past—his poetry, an early short story or novel—which are now subjected to fresh attention. His posthumous work has also won attention from prominent critics. New comparisons with other international writers have been drawn in terms of subject matter, themes and philosophy.
'The expansion of critical attention into fields like photography and film opens new possibilities for enhancing further appreciation of his work. White’s interest in public issues such as the treatment of Australia’s Indigenous peoples, human rights and Australian nationalism is refracted through the inclusion of relevant commentaries from notable contributors.
'For the first time in Australian literary history, Indigenous scholars have participated in a celebration of the work of a white Australian writer. All of this highlights a new direction in White studies – the appreciation of his stature as a public intellectual. The book demonstrates that White’s legacy has limitless possibilities for further growth.' (Publisher's abstract)
'There is no clearer demonstration of the fact that reading is a social and historical act than the reception of Patrick White. The relationship between reader and writer, or reader and text, is never innocent, but reflects the social concerns of the time. With literature and literary analysis, it also reflects the concerns dominating the institutions of literary criticism. White's work entered Australian literary culture at a time when the country was experiencing a post-war nationalist resurgence, leading up to the establishment of a chair of Australian literature at Sydney University — the first such chair, and the belated recognition that Australia did have a literature, and, indeed, was experiencing a birth into respectability —just as hunger for an Australia literature of world stature was growing.
' (Introduction)
'Preamble: This paper originates from an interdisciplinary non-binary critical approach, which applies Riane Eisler's (1987) partnership model to World literary texts. By analysing the works of authors writing in the varieties of English, including those of Indigenous populations where the dynamics at work are caring and sharing rather than exploiting and dominating, the coloniser's word is explored in its creative potential to transform the dominator values of colonisation and globalisation into cooperative and partnership codes. More specifically, as Raimon Panikkar points out, the modem degeneration of 'the word', stripped of its dialogical power and reduced to a mere term, has a devastating effect, for it becomes a simple transferring of notions, devoid of a deeper meaning. (Panikkar 2007)
'The creative word operates within a co-operative system of values that differs from the dominator model, which is tied to the Westernised scientistic and technical term. In this discussion, Eisler's partnership/dominator continuum along with Panikkar's theory of the spirit of the word will be applied in order to focus on the power of the mythical and archetypal word of the Aboriginal guides Dugald and Jackie in Voss. Here 'the word' is seen giving expression to a multitude of Aboriginal oral traditions, narratives and myths operating within analogical frameworks, rather than logical ones, and including silence as a form of creativity and communication, thus manifesting its full symbolic and poetic power as expression of a partnership approach to life. ' (Introduction)
'In ‘Australia’s Prodigal Son,’ John Barnes records an emblematic moment in his life: his 1988 meeting with Patrick White at La Trobe University prior to what would be the author’s final public address. Barnes recalls the overflowing crowd, the presence of TV cameras and the vociferous demands that the overflow crowd be allowed to sit in aisles or prop themselves against walls. To Barnes, the event, the size and fervor of the audience, was a milestone: ‘This was my first experience of an Australian writer being treated as a celebrity’ (3).' (Introduction)
'White is known to have speculated, at times, as to whether his works would be read after his death. That his reputation is in no danger of fading is surely attested by this birth centenary publication – the outcome of a conference held in India in December, 2012. It was attended by some of the best-known of White scholars as well as some excellent new contributors from all over the world; the latter being a promising augury for the future. White had an awareness of Indian culture, though it was his wide acquaintance with European culture that saturated his work, along with his deep roots in his native Australia. Perhaps it needs to be stated here that the epigraph to White’s earliest novel, Happy Valley (1939) was a quotation from Gandhi; and his earliest published short story, “The Twitching Colonel” (1937) records the experience of a retired British colonel who is literally consumed, it would appear, by what he has experienced in India.' (Introduction)
'White is known to have speculated, at times, as to whether his works would be read after his death. That his reputation is in no danger of fading is surely attested by this birth centenary publication – the outcome of a conference held in India in December, 2012. It was attended by some of the best-known of White scholars as well as some excellent new contributors from all over the world; the latter being a promising augury for the future. White had an awareness of Indian culture, though it was his wide acquaintance with European culture that saturated his work, along with his deep roots in his native Australia. Perhaps it needs to be stated here that the epigraph to White’s earliest novel, Happy Valley (1939) was a quotation from Gandhi; and his earliest published short story, “The Twitching Colonel” (1937) records the experience of a retired British colonel who is literally consumed, it would appear, by what he has experienced in India.' (Introduction)
'In ‘Australia’s Prodigal Son,’ John Barnes records an emblematic moment in his life: his 1988 meeting with Patrick White at La Trobe University prior to what would be the author’s final public address. Barnes recalls the overflowing crowd, the presence of TV cameras and the vociferous demands that the overflow crowd be allowed to sit in aisles or prop themselves against walls. To Barnes, the event, the size and fervor of the audience, was a milestone: ‘This was my first experience of an Australian writer being treated as a celebrity’ (3).' (Introduction)
