person or book cover
y separately published work icon Memoirs of Many in One single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1986... 1986 Memoirs of Many in One
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Notes

  • Despite suggestions from both Jonathan Cape and Viking to use only his own name, White insisted that his novel be read as the Memoirs of Many in One by Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray, edited by Patrick White, thereby adding to his study of what he once described as 'a senile character who is myself in my various roles and sexes'. (source: Hubber and Smith, 228)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Jonathan Cape ,       1986 .
      Extent: 192p.
      Note/s:
      • An Australian issue printed at Griffin Press, SA.
      ISBN: 0224023713
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Viking ,       1986 .
      person or book cover
      Extent: 192p.
      ISBN: 0670813206
    • Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin ,       1987 .
      Extent: 192p.
      ISBN: 0140094261
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2019 .
      image of person or book cover 9168223651111011862.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 192p.p.
      Note/s:

      • Published 4 June 2019.

      • Introduction by Sophie Cunningham.

      ISBN: 9781925773613
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)
Alternative title: Dolly Formosa und die Auserwaehlten : Die Memoiren der Alex Xenophon Dimirjan Gray. Herausgegeben von Patrick White
Language: German
    • Düsseldorf,
      c
      Germany,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Claassen ,       1988 .
      Extent: 239p.
      ISBN: 3546496167
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Works about this Work

Patrick White and the Unconscious Mind David J. Tacey , single work review
— Review of Memoirs of Many in One Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray , 1986 single work novel
Patrick White's Late Style Andrew McCann , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Patrick White beyond the Grave : New Critical Perspectives 2015; (p. 117-128) '...Andrew McCann shows how White's, and our, minor quakes find full expression in Memoirs of Many in One (1986): in hilarity not tragedy. He argues that over the course of his career, White's impulse is towards the farcical collapse of signification which in itself can be figured as a revelatory path to non-revelatory non-understanding. (Introduction 8)
Patrick White's Hungarian Connection Nourit Melcer-Padon , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 15 no. 3 2015; 'Memoirs of Many in One, Patrick White's last novel, is a challenging read. A fragmented plot-line serves to stage a numerous cast of diverse characters, all used to sustain the theatricals of a crazy old woman. Nonetheless, by following the clues White disperses in the text, one can discover a fascinating framework that makes this bread-crumbs-trail well worth the walk. A barely noticeable allusion to the epic poem of Imre Madách, a 19th century Hungarian writer, is the key to the unfolding of a double narrative structure. The master narrative, true to modern, post-structuralist format, is deconstructed and haphazard, whereas the underlying narrative is based on the older literary tradition of the morality play. Similarly, Alex, White's irresponsible and exacerbating protagonist may seem as an unlikely model for contemporary, romantic notions of freedom and self-fulfillment, yet she is used to debunk the very ideals she embodies. Despite her aspirations to selfish stardom, Alex's quest for forgiveness and absolution towards the end of her life is in line with the constitutive narrative of penance. At the same time, White uses his protagonist's journey to expose various European roots that cannot be severed and are still present in Australian culture.' (Publication abstract)
Patrick White : Crossing the Boundaries John McLaren , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Patrick White Centenary : The Legacy of a Prodigal Son 2014; (p. 82-97) ‘Australian history is a history of division. Lacking territorial borders to be defended against hostile peoples, we have made our own inner borders of class, gender and ethnicity. Without barriers of place, we have constructed divisions between city and country, Sydney and the bush, male and female, foreigners and native born, workers and masters. We have ruthlessly dispossessed the first peoples of this land and then attempted to confine them within the walls of reservations consigning them also to cultural and material deprivation. Besides these divisions there has been a further perceived division between the land and its European settlers. A constant theme in Australian fiction has been the attempt to find national narratives that will resolve these divisions. Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930) is a tragedy of border-crossings that leaves its central protagonist alienated both from old country and new. ’ (Introduction)
Patrick White and Film Elizabeth Webby , Margaret Harris , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 13 no. 2 2013; '2011 saw the release of The Eye of the Storm, the first adaptation to the screen of one of Patrick White’s novels. There had been earlier attempts, in particular the long-running saga of Voss, seemingly as doomed to failure as the explorer’s own quest. White’s interest in the theatre was paralleled by his interest in film; he knew that adaptations could boost an author’s reputation and sales. Manuscripts in the National Library of Australia’s White papers reveal that he wrote adaptations of several of his short stories as early as 1963. He did not manage to sell any of these but collaboration with director Jim Sharman in the 1970s led to the production of White’s screenplay of his story ‘The Night, the Prowler’. Inspired by this, White wrote several original screenplays that were never filmed. ‘Monkey Puzzle’, intended as a full-length film, sends up the Australian literary scene as well as Australian films of the period. The shorter 'Kidults' also includes a parody of the film version of My Brilliant Career. (Author's abstract)
Editor or Author? Ron Shepherd , 1986 single work review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , no. 2 1986; (p. 43-44)
— Review of Memoirs of Many in One Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray , 1986 single work novel
A Unique View of White Bethwyn Brown , 1986 single work review
— Appears in: The West Australian , 19 April 1986; (p. 33)
— Review of Memoirs of Many in One Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray , 1986 single work novel
A Visit to White's Sacred Sites : "Struck by His Failure to Allow His Extraordinary Comic Gifts Full Rein" Leonie Kramer , 1986 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , September vol. 30 no. 9 1986; (p. 66-67)
— Review of Memoirs of Many in One Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray , 1986 single work novel
A Wicked White Rips us to Shreds Thomas Shapcott , 1986 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 5 April 1986; (p. 48)
— Review of Memoirs of Many in One Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray , 1986 single work novel
Fantasies and Old Scores Laurie Clancy , 1986 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , September no. 104 1986; (p. 72)
— Review of Memoirs of Many in One Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray , 1986 single work novel
How Patrick White Laughed Last Steve Meacham , 2003 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 3 April 2003; (p. 16)
Displaying the Monster : Patrick White, Sexuality, Celebrity Guy Davidson , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 25 no. 1 2010; (p. 1-18) The essay traces the interconnections between aesthetic mode, sexual disclosure, and literary celebrity in White's work and career. 'From early on in his career, White appears to have been convinced of a close link between ... sexuality and literary artistry. White's autobiographical writings, his correspondence, and his fiction elaborate upon this idea, moving between notions of identity as performance and identity as essence. In so doing, his work indicates his uneasy relations to his homosexuality and his celebrity status, both of which he simultaneously embraced and disavowed' (2).
Patrick White’s The Vivisector : Memoirs of Many in One – Who is Hurtle Duffield? Jane Frugtneit , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 1 no. 1 2009; 'On many occasions Patrick White professed a love of cooking. As acclaimed author he gained universal fame, and remains the only Australian writer to have won the Nobel Prize for literature. Both cooking and writing are creative processes and this essay draws parallels between the creative process, the digestive process, defecation and excrement. Of course, defecation is a natural bodily function resulting from food consumption and without food the body wouldn't survive. Syllogistically, without the corporeal there is no mind and without either body or mind there is no identity. In their introduction to Culture and Waste Gay Hawkins and Stephen Muecke contend that "expelling and discarding is more than biological necessity - it is fundamental to the ordering of the self" (Muecke 2003, xiii). Therefore, taken in the context of the biological and ontological duality of expulsion, I contend that food, in its many guises, is inextricably linked to identity. (Author's abstract)
Patrick White : (Auto) Biography - A Veiled Confession? Jessica Geva , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 26 no. 1 2012; (p. 19-25) '...White's recourse to two particular autobiographical labels and modes (self-portrait and memoir) requires an appreciation of the complexity of these various models of life writing. In this essay, however, I shall be primarily concerned with White's technology of foreclosure of the confessional option.' (From author's introduction)
Patrick White : A Centenary Tribute Neil Armfield , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 71 no. 2 2012; (p. 18-28)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (77)
Last amended 2 Nov 2024 10:29:30
Subjects:
  • Bush,
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    Australia,
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  • c
    Greece,
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    Western Europe, Europe,
  • Urban,
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