Cirrus@Austlit

'The oxymoron in my title, "public recluse," reprises a familiar representation of Patrick White as a reserved, even anti-social writer whose career nonetheless forced him into the public spotlight! According to Judith Wright, he had had to be "winkled out of his misanthropic shell" to attend the launch, in 1981, of the People for Nuclear Disarmament Party at which he was the star attraction? References to White as snail, mollusk, oyster or crustacean abound. Consider, for example, Barry Humphries' suggestion that Australia itself was the "irritant," the grit White needed to produce those pearls, his books. Irritability in turn was a hallmark of White's public persona, and can be found everywhere, from letters to friends to media interviews and political speechmaking.' (Introduction)