Patrick White Centenary: The Legacy of a Prodigal Son (2016)

Cynthia vanden Driesen and Bill Ashcroft, eds. Patrick White Centenary: The Legacy of a Prodigal Son. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2014. 511 pp. US$80.40 ISBN 978-1-4438-6040=6 (Hbk) http://www.cambridgescholars.com/patrick-white-centenaryIn '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).2012 marked the centenary of Patrick White's birth. Cynthia vanden Driesen, co-editor with Bill Ashcroft of Patrick White Centenary: The Legacy of a Prodigal Son, opens her 'Introduction' to the volume by remarking on White's recurring speculation 'as to whether his books would be read after his death' (xiii). Response to the centenary attests to White's continuing influence in literary and other matters. Convenors of the 6th ASAA (Association for the Study of Australia in Asia) Conference dedicated their December 2012 gathering to Patrick White. White scholars, established and rising, national and international, delivered a series of presentations over several days. This volume features expanded versions of these talks; a few additional pieces were solicited from scholars not present at the event. The editors have divided the contributions-chapters-into five sections: 'Revaluations,' 'Genre,' 'Individual Novels,' 'Comparative Studies' and 'Socio-Political Issues.' The five sections attempt to display White in his several roles-writer-artist, individual seeking a meaningful life, social critic, concerned citizen-and to reach a fuller understanding of his art. That the essays do not fit neatly into the above categories is acknowledged by vanden Driesen, but she hopes that readers will appreciate the 'great deal of interesting variety' to be found within and across essay groups.Part I ('Revaluations') comprises nine essays ranging across White's life and works, reexamining what we know or once knew-but advising readers that White is more and does more than simple recollection might allow. Ashcroft comments that by the time of his passing, White's readership had declined. His works were 'too modernist, perhaps too literary, too transcendental, simply too hard' (222). Fresh explorations of his fiction spark renewed interest.John Barnes's essay provides a foundation for the section and the larger volume. Barnes gives a synopsis of White's life-child of a landed family, educated in London, supported by parents to live and write in England-a life which seemed destined to follow a familiar expatriate pattern. After World War II, however, White returned to Australia with Greek expatriate Manoly Lascaris, his lifelong partner, and went on to produce the literary work that made him the 'celebrity' drawing an SRO crowd at La Trobe in 1988. Barnes considers the breakthrough novels-The Aunt's Story (1948), The Tree of Man (1955) and Voss (1957)-and the ways they ruptured a developing tradition. In his oft-cited 1958 essay 'The Prodigal Son,' White discussed writing The Tree of Man, how with this book he took on the 'public responsibility of filling . . . an immense void' (13). Although Tree bears the features of the settler saga, the protagonist Stan Parker seeks what his creator yearns to do: to 'discover the extraordinary behind the ordinary' (14). Voss resembles superficially a history of exploration, but the author stresses his protagonist's inner journey as the expedition marches toward failure. To Barnes, White's subsequent novels would more overtly challenge readers and critics wanting to place him into a niche: ?White did more than any other writer to change the expectations of Australian readers and to liberate local writers from . …