Patrick White–THE VIVISECTOR
Posted in Australia, Classic Novel, Coming-of-age, Literary on Jan 9th, 2011
In his longest novel, written in 1970, Nobel Prize-winning Australian author Patrick White examines the question of an artist’s creativity, where it comes from, whether it can be controlled, and what obligations, if any, accompany it. As he traces the life of Hurtle Duffield from the age of four until his death as an elderly (and successful) avant-garde artist, we see Duffield always as somehow different from his peers. The son of a laundress and a bottle collector, Hurtle is from birth inspired, painting large images on walls as a toddler, but he recognizes at an early age that “people look down at their plates if you said something was ‘beautiful.'” To provide him with opportunities which will allow his genius to flourish, his parents sell him, when he is four years old, to the wealthy family for which his mother works. (Just click on the title to see full review.)
