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Palgrave Macmillan

Patrick White's Fiction

The Paradox of Fortunate Failure

  • Book
  • © 1986

Overview

Authors:
  1. Carolyn Bliss
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Part of the book series: Studies in 20th Century Literature (STCL)

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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Australia: the Mystique of Failure

    • Carolyn Bliss
    Pages 1-14

  3. The Early Works: Anatomy of Failure

    • Carolyn Bliss
    Pages 15-59

  4. The Major Phase: the Mystery of Failure

    • Carolyn Bliss
    Pages 60-132

  5. The Later Works: the State of Failure

    • Carolyn Bliss
    Pages 133-183

  6. Style and Technique: the Discipline of Failure

    • Carolyn Bliss
    Pages 184-207

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 208-255
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Keywords

About this book

This study examines all eleven novels of Patrick White, the great Australian writer and Nobel Prize-winner. It begins from the observation that major characters in his novels undergo a necessary, redemptive, or facilitating failure. This failure paradoxically enables their success within the context of what White has called the 'overreaching grandeur' which circumscribes human existence. Evolution of this theme is traced through forty years of White's fiction: from his first novel, Happy Valley (1939), to his most recent work, The Twyborn Affair (1979). Comprehensive in its scope, this book is informed by a thorough knowledge of White's poetry, plays, short stories, and autobiography, as well as his novels. It is also unique in stressing that White's world view derives from a distinctly Australian experience. It thus links him to a country in which he is deeply rooted and to a heritage he continued to affirm.

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