13. The Eye of the Storm: but what is the storm?
13. The Eye of the Storm: but what is the storm?
A short answer and a long one to a tricky question.
The Eye of the Storm: but what is the storm?
It sounds easy; the storm is a tropical cyclone, it hits ‘Brumby Island’ off the coast of Queensland, destroying the house where Elizabeth Hunter is a guest. She shelters in a wine cellar the owners have dug in the sand, she shifts a row of bottles and lies on top of the racks until the storm blows over. Then she comes out …
The long answer involves studying the techniques of Patrick White, and these, as we will see, can hardly be separated from the personality, the man, and this isn’t easy, because if White feels free to treat his readers in ways that suit his moods, we, the readers, will have a range of reactions, some of them reactions we have previously thought unsuitable for literature.
Literature? It’s not the same as ‘writing’, is it, or ‘stories’. It’s …
It’s …
Well, what is it, this literature? Before attempting an answer, bear in mind that if you’re good enough at producing the stuff, you may be awarded a Nobel Prize, and Patrick White, who dearly wanted the honour, was awarded it in 1973, for his life’s work, really, but The Eye of the Storm in particular. What is the storm that gives the book its title? Yes, it’s a tropical cyclone, it hits Brumby Island, et cetera … but if the eye of the storm is its centre, then the storm, too, must be central because it gives the book its title. Name. Identity. Its guide to the meaning of what’s contained therein. [read more]
Introduction:
In 1981 Patrick White published an autobiographical book called Flaws in the Glass; the Melbourne Age commissioned two reviews, one of them from Hal Porter, who said, among many things unflattering to ‘Mr White’:
Writers of my sort can be said not so much to read as to examine another writer’s work rather as one car freak examines the vehicle and driving of another car freak. One says, “Splendid vehicle! Superb driving!” Or, “Nice vehicle! Ghastly driving!” Or, “Can’t stand that kind of cumbersomely pretentious vehicle! And what bewildering and erratic driving!”
Hal confesses that the third attitude is his to the novels and plays of ‘Mr White’. I will say no more at this point about Mr White or Mr Porter, but I quote this comparison of writer and car freak because in the essays that follow I am the freak who comments on others of his kind. I know I can’t see my essays as others will see them but I imagine some readers accusing me of many things, and others, well trained, perhaps, in one or another school of literary or social criticism, who will think my observations no more than shallow or ignorant. To such people I can only say that these essays offer whatever it is that a fellow-writer can offer, and don’t pretend to offer anything else.
