Voss

Patrick White: Voss

Voss

A re-reading. I thought it was magnificent 30 years ago, and I still do. To my surprise. I'd remembered it as mad-explorer-in-the-desert, which it is, but it's also a comedy of manners, an attempt at in-depth psychologising - seriously, not superficially; an exploration of

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the meaning of christianity and of aboriginal 'magic', and the writing is very very good: precise, with the sense that White has carefully chosen every word, yet not laboured, and, for a serious/'literary' work, very readable.

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Breathtakingly, frighteningly good. Sentence after sentence raised the hairs on the back of my neck. It's like Faulkner with edges, almost: brisk sentences, carefully contained phrases, none of Faulkner's rambling but the same feeling that language is being used in a completely new way.

Read this!

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Read it now!

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It took three false starts and some grim determinaton to finally finish this book. I kept at it because it was a prize winner and my wish is to read all of the Miles Franklin Award winners eventually.
I was continually repulsed by the main protagonist. Voss was such a perverse and conradictory man.

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His indiscriminate and easy hatred towards all of his fellow men was so predictable and petty. I could not understand why after one letter from him (and a few brief social encounters), Laura Trevelyan, would proceed to fall in love with such a despicable man. She was well aware of his personality, being a very intelligent woman and an astute reader of character. More so I was painfully sorry for the misguided loyalty and love that he inpsired in others (which he punished them for eventually). The writing is well done (once I could get past the revulsion I felt for Voss). This is not a story about the vast panoramas of Australia or its beauty... instead this story is carried along by the powerful and somewhat "woo woo" personalities of the characters. Everyone with their own secret passions and grievances supported this story to it's inevitable (and very apt) conclusion. It couldn't have happened any other way. This is one of those stories where the saying 'Karma is a bitch' can so appropriately be applied.
I gave this book five stars because it is a well written book and I do look forward to reading more from this author. Even though I really hated the character Voss, I can appreciate how evocative the writing was. I hope Patrick White's other books will not be as difficult as this book was to read, though in the end, I can see the reward in such hard work.

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I found Voss by Patrick White to be a difficult read. While I was expecting a descriptive book about an expedition to cross the Australian continent east to west, I found myself reading a book whose focus was very much on two characters, that of German explorer, Voss, and Laura, the niece of his

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benefactor. We travel with Voss who seems to be on a journey of self-discovery, and explore the complex relationship between the two main characters. I didn’t like or understand either of the main characters, finding Voss to be stubborn, misanthropic and possessing a deep anger inside himself. Laura seemed to be self-centered, cold and remote. Yet we are asked to believe in a powerful, almost physic connection between the two.

Due to the dense, yet poetic language I found that many sentences had to be re-read numerous times in order to decipher. I was also somewhat off-put by the author’s unsympathetic treatment of the aborigines. I am sure that he used well recognized terms of the day to describe them, but he also did nothing to offset this colonial attitude with a more modern view. The book swerves between the hardships, dangers and eccentricities of the men on the expedition and the petty details of colonial society, and Laura’s perceptions of disaster.

Voss is most certainly brilliant, finely crafted and eloquent yet readers beware, it is also overly long, ponderous and requires a lot of reading patience. Unfortunately my best memory of Voss will be how happy I was to reach the end of this lengthy novel.

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Vibes of [Heart of Darkness] in this story of the exploration of the interior of Australia during colonial times.

I had a look over all my reviews and realised that I'd only reviewed books that, in general, I liked. So i decided then and there for a bit of balance to review a book I really, really loathed. It took all of 5 seconds to recall the most despised book its ever my misfortune to read. This dismal bit

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of dreck was the subject of my major essay in 3rd year Comparative History and Literature (not my choice I assure you) way back in the mid-80s, and boy did I suffer in reading it. In fact reading it launched me into a major depression which wrecked the last months of my degree and still sends shudders through me when I think about it. I've never had such a visceral sense of loathing towards a book before or since, and of course once I discovered the character of the author, it wasnt hard to work out why. What a miserable excuse for a human being White was. He may be accounted as one of the great writers of the 20th century, but delving into his biography is like taking a glass-bottom boat ride through a sewer. And this is the result of that character. is a book by somone who hates the human race and who's deepest, heartfelt wish is that people suffer through reading his works. It gets half a star because its in English and therefore legible. That's all.

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I have mixed feelings about this book. I can't say I really liked it -- probably because I really couldn't identify with any of the characters. Yet the writing was beautiful, and the themes were universal and well described. Really, the story is about human weaknesses and ignorance of our real

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selves.At the most obvious level it's about Voss's journey into the unexplored territory of the interior of Australia - but of course it's equally a journey into the unknown territory of his own self, one that's all the more important because he's so hopelessly out of touch with himself -and with other human beings.

I found it, at times, melodramatic. The whole relationship between Laura and Voss is based on two short meetings and one or two letters, yet each is obsessed with the other. Other times, it was so real -- there is a scene involving a Mrs. Asbold and Laura that really touched me.

An Australian friend told me that the book also deals with themes of Australia's origins as a convict settlement and British colony, and the search to establish an Australian identity outside of this; the settlers' very uneasy relationship with indigenous peoples and extremely poor treatment of them (both of which continue today), and the uncertain relationship with the Australian countryside (or bush or outback) - as White shows, the Australian landscape was seen as hostile, unpleasant, dangerous and frightening - and many still see it as such, never venturing very far inland.

Still, I found it a difficult read -- but glad I persevered.

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Apparently White listened repeatedly to Alban Berg's violin concerto while composing Voss. I was made aware of this about half way through. I lazily experimented but found myself engulfed in the novel's emotional torrents. Maybe my ears popped, but I wasn't aware of the music.

Voss is a story of

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volition. It is sun-baked and agonizing. Quickly thereafter I bought a half dozen of White's other works but Voss remains the only one I've finished.

Not to elaborate but Voss is about curiosity and will. Burr is about avarice.

File this one under day-after-review. A night of excess left the world aslant today. Thinking about Voss helps.

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File under: novels whose eponymous character is not the most interesting character in the book. Right alongside 'Anna Karenina,' 'Lila,' 'Moby Dick,' and the central book in this tradition, 'Frankenstein.'

Anyway, this Patrick White novel, you will be surprised to learn, is about the internal

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states of a small number of characters, the heroes among whom don't fit in, the villains among whom fit in very well. The heroes are mystics and idealists, gazing longingly through this (natural) world at the forms; the villains are fixated on this (human) world.

Other White books with the same idea focus on one character (Vivisector), three characters (Riders in the Chariot), or three-characters-in-one (Twyborn Affair). Voss has two, which makes it unique among those I remember reading, though I suspect Tree of Man has two, and I think that's true also of The Solid Mandala, which I 'read' at uni and don't remember at all.

Despite the predictability, and his astonishing limitations (he's like Cormac McCarthy, except whereas McCarthy is *all* externality, White is all internality; I doubt he ever wrote a scene with more than two people in it without feeling uncomfortable, or satirical) White finds a way to make his work work. "Voss" works because Voss, an explorer, has an obvious narrative to hold it together, so it feels less flabby than "Riders". It helps that the narrative is historically based (Leichardt, which I've probably spelt wrong), and so White can focus on what he does well, i.e., psychology, sentences and mysticism.

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At times I thought, "Laura Trevelyan and the explorer, Voss, demonstrate aspects of Patrick White." They didn't strike me as independent characters, but as vehicles for White's ideas. Le Mesurier's journal performed a similar function.

The severe and intelligent Laura Trevelyan has recently arrived

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from England to live with her aunt and uncle, the Bonners, and their daughter Belle. Mr Bonner is a rich draper from a humble background, a kind and vulgar man who counts the cost of everything, despite his generosity. Mrs Bonner and her daughter Belle are affectionate, empty-headed women who cannot understand Laura, but recognise her superior qualities.

Bonner is financing an expedition led by the German explorer, Voss, who meets Laura when he arrives one Sunday while his backer is in church. Voss and Laura meet again at a celebratory dinner and have an intensely spiritual conversation in the garden. Voss has no time for humility; he believes in his own strength. To Laura, it seems that Voss is setting himself above God, which will lead to his destruction. She promises to pray for him, to save him. She and Voss have a mystical, spiritual connection. They appear to one another in dreams, and at times of crisis.

Voss heads off into the unknown with eight men: Palfreyman, the diffident ornithologist, who is trying to expiate his sins by devoting himself to caring for his companions; Judd, the ex-convict, a strong and capable man, humbled by illiteracy; Frank Le Mesurier, an intellectual who keeps a journal; Harry Robarts, an unintelligent, obliging, well-meaning giant of a man who needs a leader; Turner, an evil-minded drunk; Angus, a rich squatter; Dugald, an old aboriginal man; Jackie, a young aboriginal man. They are an ill-assorted group, its members imposed on Voss by well-meaning, ignorant businessmen in Sydney. The men take with them, as well as food and instruments, a herd of cattle, cattle dogs, a flock of sheep and a herd of goats. The animals are to provide food for a journey that may take years, but they make progress slow and complicated.

The book cycles between the expedition and the people back in Sydney. The harsh conditions of the expedition, the lack of water, the desperation of the men, contrast with the frivolity of social life in Sydney. It is a contrast between the wide-open mystery of the country and the pettiness of the city; the materialism of the city dwellers with the vision of Voss.

I'm glad I read Voss. I enjoyed it for its language, the idiosyncratic phrases that are perfect; the descriptions of the characters, particularly the recognisable people in Sydney, with their pettiness and hypocrisy, generosity and kindness, their well-meaning stupidity, their pomposity and obtuseness. I was less engaged by the religious symbolism, the sacrilegious arrogance of Voss, his spiritual communion with Laura. I question the validity of Jackie's action in the final chapters.

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