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y separately published work icon The Vivisector single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1970... 1970 The Vivisector
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

"Hurtle Duffield, a painter, is incapable of loving anything except what he paints. The men and women who court him during his long life are, above all, the victims of his art. He is the vivisector, dissecting their weaknesses with cruel precision: his sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion, and the passionate illusions of his mistress Hero Pavloussi.

It is only when Hurtle meets an egocentric adolescent whom he sees as his spiritual child does he experience a deeper, more treacherous emotion in this tour de force of sexual and psychological menace that sheds brutally honest light on the creative experience."

Source: Penguin Books Australia.

Notes

  • Dedication: For Cynthia and Sidney Nolan.
  • Epigraph: 'As I see it, painting and religious experience are the same thing, and what we are all searching for is the understanding and realisation of infinity.' - Ben Nicholson

    Cruelty has a Human Heart,/ And Jealousy a Human Face; /Terror the Human Form Divine,/ And Secrecy the Human Dress./ The Human Dress is forged in Iron,/ The Human Form a fiery Forge,/ The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,/ The Human Heart its hungry Gorge. -William Blake

    They love truth when it reveals itself, and they hate it when it reveals themselves. -Saint Augustine

    He becomes beyond all others the great Invalid, the great Criminal, the great Accursed One - and the Supreme Knower. For he reaches the unknown. -Rimbaud

Affiliation Notes

  • Writing Disability in Australia:

    See C.A. Cranston's dissertation 'Deformity as Device in the Twentieth-century Australian Novel'.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Jonathan Cape ,
      1970 .
      image of person or book cover 5806596029763182429.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 642p.
      Note/s:
      • Published in October 1970.
      ISBN: 0140036938
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Viking ,
      1970 .
      Extent: 567p.
      Reprinted: 1973
      Note/s:
      • Published in July 1970.
    • Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin ,
      1973 .
      image of person or book cover 8162892323843239407.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 616p.
      Note/s:
      • Reprinted eight times by 1992, including an 'Australian Issue' in 1973.
      ISBN: 0140036938
      Series: Penguin Modern Classics series - publisher
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Avon Books ,
      1975 .
      Extent: 603p.
      ISBN: 0380003244
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Vintage UK ,
      1994 .
      image of person or book cover 7210549307903760193.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 616p.
      ISBN: 09932461X
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 2011 .
      Extent: 1v.p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 1 February 2011.
      • A CCV eBook.
      ISBN: 9781446434864 (ebk.)
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Random House Australia , 2012 .
      image of person or book cover 2379261780135776505.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 601p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 May 2012
      ISBN: 9781742755755 (hbk.)
Alternative title: Malaren: roman
Language: Swedish
    • Stockholm,
      c
      Sweden,
      c
      Scandinavia, Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Bonniers ,
      1970 .
      Extent: 547p.
      ISBN: 9100389595

Other Formats

Works about this Work

The Zwergroman : Literary Dwarfs under the Australian Gaze C. A. Cranston , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , vol. 36 no. 1 2023; (p. 78-93)

'Ubiquitous, highly visible, nonspecific to geography, history, race, or sex, dwarfism's connection with Australia's mythic and literary histories is remarkable enough to suggest here that it occupy its own subgenre in literature, the zwergroman (m). Australia's branding as the "Antipodes" geographically recalls its colonial past; mythographically the imaginative configuration was as an underworld of opposites ruled by the diminutive King of the Antipodes. Thus, the zwergroman is frequently fashioned from Celtic myths of the colonizing power along with the shaping power of colonial processes. In addition to introducing the conventions of the zwergroman and demonstrating the significance of dwarf characters to Australia's pre- and postcolonial narratives, this article gradually introduces concepts from disability studies (through the scholarly work of Erin Pritchard, David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder, and others) by examining representations and cultural meanings imposed on dwarf characters prior to the counter histories of twenty-first-century short-statured scholars whose demand for personhood required an engagement with subjective and experiential realities. The novels discussed (1970–94) represent a cluster of dwarf-centric novels by notable writers, all able-bodied at the time of writing (excepting Patrick White). They include C. J. Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously (1978; filmed 1982); James McQueen, Hook's Mountain (1982); Ruth Park, Swords and Crowns and Rings (1977); Peter Carey, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994); and Patrick White, The Vivisector (1970).' (Publication abstract)

Australia in Three Books Tim Dunlop , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , September / Spring vol. 80 no. 3 2021; (p. 18-21)

— Review of The Vivisector Patrick White , 1970 single work novel ; Dark Places of the Heart Christina Stead , 1966 single work novel ; Mullumbimby Melissa Lucashenko , 2013 single work novel
Camera, Colony, Künstlerroman : Photography in Three Australian Novels Lucy Van , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 42 no. 1 2018; (p. 116-130)
The Boredom and Futility of War in Patrick White's Fiction Annalisa Pes , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Le Simplegadi , April no. 15 2016; (p. 65-73)
This article investigates the representation of war in terms of uselessness and waste in the fiction of Patrick White, with a particular emphasis on the short story “After Alep”, written in 1945 when the writer was enrolled in the RAF as an Intelligence Officer. By analysing the story in the light of White’s approach to the war as to “the most horrifying and wasteful period” of his life (Marr 1992: 493), the article attempts to demonstrate how the narrative devices used by White contribute to demythologize the rhetoric of the war and of war heroes in a way that may be instrumental in conveying a message of peace out of the ultimate sense of futility transmitted by any war.
The Vivisector : A Rewritten Pygmalion Story of Modern Tragedy Wu Baokang , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Oceanic Literary Studies , no. 2 2015; (p. 1-13)
'The Pygmalion story in Metamorphosis by Roman poet Ovid originates from the ancient Greek mythology, reflecting poet's affirmation and eulogy of the value and significance of this life while Bernard Shaw's namesake comedy Pygmalion emphasizes the environmental and educational influence on the formation of perfect personality, evident of bourgeois values of freedom, equality and independence. Roman poet Ovid's Pygmalion story and Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, both of which end in comedy, maintain an optimistic outlook towards the making of a perfect human being. But Patrick White's The Vivisector, which is in fact a Pygmalion story rewritten as a modern tragedy, presents the life of a superman artist, Hurtle Duffield, whose vivisection of his models leads him not only to a success in art but also to the deconstruction and destruction of real human life. The story is indicative of a tragic failure on Hurtle's effort to reshape and reorder the chaotic modern world as well as an existential dilemma of modern man who vainly seeks to establish a spiritual homeland. (1-2)
Time for the Timeless Marc McEvoy , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 9 January 2012; (p. 8-9)

— Review of The Vivisector Patrick White , 1970 single work novel ; Autumn Laing Alex Miller , 2011 single work novel ; The Slap Christos Tsiolkas , 2008 single work novel ; Ransom David Malouf , 2009 single work novel ; Caleb's Crossing : A Novel Geraldine Brooks , 2011 single work novel ; Bereft Chris Womersley , 2010 single work novel ; Cloudstreet Tim Winton , 1991 single work novel ; That Deadman Dance Kim Scott , 2010 single work novel ; The Secret River Kate Grenville , 2005 single work novel ; The Lieutenant Kate Grenville , 2008 single work novel ; Sarah Thornhill Kate Grenville , 2011 single work novel ; The Ballad of Desmond Kale Roger McDonald , 2005 single work novel ; Mr Darwin's Shooter Roger McDonald , 1998 single work novel
Fiction Chronicle Leon Cantrell , 1971 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , Autumn vol. 30 no. 1 1971; (p. 125, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139)

— Review of Let's Hear It for Prendergast : A Novel Barry Oakley , 1970 single work novel ; The Age of Death William Marshall , 1970 single work novel ; Clean Straw for Nothing : A Novel George Johnston , 1969 single work novel ; A Salute to the Great McCarthy Barry Oakley , 1970 single work novel ; The Tea-Time of Love : The Clarification of Miss Stilby Martin Boyd , 1969 single work ; The Survivor Thomas Keneally , 1969 single work novel ; The Vivisector Patrick White , 1970 single work novel
[Review] The Vivisector John Beston , 1970 single work review
— Appears in: Westerly , December no. 4 1970; (p. 58-61)

— Review of The Vivisector Patrick White , 1970 single work novel
Search for Truth John McLaren , 1970 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , Summer (1970-1971) no. 46 1970; (p. 37-38)

— Review of The Vivisector Patrick White , 1970 single work novel
[Review] The Vivisector John Barbour , 1970 single work review
— Appears in: Nation , 28 November 1970; (p. 21-22)

— Review of The Vivisector Patrick White , 1970 single work novel
Patrick White's Aesthetic Noel Macainsh , 1984 single work criticism
— Appears in: LiNQ , [Triple Issue] vol. 12 no. 1-3 1984; (p. 55-70) The Pathos of Distance 1992; (p. 304-319)
Patrick White and the Aesthetics of Death Noel Macainsh , 1987 single work criticism
— Appears in: LiNQ , vol. 15 no. 2 1987; (p. 2-14) The Pathos of Distance 1992; (p. 290-303)
Translating Patrick White's Novels Voss and The Vivisector into Greek Vrasidas Karalis , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2003; (p. 133-141)
Patrick White: An International Perspective John Colmer , 1991 single work criticism
— Appears in: Breaking Circles 1991; (p. 182-196)
Some Sources for the Construction of Hurtle Duffield in The Vivisector Rodney Stenning Edgecombe , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 17 no. 2 2003; (p. 107-109)
Examines the similarities between the Belgain artist James Ensor and White's depiction of the fictional character, Hurtle Duffield, in his novel The Vivisector
Last amended 5 Sep 2022 12:09:03
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