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‘One of the epigraphs to The Vivisector is a quotation from the English painter Ben Nicholson. It expresses a major theme in White's fiction for it expresses the idea that both the artist and the mystic arc searching for "the understanding and realisation of infinity." Several of White's characters attempt to reach or reveal the Infinite in their lived lives or artistic creations. Even in his first published short story, "The Twitching Colonel", there are suggestions of a yearning for a self beyond the conscious self. The Colonel longs to transcend the ephemeral: "I shall strip myself of the onion-folds of prejudice, till standing naked though conscious I sec myself complete or else be consumed like the Hindu conjurer who is translated into space." (TC. 602-609) Theodora Goodman in The Aunt's Story reaches a heightened awareness where "light and silence ate into the hard, resisting barriers of reason, hinting at some ultimate moment of clear vision" (VIV. 290). Stan Parker's lifetime search in The Tree of Man ends with a vision "that One, and no other figure, is the answer to all sums." (TM. 497) Voss believes that in this "disturbing country" ... it is possible more easily to discard the inessential and to attempt the infinite." (V. 38) ’ (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 7 Jun 2017 12:08:26
110-124
Patrick White : The Quest of the Artist
Subjects:
- Happy Valley : A Novel 1939 single work novel
- The Aunt's Story 1948 single work novel
- The Tree of Man 1955 single work novel
- Voss : A Novel 1957 single work novel
- Riders in the Chariot 1961 single work novel
- The Vivisector 1970 single work novel
- The Prodigal Son 1958 single work prose
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