Review of A Tragic Vision: The Novels of Patrick White by A.M. McCulloch

Abstract

Fronting up to read this book required resolution. Would it all turn out to be like its first paragraph? Much of it was, I found. But we can come back to that. I pushed through the jungle. If I hadn't promised to, perhaps I might have put it down. At the end I didn't feel I had learned a great deal that was new to me: perhaps I knew it in a new way. I am not sure. Anybody can exercise and formulate his own private speculations about the way a writer's mind works. What may be interesting to discover is perhaps not so much what the critic (he or she) says or thinks, but the degree of personal involvement that he (she) displays as she covers the course.