Voss
Review of novel by Patrick White
With verbal magic, White creates an entire world, with living memorable characters and events that you experience with all your senses.
Consider Voss himself, a would-be explorer of the interior of Australia in the mid-19th century —
“All that was external to himself he mistrusted, and was happiest in silence which is immeasurable, like distance, and the potentialities of self. p. 25
“‘Mr. Voss,’ he said, with no suggestion of criticism, ‘you have a contempt for God, because He is not in your own image.’” p. 42
“… he never allowed himself the luxury of other people’s strength, preferring the illusion of his own.” p. 63
“Alone, he and the blacks would have communicated with one another by skin and silence, just as dust is not impenetrable and the message of sticks can be interpreted after hours of intimacy.” p. 163
Here are examples of how he can vividly evoke a scene —
“Distantly already the barking of strange dogs ws going off like pop-guns, and the dogs of Jildra had begun to whine and to bite at one another’s shoulders, to express their joy and solidarity.
… The bullocks groaned to a stop and were turning up their eyes, dilating their nostrils, and, to the last, resisting the heavy yokes with their necks. p. 177
“… Voss did break the seal of Miss Trevelyan’s letter, and was hunching himself, and spreading and smoothing the paper, as if it had been so crumpled, he must induce it physically to deliver up its text.” p. 178
“Dew was clogging the landscape. Spiders had sewn the bushes together. And then there were those last, intolerably melancholy stars, that cling to a white sky, and will not b put out except by force.” p. 187
“Prospective saints, he decided, would have fought over such an opportunity, for green and brown, of muck, and slime, and uncontrolled feces, and the bottomless stomach of nausea, are the true colors of hell.” p. 263
He also sprinkles the text with well-stated insights into human nature —
“The prospect of a return to sanity had brought out the streak of madness that is hidden in all men.” p. 338
“‘Dying is creation. The body creates fresh forms, the soul inspires by its manner of leaving the body and passes into other souls.’” p. 353
“…the soul is elliptical in shape.” p. 379
“… if you live and suffer long enough in a place, you do not leave it altogether. Your spirit is still there.” p. 434
“‘Come, come. If we are not certain of the fact, how is it possible to give the answers?’
“‘The air will tell us,’ Miss Trevelyan said.” p. 440
