Novel
The Vivisector
Patrick White · 1970
Synopsis
Hurtle Duffield is born into a poor, large family in Sydney, which hands him over as a child to the wealthy Courtneys: they have a hunchbacked daughter, Rhoda, and want to make him their heir. Alfreda Courtney demands that he call her mother; Harry, kinder, does not know how to approach him. Having become a painter, Hurtle finds in Rhoda's body his first subject, loves Nance Lightfoot, a prostitute whose forms feed his canvases, meets Olivia Davenport, the childhood friend turned patron, then Hero Pavloussi, the wife of a Greek shipowner, and the young pianist Kathy Volkov, his neighbour.
Context
The novel, written in 1968, was published in 1970 by Jonathan Cape; it is the longest of its author's books. It is dedicated to the painter Sidney Nolan, who, White denied, had served as a model; the author, who also frequented Francis Bacon, said the book was closer to him than any other. According to his biographer David Marr, the Nobel committee would have set it aside that year, shocked by one of the book's themes. In 2010 the novel was among the six titles of the Lost Man Booker of 1970. Gallimard published the French translation in 1979.
Who it is for
A long novel in English, with dense sentences and a vocabulary drawn from painting; translated into French under the title Le Vivisecteur.
Prizes and reception
According to Encyclopedia.com, a novel of the suffering, destruction and exaltation attached to the artist's vocation.