- Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (25 Mar 1993)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140186239
- ISBN-13: 978-0140186239
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,677,955 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Voss
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Set in 19th-century Australia, this is the story of the secret passion between an explorer and a young orphan. Although they have met only a few times, Voss and Laura are joined by overwhelming, obsessive feelings for one another.
About the Author
Patrick White was born in England in 1912; and taken to Australia (where his father owned a sheep farm) when he was six months old, but educated in England, at Cheltenham College and King's College, Cambridge. He settled in London, where he wrote several unpublished novels, then served in the RAF during the war; he returned after the war to Australia.
He became the most considerable figure in modern Australian literature, awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1973. The great poet of Australian landscape, he has turned its vast empty spaces into great mythic landscapes of the soul. His position as man of letters was controversial, provoked by his acerbic, unpredictable public statements and his belief that it is eccentric individuals who offer the only hope of salvation. Technically brilliant, he is one modern novelist to whom the oft-abused epithet 'visionary' can safely be applied. He died in September 1990.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This epic about a man's journey into the heart of the Australian desert and into his own heart and mind is a classic of modern literature. Johann Ulrich Voss, though he remains always just beyond the reader's grasp as a character, is as memorable as any great figure in modern literature. If Marlow and Kurtz in Heart of Darkness were one man, this would be him.
The novel is also a love story about two people who go beyond the mediocrity of their surroundings to embark on interior journeys where they learn to know themselves and unite with each other in spirit.
For 80% of the novel I was gripped, running home from college to read more and more. My only qualm would be the ending, as the tension dissipates and the last 80 pages or so peter out under the excessive Christian symbolism. But there is no way that a potential reader should be put off by this assessment
Sentence for sentence, word for word, Patrick White is as good a prose stylist as I've ever read. The phrase "tour de force" could have been invented for this book.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Voss is a story of a difficult relationship between a man`s dreams and reality, in which they cannot be fulfilled. Detailed descriptions of colonial life in Sydney and lirycal depictions of the outback serve merely as a background to an investigation into human nature. White analyses the feelings and motivations of his characters with wisdom and psychological insight, but beneath the veneer of great style lies a fundamental question of belonging. The characters` lives revolve around the theme of inadequacy - being an outcast,a foreigner,a troubled spirit. The author indicates the difficulty of a human condition, where not only do we have to face the socially created system of restraints, but also to accept our weakness to the forces of nature. White`s novel is a rewarding piece of literature, depicting the power of nature and human instincts over reason and strict moral rules with great wit and compassion towards our imperfections. A must.
8 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Given the recent controversy over the readability of literary prize-winning books, and the make-up of juries, perhaps I am not surprised that I found this novel difficult to get into. Indeed I gave up after 113 pages. I was much looking forward to reading about colonial Australia, but this much into the book I found I was none the wiser. Moreover, I was intensely irritated both by the fact that every slightest physical gesture is interpreted as Deeply Meaningful, and by the sheer number of adjectives per noun. No doubt this makes me a very superficial reader, but may others like me be warned.
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