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The Hanging Garden (2013)

by Patrick White(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1250028523 (ISBN13: 9781250028525)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Picador

review 1: A "mood painting" of sorts. We are in the thoughts and sensory experience of an orphaned girl brought to Australia in the middle of WWII. She stays in a foster home where the only other child is an orphaned boy her age from England. The novel does something interesting with point of view: first, second and third person are used and sometimes fluidly run together. The girl is an alien--half Australian, half Greek--who feels alone, ignored, without compass and meaning in this strange new world. Her interior life is what's important and she keeps it treasured and hidden. White describes things elliptically, using language in a painterly way. It's like a tone poem. He died before he could finish the book, though the ending works by itself. He takes seriously his main character... more's thoughts and feelings; in fact, this is the reason for the book. The effect is like sunlight coming into a white room.
review 2: Intriguing fragment of an unfinished novel published posthumously, but sufficient to hold together. More like a novella. This was my first Patrick White - challenging grammar but extraordinary language and insights into relationship-s and characters. May prompt me to read more White. Hearing David Marr (White's biographer)speak about his life at the recent BWF along with photographs and portraits from a lifetime of vanity brought added richness. less

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