A journey with the Vivisector

This all started in a convoluted way a few months back, and it ends today with a book summary from me. It began with a ploy that has no doubt been going on forever; someone wanted to setup some experts for a fall, and make them look ridiculous to the public. Call it the Tall Poppy syndrome or the flattening of societal tiers in general that seems to be going on nowdays – no-one is beyond challenge. I suspect we all fear that our bluff will sometime be called in our area of interest – for me it would be beer or wine styles – a blind tasting is a slightly scary prospect! In the book world, the latest victims were in January this year in the U.K, when someone tried it on a bunch of publishers and then again in Oz a few months later. The Australian newspaper picked a chapter from the revered 1973 Nobel Prize-winner Patrick White’s The Eye of the Storm and submitted it to a bunch of publishers under the guise of a new writer Wraith Picket. Predictably, it was unanimously rejected. Apart from the storm of protest about it being a cheap stunt and discussions about how writing has changed, and what publishers want and sell nowdays, some folks on Sarsparilla began wondering why no-one ever read any Patrick White anymore – and formed a readers group for his books, which I joined, having read only one of his works previously (The Tree of Man last year). In short order there was an online vote, and I found myself sizing up yellowed five buck copies of 1970’s The Vivisector in the musty basement of an Elizabeth Street bookseller in September.
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As for the book itself, I finished it two days ago, and it was a bit of a relief in some ways because so much of the second half was a tortured journey of an ageing artist that it exhausted me. But the genius of the writing and wordplay in parts was astounding. I can’t remember being so blown away before by simple phrases and nuances as I did in this book. It sounds like a wanky afterthought, but I should have marked up relevant sections for further rereading or requoting. I’m picking it up and flicking through it now and all sorts of warm memories are flooding back as the troubled, searching life of artist Hurtle Duffield returns to me. I’ve read a few of the other reader’s blog posts about the book, and they do it very elegantly, I’m going to be crude and quick. White writes about the life of a man who indulges his need to create art to the point where all of his relationships suffer as a result. He uses people (in particular girlfriends) for his inspiration and at times cruelly vivisects them on canvas. He becomes very famous and his works sell well but is largely unconcerned about the monetary and status gains this brings. He has a sexual and artistic relationship with a young girl, who he recognises is the love of his life, but by then she is an acclaimed pianist, and they resort to loving letters from afar. In the last few disorientating, scattergun chapters, he seems to use his impending death as the final inspiration for his magnum opus, and paints a work depicting god in a brilliant indigo colour. There seems to be so many symbols and themes in this book that are linked to the politics of the time and the suffering of the artist, that I feel out of my depth in identifying or discussing them. Some of the points made are lengthy and don’t contribute well to the story (i.e the tangential trip to Greece, and the mysterious Mrs. Volkov being revealed – I still don’t know what the significance of that was) and profound statements are made by unlikely characters. I get the sense that White specialised in making complicated, worldly stories and then would muddy up the waters for flavour, so is anyone ever going to work it all out? I doubt it. I give it 4 stars and hope that someone can be arsed writing up a Wikipedia entry for it.