Patrick White: Twybom Moments of Grace

Abstract

By the   end of the 1970s it was clear that critics were deeply divided over the   nature of Patrick White's work and his achievement. At that time, I attempted   to identify their fundamental differences by asking whether White was to be   seen as a traditional novelist with a religious or theosophical view of life,   or as a sophisticated, ironical modern-mistrustful of language and sceptical   of ever being able to express what might lie beyond words?1