Two children are brought to a wild garden on the shores of Sydney Harbour to shelter from the Second World War. The boy''s mother has died in the Blitz. The girl is the daughter of a Sydney woman and a Communist executed in a Greek prison. In wartime Australia, these two children form an extraordinary bond as they negotiate the dangers of life as strangers abandoned on the far side of the world.Patrick White died before his novel could be completed, leaving behind a masterpiece in the making.
Happy Valley is Patrick Whites first novel, published in London in 1939 when White was twenty-seven. It was praised by, among others, Graham Greene and Elizabeth Bowen, and won the Australian Literature Gold Medal in 1941, but, fearing that he had libelled one of the families portrayed in the novel, White did not allow the novel to be republished in English in his lifetime.Happy Valley is a place of dreams and secrets, of snow and ice and wind. In this remote little town, perched in its landscape of desolate beauty, everybody has a story to tell about loss and longing and loneliness, about their passion to escape. I must get away, thinks Dr Oliver Halliday, thinks Alys Browne, thinks Sidney Furlow. But Happy Valley is not a place that can be easily left, and Whites vivid characters, with their distinctive voices, move bit by bit towards sorrow and acceptance.
A complex novel by one of Australia''s best-known writer. Hurtle Duffield is a painter who dissects the weaknesses of all those who form part of his long life. All are the victims of his art, with their weaknesses exposed, including the deformity of his sister and the illusions of his mistress. With the advent of an egocentric adolescent, however, he experiences a different, deeper, more troubled emotion. The author has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. First printed in the UK in 1970
"Como describe J. M. Coetzee en la introducción del presente libro, Patrick White era crítico de la sociedad australiana y satirizaba muchos aspectos de ella, en particular su hostilidad a la vida intelectual.En un nivel, Las esferas del mandala es una historia perfectamente realista sobre la vida intima de dos hermanos de estructura psicologica muy diferente, hijos de inmigrantes britanicos que nunca se integran en Australia. Las esferas del mandala puede leerse como un minucioso relato del destino de un cierto tipo de familia de clase media, en el entorno social en constante evolucion de la Australia del siglo xx.En su nivel mas abstracto, Las esferas del mandala es un libro sobre la psique humana y, en la psique humana, segun lo ve White, los dos principios en guerra, llamados por algunos el consciente y el inconsciente, por otros lo masculino y lo femenino, por otros, todavia, lo humedo y lo seco, son en rigor proteiformes debido a los disfraces que pueden asumir.Gran parte de la obra de Patrick White, incluida Las esferas del mandala, se ocupa de hacer visibles las sombras que hay sobre y dentro de Australia."
Stan Parker, with only a horse and a dog for company journeys to a remote patch of land he has inherited in the Australian hills. Once the land is cleared and a rudimentary house built, he brings his wife Amy to the wilderness. Together they face lives of joy and sorrow as they struggle against the environment.
"Elizabeth Hunter, matriarca australiana ottantenne, inchiodata al letto, riceve la visita - nella sua dimora di Sydney - dei suoi due figli, entrambi di carattere debole ed entrambi spinti a riavvicinarsi alla madre dal bisogno economico: Basil, attore insignito del titolo di baronetto, e Dorothy, che ha sposato un principe francese, trasferitisi molti anni prima in Europa. Mentre le trame dei figli, dell''avvocato, delle infermiere continuano a sollecitare la sua cattiveria e la sua furbizia, Elizabeth Hunter rievoca la sua vita matrimoniale, fatta di adulteri e fugaci fedelta. La donna, dotata di particolare fascino e bellezza, ha sempre giocato un''unica carta, quella della sua fortissima femminilita, spinta da uno spasmodico e insaziabile bisogno d''amore. Ancora adesso, Elizabeth continua a esercitare una forte influenza su tutti: come un sole, intorno a lei il mondo continua a girare e a disporsi, sino a un ultimo colpo di coda che fara tremare tutto e tutti. "
