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A review by brynhammond
A Fringe of Leaves by Patrick White
DNF 65%.
I am not continuing past the cannibal scenes. It's my first Patrick White and I am an instant convert to his writing. But I won't read his lurid inventions about Australia's First Nations. See this article:
https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/2012/06/castaways-convicts-and-cannibals-patrick-whites-a-fringe-of-leaves/
'We certainly cannot accept the licence White takes with Indigenous Australia when we remember that this book was published one year after Gough Whitlam, of whom the author was a public champion, famously poured earth into the hands of Vincent Lingiari.'
From 5* to 1* as soon as she was 'captured by savages'. I was liking the adventure plot done in White's highly-styled language, and the shipwreck (about 50 pages of it) was tremendous fun: 'literary' sensibility meets the excitement often abandoned to genre. However, he failed to extend his literary imagination to his Indigenous people, and resorted to the worse part of sensation fiction. It sounds as if White should have known better.
I am not continuing past the cannibal scenes. It's my first Patrick White and I am an instant convert to his writing. But I won't read his lurid inventions about Australia's First Nations. See this article:
https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/2012/06/castaways-convicts-and-cannibals-patrick-whites-a-fringe-of-leaves/
'We certainly cannot accept the licence White takes with Indigenous Australia when we remember that this book was published one year after Gough Whitlam, of whom the author was a public champion, famously poured earth into the hands of Vincent Lingiari.'
From 5* to 1* as soon as she was 'captured by savages'. I was liking the adventure plot done in White's highly-styled language, and the shipwreck (about 50 pages of it) was tremendous fun: 'literary' sensibility meets the excitement often abandoned to genre. However, he failed to extend his literary imagination to his Indigenous people, and resorted to the worse part of sensation fiction. It sounds as if White should have known better.