Biography 08

Dorrit Black, Wings, 1928

Early Life | London| The War | Home Again | Fame | Centennial Park | Nobel Laureate | Final Years | Legacy

“He picked us up and shook us, and we weren’t the same again.”

David Marr

It was the rare Australian indeed who did not recognise the figure of Patrick White in 1982. They may not have read his books or even be able to name one, but the 70 year old man with his beanie and glasses, arguing against corruption and the monarchy, or championing the case for Indigenous rights and nuclear disarmament, was now a permanent fixture on the national stage. A fly in the ointment to many. His book sales, too, were at a comparative height, with paperbacks adorning bookshelves around the Commonwealth, and he featured on numerous university courses. Even if people weren’t reading White, his presence reminded them that there was such a thing as an Australian literature, and that books written in and about the country could be the equal of those from overseas. The “cultural cringe” which still afflicted most Australians was at last being challenged from within.

Although he spoke on numerous causes, the one closest to White’s heart in the early 1980s was nuclear disarmament. In the years between the incidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and with the Cold War at a new height, he tapped into a vein of worldwide concern. White penned an open letter to three major world leaders – Reagan, Thatcher, and Mitterand – which he attempted to place in leading newspapers in their respective countries, although none allowed him the space. In 1983, he recorded a speech, Australians in a Nuclear War, which was released for sale on cassette tape. Although he was happy to see the Fraser government voted out in early 1983, relations quickly soured with new Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke. A figure of the centre-left, Hawke exemplified progressive values on issues from apartheid to workers’ rights while also significantly decreasing Australia’s protectionist policies and opening up the country to the same neoliberal ethos currently on show in the US and UK. Hawke was a born negotiator who had made his name in trade unions, and White quickly saw him a sell-out of the left. (He once famously derided the Prime Minister as ““Hawkie, screaming from under his cockatoo hairdo the platitudes he has got by heart”.) He abandoned the Labor Party in favour of the newly-formed minor Nuclear Disarmament Party, a cause that would fizzle out by the end of the decade.

Although White flirted with starting another novel, 1982 saw the premiere of another play, Signal Driver. Opening in Adelaide under the direction of Neil Armfield, Signal Driver is the tale of a married couple, pictured at various moments across three decades, their actions shadowed by a pair of ghostly, vaudevillean clowns who act as commentators. The play was seen in five state capitals over the following few years, receiving generally respectful reviews. Critics felt that his savage style had given way to a gentler, more elegaic mode. White quickly followed this with Netherwood, an examination of mental illness and conformity. With its larger cast and more naturalistic style, the play was viewed by most critics as a failure due to White’s overly didactic and reasoned approach. It was seen not as a successful drama but as a series of ideas entered into the mouths of characters. Neither of the two plays has been seen professionally since 1985.

But theatre meant more to White now than just critical success. It was a place where he had acolytes. Of course, he was revered by a segment of the literary community, but younger writers were increasingly likely to view White as a slightly dusty old master rather than an engaging tastemaker. Young theatre makers, by contrast, delighted in the chance to work with this famous activist and artist. So White increased the amount of time he spent at rehearsals and doing publicity for both new and revival pieces. (Manoly Lascaris apparently continued viewing plays as a distraction from White’s great works, but as they entered old age this must have seemed less pressing.). When Signal Driver opened at the new Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney, White was one of the biggest inaugural shareholders in the company. Interestingly, White refused to allow amateur productions of his plays throughout his lifetime, even getting into a slight spat with Knox Grammar School in 1981 when they wished to perform one.

Life at Highbury continued in much the same vein as before, although with the increasing perils of old age. White faced bronchial flu, glaucoma, osteoporosis, and fears of cancer. Lascaris was suffering from arthritis. The pair avoided in-home help, partly because of money but also because they wished to keep their home a sanctuary. White was also proud of his self-sufficiency as a homemaker. In his personal life, White continued to be unpredictably predictable in his approach to friendships. For the author’s 70th birthday, his longtime friend Geoffrey Dutton, who was editor of the Bulletin, chose to publish a lengthy birthday retrospective. White was incensed at what he perceived to be an invasion of their private friendship and the two came to blows, exchanging harsh words by letter and then never speaking again, as chronicled in Dutton’s subsequent memoirs. Elsewhere, when his agency of fifty years dismissed his representative, Barbara Mobbs, White chose Mobbs, abandoning the company. She became part of a small coterie of insiders whom White trusted in his final years.

Were there diminishing returns in White’s willingness to wade into any debate? Perhaps. There comes a point in the letters to newspaper editors where it is clear some members of the public simply rolled their eyes when he made another one of his colourful diatribes. (Australia Day, he noted at one point, was a hypocrisy designed to “persuade ourselves we are a wonderful nation”.) And yet White felt that he owed it to the various social causes to utilise what fame he had. That if he chose not to speak out, as a member of Australia’s elite, he would be complicit. The newly-commissioned Sydney Monorail came in for a beating, as did general overdevelopment and Australia’s heavy cultural reliance on sport at the expense of the arts. But even if he was an annoyance to those with privilege, White was a cultural icon. In a 1985 survey of university students, 20% chose Patrick White as their most admired Australian. (Bob Hawke came in first, at 21%. ) In 1988 he delivered a lecture at Melbourne’s La Trobe University and the lecture hall was crammed far past the seating capacity with enraptured young students.

In late 1984, with no theatrical projects on the horizon, White decided to try his hands at another novel. He had abandoned one a couple of years earlier (The Hanging Garden) and felt that he would write no more, but now the author dug out some of his other unfinished manuscripts and reused some of their ideas. The result was Memoirs of Many of One, published in 1986. The conceit of the novel is that it is the memoir of one Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray, edited by her friend Patrick White. (Publishers on both sides of the Atlantic asked him to consent to be listed as the author; White resisted but consented to have his editor credit be in large font on the cover.) White’s shortest novel, at under 200 pages, Memoirs is perhaps his most formally digressive since The Aunt’s Story four decades earlier, shifting between time and space in imitation of the erratic, potentially senile mind of its heroine. It is an unusual work, seemingly minor, certainly gentler in its social satire – perfectly exemplifying a “late period” work, like many artists before him. David Marr notes that it was the only one of White’s novels for which he did not complete three drafts, in part because he did not want to die or go senile before its completion.

The literary landscape around the country was changing rapidly. Feminism, gay rights, and Indigenous self-determination were making their mark on literature as on other parts of the culture. The post-war generation were publishing novels now, exploring Australia’s relationship to America, to Asia, and to ourselves. The children of the first wave of non-Anglo migrants – Greeks, Italians, Jews – were coming of age, bringing with them new perspectives. And Australia was now experiencing its first significant wave of non-white migration since the Gold Rush era as Lebanese migrants were followed by an influx of Asian immigrants. And established literary voices were no less divergent: Helen Garner, David Foster, Gerald Murnane, Elizabeth Jolley. Approaches were varying, methods of critical analysis were widening, and the old patrician White, with his dense, sometimes inscrutable text was no longer en vogue. As one professor quipped, “the end has come for Australia’s White Policy”. Although he was still more successful than writers without major awards to their name, White’s stock as a novelist was declining – by 1990, he earned royalties of just $7,000.

Yet while his literary stock was not in good shape, his financial comfort was assured. The mid 1980s were boom times for Australia, and its Nobel Laureate benefited as much as anyone, with significant investments – born out of his inheritance – topping $2 million. And if he was not beloved by some young literary folk, his was still a name to conjure with. An opera adaptation of Voss, with music by Richard Meale and libretto by David Malouf, premiered, as did other pieces of music adapted from his texts. And amongst all of this, a young journalist and author, David Marr, approached White about publishing a biography. This must have been a bold move on Marr’s part. White had burned most of his correspondence and papers upon leaving Dogwoods in 1964, and more recently had declined a request from the National Library of Australia to buy his papers, stating that he kept none. Famously dismissive of attempts to turn his life into a narrative in newspaper or magazine form, White would surely refuse Marr’s request. Yet he did not. Something had shifted in the mind of the elderly master. Not only did he agree to be interviewed by Marr, he welcomed the young man into his inner sanctum, and authorised friends and family to share their letters and thoughts with him. Marr felt that White had acknowledged that there would be a biography one way or the other. At least if it were written by someone with a genuine interest in the works – and a left-leaning, talented, gay man at that – it might minimise the damage. Marr commenced a period of research that would take six years, and see him become almost as integral a part of White’s life as his theatre kin, Barbara Mobbs, and Lascaris.

With Memoirs completed, one final cause awaited White: Australia’s Bicentenary. 1988 was shaping up to be a grand year of triumph and self-satisfaction for the country as it celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the tall ships from England, the first white people to settle the continent. The Bicentenary lit a match under tensions that had been bubbling away for decades, and White had strong feelings on all of it. First of all, what was there to celebrate? A country where the rich got away with murder – or at least dismissal of a sitting Prime Minister – while the everyday citizens drugged themselves into a stupor with sport and banal pop culture? Second, was a celebration of 1788 not inherently a celebration of Australia’s fealty to the motherland? A commitment to monarchy and rule from afar, by an hereditary monarch, rather than a fight for republicanism and true equality? And third, of course, how could one cherish the memory of the white man’s arrival without admitting that it meant invasion, slaughter, and dispossession for the black man? White referred to 1988 as “the year of the great Australian lie… I shall take no part in celebrating the history of a country which tries to ignore so much that is shameful”. He was so determined to avoid “the Bi” that he refused to have any writings published during the year. When he learned his final volume of short writings, Three Uneasy Pieces, would be unavoidably delayed into ’88 by the magazine which had commissioned it, he pulled the work and had it published by another publisher in ’87 instead. When ’88 did roll around, White installed the Aboriginal and Eureka Stockade flags in his garden, granting interviews there to rail against the state. He received a Bicentenary Medal, a Government initiative designed to recognise great citizens, and promptly threw it into the garbage.

One final play, Shepherd on the Rocks, emerged in 1987. Based on a real-life story, Shepherd is the tale of a circus performer-turned-priest who attempts to merge his polite seaside congregation with sex workers and other outcasts from inner Sydney, in the hopes of improving both groups. Commissioned by the State Theatre Company of South Australia, the play received a lavish production directed by Neil Armfield with music by Carl Vine, and a cast that included John Gaden, Catherine McClements, Wendy Harmer, Kerry Walker, and Geoffrey Rush. Reviewers, however, were mystified by a work which felt like little more than a “vehicle for [White’s] own views”. Uniquely among his Australian plays, Shepherd has never had an individual print release. Aside from a one-night only staged reading in 1994, it has not been seen on a professional stage since its premiere.

Knowing that he would not live forever, and that his creative output was done, White turned to the important task of legacy building. Marr was writing the biography; so be it. He found himself enjoying the task of reflecting on his childhood, youth, and development. It could be emotional at times, and even unforgiving, but it felt like a necessary phase in the life of a great artist. Research for the biography led to White finally sorting through his papers. He collected thirty two speeches and essays from the past thirty years and had them published as Patrick White Speaks, a volume which he gladly distributed to friends. In 1989, to his utter delight, Sydney Theatre Company mounted a major revival of The Ham Funeral, now celebrated as a landmark in Australian theatre. With Armfield at the helm, and an all-star cast including Robyn Nevin, Kerry Walker, Maggie Kirkpatrick, Pamela Rabe, and Max Cullen, with Tyler Coppin as the central Young Man, the play was a great success. This work must have felt like a vindication of White’s five decades dabbling in theatre as it received widespread media notices, was filmed for television, and offered a final moment in the spotlight for White, who attended opening night with Lascaris amid much fanfare.

By now, White was frail and finally accepted a nurse into the home to help care for him. In July 1990, David Marr presented White with the typescript of his biography. Although the great man had no ability to approve or reject the content, he found it to be a fitting portrayal of his life, and offered final corrections and comments. Mere weeks later, White suffered an attack of pleurisy and became bedridden. Over the coming days he grew weaker. It was clear that this time there would be no recovery. At 5:20am on September 30, 1990, White died suddenly in the presence of Lascaris and the nurse. His obituary made every major newspaper front page the following day.

Four days later, Lascaris and Barbara Mobbs scattered White’s ashes in his beloved Centennial Park. (Marr notes that they did so before dawn, as Lascaris did not wish to get in trouble for causing pollution.) White’s will left his storied art collection to the Art Gallery of NSW, and the majority of his estate to Manoly. With the great house, Highbury, White was more circumspect. Fearing (perhaps rightly) that Lascaris would turn the house into a permanent Patrick White museum if given a chance, the author chose to leave Highbury in a trust. Manoly would retain ownership until his own death, after which time it would be sold, with the proceeds divided among some of White’s favourite causes, including the Smith Family and the Aboriginal Islander Dance College.

Patrick White the man was no more. Patrick White the legend was born.

He has no tombstone.

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