Patrick White – Voss – Read Along March 2017

My recent reading and blog post of Randolph Stow’s “To The Islands” created a little conversation over on Twitter (I’m @Messy_tony if you want to follow me there), and more specifically the Miles Franklin Award. As I mentioned in that post the Trustees of the Award tell us;

“The Miles Franklin Literary Award is Australia’s most prestigious literature prize. Established through the will of My Brilliant Career author, Miles Franklin, the prize is awarded each year to a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.”

First presented in 1957, to Patrick White, Australia’s only Nobel Laureate in Literature, for Voss  “the Award helps to support authors and to foster uniquely Australian literature. Miles Franklin believed that “Without an indigenous literature, people can remain alien in their own soil.”  She also had first-hand experience of struggling to make a living as a writer and was the beneficiary of two literary prizes herself.”

The subsequent discussion centred around Patrick White and his novel “Voss”, the inaugural winner of the award in 1957. A number of well-known bloggers, Stu at Winston’s Dad https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/ , Kim at Reading Matters https://readingmattersblog.com/ and Grant at 1^st Reading https://1streading.wordpress.com/  were keen for a read along of White’s book and so an event was born. I’m hoping the three bloggers are still keen to read White’s book as I’ve now named them publicly!!!

From 1 March 2017 the four of us will read Patrick White’s novel “Voss” and we invite you to join in, I’m more than happy to open my blog to guest posts, and would love to have as many people as possible join in for this one off event.

The novel is quite lengthy, my edition runs to 454 pages, so at 15 pages per day it should be covered in a month, but there is no pressure to read it all within that time if you feel that is too cumbersome. Posting questions at our blogs, or via twitter (@messy_tony, @stujallen @kimbofo and @GrantRintoul our handles) is another way you can join in.

With Patrick White being Australia’s only Nobel Laureate in Literature, this is a great way to become involved in his writing, throwing up differing opinions, questions, likes, dislikes, an open slather looking at a renowned writer and the first winner of the most prestigious writing award in Australia.

Here’s a little about “Voss” from the Penguin webpage:

The novel that put Australian literature on the map is now in a Vintage Classic edition

Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is the story of the secret passion between an explorer and a naïve young woman. Although they have met only a few times, Voss and Laura are joined by overwhelming, obsessive feelings for each other. Voss sets out to cross the continent. As hardships, mutiny and betrayal whittle away his power to endure and to lead, his attachment to Laura gradually increases. Laura, waiting in Sydney, moves through the months of separation as if they were a dream and Voss the only reality.

From the careful delineation of Victorian society to the sensitive rendering of hidden love to the stark narrative of adventure in the Australian desert, Patrick White’s novel is a work of extraordinary power and virtuosity.

Join in by adding a comment here, buying the book or borrowing from your local library, and keeping an eye on our blogs leading up to March 2017. We would love to have you along for the ride.