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Heaven: June Book Group - Voss by Patrick White

MaramaMarama Shipmate
edited August 2021 in Limbo
June is upon us and so I start the discussion on June's book, Voss by Patrick White. This is an Australian classic, so continues our Antipodean theme from last month, and was published the same year as Owls do Cry - 1957. But this is big epic stuff - lonely explorers battling the elements, rather than domestic concerns. Or is it? The first section of Voss may come as something of a surprise. It's a long book, but not particularly difficult.

As a classic, there are academic studies on this book, but for a shorter introduction this article may be useful. This reading guide is more comprehensive, and includes questions, some of which I may use or adapt.

As usual. I'll post questions around the 20th of the month.

Comments

  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I’m in, though if it’s that long I might not have finished it by the 20th as I have another book to finish first.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    To give you and idea, My copy is around 400 pages, so it's significantly longer than say Animal Farm, but way shorter than War and Peace.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    My mum has a copy so I will be joining in. Mum has a few Patrick White novels, but I have never been able to get beyond the start of any. It's a few years since I've picked one up though so hopefully I will enjoy the writing style more now.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I'd agree with your comment that it is a long book, but not that it's not difficult. I can't remember when I first read it, but it was many decades ago. Far from sure that I got to the bottom of it then, or on subsequent readings. I'll try to find it and give it another reading.
  • 48 years since I studied the book during my English Literature course at teachers' college.Did an advance read while on practicum at a one-teacher school outside Nowra on the NSW South Coast, which has since grown into a large primary school due to the expansion of suburbia there.

    I agree that, like much of White's writing, it takes some perseverance. I'm not sure whether my copy is still on the bookshelves, boxed or maybe given to the local university book sale.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I finished reading it last night, and am looking forward to the discussion
  • MaramaMarama Shipmate
    My apologies for the questions being a day or so late, but here goes. I have to say I found the book heavier going the second time around than the first time I read it a year or so ago - perhaps this task was weighing on me! Still, it's worth persevering with.

    Feel free to answer any or all questions, or add your own. I have adapted a couple of questions from the Penguin reading guide (I hope that's not cheating!)

    1. I found the beginning of this book surprising; I had not expected at least 100 pages of what is largely a comedy of manners, akin to Jane Austen. Why does White use this structure? What is the purpose of this long introduction?

    2. One of the themes of White’s novel is the relationship of the white immigrant community of Australia with the land. Early in the novel (pg 28 in my edition) Laura says ‘Everyone … is still afraid of this country, and will not say it. We are not yet possessed of understanding’, then adds of Voss that ‘It is his by right of vision’. How far do any of the European characters have a close relationship with the land?

    3. Laura and Voss, despite being separated for most of the novel, have the most intimate relationship among the characters. Are they really in communication with each other? In what sense? (Apparently White actually believed that mental telepathy was possible).

    4. The representation of Aboriginal Australians in Voss could be seen as insensitive; they are often seen as either threatening or as childlike. Yet their spirituality and adaptation to the environment are also suggested in places. Overall, what do you think is the role of the Aboriginal characters in the novel?

    5. Discuss the Christian parallels in the novel. Voss is clearly Christ, Judd is Judas, and Laura is either Mary Magdalene or the Virgin Mary. Do these parallels exist for Voss alone? How do the aboriginals view his death? How does Judd view it?

    6. Is Voss a classical tragic hero? What is his fatal flaw?

    7. What did you think of the descriptive passages of the outback landscape?
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    I have finished the book. I will get around to the questions on Thursday or the weekend. The Sydney sections were a lot easier going than the expedition sections!
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Mili wrote: »
    I have finished the book. I will get around to the questions on Thursday or the weekend. The Sydney sections were a lot easier going than the expedition sections!

    But not even the Sydney sections are easy. It's probably the most difficult novel I've ever read, difficult even by White standards. It's a long time since I read it and I have no wish to go back to it.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    I respond to our leader's Q1. Like @Marama, I was surprised to discover the extent (~100 pages) of the Sydney sections at the start. I agree with @Mili that they were probably the easiest to read in the whole book. I personally found them an interesting picture of the Sydney society of the time. I'm not sure if it was White's imagination, but it may well have been a fact that just as in Sydney today, money confers status and privilege - certainly in the eyes of those with both.

    The contrast between Laura's Aunt (rich because of someone else's exertions) and Laura (highly dependent as poor in her own right) is a good example . Backed by the lack of respect for Laura's academic outlook (which may mirror that of White himself, who lived in Sydney, though I don't know this). Similarly Laura's Christian humanitarianism in adopting her [deceased] maid's baby contrasts with her Aunt's greater concern for keeping up appearances.

    And a very short answer to Q5. The Christian parallel @Marama alludes to never even occurred to me as I read the book.

    More comments later.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    I'll try to cover some of these questions. First of all I enjoyed this novel. Well enjoyed isn't perhaps the right word, but I found this a story full of things that caught my interest. What I found hard going was the style. I haven't read any of White's other books, is this his usual style or was he trying to write in a 'Victorian' style'?
    The bits in Sydney were the ones I fund most interesting. I know no Australian history, and imagining myself in a society that is just developing, though rather depressingly along similar class lines to the country most of the residents came from, was something I enjoyed. The 'Sydney' story, about an intelligent but dependent young woman was something that I thought made for a more interesting novel than Voss himself.
    I'm afraid I didn't really get a grip on why Voss was off on his expedition. He doesn't seem that interested in the local flora and fauna, and he doesn't say much about looking for gold or extra land for farming. He doesn't seem to have much in the way of a burning passion for anything. His companions are a disparate lot, and he doesn't seem to have done much in determining if they would be suitable or not.
    No one, at least none of the men, seemed to have been that interested in Australia's land for it' own sake. Bonner wanted to re-create an English garden, Palfreyman didn't want to study the birds in their natural habitat, just collect them. Judd and Angus, I assume, were hoping for land they could use to farm.
    As for the members of the expedition, I had no emotional interest in any of them, and I found the parts describing it somewhat tedious. I understood that White was trying to make some parallels with Christ's passion, but didn't think it really worked. Laura was a good character in her own right without trying to make her an archetype.
    As for the aborigines, we only saw them from the outside. What was Jackie's original name for instance? They were just there, and I got very little understanding of them. Could this novel be written now without giving them more of a voice.
    I found it interesting that White believed in telepathy, and a different author could have made that connection between Voss and Laura an emotionally charged one. It seemed to me to be more about masturbatory dreams on Voss's behalf and vague longings for a different role for herself on Laura's.
    I'm glad I read the story, and would be interested in recommendations of other novels about early Australia, but I don't think I'll be re-reading this.



  • Don't forget that White himself came from one of the NSW farming dynasties, and would have experienced the last throes of that Victorian milieu. Laura could have been his grandmother.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    A response to @Sarasa's question about for other novels about early Australia (by which I presume you mean early white settlement).

    The first to spring to my mind was A Fringe of Leaves, also by Patrick White, but much shorter and easier to read than Voss. It is based on a true story about a white woman who is shipwrecked in the 1830s and saved by being adopted into the local aboriginal tribe.

    Other authors who have written about this or earlier periods include Eleanor Dark (who takes a very sympathetic view of the aboriginals encountered in 1788, and Barnard Eldershaw (who also wrote non-fiction about the period) .

    For a grimmer look , try Marcus Clarke For the Term of his natural life, which focusses on the cruel regimes for convicts on Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) and Norfolk Island, both of which were destinations for convicts too recalcitrant for Sydney.

    A useful annotated list of such novels is on this site. But note that many of those listed are set later, e.g. around 1900 such as the Miles Franklin trilogy.

    Not on the list, but worth a look is The Pioneers by Katherine Susannah Prichard. Much of her other work , though set in times around 1900-1920 (when she was writing) is also worth reading, notably Coonardoo. She is easy to read but very socially conscious.

    In fairness, I should disclose I have personal interest in both White (who studied at my old college, though not in my time) and Prichard (to whom I am distantly related).
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Don't forget that White himself came from one of the NSW farming dynasties, and would have experienced the last throes of that Victorian milieu. Laura could have been his grandmother.

    I think a pastoral dynasty rather than farming would be the description they preferred.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Don't forget that White himself came from one of the NSW farming dynasties, and would have experienced the last throes of that Victorian milieu. Laura could have been his grandmother.

    I think a pastoral dynasty rather than farming would be the description they preferred.

    I was trying to avoid confusion with the more usual meaning of pastoral on these boards.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Sorry, I had not thought of that. Perhaps "grazing"?
  • MaramaMarama Shipmate
    I’m not at all sure about the Christian parallels. I don’t find them convincing, I think because I don’t find Voss an attractive enough character to warrant such treatment, and also because it’s all pretty laboured.

    I come to this book as an adult migrant to Australia, so I did not grow up with all the explorer stories in primary school. Obviously, early settlers did want to know the extent and potential wealth of the country, and particularly the sources of water, and many expeditions were launched, by land and round the coast. In general the explorers seem to have been of varying competence: Sturt and Mitchell are probably regarded by historians as amongst the most able, since they also travelled with their eyes open to the new world around them and wrote detailed notes (and managed to come back). Interestingly, it is using their journals – as well of course from oral tradition – that modern reassessments (eg by Bruce Pascoe in Dark Emu) of Aboriginal land management practices are being made. Burke and Wills are generally regarded as less competent, and I wonder if there is a bit of that expedition in Voss – especially with the carelessly selected expedition members, and general purposelessness of the trip – at least I can’t see much motivation. Little scientific interest, as Sarasa says (and this is unusual), and not even a strong economic motive evident.

    I assume there's an equivalent explorer tradition and literature in USA and Canada - would any other Shipmates like to comment.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I think there's a lot of Burke and Wills in Voss. Not sure which of the 2 he represents.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    @Turkai, Thank you for that interesting list. I might try reading one or two as I'm always interested in stories of people's exploration of new lands, whether factual or imaginary or set on this Earth or on one's elsewhere in the universe.
    I guess aboriginal history is a little scanty, but how did they survive in such hostile terrain or were they displaced from the more habitable bits by white settlers?
    I was thinking Burke and Wills but couldn't remember their names. The Wikipedia article thinks Voss is based on Ludwig Leichardt, and there are some parallels.
    I'm really glad this book was suggested, even though I think it is seriously flawed it's given me lots to engage with.
  • TukaiTukai Shipmate
    The main parallels between the real Leichardt and the fictional Voss are that both were German and both were lost without trace in the outback. In Leichardt's case he just never came back and no-one knows for sure how or where he died. On the other hand, Leichardt had led a couple of smaller but successful expeditions before his final one.

    Back with the book and @Marama's questions about it.

    Relation to the land. Laura is right - the Europeans have very little feel for the land. Certainly this is true about the city-dwellers and even the monied Angus, who sees it as just a place for his pasturage. Less so about Judd, who has had to work for his understanding. Aborigines speak even today about "my country", meaning the land of my tribe - which I do not "own" in the European sense, rather it owns me, and is a part of my being. So the aborigines on the expedition have a deep feeling about the land from which they come, but less so about more distant parts - which are the country of other tribes. Hence their inclination, which White clearly understood, to go back to where they came from. The most successful explorers were able to take and accept advice and guidance from local aborigines, not least about where to find water or how to prepare local vegetables for food.

    I thought the passages actually describing the landscape were fine. It was the "dreaming" passages that I skipped over. Perhaps that's just my mindset as a plodding scientist.

    But I did work my way through to the end of the book. Did anyone else manage that much, apart from Marama and Sarasa?



  • MaramaMarama Shipmate
    Yes, Voss is supposed to be modelled on Leichardt, but I think there's a bit of Burke and Wills in there too. I came across an article which pointed out that White, who was a scholar of German, read Leichardt's journals in German (they were only translated into English later) and quotes from them in some of the words he gives to Voss. Leichardt was regarded as a bit strange, an enigma, by most who met him. He was deeply into German Romanticism.

    Your question about where Aboriginal groups lived is interesting. All oral and archaeological evidence, as well as the observations of early settlers and explorers suggests that by far the biggest concentrations of Aboriginal people were around the coast and the major rivers, where the resources were. These of course were the areas the Europeans wanted, and so Aboriginal and European groups were in competition. Aboriginal groups mostly lost, becoming fringe-dwellers around European settlement, and in many places dying from disease and violence. They may well have been pushed to the inhospitable outskirts of their country, but as Tukai explains, not so likely to have gone beyond it. In fact there are still sizeable Aboriginal communities in rural and coastal areas in both NSW and Victoria, the descendants of the people who were there in 1788.

    It might seem that the centre of Australia is so inhospitable that no-one would voluntarily live there, but the Aboriginal groups around, say, Urulu or inland West Australia claim they have always been there and that they have adapted so well to the environment that they do not see it as inhospitable at all. Still, it does seem that desert tribes were always much smaller than those living in more fertile areas.



  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Tukai wrote: »
    The main parallels between the real Leichardt and the fictional Voss are that both were German and both were lost without trace in the outback. In Leichardt's case he just never came back and no-one knows for sure how or where he died. On the other hand, Leichardt had led a couple of smaller but successful expeditions before his final one. prepare local vegetables for food.

    But I did work my way through to the end of the book. Did anyone else manage that much, apart from Marama and Sarasa?

    I did read it once, a half century or more ago, and have never returned for a second battle with it.

    The main reason I consider that the real-life parallel is Burke and Wills is the general fool-hardiness of their expedition. Leichhardt was much more thorough in his planning. To start with, his plan to follow a norther curve was much more sensible than simply charging across in a more or less straight line. Somewhere or other, I have a book dating back quite a few years, and is an account by one of a couple of fellows who rode their motor-bikes around the continent in the 1920's. The country in western Queensland and the NT was much as it would have been when Leichhardt set out, very difficult and challenging.

    Totally agree with your comments about the relationship between the ancient peoples and the land where they lived.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Marama wrote: »

    Your question about where Aboriginal groups lived is interesting. All oral and archaeological evidence, as well as the observations of early settlers and explorers suggests that by far the biggest concentrations of Aboriginal people were around the coast and the major rivers, where the resources were. These of course were the areas the Europeans wanted, and so Aboriginal and European groups were in competition. Aboriginal groups mostly lost, becoming fringe-dwellers around European settlement, and in many places dying from disease and violence. They may well have been pushed to the inhospitable outskirts of their country, but as Tukai explains, not so likely to have gone beyond it. In fact there are still sizeable Aboriginal communities in rural and coastal areas in both NSW and Victoria, the descendants of the people who were there in 1788.

    It might seem that the centre of Australia is so inhospitable that no-one would voluntarily live there, but the Aboriginal groups around, say, Urulu or inland West Australia claim they have always been there and that they have adapted so well to the environment that they do not see it as inhospitable at all. Still, it does seem that desert tribes were always much smaller than those living in more fertile areas.

    There are debates on the size of the Aboriginal population before European settlement. There was also an outbreak of smallpox in 1789, the year after the first convict ships arrived, that had a devastating affect on Indigenous Australians. Some have even suggested that settlers deliberately infected the population as that had been done in the U.S. previously. This article gives the various theories and speculates that the first settlement would not have been successful if not for smallpox. https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/the-cause-of-australias-first-pandemic-is-still-a-controversial-mystery-231-years-on/ar-BB11QEpt

    The subsequent low indigenous population and the fact that Aboriginal Australians did not 'own' the land as Europeans did and mostly survived by hunter gathering, rather than farming, led to the legal concept of terra nullius being used to claim the land for the British and prevent land rights up until the 1990s. https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/mabo-native-title/

  • MiliMili Shipmate
    The Australians Together website has lots of information on Indigenous history. Here is another good article on how settlement and colonisation affected the original Australians https://australianstogether.org.au/discover/australian-history/colonisation/
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Here are my answer to the questions:

    1. I found the beginning of this book surprising; I had not expected at least 100 pages of what is largely a comedy of manners, akin to Jane Austen. Why does White use this structure? What is the purpose of this long introduction?

    A large theme of the book is Laura and Voss' relationship and continued communication through telepathy even when separated. Another theme according to the links provided earlier is Voss' delusion/belief that he is a kind of god who will achieve his goals through the force of will. Laura has a a crisis of faith, but later seems to regain her Christian faith and want Voss to realise he is just a man who needs to rely on Christ (at least that is my understanding - this book was hard to understand at times!) I enjoyed the Sydney parts more (and yes I am a Jane Austen fan) and was surprised that Laura's story line was given as much precedence as Voss's story line given he is the titular character.

    2. One of the themes of White’s novel is the relationship of the white immigrant community of Australia with the land. Early in the novel (pg 28 in my edition) Laura says ‘Everyone … is still afraid of this country, and will not say it. We are not yet possessed of understanding’, then adds of Voss that ‘It is his by right of vision’. How far do any of the European characters have a close relationship with the land?

    Judd perhaps has a bit more bush knowledge than the others, but none are closely connected to the land. None of the European members of the exploration party are even Australian born. The only Australian born characters are in Sydney in the novel. Even today non-Indigenous Australians can never be as connected to the land as Indigenous Australians, and those who are are mostly connected in a different way through farming.

    3. Laura and Voss, despite being separated for most of the novel, have the most intimate relationship among the characters. Are they really in communication with each other? In what sense? (Apparently White actually believed that mental telepathy was possible).

    Given White's beliefs I think they were truly in communication. They knew things that were happening to each other that they couldn't have known otherwise. It was another book where it was hard to see how such a connection sprung up, since they barely knew each other. Someone Laura's age might fall in love quickly, but even she didn't seem to like Voss that much and was quite critical of him at the end of the book, even repulsed by him despite her lifelong grief over his death. It would have been interesting to know if they would have had a compatible marriage if Voss had returned.

    4. The representation of Aboriginal Australians in Voss could be seen as insensitive; they are often seen as either threatening or as childlike. Yet their spirituality and adaptation to the environment are also suggested in places. Overall, what do you think is the role of the Aboriginal characters in the novel?


    Patrick White was sympathetic to Aboriginal Australians for a man of his time, even though his views come across as racist now. I would like to see a movie or T.V. series of the book made by Indigenous Australians. I was just reading that there are still issues when shows are made about Indigenous Australians today as often the writers, directors, producers etc. are still white and Indigenous Australians feel their stories are not really told from their point of view. Here is a powerful monologue by Indigenous actor Meyne Watt that touches on how race affects the roles he gets as well as other affects off racism in today's Australia https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-09/actor-meyne-wyatt-delivers-monologue-on-racism/12334392?nw=0

    It is worth noting that the Indigenous members of Leichardt's party on his successful journey were paid far less than anyone else and had their pay put in the bank where they could not access it without permission, as they were not believed to be able to handle their own money, despite probably being more of an asset to the expedition than anyone else, much as Jackie was in the novel.


    7. What did you think of the descriptive passages of the outback landscape?

    I think they were fairly accurate. I honestly didn't pay a lot of attention, but nothing was jarringly inaccurate. Despite the book being about exploration, the elements and their affects on the explorers seemed a bigger theme than the land they were exploring. I found the food more of a theme that I noticed - it was easy to see scurvy coming a mile off and show's their attitudes to Indigenous Australians that they didn't think to ask them about local plants they could eat. I don't think European Australians ate enough vegetables until Chinese settlers showed them how to grow them well - which was 'rewarded' with the horribly racist White Australia Policy, not abolished until the 1960s . https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-21/historic-chinese-grave-hunter-agricultural-wartime-contribution/12374842


  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Thanks for those links @Mili . I know that Locke argued in the 17th century that the native Americans didn't 'improve' the land in the way that white settlers did, and therefore it was fine to take it from them. I guess the same thinking guided the early settlers view of the people's they met in Australia.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Sadly despite native title laws this attitude still exists. Now it is big mining companies blowing up sacred sites and caves - they negotiate with native title holders to do this, but as English is often not their first language and they may not have much education they do not always understand what they agree to and mining companies can appeal decisions, but traditional owners cannot.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    How that approval was given, I shall never understand. 40,000 plus years history of human use, gone just like that.
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Mili wrote: »
    It would have been interesting to know if they would have had a compatible marriage if Voss had returned.

    If Voss had returned, I wonder what he would have made of Mercy, and would he have accepted her as part of his family? I think it could have been a successful marriage, Laura strikes me as someone who does not like to fail at whatever she does, but hard work for both of them.

    As for Mercy, was there a hint she was Bonner's daughter, or did I misread that? the style was such that I skimmed rather a lot of the book.

  • MiliMili Shipmate
    I thought Mercy's father was Jack Slipper, the servant who was sent away for drunkenness, but I don't think it was ever explicitly stated. I don't think Mrs. Bonner would have grown so fond of her if she thought her husband was the father.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Sorry for adding so many posts and links, but I clicked on the ABC news website and this was one of the first articles, which goes to show sometimes nature and Aboriginal history is valued (although the tourist dollars and the fact droughts are so bad now for farming in this region and maybe there is not much to mine there probably played a part, thinks cynical me). I'm not sure exactly what route Voss in the book was supposed to have taken, but the landscape and wet and dry seasons sound similar to descriptions in the book https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-27/narriearra-station-sold-to-become-national-park-in-nsw/12400344
  • SarasaSarasa All Saints Host
    Mili wrote: »
    I thought Mercy's father was Jack Slipper, the servant who was sent away for drunkenness, but I don't think it was ever explicitly stated. I don't think Mrs. Bonner would have grown so fond of her if she thought her husband was the father.

    I thought that too for most of the book, but there was one remark of Laura's that made me wonder. Trouble is I can't remember where to check.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Mili wrote: »
    Sorry for adding so many posts and links, but I clicked on the ABC news website and this was one of the first articles, which goes to show sometimes nature and Aboriginal history is valued (although the tourist dollars and the fact droughts are so bad now for farming in this region and maybe there is not much to mine there probably played a part, thinks cynical me). I'm not sure exactly what route Voss in the book was supposed to have taken, but the landscape and wet and dry seasons sound similar to descriptions in the book https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-27/narriearra-station-sold-to-become-national-park-in-nsw/12400344

    That could well have been on the route taken by Leichhardt. If not exactly there, almost certainly something similar.
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