The Eye of the Storm

Patrick White was 61 when The Eye of the storm was published, his mother Ruth had died six years previously and the novel would appear to be some attempt at coming to terms with the difficult relationship between mother and son. Ruth’s final illness following a collapse was spent largely bed ridden surrounded by her acolytes. She had been a society woman, proud and overbearing towards her son and Patrick who was equally strong willed, found it difficult to get close to his mother and there was little love lost between them. The Eye of the Storm is centered around the final illness of Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-society hostess of indomitable will, known and feared for her cruelty towards friends and enemies alike. She is bed ridden and attended by a small team of nurses. Her two children Sir Basil Hunter a famous stage actor and his sister Dorothy: Princess of Lascabanes have long been estranged from her and each other, but both come to visit their mother during the final weeks, although they are mostly concerned about their inheritance. The parallels between fact and fiction in White’s novel are impossible to ignore.

Equally impossible to ignore is White’s passion for the theatre. He had some success in Australia as a playwright and burned to be considered as his Country’s most successful writer for the stage, this had always eluded him and so his character Sir Basil Hunter by now an overblown windbag of an actor completely self absorbed can be seen as an attempt to exorcise these ghosts from White’s own past. White however cannot carry out his exorcism because I think he is too intent in trying to turn sections of this novel into a play; born out by a couple of short passages where he uses dialogue as one would in a play.

Sir Basil Hunter becomes both this novels strength and its weakness, there is no doubt that White brings this character superbly alive, but the continual use of stage imagery whenever he appears becomes too obvious and in the end a little boring. Here is an example taken from late on in the novel when Basil and Dorothy are slumming it out in their old house, now owned by a poor family while waiting for their mother to die:

“When Sir Basil made his entrance with a real limp instead of that mannerism which passed for one, he advanced a shoulder, exorcised the wrinkles from his brow, exposed his jaw, and waited for the recognition he was not accorded. Again he found it was not his scene……….Dorothy Hunter realised somebody had mistimed an entrance. She frowned ferociously, not at a star actor, but at her tiresome brother.”

Very little happens in this novel which stretches to nearly 600 pages. Elizabeth Hunter lingers on in her final illness, developing increasingly strange relationships with the nurses looking after her. Basil and Dorothy arrive and soon leave for their old house a days drive away, Sister Flora Manhood’s life outside of the invalid’s house is taken into account as is Basil and Dorothy’s stay with the Macrory’s. There are some flashbacks to key events in Elizabeth Hunter’s life and the novels conclusion comes not unexpectedly with Elizabeth’s long awaited death. Having read all of Patrick White’s previous novels I am used to the fact that they generally start slowly as White feels his way into telling his story, however in Eye of the Storm he out-does himself and it is not until 120 pages into the novel that we first get to meet Sir Basil Hunter. Usually the slow starts to his novels are enlivened by some startling prose passages, but they are sadly lacking here. There is much to slog through before this novel gets airborne. When it does finally take off over half way through, with the flashback to Elizabeth and Dorothy’s trip to the uninhabited island owned by the Warming family and where Elizabeth gets to the eye of the storm; we find Patrick White writing at his thrilling best.

As usual in Whites novels his central characters are all deeply flawed, and The Eye of the Storm proves to be no exception. How much of this reflects White’s own difficulties in forming relationships is open to debate, but because much of this novel parallels his own family situation then there is much here that points to this being autobiographical in nature. Amidst all the greedy, self absorbed loveless characters in White’s novels there is usually a saintly female character and there is one here and so as not to leave us in any doubt Sister de Santis is continually referred to as Saint Mary. White is always in danger of alienating his readers from his characters, but in this case their sheer neediness of love or admiration just about keeps them as recognisably human in nature.

I found this novel overlong and badly structured, White does not bring anything new to the table and much of what is in this novel can be found better developed and written with more style in his previous books. I would recommend this novel to fans of Patrick White {I consider myself as one) but would advise that new readers of this author, should approach with caution. 3 stars ( )

I can't believe I waited nearly forty years to read this brilliant book, then I went to see the movie and it was superb , with Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis and Charlotte Rampling. ( )

To read my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2011/09/15/the-eye-of-the-storm-by-patrick-white/ ( )

White uses the impending death of a matriarch to explore the universal themes of love, hate, death, jealousy, insecurity and family. He manages to quickly take the reader inside the complex world of the Hunter family, and the ancillaries to their world - the ex-spouses, the household staff, the friends and former lovers. While none of the characters are likeable, you find yourself drawn to continue reading just to find out more about them.

This book is not as good as White's masterpiece 'Voss', with some seriously pretentious writing (White by this stage had developed a need to show off that he was a 'serious, literary writer') and the use of foreign languages without translation is always a bit of a give-away that the author is trying to show how learned they are. But it is still worth reading for the character development alone, and White's always reliable ability to make the thoroughly unlikeable characters the most interesting and complex people, the ones you actually want to read about. ( )