'Happy Valley' by Patrick White (Review)

After my recent review of Le Colonel Chabert, today it's time for the second of my Christmas Humbook selections.  Lisa, of ANZ LitLovers LitBlog, chose a couple of Aussie books for me to try, and this post looks at the first of them.  The novel is not widely read, but the writer is very well-known...

*****
Patrick White is still Australia's only real Nobel Prize for Literature winner (for me, the South-African import J.M. Coetzee doesn't really count...), and Happy Valley, brought out in the Text Classics series, was his first novel, a book which he refused to allow to be republished during his lifetime.  It's a shame because it's a great read, an addition to the body of Australian country literature and an ideal entry into White's work for new readers.

Happy Valley is a small town in country New South Wales, and the story takes place in the mid-to-late 1930s.  It used to be a gold-mining boom town, but now it's sparsely populated, a sleepy bush town with little going on.  The first few chapters introduce us to the town, and some of its residents, seen through the (cinematic) eyes of a hawk, hovering high overhead.  This artistic touch is soon addressed in true Aussie fashion though, as several of the characters think about shooting it down...

In these first few chapters, we meet several pivotal characters.  There's a new arrival, farm manager Clem Hagan, brought in to oversee work on the land of the Furlow family, and Doctor Oliver Halliday, bored of marriage and bored of life in Happy Valley.  Among the women, we meet potential spinster Alys Browne, and Sidney Furlow, a local heiress, beautiful and cold.  And always in the background, the Quongs, descendants of a Chinese immigrant, shopkeepers and silent witnesses to what happens in the town.

On the one hand, Happy Valley is one of those typical tales of the Australian country with its blistering summer heat, isolation, and bushfires.  There's a sense familiar to anyone who's read Oz-Lit before.  One of the minor characters, Sidney's English suitor, feels completely out of his depth:

"There is something here completely foreign to anything I know, felt Roger Kemble, those hands that touch a different substance, and despising what I touch."
p.167 (Text Classics, 2012)

The reader, however, is in very familiar territory.

White draws a skillful picture of the isolated town, small and run-down:

"Happy Valley became that peculiarly tenacious scab on the body of the brown earth.  You waited for it to come away leaving a patch of pinkness underneath.  You waited and it did not happen, and because of this you felt there was something in its nature particularly perverse." (p.138)

It's a town of few amusements, just the pub, the weekly picture hall and the annual races, and in a place where everyone knows everyone else, the arrival of a stranger (Hagan) is a big event.  What really raises interest though is when bored men and women start to look around for something to distract themselves from the torpor of everyday existence - now infidelity is really interesting...

At the heart of the story are the attempts some characters make to break free of the crushing gravitational pull of the town.  Vic Moriarty, the frustrated wife of the sickly local teacher is drawn to bad boy Clem (who also has his eyes fixed elsewhere...).  Dr. Halliday, trapped in a loveless marriage with an older woman, is looking for a transfer to Queensland, but is distracted by a blossoming friendship.  Alys Browne wants to escape to California, and is waiting for her ship (or her shares) to come in.  Many want to leave the town - it's doubtful though whether they'll actually ever manage it...

Happy Valley is a book built around the main love triangles, but there's so much more to enjoy.  White creates a great ensemble cast of characters, including the inscrutable Quongs.  The family faces subtle (and unsubtle) discrimination, looked down upon by the Anglo residents, tolerated for their use in providing daily goods.  Yet they are actually the locals, there from start to finish - the whites are the ones who are simply passing through...

In addition to the interesting plot, the book is also notable for the language used.  After the first few introductory chapters, the language becomes more complex, and there is a definite stream-of-consciousness style, with obvious influences.  Many passages evoke Woolf, and at the heart of the novel the writing becomes almost Joycean in its confusion:

"The wind is wind is water wind or water white in pockets of the eyes was once a sheep before time froze the plover call alew aloo atingle is the wire that white voice across the plain on thistle thorn the wind pricks face the licked fire the wind flame tossing out distance on a reel." (p.225)

Thoughts intermingle, sentences start and trail off, cut down by new thoughts, only half-expressed...  It's not easy to push through at times, but it's always worth it.

As far as I know, there's no paperback version of Happy Valley out yet.  Hopefully, it's on its way as it's a fascinating book, and a worthy introduction to a great writer, one more people should try.  Don't be fooled by the name of the book though - Happy Valley?  Only in the ironic Australian use of the word:

"There never was co-operation in Happy Valley, not even in the matter of living, or you might even say less in the matter of living.  In Happy Valley the people existed in spite of each other." (pp.27/8)

Ah, Australia...

78 - 'The Twyborn Affair' by Patrick White

What's 1474 divided by 10? What is 432 divided by 6? Answers (and relevance) later...

Anyway, I 'm here to review my latest read, 'The Twyborn Affair', a 1979 novel by the only Australian winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Patrick White (oh, alright, two if you count Coetzee). This book was nominated for the Booker Prize, but White insisted it be removed from the shortlist to allow younger writers the chance to win - which says something about him (but I'm not sure what). A brief warning: don't read this if you are planning to read the book as it's difficult to review without giving away information which could impair your enjoyment of the text.

As if any of you could tear yourselves away. Anyway, White's novel is centred on the life of a confused creature who takes on several names and identitites in a search for peace and satisfaction. We meet our hero(ine) at three different points in his/her life: in provincial France, shortly before the outbreak of World War I; in rural New South Wales in 1920; and in London around the start of the Second World War. So far, so 'normal'. However, the reality is that in the body and mind of the Sydney-born son of a Judge and a socialite, multiple personalities and sexualities are to be found.

The book follows him/her on their quest to find a place in a world which, while well aware of differences in sexual orientation, forces people to suppress them - or, at least, keep them hidden. Whether as Eudoxia, the young Australian 'wife' of an ageing Greek aristocrat, as Eddie, the supposed 'real' identity, who attracts both genders, or the middle-aged Eadith, the chaste matron of a house of ill repute, peace of mind is hard to come by.

Gender identity is far from being the only conflict in this novel. Another major theme is the cultural difficulties felt by Australians at the time vis-a vis their colonial masters. The 'cultural cringe' felt in the past has largely subsided (or may merely have moved on to idolising American culture, rather than British); however, in 'The Twyborn Affair', the Australian characters are keen to tone down their boisterous personalities - and their broad accents - in seeking the approval of the English they meet.

Another area of interest is the relationships between parents and children. Eddie/Eadith's link to their mother is strongly felt, first in the background, then more strongly foregrounded, and the issue of parental influence and relationships crops up in other characters (including a strong hint of incest in one case). In fact, it is tempting to link Eadith's issues to his mother and her youthful bedroom indiscretions (tempting, but wrong).

From what I have read about White, there is a lot of the writer in this novel. He too was tortured by his homosexuality and spent time in the outback as a Jackaroo (his parents were trying to drive out literary, not sexual, tendencies) before finding success as a writer. At the time of writing this book, his health was in steep decline, and the language of this book, especially the first two parts, is steeped in the language of entropy and decay. The reader is constantly confronted by descriptions of pungent smells, bodily emissions, decaying objects and people. Oh, and there are farts a-plenty.

Time to come back to my maths questions. 1474/10 = 147.4 while 432/6 = 72. Yes, I may have a bit of a hangover from 'The Housekeeper and the Professor', but the sums posed actually show how difficult this book was to get into. The first shows the number of pages of my previous book (Vikram Seth's 'A Suitable Boy') divided by the number of days I read it in. The second... well, I'm sure you've got it now. Basically, I read Seth's book twice as fast as White's novel, and while that can be put down largely to the difference in complexity, it must also be attributed to my investment in the story.

In addition to the rather unpleasantly descriptive nature of certain parts of this novel, I felt that the second of the three parts dragged unnecessarily. It was about forty pages longer than the other two (and felt about 140 pages longer). I'm not quite sure why this section failed to grab me; perhaps Eddie just wasn't as interesting as his female alter-egos. I would also have liked some hints, if not the full story, as to how Eddie became Eadith. The change is presented as a fait-accompli, which is, for me at least, rather unsatisfying.

'The Twyborn Affair' is, obviously, an excellent piece of writing, unique even, from an extremely famous and talented writer. I did enjoy it, but it was a bit of a slog, and, at times, I wasn't convinced that I would actually get there. As an analysis of the problems faced by those who slip between society's neat gender divide (and a critique of the hypocritical society which attempts to maintain that distinction), it's a very powerful work. As an entertaining way to spend your time, I'd take 'A Suitable Boy' any day. However, life would be much duller if books only followed the pattern of one of these books; asking the difficult questions is just as important in literature as answering them nicely with a wedding.