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The Vivisector

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The Vivisector

By: Patrick White
Narrated by: Humphrey Bower
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About this listen

Winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize, The Vivisector chronicles the life of egotistic painter Hurtle Duffield, exploring the relationship between art and the artist.

Hurtle Duffield, a painter, is incapable of loving anything except what he paints. The men and women who court him during his long life are, above all, the victims of his art. He is the vivisector, dissecting their weaknesses with cruel precision: his sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion and the passionate illusions of his mistress, Hero Pavloussi.

It is only when Hurtle meets an egocentric adolescent whom he sees as his spiritual child does he experience a deeper, more treacherous emotion in this tour de force of sexual and psychological menace that sheds brutally honest light on the creative experience.

©1970 Patrick White (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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Outstanding performance of one of the great novels of the 20th Century by Nobel Prize winner, Patrick White.

I do hope Audible record more of White’s novels. He was a genius.

Excellent rendition of a masterpiece

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Amazingly easy to listen to considering the breadth of issues and characterization. Another PW down.

Hardly noticed the hours slip by

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This superb rendition of this granitic novel has brought alive what had previously been for me a rather forbidding masterpiece. Humphrey Bower brings a cast of characters superbly to life with all their variegated voices and class-, age- and gender- based variations on the Australian accent across the 20th Century. Two magicians meet!

A brilliant novel superbly read

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great characterisations by the reader(s). And And an insightful observation into class distinction in Australia in the first half of the 20 th century.

a wonderful study of a tortured fabulous life

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It’s a masterwork by Australia’s greatest writer. Despite the patented misogyny it is wonderful to be reacquainted with this great novel after 50 years and it is superbly read.

God, art, cats and an outdoor funny

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As the basis for this long novel two big themes are ever present: the nature of art and the life of the artist. In dealing with these themes White seldom strays far from a steady plod along the path of gravitas. Even his interludes of florid excess, as he attempts to describe the process and experience of making art, become heavy with ponderous verbiage. Bower's nuanced reading is excellent but, with more than eleven hours remaining, I decided that life is too short to maintain patience with books like this, however fine the reading.

Inspiration in a turgid flow

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The Vivisector was the first novel by Patrick White which I really enjoyed, having failed to do so, with Voss and The Tree of Man. This was in the early 70s. However, nearly 50 years later I find the novel quite distasteful, though full of White's characteristic poetic prose. There is little doubt that White enshrined his vision of the artist in the mind of the painter Hurtle Duffield of The Vivisector. He sees the artist as almost a godlike figure, to whom ideas and paintings are 'given'. Duffield paints as he is 'meant to' - choice and rational processes have nothing to do with it. And he believes his role and talents (genius, rather) give him the right to sneer constantly at all the 'ordinary' people with their banal lives and boring utterances. His disgust for his sister Rhoda, from the moment he sets eyes on her, is reported as being quite forgiveable, and his attitude to the unfortunate Cutbush is never less than lordly. I had a great sense of letdown while reading this novel. White no doubt counts as a genius himself, but my once-high view of his writing has gone way down.
However, Humphrey Bower's reading of the novel, with the myriad voices he assumed, was quite brilliant from beginning to end.

Brilliant reading of disappointing novel

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Publications such as this is of VERY poor taste. There is no reason Paedophilia should be condoned in any way.

Disgraceful

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.