1300 187 187
 

The Eye Of The Storm

Film Tie-In

Paperback

Published: 1st August 2011
Ships: 5 to 9 business days
RRP $19.95
$17.95
10%
OFF

A new edition of this Australian classic to tie-in with the release of the Fred Schepisi film.

Elizabeth Hunter, an ex-socialite in her eighties, has a mystical experience during a summer storm in Sydney which transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her.

From this simple scenario Patrick White unfurls a monumental exploration of the tides of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, impotence and and longing that fester within family relationships. In the Sydney suburb of Centennial Park, three nurses, a housekeeper and a solicitor attend to Elizabeth as her son and daughter convene at her deathbed. But, in death as in life, Elizabeth remains a destructive force on those who surround her.

THE EYE OF THE STORM is a savage exploration of family relationships - and the sharp undercurrents of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, which define them.

Reading Group Book Questions

  1. There is a feeling that the work of Patrick White is ‘difficult’. How does The Eye of the Storm fit with this premise?
  2. Can you see the influence of Shakespeare’s King Lear in this novel? Are there any other classical antecedents that come to mind?
  3. Elizabeth Hunter is said to have been inspired by White’s own mother. Is it a portrait of love, fear, ambivalence?
  4. White wrote The Eye of the Storm after moving from Castle Hill and into the city to live. Can you read The Eye of the Storm as a celebration of Sydney’s Centennial Park?
  5. In his Nobel Prize autobiographical notes White said “my flawed self has only ever felt intensely alive in the fictions I create”. Are all of White’s fictional characters flawed? Are all good fictional characters flawed?
About the Author

Patrick White was born in England in 1912. He was taken to Australia (where his father owned a sheep farm) when he was six months old, but educated in England, at Cheltenham College and King's College, Cambridge. He settled in London, where he wrote several unpublished novels, then served in the RAF during the Second World War. He returned after the war to Australia, where he became the most considerable figure in modern Australian literature before being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. His position as a man of letters was controversial, provoked by his unpredictable public statements and his belief that it is eccentric individuals who offer the only hope of salvation. Technically brilliant, he is one modern novelist to whom the oft-abused epithet 'visionary' can safely be applied. He died in September 1990.

Reviewed By Toni Whitmont, Booktopia Buzz Editor
To read more reviews by Toni Whitmont, click here to visit the Booktopia Newsletter Archive.

Patrick White's seminal book about family relationships and the stuff of love and hate has been made into a film which will be screening from September 15.

The film stars Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davies.

Now, listen up.

I have 20 double passes to the movie to give out to lucky readers. I am going to take the first 40 orders for the book and put a double pass in every second one. Your odds are pretty good with this opportunity.

ISBN: 9781742752587
ISBN-10: 1742752586
Audience: General
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 608
Published: 1st August 2011
Publisher: Random House Australia
Dimensions (cm): 12.7 x 19.8  x 4.5
Weight (kg): 0.405

Other titles by Patrick White

See All >