The Solid Mandala

by Patrick White

Book Overview

A portrait of twin brothers who compete with each other for 50 years. Their lives are inevitably linked and eventually fuse together. Waldo the competent man of reason is contrasted with Arthur the half-wit but each is depicted with the author's compassion and flair for detail. Patrick White has nine novels to his credit, as well as short stories and his autobiography 'Flaws in the Glass'. In 1973 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140029753
• ISBN13: 9780140029758
• Release Date: August 1983
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Classic

Patrick White is of course Australia's most famous novelist. He lived for some time in exile but returned to Australia and lived there for some years before dying some years ago. He was a somewhat prickly character but his winning of the Nobel Prize for literature helped solidify his reputation. This book is unusual in is clarity and sheer joy. A number of White's books are heavy going, densely written and pretentious. This book however was simply sheer delight. It concerns two old men who live together and are brothers. One is reasonably intelligent and has worked in a library. The other is what might be described as intellectually simple. The book consists of both of these characters speaking and talking about their lives and their past. White was a gay man who lived most of his life with a companion who he was deeply attached to. One suspects that the book is loosely based on their later life, but of course this is only speculation. The character who is most hardly done by is the librarian who clearly is White. It is hard really to describe the delight and joy of the book, however once I picked it up I could not stop reading it.