The Tree of Man

By: Patrick White

Narrated by: Humphrey Bower

Stan Parker, with only a horse and a dog for companions, journeys to a remote scrubby patch of land that he has inherited in the Australian hills. When the land is cleared enough for a rudimentary house to be built, Stan brings his new wife, Amy, to the wilderness. Together they struggle to establish a home for themselves and their growing family.

And together, but essentially apart, they face everything from the domestic upheavals of birth and death to natural disasters. In this chronicle of simple lives in joy and sorrow, Patrick White creates an evocative monument to human endurance.

©1955 Patrick White ; Originally published by Jonathan Cape. (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'The novel has unforgettable scenes, marvellous characters, wide ranges of mood, strikingly fresh imagery – all those ingredients which make a novel ... become a permanent part of our memory.' (Washington Post)

'His greatest novel, The Tree of Man is a tragic pastoral about the penitential struggle with nature in a grim Australian Eden.' (Observer)

'A timeless work of art from which no essential element of life has been omitted.' (New York Times Book Review)

Absolutely Absorbing Epic of A Frontier Family

"The Tree of Man" is an absolutely absorbing epic of a family in rural Australia in the first half of the twentieth century. Patrick White's eloquent poetry provides such a vivid portrait of the interior life of the characters, their community, the landscape and the invisible currents of emotion under it all. His writing sucks you in. The lives of the husband, wife and their two children become so real and rich. Their world will become your world.

The audio performance breathes even more life into this epic story. The narrator, Humphrey Bower, accentuates nuances that I missed the first time I read this book several years back. Listening to it this time, a whole new tapestry emerged. Bower brings to life all the voices: masculine and feminine, rich and poor, Australian and sometimes Irish. White's language is so beautiful and Bower does it justice.

It may be a trite trope to say, "they don't make 'em like this anymore." But you don't find literature like this in the 21st century. There was only one Patrick White. He deserved the Noble Prize in literature. Very few have his command of the English language. His Australian prose is inimitable. In our fast and flashy digital age, most people's brain's are conditioned to crave dialog and drama in a novel. They want a pot-boiler. This book is none of that. Yet, its slow poetry absorbs you in the everyday moments of a family that settled the Australian frontier at the dawn of the last century, befriended a few neighbors, then watched their land get consumed by a suburban sprawl over the course of decades as they dealt with the ordinary and extraordinary dramas of life. White captures deep emotional currents, an appreciation for the natural world, manual labor, tenacity in loving and a disgust with modernity.

This is a book that will leave you fulfilled. You will love it!