The Living And The Dead
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: No markings
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
A landmark work of Australian modernist fiction, The Living and the Dead chronicles the emotionally stunted lives of Elyot and Eden Standish, two siblings adrift in the social and spiritual malaise of interwar London. Patrick White dissects the paralysis of the English middle class with surgical precision, illustrating how fear, self-deception, and an inability to truly live trap his characters in a kind of living death. The novel unfolds with a brooding, introspective tone, weaving between past and present as it uncovers the psychological roots of Elyot's detachment and his sister's desperate search for meaning through political activism and love. White argues, through richly layered prose, that authentic existence demands a painful confrontation with life's chaos — a confrontation most of his characters ultimately refuse. Widely regarded as an early demonstration of the visionary style that would later earn White the Nobel Prize in Literature, this novel remains a profound and demanding meditation on consciousness, mortality, and the courage required to truly inhabit one's own life.
Author: Patrick White
Format: Paperback
Published: 1974, Penguin Books
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Markings: No markings
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
A landmark work of Australian modernist fiction, The Living and the Dead chronicles the emotionally stunted lives of Elyot and Eden Standish, two siblings adrift in the social and spiritual malaise of interwar London. Patrick White dissects the paralysis of the English middle class with surgical precision, illustrating how fear, self-deception, and an inability to truly live trap his characters in a kind of living death. The novel unfolds with a brooding, introspective tone, weaving between past and present as it uncovers the psychological roots of Elyot's detachment and his sister's desperate search for meaning through political activism and love. White argues, through richly layered prose, that authentic existence demands a painful confrontation with life's chaos — a confrontation most of his characters ultimately refuse. Widely regarded as an early demonstration of the visionary style that would later earn White the Nobel Prize in Literature, this novel remains a profound and demanding meditation on consciousness, mortality, and the courage required to truly inhabit one's own life.