The Vivisector
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: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
What does it mean to sacrifice everything — love, morality, human connection — on the altar of art? The Vivisector plunges into this burning question through the life of Hurtle Duffield, a ruthlessly gifted Australian painter who is sold by his impoverished family to wealthy Sydney socialites, and who spends a lifetime cutting the world open with his brush, rendering its truth with savage, unsparing precision. Patrick White's monumental 1970 novel chronicles Duffield's journey from childhood displacement through a series of intense, destructive relationships — each one serving less as genuine human bond and more as raw material for his relentless creative vision. White, Australia's only Nobel Laureate in Literature, constructs The Vivisector as both a searing indictment of the artistic temperament and a profound meditation on beauty, cruelty, and transcendence. His prose is dense, visionary, and at times deliberately overwhelming, mirroring the chaotic inner world of a man who sees his fellow human beings not as ends in themselves, but as specimens beneath his scalpel. The novel stands as one of the towering achievements of 20th-century literature — a work that challenges the reader to ask whether great art can ever truly justify the wounds it inflicts upon those who create it, and those who are consumed by it.
Author: Patrick White
Format: Hardback
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
What does it mean to sacrifice everything — love, morality, human connection — on the altar of art? The Vivisector plunges into this burning question through the life of Hurtle Duffield, a ruthlessly gifted Australian painter who is sold by his impoverished family to wealthy Sydney socialites, and who spends a lifetime cutting the world open with his brush, rendering its truth with savage, unsparing precision. Patrick White's monumental 1970 novel chronicles Duffield's journey from childhood displacement through a series of intense, destructive relationships — each one serving less as genuine human bond and more as raw material for his relentless creative vision. White, Australia's only Nobel Laureate in Literature, constructs The Vivisector as both a searing indictment of the artistic temperament and a profound meditation on beauty, cruelty, and transcendence. His prose is dense, visionary, and at times deliberately overwhelming, mirroring the chaotic inner world of a man who sees his fellow human beings not as ends in themselves, but as specimens beneath his scalpel. The novel stands as one of the towering achievements of 20th-century literature — a work that challenges the reader to ask whether great art can ever truly justify the wounds it inflicts upon those who create it, and those who are consumed by it.