{"product_id":"2026200015253-secondhand-the-vivisector","title":"The Vivisector","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat 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.\n\nWhite, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203204849883,"sku":"2026200015253-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/68c6686b-e0d4-43a5-992e-8af7bc47d298.png?v=1788145668","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200015253-secondhand-the-vivisector","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}