''The Tree of Man'' is the fourth published novel by the Australian novelist and 1973 Nobel Prize-winner,

Patrick White Patrick Victor Martindale White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was a British-born Australian writer who published 12 novels, three short-story collections, and eight plays, from 1935 to 1987. White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, ...

. It is a domestic drama chronicling the lives of the Parker family and their changing fortunes over many decades. It is steeped in Australian folklore and cultural myth, and is recognised as the author's attempt to infuse the idiosyncratic way of life in the remote Australian bush with some sense of the cultural traditions and ideologies that the epic history of Western civilisation has bequeathed to Australian society in general. "When we came to live Castle_Hill,_ Castle_Hill,_Sydney">Castle_Hill,_New_South_Wales">Castle_Hill,_Sydney.html" ;"title="Sydney.html" ;"title="Castle Hill, New South Wales">Castle Hill, Sydney">Castle Hill, New South Wales">Castle Hill, Sydney">Sydney.html" ;"title="Castle Hill, New South Wales">Castle Hill, Sydney">Castle Hill, New South Wales">Castle Hill, Sydney, White wrote, in an attempt to explain the novel, "I felt the life was, on the surface, so dreary, ugly, monotonous, there must be a poetry hidden in it to give it a purpose, and so I set out to discover that secret core, and ''The Tree of Man'' emerged.". The title comes from A. E. Housman's poetry cycle ''A Shropshire Lad'', lines of which are quoted in the text. The novel is one of three by White included in ''1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die''. The others are ''[

Voss Voss () is a municipality and a traditional district in Vestland county, Norway. The administrative center of the municipality is the village of Vossevangen. Other villages include Bolstadøyri, Borstrondi, Evanger, Kvitheim, Mjølfjell, ...

'' and '' The Living and the Dead''. The first part of the book was translated into

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

by Jin Liqun, a Chinese literary scholar who subsequently joined the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

and eventually became the first President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Reviews and criticism

James Stern of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote: "'The Tree of Man,' it seems to me, is a timeless work of art from which no essential element of life has been omitted. A magnifying glass has been laid over a microscopic world in the center of which loom, larger and larger, man and woman, married, bound by love, and from whom radiate the beauty and the tragedy of humanity." In the ''Times'' one day later,

Orville Prescott Orville Prescott (September 8, 1906, Cleveland, Ohio – April 28, 1996, New Canaan, Connecticut) was the main book reviewer for ''The New York Times'' for 24 years. Born in Cleveland, Prescott graduated from Williams College in 1930. He began his ...

called it "the finest novel I have read so far in 1955, a majestic and impressive work of genuine art that digs more deeply into the universal experience of human living than all save a few great books." * Reviewed by Patrick Coady in '' Quadrant'' 1/1 (Summer 1956/57): 87-88.

External links

Excerpts from the novel
at the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

's "Why Bother With Patrick White?" archive.
Synopsis and interpretation by Alan Lawson
at the ABC's "Why Bother With Patrick White?" archive.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tree of Man, The 1955 Australian novels Novels by Patrick White Family saga novels Novels set in Australia Viking Press books ALS Gold Medal winning works