On Patrick White’s Dilemmas

'A brilliantly written, autobiographically structured meditation on Australia's pre-eminent novelist Patrick White. Karalis' small volume reflects eloquently on a lifetime of reading, writing, and translating. On Patrick White's Dilemmas casts a sceptical eye on the grandiosity and hysteria of literary critics and critical theorists. It explores the highs and lows of the twentieth-century novel in a dazzling manner while dissecting White's singularity: his startling use of language, defiance of fad and ideology, mastery of ambiguity, irony and mystery, quotidian drollness, and complex mythopoetic storytelling. Karalis' book is remarkable the most important examination of White's divine comedy of disturbing human quandaries that has appeared to date.' Professor Peter Murphy, La Trobe University