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The sadness of time
In the tradition of DH Lawrence, Thomas Mann and Halldor Laxness, Patrick White has written a story that teases out the secrets of a family's existence and, in so doing, explores, without ever mentioning them expressly, the issues and mysteries universal to humanity.

The plot could barely be simpler. In the early days of Australia's nationhood a young man and his wife set off into the bush to begin their lives together. They find some land, build a house, have a family, grow old and finally die. Around them the dramas of life unfold: friendships, disasters, disappointments and infidelities. The book is less about them, though, than about the unremarkable moments in between. These times of quietness are White's triumphs. His unhurried prose admits us to the intimacies of the characters, their griefs, their dreams and their successes. We share in the man's unarticulated affinity with the land, the woman's chronic loneliness. We notice how many words are never spoken, how many uncertainties never resolved.

By the end, one sees that the characters' struggles are his struggles. Briefly, perhaps, one's view of life becomes wider than his self, and a larger landscape, if not a plan, crystallises in the world. You finish the last page, close the book and sit still and speechless for a second, as if someone real has died.