The Aunt's Story

By: Patrick White

Narrated by: Deidre Rubenstein

With the death of her mother, middle-aged Theodora Goodman contemplates the desert of her life. Freed from the trammels of convention, she leaves Australia for a European tour and becomes involved with the residents of a small French hotel.

But creating other people's lives, even in love and pity, can lead to madness. Her ability to reconcile joy and sorrow is an unbearable torture to her. On the journey home, Theodora finds there is little to choose between the reality of illusion and the illusion of reality. She looks for peace, even if it is beyond the borders of insanity.

©1948 Patrick White. Copyright renewed Patrick White 1976. Published by Jonathan Cape. (P)2019 Bolinda Publishing

Critic reviews

'Patrick White's third novel is a brilliant, original and highly intelligent piece of work. It is also, thank heaven, gay and witty – as well as tragic, sometimes profound.' (The New York Times Book Review)

'As always, White’s insights and language are to be enjoyed ... This is a well-crafted novel.' (Reading Project)

A Dreamlike Vision Quest

Do not expect this book to be an easy listen or read. It's not a page-turner: it's a page absorber. This book is a vision quest. And you, dear reader, will need to do some work to achieve the vision! Patrick White won the Nobel prize in literature for good reason. He has a powerful, poetic command of the English language. Although this is not a big book, it's one that, while reading, I had to frequently pause and re-read and re-listen to quite a few passages to ensure I was capturing the story as well as my little brain could.

The book is broken into three parts.

PART ONE takes place in Australia, where we meet Theodore Goodman, the 'aunt' of 'The Aunt's Story.' We get the background of her childhood and adulthood. She is a single 'spinster' who has been her mom's caretaker for several years. Now, her mom has passed away. Theodore is free and is able to do what she wants with her life. The first part ends with her contemplating her freedom and desire to travel. Theodora's mother is emotionally abusive and Aunt Theodora is highly admired by her niece, Lou. Even with the beautiful ribbons of poetry and non-linear storytelling, this first part is relatively easy to digest. So far, so good! Then.... look out!

PART TWO is the biggest chunk of thie book, the torso, and is set either on the southern coast of France or entirely in Theodora's imagination. Part two is schizophrenic. It is beautiful and visionary. Despite a few moments of humor, I found this second part to be dark. While making my way through the thick-middle of this book, I frequently had to put it down and listen to some happy music so that I could come back to reality, lest my mind remain in the bizarre and multileveled dreamscape of the 'Jardin Exotique' of Theodora's real or imagined French retreat. This is the biggest part of the book. It's one that takes a while to read and fully absorb. But, allow my to say it once again, it is beautiful and visionary, even if it does leave you depressed.

PART THREE is set somewhere in the midwest of the United States where there is 'a great trumpeting of corn." (I love that imagery!) Theodora haphazardly chooses a pseudonym as she boards with a rather lovely family at the tail end of the Great Depression with the storm winds of World War Two brewing. The family that's providing her with a room and meal seems like a nice, stable end of this book.... this part is a short 50 pages. But, then arrives a final hallucinogenic man to confront Theodore with all her dark anxieties and philosophical perplexities. The vision-quest of Theodora is not over yet!

This book is NOT a piece of candy! This book requires a reader to participate with their full imagination. If you're looking for a dark, poetic, vision-quest of a book, "The Aunt's Story" will satisfy. But YOU have to work for this one! It's like listening to avant-guard jazz. It's not pleasant at first.... but if you stick with it, it will exalt you.

Concerning the narration on Audible, Deirdre Rubenstein does this strange work from 1948 justice. She dramatizes it and breathes new life into it. I enjoyed listening to it as I simultaneously read an old physical copy. Rubenstein reads slowly, accentuating bits they may otherwise fall through the cracks. This is particularly helpful for part two. Rubenstein provides believable accents to the various characters--British accents, American accents, Russian accents and she even speaks perfect French where Patrick White sprinkles that in, quite heavily at times, in part two.

The one thing that is very interesting about this audio book is that Rubenstein does NOT incorporate any Australian accents. At least not that I could tell--all the Aussies speak in British English. I found that interesting for a Patrick White novel, and seems to be consistent with how many literary historians clump Patrick White in with the 20th century European modernists instead of thinking of him as exclusively Australian.

I'm very grateful that Bolinda audiobooks in Australia has cooperated with Audible so that we can finally listen to White's works performed here in the United States. A big thanks to anybody involved in making that happen.