AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Eddie Twyborn is bisexual and beautiful, the son of a Judge and a drunken mother. With his androgynous hero - Eudoxia/Eddie/Eadith Twyborn - and through his search for identity, for self-affirmation and love in its many forms, Patrick White takes us into the ambiguous landscapes, sexual, psychological and spiritual, of the human condition.' (From the publisher's website.)
Adaptations
-
form
y
The Twyborn Affair
United Kingdom (UK)
:
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
,
2009
8145637
2009
single work
radio play
'As the London Blitz begins, a tangled tale of sexual identity unfolds in this first-ever dramatisation of Nobel Prize-winner Patrick White 's 1979 novel.'
Source:
Radio Times, 24 September 2009, p.120.
Notes
-
Dedication: To Jim Sharman.
-
Epigraph:
'What else should our lives be but a series of beginnings, of painful settings out into the unknown, pushing off from the edges of consciousness into the mystery of what we have noy yet become.' - David Malouf
'My suspicion is that in Heaven the Blessed are of the opinion that the advantages of that locale have been overrated by theologians who were never actually there. Perhaps even in Hell the damned are not always satisfied.' -Jorge Luis Borges
'Sometimes you'll see someone with nothing on but a bandaid.' -Diane Arbus
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Braille.
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
y
Reading Corporeality in Patrick White’s Fiction : An Abject Dictatorship of the Flesh
Leiden
:
Brill
,
2019
15911959
2019
multi chapter work
criticism
'In Reading Corporeality in Patrick White's Fiction: An Abject Dictatorship of the Flesh, Bridget Grogan combines theoretical explication, textual comparison, and close reading to argue that corporeality is central to Patrick White's fiction, shaping the characterization, style, narrative trajectories, and implicit philosophy of his novels and short stories. Critics have often identified a radical disgust at play in White's writing, claiming that it arises from a defining dualism that posits the 'purity' of the disembodied 'spirit' in relation to the 'pollution' of the material world. Grogan argues convincingly, however, that White's fiction is far more complex in its approach to the body. Modeling ways in which Kristevan theory may be applied to modern fiction, her close attention to White's recurring interest in physicality and abjection draws attention to his complex questioning of metaphysics and subjectivity, thereby providing a fresh and compelling reading of this important world author.'
-
'I Am No Longer a Fiction but a Real Human Being' : The Modernist Queer Body in Patrick White's The Twyborn Affair (1979)
2018
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Hecate , vol. 44 no. 1/2 2018; (p. 59-75)'This article explores how Patrick White is both an inheritor and a precursor of modernism and its queer and gendered legacies within mid-twentieth century Australia; these experimental legacies are still felt today, with queer authors producing even queerer texts amid the Australian literary landscape. Focusing upon his novel The Twyborn Affair (1979), I argue that White's use of modernist aesthetics enables him to achieve a complete corporeal identity by writing the queer body as, paradoxically, both fragmentary and fluid. His prose both resituates gendered binaries and boundaries, and enables ways of navigating the epistemological trauma enacted upon the queer self by heteronormativity. Attending to the fragmentation and fluidity that White's modernism unleashes, this paper is especially interested in the becoming of a queer self, and it seeks to salvage moments of queer desire from a fractured identity in contention with the conformity demanded by mandatory heterosexuality. These legacies that White leaves for us are especially pertinent to our present as his deconstruction of binary notions of gender and queer narratives "opens up" spaces where an articulation of an Australian queer self can recognise its inherently transgressive agency.' (Publication abstract)
-
Modernist Fiction/Alternative Modernisms : Australia, Canada, New Zealand
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Oxford History of the Novel in English : The Novel in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the South Pacific Since 1950 2017; (p. 190-204)'What is it about modernism, that multivalent category riven with internal contradictions, that makes literary criticism continue to value it as a category?...' (Introduction)
-
The Boredom and Futility of War in Patrick White's Fiction
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Le Simplegadi , April no. 15 2016; (p. 65-73) This article investigates the representation of war in terms of uselessness and waste in the fiction of Patrick White, with a particular emphasis on the short story “After Alep”, written in 1945 when the writer was enrolled in the RAF as an Intelligence Officer. By analysing the story in the light of White’s approach to the war as to “the most horrifying and wasteful period” of his life (Marr 1992: 493), the article attempts to demonstrate how the narrative devices used by White contribute to demythologize the rhetoric of the war and of war heroes in a way that may be instrumental in conveying a message of peace out of the ultimate sense of futility transmitted by any war. -
Becoming a 'Complete Man' : Issues of Postmodern Identity in The Twyborn Affair
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: 澳大利亚文化研究 , June vol. 1 no. 2 2016; (p. 34-44)'This article is an attempt to discuss the protagonist Eddie Twyborn’s identity issue in Patrick White’s The Twyborn Affair. By changing gender to live in different identities, Eddie tries to pursue the ideal identity and become a “complete man” who can love both himself and others. Eddie finally gains the ideal identity and presents the strategy to deal with fragmented identity. White deconstructs the binary opposition of male/female via depicting Eddie’s three gender changes, and reveals the fluidity and instability of identity. White shows readers a beyond humanistic, postmodern solution to identity problem in Twyborn: "bricolage". Different from "androgyny" which focuses on mediation between male and female identity, "bricolage" doesn’t aim for equilibrium of gender but manages identity problem in a more flexible way, which is applying different identities in different relations.'
Source: Abstract.
-
Recent Fiction : Futurism and Other Projections
1980
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Winter vol. 39 no. 2 1980; (p. 260-269)
— Review of A Woman of the Future 1979 single work novel ; Long Live Sandawara : A Novel 1979 single work novel ; Confederates 1979 single work novel ; Hemlock 1979 single work novel ; The Twyborn Affair 1979 single work novel -
[Review] The Twyborn Affair
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: The Spectator , 29 September 1979; (p. 24-25)
— Review of The Twyborn Affair 1979 single work novel -
[Review] The Twyborn Affair
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 13 October 1979; (p. 20)
— Review of The Twyborn Affair 1979 single work novel -
Patrick White's latest novel: a rich and enigmatic triptych
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: The National Times , 24 November no. 458 1979; (p. 54-55)
— Review of The Twyborn Affair 1979 single work novel -
An Affair to Truly Remember
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 27 November vol. 100 no. 5188 1979; (p. 86,88-89)
— Review of The Twyborn Affair 1979 single work novel -
Patrick White's Aesthetic
1984
single work
criticism
— Appears in: LiNQ , [Triple Issue] vol. 12 no. 1-3 1984; (p. 55-70) The Pathos of Distance 1992; (p. 304-319) -
Mandala Symbolism in the Novels of Patrick White
1995-1996
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Commonwealth Review , vol. 7 no. 1 1995-1996; (p. 117-123) -
Patrick White: An International Perspective
1991
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Breaking Circles 1991; (p. 182-196) -
Constructing the Post-Colonial Male Body
1998
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Body in the Library 1998; (p. 207-223)Discusses the representations of the male body and identity in Australian art and literature.
- y Lady Spy, Gentleman Explorer : The Life of Herbert Dyce Murphy : The Most Extraordinary Australian You've Never Heard Of Milsons Point : Random House Australia , 2001 Z1205997 2001 single work biography
-
London,
cEngland,ccUnited Kingdom (UK),cWestern Europe, Europe,
-
cFrance,cWestern Europe, Europe,
- Monaro, Cooma area, Cooma - Snowy - Bombala area, Southeastern NSW, New South Wales,
- ca. 1914-1942