Patrick White was 73 when he started writing his last completed novel and unsurprisingly its theme was old age and worries of approaching senility. The author was complaining that age was a dreadful mess and that his life would be a shambles to the end. In Memoirs of Many in One he took the point of view of an elderly woman, Alex Xenophon Demirjian Gray, whose mind was being overtaken by confusion and delusion.
After a short introduction by the editor (White) explaining how the novel will work, the reader is immediately plunged into the mind of Alex and taken on a roller coaster through her current fears: that her family are planning to have her locked away in a mental hospital, through to her thoughts about her past life, some of which may be imaginary and some of which is certainly from her dreams. As the novel progresses, her increasing inability to separate past events from current actions and her now fading memory is handled well. We follow Alex on a jaunt through the city on foot when she gets it into her head to escape from her daughter. We also follow her as a member of a drama group on a cash strapped tour through the Australian outback and we are with her when she tries to carry out the most basic functions in the house where she lives.

Release #243 for 2022...

Caught at Redgum Cafe.

Perhaps I shouldn't admit this but I do struggle with Patrick White's writing. Having confessed to that, I did laugh out loud a few times as well as coming across some moments of real poignancy...

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