Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial

Hardcover
$40.50

Paperback
$32.27

$32.27

$3 delivery 26 - 30 May to Sydney 2000. Details

Only 3 left in stock.

$$32.27 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

The enhancements that you chose aren't available for this seller. Details

${cardName} not available for the seller that you chose

${cardName} unavailable for quantities greater than ${maxQuantity}.

Ships from

Rarewaves UK

Sold by

Rarewaves UK

Returns

Eligible for change of mind returns within 30 days of receipt

Payment

Secure transaction

Other sellers on Amazon

New & Used (19) from $32.27 + $3.00 Delivery

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Colour:

To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

Patrick White

Follow

Voss Paperback – 21 July 1994

by Patrick White (Author)

298 ratings

See all formats and editions

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$32.27","priceAmount":32.27,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"32","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"27","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"mn7An7NOsfVxkShb4OVxg4kR%2FWKSoBUXkBaAv0ghlfLQVDKRldn2bnJCGXk0kYASqh69noSFtv1weRatfDnvcSRLCYgMHk3cYHZkwBE3UXvKVpZ5OU1INx7JwZn8satG535skvXnOJGgQzG3soG3wc4eLH3pHHN7%2B9Nkz7NEnFKiYUJZgJMmduYkHGaVLyDf","locale":"en-AU","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT MACFARLANESet in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is the story of the secret passion between an explorer and a naive young woman. Voss sets out to cross the continent, and as hardships, mutiny and betrayal whittle away his power to endure and to lead, his attachment to Laura gradually increases.

Product description

Review

The scenery is wonderfully described by the author… There is an interesting spiritual symmetry between the decline in fate of Voss and the circumstances in which Laura finds herself ― Nudge

One of the greatest magicians of fiction ... White's scope is vast and his invention endless ― Observer

Patrick White is, in the finest sense, a world novelist. His themes are catholic and complex and he pursues them with a single-minded energy and vision ― Guardian

Australia's greatest novelist -- Geoffrey Rush

The outstanding figure in Australian fiction ― New York Times

About the Author

Patrick White was born in England in 1912 and taken to Australia, where his father owned a sheep farm, when he was six months old. He was educated in England at Cheltenham college and King's College, Cambridge. He settled in London, where he wrote several unpublished novels, then served in the RAF during the war. He returned to Australia after the war.
He became the most considerable figure in modern Australian literature, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973. The great poet of Australian landscape, he turned its vast empty spaces into great mythic landscapes of the soul. His position as a man of letters was controversial, provoked by his acerbic, unpredictable public statements and his belief that it is eccentric individuals who offer the only hope of salvation. He died in September 1990.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Classics (21 July 1994)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0099324717
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0099324713
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13 x 2.8 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 643,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 3,190 in Historical Fiction (Books)
- 4,654 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- 8,040 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
298 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Patrick White

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

298 global ratings

How are ratings calculated?

Review this product

Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find this book to be a masterpiece with fantastic writing style and characters that are quite real. They appreciate the visual content, with one customer noting it's full of imagery, while another particularly enjoys the portrayal of Sydney town.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

Value for money Character development Visual content Writing style

6 customers mention ‘Value for money’6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book to be a masterpiece and a great read, with one customer describing it as an extraordinary achievement.

"...feel realistic but it is the drawing of Laura Trevalyan that is a masterpiece. An extraordinary achievement." Read more

"I find myself acknowledging that it is a fine piece of work, but something is lacking, which I can't put my finger on...." Read more

"...A unique Australian writer. Not an easy read but very much worth it." Read more

"...Isn't a book I would normally read. But I truly loved it. Great read!" Read more

3 customers mention ‘Character development’3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, noting that the characters are quite real.

"...Many characters feel realistic but it is the drawing of Laura Trevalyan that is a masterpiece. An extraordinary achievement." Read more

"...The character construction is first class, and we get to share each persons journey with them...." Read more

"...The characters are quite real but I have better things to do. This is his most humourless and tortured novel ...." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Visual content’3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the visual content of the book, with one mentioning its vivid imagery and another noting its beautiful drawings.

"...simpering and vapid lives of Sydney’s merchant class, are all beautifully drawn...." Read more

"...I did enjoy the portrayal of Sydney town, and can relate to the places and street names that I am so familiar with. Overall, it is a fine work...." Read more

"Voss is full of imagery that must be kept in mind if you are to get the best from this book. Not an easy read but one worth getting into." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Writing style’3 positive0 negative

Customers praise the writing style of the book, with one noting its masterful language and another highlighting the author's unique Australian voice.

"It's hard to categorise this book. The writing and vision are amazing. A unique Australian writer. Not an easy read but very much worth it." Read more

"Read this in paperback years ago . Writing style is fantastic , but this time around (and 50 pages in) , and age , I found the Voss and his..." Read more

"Very Good Writing...." Read more

Top reviews from Australia

There was a problem filtering reviews. Please reload the page.

Dave Burrows
truly the great Australian novel
Reviewed in Australia on 12 December 2024
Verified Purchase

I let my foolish prejudice against White, his overblown phrases in short stories, his persona of magnificence, his wealth and inability to write with either love or compassion of the poor (as I then believed) and refused to read him. Finally I read The Vivisector earlier this year, and now Voss. The scope, the style, the merciless ways that Voss and his mean are eaten by the Australian landscape, the simpering and vapid lives of Sydney’s merchant class, are all beautifully drawn. Many characters feel realistic but it is the drawing of Laura Trevalyan that is a masterpiece. An extraordinary achievement.

Read more

Helpful

Report
Neal Ames
A fine work
Reviewed in Australia on 23 July 2022
Verified Purchase
I find myself acknowledging that it is a fine piece of work, but something is lacking, which I can't put my finger on. The character construction is first class, and we get to share each persons journey with them.Both Voss and Laura are complex characters, but they also recognise that in each other. What I find missing is some sort of conclusion, a settling of the argument so to say. When I find myself searching for a simple ending I remind myself that life does not offer simple ending, and so a book that does not either must be closer to real life than stories that are neatly wrapped up. I did enjoy the portrayal of Sydney town, and can relate to the places and street names that I am so familiar with. Overall, it is a fine work. And I would recommend it.

Read more

Helpful

Report
Kindle Customer
Brilliant
Reviewed in Australia on 1 August 2023
Verified Purchase
It's hard to categorise this book. The writing and vision are amazing. A unique Australian writer. Not an easy read but very much worth it.

Read more

Helpful

Report
GOODVIBES
His most tortured work .
Reviewed in Australia on 2 April 2019
Verified Purchase
Read this in paperback years ago . Writing style is fantastic , but this time around (and 50 pages in) , and age , I found the Voss and his Sweetheart Laura essentially a couple of neurotic egotistical intellectuals . The same sort of twits that inhabit book clubs ...:-) .
The characters are quite real but I have better things to do. This is his most humourless and tortured novel .
If your coming to White first time . Get his short stories or The Eye of the Storm ; lots more humour between the seriousness , and you'll get a good feel for his style with is quite psychologically insightful . This language is masterful . White see's human motive quite clearly , which I think needs humour to swallow as a novel .

Read more

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Report
barbara gorman
An important book
Reviewed in Australia on 11 October 2021
Verified Purchase
Patrick White gives Australia it's own personality with his books. He's a bit on the grim side, but woowee, this guy can write

Read more

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Report
LanaS
Great read
Reviewed in Australia on 5 December 2021
Verified Purchase
I had to read this book for uni. Isn't a book I would normally read. But I truly loved it. Great read!

Read more

Helpful

Report
Ravanagh Allan
Very Good Writing.
Reviewed in Australia on 24 June 2023
Verified Purchase
However, the men (apart from Voss himself) are a bit foolish and the women are a bit precious. I found, in the end, that I had better things to read.

Read more

Helpful

Report
Brian Lynne
White Imagery
Reviewed in Australia on 25 November 2015
Verified Purchase
Voss is full of imagery that must be kept in mind if you are to get the best from this book. Not an easy read but one worth getting into.

Read more

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Gio
... but I can't really recommend it ...
Reviewed in the United States on 6 July 2009
Verified Purchase

This novel Voss, by Australian Patrick White, is not what I expected. Whether it's something much greater, or merely something much different, isn't such an easy question for me. Here's what the editorial blurb on amazon announces:
""In 1973, Australian writer Patrick White was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature." Set in nineteenth-century Australia, Voss is White's best-known book, a sweeping novel about a secret passion between the explorer Voss and the young orphan Laura. As Voss is tested by hardship, mutiny, and betrayal during his crossing of the brutal Australian desert, Laura awaits his return in Sydney, where she endures their months of separation as if her life were a dream and Voss the only reality. Marrying a sensitive rendering of hidden love with a stark adventure narrative, Voss is a novel of extraordinary power and virtuosity from a twentieth-century master.""
That is as irrelevant a blurb as I've ever read, but it seemed entirely plausible, given the penchant the Nobel committees have shown for favoring wind-swept grandeur, novels of the soil, foundational and generational epics. Thus I expected a book like Moberg's "Unto a Good Land" or McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove", a narrative as broad as the River Platte, and just as shallow. Voss is anything but shallow. It's as much a hate story as a love story, and its most obvious shortcoming is the author's disinterest in making adventure thrilling.

Patrick White was a stylist. A vividly original stylist, whose phrases glitter like the scales of an emerald boa or the jewels of a ceremonial dagger. A poetic stylist, who scatters his sable pearls on black cinders without the slightest concern for the reader's ability to gather them into a necklace of meaning. (Yes, I am trying to imitate him.) Here's a real sample:
""On the edge of the ridge, the mare paused for a while, and was swaying and raising her head. Then she plunged downwards toward what she knew was certainty. But in that interval of rest upon the summit, Voss and the rider had touched hands, the same glint of decomposition and moonlight had started from the sockets of their eyes and from their teeth, and their two souls were united in the face of inferior realities. ... Riding down the other side, the young man conceived a poem, in which the silky seed that fell in milky rain from the Moon was raised up by the Sun's laying his hands upon it. His flat hands, with their conspicuously swollen knuckles, were creative, it was proved, if one dared to accept their blessing. One did dare, and at once it was seen that the world of fire and the world of ice were the same world of light; whereupon, for the first time in history, the third and dark planet was illuminated."" That's Patrick White at his most defiantly profound, I admit, but portentous prose is his meat-and-potatoes. At times I was awe-stricken by his intimidating brilliance... and at times I was surfeited, cloyed, bored.

White doesn't admire his characters or, by implication, us his readers. His obsidian scalpel cuts through the prideful exterior of every personage in Voss to expose mediocrity. No one escapes his supercilious insights; no one is worthy even of his or her own apologetics. This is a novel about Redemption - Salvation - in which the only salvageable 'virtue' is abject humility, humiliation, penitential excoriation of human selfhood. I've never encountered a writer who treated his invented beings so harshly. As harshly as God treats souls, according to White, with eternal agony. In the metaphysics of White's Christianity, God is Hate.

Or at least so it seems to this reader. It's been my "fortune" to find myself confronting three literary geniuses of hateful religiosity in close sequence: Flannery O'Connor in "Wise Blood", Camilo José Cela in "Christ versus Arizona", and now Patrick White in "Voss". All three depict humans as despicable, lost wretches. I'm ready for an antidote, a humanist, a Creator who loves His creations. Any suggestions?

Read more
Report
Sankara Rama Subramanian
Five Stars
Reviewed in India on 24 August 2015
Verified Purchase
Good

Read more
Report
J. S. Slaughter
A substantial read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 August 2024
Verified Purchase
Perfect download. Novel absorbing . Not for fainthearted, as complex sentences.

Read more
Report
donalduck
En quête d'absolu
Reviewed in France on 2 August 2013
Verified Purchase
Etrange et fascinant texte qui décrit la quête d'un Allemand fou parti explorer le désert australien et qui trouve l'amour et la mort. Ce n'est ni un roman d'aventure ni un roman d'amour mais une sorte de rumination obsessive sur les thèmes de l'absolu, de la bonté humaine, du courage, de la fidélité, de l'amour, de Dieu peut-être, avec en arrière-plan une société coloniale futile, des aborigènes fantomatiques et le quotidien désespérant d'une expédition tragique. Ce texte est écrit dans une langue ardue, recherchée, pleine de mystère, souvent abstruse mais qui recèle des trésors de sagesse et de poésie si on prend le temps de multiples relectures. Le Joyce australien quoi. A recommander seulement aux fous de littérature qui n'ont pas peur de se heurter à une langue pleine d'embûches, semée d'archaïsmes, en constant décalage avec le cours normal des choses, mais qui seront récompensés par une belle aventure littéraire. Patrick White n'a pas reçu le Prix Nobel pour rien.

Read more
Report
Translate review to English
Tobias
Alles in allem ein perfekter Roman, der alles richtig macht.
Reviewed in Germany on 15 January 2014
Verified Purchase
"Voss" ist ein wahres Meisterwerk der Erzählkunst. Noch nie habe ich die australische Geschichte so lebendig und spannend, so menschlich und authentisch vor Augen geführt bekommen. Allem voran ist da natürlich die psychologische Betrachtung bzw. Beschreibung des charismatischen deutschen Entdeckers Voss. Die Figur des Voss', die dem realexistierenden preußischen Entdecker Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt nachempfunden worden ist, zeugt in beeindruckender Weise davon, dass Deutsche die Weltgeschichte auch zum Positivem beeinflusst haben und zur Legende geworden sind. Ein schönes frühes Plädoyer für die deutsche Wissenschaft aus australischer Sichtweise.

Read more
Report
Translate review to English

See more reviews

Image Unavailable

Follow the author