I am reading Voss by Patrick White at the moment, and having just made an effort to learn more about Modernism in art for my reading of Margaret Olley, Far From a Still Life by Meg Stewart, I had blundered onto Wikipedia’s most useful page about Modernism in literature.  While there is a warning that the page needs attention from an expert in the subject (which must be a bit demoralising for the contributor), I found its list of characteristics very helpful in terms of understanding why White received the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Although the Press Release, and the Presentation Speech do not specifically refer to Modernism, citing his award “for an epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature”, the TLS (Times Literary Supplement) recognises White as an exponent of High Modernism.

Like James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and William Faulkner, Patrick White is a practitioner…