Human Tree

Author: (Australia) White (White/P.); Hu Wenzhong/Li Yao
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1997-01-01
Features: [Editor's Recommendation] The Tree of Man is also his breakthrough work. It narrates the story of the Parker family from pioneering and settling, raising children, to the eventual death of Stan. Stan first arrived at a wilderness covered in forest, but as more people moved in, the development of farming turned the barren land into Sydney's suburbs. Stan and his wife Amy endured floods, fires, droughts, and human invasions, spending their honeymoon and also experiencing emotional estrangement and living separately under the same roof. Their son Ray was unruly from a young age and, as an adult, became a criminal, ultimately dying in a gunfight. Their daughter Selina climbed the social ladder, became the wife of a lawyer, and joined the upper class. The Tree of Man holds significant importance in Australian literary history primarily because it successfully combines Australian themes with modernist techniques for the first time. Patrick White broke the singular framework of previous writers who depicted Australian literary traditions like bushmen, pioneers, fires, and forest fires through realistic means, bringing a multi-colored and multi-genre new era to Australian literature with a vibrant and dynamic atmosphere. The Tree of Man inherits the tradition of European novels, grand in scale and seamless in flow, with critics considering it to have an epic quality. Patrick White (1912–), a contemporary Australian novelist of great renown and a Nobel Prize laureate. The Tree of Man is also his breakthrough work. It narrates the story of the Parker family from pioneering and settling, raising children, to the eventual death of Stan. Stan first arrived at a wilderness covered in forest, but as more people moved in, the development of farming turned the barren land into Sydney's suburbs. Stan and his wife Amy endured floods, fires, droughts, and human invasions, spending their honeymoon and also experiencing emotional estrangement and living separately under the same roof. Their son Ray was unruly from a young age and, as an adult, became a criminal, ultimately dying in a gunfight. Their daughter Selina climbed the social ladder, became the wife of a lawyer, and joined the upper class. The Tree of Man holds significant importance in Australian literary history primarily because it successfully combines Australian themes with modernist techniques for the first time. Patrick White broke the singular framework of previous writers who depicted Australian literary traditions like bushmen, pioneers, fires, and forest fires through realistic means, bringing a multi-colored and multi-genre new era to Australian literature with a vibrant and dynamic atmosphere. The Tree of Man inherits the tradition of European novels, grand in scale and seamless in flow, with critics considering it to have an epic quality.