Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Happy Valley: Text Classics
Happy Valley: Text Classics | Patrick White
6 posts | 2 read | 2 to read
Patrick White's magnificent debut novel - first published 1939, long out of print and now a Text Classic. Based on Patrick White's own experiences in the early 1930s as a jackaroo at Bolaro, near Adaminaby in south-eastern New South Wales, Happy Valley paints a portrait of a community in a desolate landscape. It is a jagged and restless study of small-town and country life. White was twenty-seven when Happy Valley was published by George C. Harrop in London. This mesmerising first novel gives us a prolonged glimpse of literary genius in the making. It won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal in 1941, but White did not allow the novel to be republished in English in his lifetime. Its appearance now in the Text Classics series is a major literary event. Happy Valley is the missing piece in the extraordinary jigsaw of White's work. 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 and served in the RAF, before returning to Australia after the war. He was the first Australian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1973. He died in 1990. Peter Craven is one of Australia's best-known literary critics. He was founding editor of Scripsi, Quarterly Essay and the Best of anthologies. '[Patrick White] was a prophet, and from his sublime mountaintop, he sent down lightning bolts on our callow heads. Some of these bolts are vivid in Happy Valley, his first novel, published in 1939 and now reissued...The novel stands up well in the high company of its later brethren. It prefigures the greatness to come, and is a more adventurously wrought than many of our own age. White is a mesmerising narrator whose prose illuminates the most ordinary object and event in new and gripping ways.' Thomas Keneally, Guardian 'Happy Valley will be a joy for any fan. Here we see a sensibility not so much forming as finding, and owning, itself.' Weekend Australian 'This is a remarkable first novel, already discernible as the performance of a master whose apprentice work cannot be glimpsed. We are fortunate indeed that Text has reopened the front door in the house of Patrick White's fiction.' Canberra Times 'My favourite Australian novel was by a newcomer - well, a newcomer in 1939. A sardonic, grotesque, oddly moving ensemble of piece about thwarted lives in a dismal country town, Happy Valley presages the later Patrick White, but is also refreshingly original and feels as contemporary as the latest bestseller.' Jane Sullivan, Australian Book Review 'Happy Valley is a harsh and unsparing picture of a prematurely exhausting, life-denying Australia. It's a world full of violence, adultery and financial ruin, in which nothing will ever change. White's main focus, as in his great later novels, is the thwarted spiritual yearning of his characters. But this is also a superb anatomy of Australian society.' Metro (NZ)
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
blurb
gradcat
Happy Valley | Patrick White
post image

1. Love “Happy Valley” 📺
2. A visit with my nephew, plus trying to organize house & finish books 🤞🏼
3. Nonfiction current events, journalism and/or true crime 🕵🏾‍♀️👩🏽‍💻👨🏿‍⚖️📰
4. Going outside to find (literally) my newspaper 🗞
5. A new iPad 💻
#humpdaypost @MinDea
Omigosh...I forgot to tag...AGAIN!!

Doughtah Ooh! Current events nonfiction re:Putin I liked it a lot and it was a v interesting view into Putin‘s history and tactics- 6y
EleniKara For journalism based definitely check out this one. It‘s super shocking and unveiled the truth of this turkey production company which basically had “employed” (and I use that super loosely) men with intellectual disabilities from the 60s up until the 2000s in terrible living conditions and just, it‘s unbelievable! 6y
batsy I've only watched the first season of Happy Valley but it was so, so good. 6y
See All 10 Comments
gradcat @Doughtah @EleniKara Thanks for the recommendations, you guys...I‘m going to check these out!! 6y
gradcat @batsy I am waiting, with baited breath, for season 3...do you have access to season 2? 6y
Elma Love Happy Valley! 6y
batsy Yes, I do :) As with most series I try to keep up with, just haven't watched it 😆 When will season 3 be out? 6y
gradcat @batsy I‘ve only heard of a pending date of Spring 2019, but that‘s for American Netflix subscribers...I should think the Brits will get it earlier...not sure where you are.... 6y
batsy I'm in Malaysia. I'm not sure how our local Netflix rights work, but that gives me time to catch up :) 6y
gradcat @batsy Yaaasss! Catch up with season 2...I hope you like it as much as you did season 1! 6y
60 likes10 comments
blurb
Riveted_Reader_Melissa
Happy Valley | Patrick White
post image

Are you still in Happy Valley visiting @BarbaraTheBibliophage ?

BarbaraTheBibliophage Oh I wish I was! We just drove up to take our grandson to dinner that night. Four hours in the car for two hours of togetherness. #grandparentlife 😎 7y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @BarbaraTheBibliophage Darn, you need to check all the author's schedules before your next trip! 😉 7y
45 likes3 comments
blurb
erzascarletbookgasm
Happy Valley | Patrick White
post image

#coverlovers #awesomeautumnbooks
Love some of these Vintage cover designs with patterns and prints.

Kalalalatja Wow! 😍😍 7y
TrishB Lovely pic 💟 7y
69 likes2 comments
blurb
quirkyreader
Happy Valley | Patrick White
post image

What do you find at Half Price Books after the big Thanksgiving weekend sale? There wonderful choices. I was able to take another Steinbeck off my want list. 🐸🐙

James 👍nice haul! 8y
TheLondonBookworm Liking the look of Breeder! 8y
rebuketodali PATRICK WHITE!!! 8y
36 likes3 comments
blurb
Heather_Reads
post image

I found a new bookshop today! Apparently it's been open for a few months in the shopping centre near my mum's house, but since I rarely go to that centre I had no idea about it. And my mum didn't tell me because she knew I'd spend money there. This, friends, is either an example of very good parenting or very bad parenting.

review
Richard1
Happy Valley | Patrick White
post image
Pickpick

Patrick White's first novel was out of print for many years but was reissued a couple of years ago. It's a very readable and rewarding modernist classic.