Winner

Riders in the Chariot Patrick White

Dustjacket synopsis:
"Four people entirely unlike each other in every observable way, each has a vision of a special world -- that world of which the Chariot is the symbol. A strange woman whom all her neighbours think mad; a Jew who has escaped the German gas-chambers; a simple, kind laundress married to a drunkard; an Aboriginal with an obsessional gift for painting which is his only contact with the world -- each of them, in some way has been chosen.

"Riders in the Chariot is one of Patrick White's finest works, comparable in its intensity of vision to The Tree of Man, in its range and profundity to Voss. It is a work of superlative insight, warmed and enriched by a great power of human emotion."

Quotes:
"Stands out among contemporary novels like a cathedral surrounded by booths. Its form, its impulse and its dedication to what is eternal all excite a compassion with religious architecture." - Sunday Times

First Paragraph:

"Who was that woman?" asked Mrs Colquhoun, a rich lady who had come recently to live at Sarsaparilla.

"Ah," Mrs Sugden said, and laughed, "that was Miss Hare."

"She appears an unusual sort of person." Mrs Colquhoun ventured to hope.

"Well," replied Mrs Sugden, "I cannot deny that Miss Hare is different."

But the postmistress would not add to that. She started poking at a dry sponge. Even at her most commuicative, talking with authority of the weather, which was her subject, she favoured the objective approach.

Mrs Colquoun was able to see for herself that Miss Hare was a small, freckled thing, whose stockings, at that moment, could have been coming down. To tell the truth, Mrs Colquhoun was somewhat put out by the postmistress's discretion, but could not remain so indefintiely, for the War was over, and the peace had not yet set hard.

From the Jonathan Cape hardback edition, 1976.

This page and its contents are copyright © 2006 by Perry Middlemiss, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Last modified: March 21, 2006.