ABSTRACT
Critics who have condemned Patrick White for his supposed glorification of cannibalism, in effect align themselves with the obtuse, persistent Commandant. A Fringe of Leaves is White’s most carefully composed and classically restrained novel. A Fringe of Leaves is the closest that White has come to providing a conventional happy ending. After many extraordinary adventures Ellen Roxburgh — one of the ‘ordinary ones’ — is reintegrated into society. Like many actors, Sir Basil Hunter is inordinately vain, apt to transform ordinary experience into a continuing drama with himself as the hero and totally preoccupied with what his next major role will be. His choice lies between attempting to redeem his past failures in playing Lear or risking everything in playing a role that his friend Mitty Jacka has created in a fluid and amorphous drama. Basil discovers his father’s old 3-litre Bentley resting on flat tyres in the barn.
