Christos Tsiolkas

not reading him.

And I had read The Tree of Man and I just was astounded, Cassie, by how wonderful a novel that is and how, I think, important a novel it is, not only in terms of our national literature, but I think the literature of the English language.

And I think it is both those things.

And here I was on stage pondering what it means to be an Australian and what it means to be an Australian writer.

And this really good question comes from the floor about what do we think of Patrick White.

That's right.

And it was actually very much in that kind of forceful voice it was asked.

And, you know, the man was, what I think he was, I'm convinced he was doing, was actually asking both a question of...

Patrick White and wanting to know my opinion of Patrick White.

But he also, through that question, was asking me, what are Australians thinking of their own culture?

He did.

Look, I have for years now eschewed making New Year's resolutions that are about denying myself pleasure.

I just have no Protestant bone in my body at all.

I had made a decision over two years ago on a New Year's Eve night that I was going to read all of Patrick White.

And it was one of the best resolutions I ever made, I think, that I did that.

But it also came for all that at a particularly... at the right time for me to do it, to do it as an older man.

I've not resolved, far from it, the questions and issues and...

antagonisms and confusions I have about what it means to be Australian.

That, that's never going to be fully resolved.

But it was at a time where, I mean, I was ready to read someone like White and to read him fairly.