Neglected master …

… Patrick White: Under the Skin - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

To the singer Van Morrison, in Ireland, White was one of the greatest influences on his life. He was the recipient of the only fan letter that Salman Rushdie has written (after finishing Voss); as well, of an impromptu speech from the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, for whom reading Voss was a searing experience. “It is like using an iron crowbar at minus 65 degrees centigrade in Siberia: when you let go, part of the skin adheres to it. Part of me went to Voss and blood too.” White, he was saying, does more than get under your skin; in his best work, he flays the reader bare.