Download or read book The Vivisector written by Patrick White and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurtle Duffield is incapable of loving anything except what he paints. The men and women who court him during his long life are, above all, the victims of his art. He is the vivisector, dissecting their weaknesses with cruel precision: his sister's deformity, a grocer's moonlight indiscretion and the passionate illusions of his mistress, Hero Pavloussi. It is only when Hurtle meets an egocentric adolescent whom he sees as his spiritual child does he experience a deeper, more treacherous emotion.