[ilds] 1957 novels

[slighcl]

On 8/7/2007 11:38 AM, william godshalk wrote:

>     Let us recall Kundera's comments on reading in The Unbearable
>     Lightness of Being. Tereza sees reading as a sign of membership in
>     a club, and Tomas is a reader -- her kind of guy. 

Yes--I think that I was in every way thinking of reading as an erotic 
act--or at least a form of attention or mindfulness that this particular 
reader always engages in a highly-eroticized fashion.

Thus my continual return to Durrell and to these lines from Durrell's 
poetry:

>     'There are sides of the self
>     One can seldom show. They live on and on
>     In an emergency of anguish always,
>     Waiting for parents in another.' 

Poetry and reading are in every way for me about attraction, desire, 
longing, memory, and absence.  All of this explains why I might like 
"The Tree of Idleness."

I recall here Darley ending his lecture on the old Poet and looking up 
to see Justine there waiting to acquire him.  And the conversation that 
followed as they devoured Italy.

Although there are major aesthetic differences--and of course 
recognizing that Durrell declared his disinterest in the Beats 
(/Durrell-Miller Letters/ 330+)--this takes me back to my original 
query.  I think that both 1957 novels--/On the Road/ and /Justine/--once 
were seen by their readers as signs of special membership.  (Signifying 
the Cabal?)  /Is the "cultic" aspect of these books also a drawback/?  

Charles

-- 
**********************
Charles L. Sligh
Department of English
Wake Forest University
slighcl at wfu.edu
**********************

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