[ilds] Durrell's Derring-do

[James Gifford]

Nice eye, Bruce.  I don't think I've seen such an interpretation before, 
and there's merit in it.  My only problem would be the archly unromantic 
images of war from /Clea/ and the general turn away from the state or 
it's impositions in such works as /Prospero's Cell/, /Revolt of 
Aphrodite/, /Panic Spring/, and so forth.

How does /The Avignon Quintet/ stack up on this?  I'd quickly suggest 
that Sam doesn't follow in the footsteps of Keats, and militarism is 
generally deplored, but that's a very different period in his life.

I suppose that in general I've been increasingly looking to Durrell's 
anarchic life of the village against the over-determined life in the 
city, and I'd have to associate the soldiers with the city, though 
"daring-do" and messages by moonlight might come in other forms!  They 
also just make for good page turners when one is needed -- Scobie is 
hardly the kind of James Bond we'd expect to find...

Don Kaczvinsky gave a (possibly) related paper last year in Louisville 
on Durrell and Ian Fleming.  Don?

Best,
James

Bruce Redwine wrote:
> Bill, I believe you're onto something important.  I think you're right -- old LD had secret ambitions to be a soldier and do "derring-do."  He was clearly frustrated in that regard.  Some of his most sympathetic figures are soldiers or former soldiers, and here I'm thinking of Deeds in Sicilian Carousel and how the desert campaign makes a man of sniveling John Keats, reporter.
> 
> 
> Bruce
>    
> 
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: william godshalk <godshawl at email.uc.edu>
>> Sent: May 22, 2008 1:03 PM
>> To: Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>, ilds at lists.uvic.ca
>> Subject: Re: [ilds] The Ariadne Objective
>>
>> Perhaps our boy has been up to no good on dark and foggy nights in 
>> the Med. Blowing German cruisers. Darley's dive is a reminiscence of 
>> his special work for MI during the Big One.
>>
>>
>> At 03:41 PM 5/22/2008, you wrote:
>>> Lawrence Durrell???  That would be news.  If I'm not mistaken, W. 
>>> Stanley Moss in his Ill Met by Moonlight (1950), the first-hand 
>>> account of that famous British commando raid, makes no mention of 
>>> Lawrence Durrell, who, I believe, had nothing to do with British 
>>> military operations in WWII.  Waugh, Dahl, and Fermor did serve in 
>>> the British military.
>>>
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: slighcl <slighcl at wfu.edu>
>>>> Sent: May 22, 2008 11:46 AM
>>>> To: Durrell <ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
>>>> Subject: [ilds] The Ariadne Objective
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Writers at War
>>>> Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 5/19/2008
>>>> *
>>>> Harmony exec editor John Glusman bought world rights to The Ariadne
>>>> Objective by Wes Davis via Neil Olson. It tells the story of British
>>>> Special Operations forces on Crete in WWII who, aided by the Greek
>>>> resistance, brazenly kidnapped the German general in command of land
>>>> forces, and stars some of the leading literary lights of the
>>>> day---Evelyn Waugh, Roald Dahl, Lawrence Durrell and Patrick Leigh
>>>> Fermor. Davis served for three years as assistant to the director of
>>>> excavations at Kavousi in eastern Crete, just north of where SOE landed
>>>> supplies for this daring exploit. Publication is slated for 2011.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6561931.html?industryid=47146
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca
>>> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds
>> ***************************************
>> W. L. Godshalk		*
>> Department of English         *
>> University of Cincinnati            Stellar disorder  *
>> Cincinnati OH 45221-0069      *
>> 513-281-5927
>> ***************************************
>>
>>
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