[ilds] Violence and Disintegration

[James Gifford]

Bruce,

With my tongue planted very firmly in my own cheek, I have a query to 
your assertion:

> I am particularly troubled by the accounts 
> of Durrell's physical violence towards 
> women.... In a recent ILDS posting, Fraser 
> Wilson has noted the following passage from 
> Eric Gifford's East of Athens (1939):  
> "Larry was short, blond and excitable ... 
> His wife was tall and slender, with handsome 
> cats' eyes.  Being an ex-Slade student, she 
> wore her straight, fair hair cut a la Trilby.  
> As her husband once remarked to me:  'You've 
> no idea what an arty-arty little bitch Nancy 
> was until I knocked her into shape.'"  I 
> have Gifford's book.  The quote is accurate, 
> on p. 139.  "Little bitch ... knocked her 
> into shape" -- what does all this mean?  And 
> I don't take it as a metaphor, in view of 
> subsequent events.  Eric Gifford's account 
> is of course hearsay, but it fits a pattern 
> confirmed in Durrell's latter years.

Have you examined Eric Gifford's (no relation) chronology here?  I'm 
looking at the Durrell School's much thumbed copy.  Apparently he was 
heading from Athens via Corfu to Brindisi during the 1935 uprising. 
Alas, Durrell was heading to Corfu for the first time at precisely the 
same moment, and this is some time before he ever went to live in 
Kalami.  Gifford's memory is either exceptionally inventive insofar as 
he has created a meeting with a young poet he couldn't possibly have 
ever met, unless he did so on some other return voyage, or else he's 
reconstructing materials very, very freely and with obvious errors.

Personally, I'd rather turn to the representations of the art student in 
/Pied Piper of Lovers/ and /Panic Spring/, one of whom is expressly a 
Slade student matching the description.  We've talked much this past 
week about Nin's comments on Nancy and her boyishness next to Durrell's 
feminine image.

But, I suspect that a close reading of one word in Gifford's account at 
this point is not likely to be viable in any real sense.

That said, Richard Pine gave a good lecture on Durrell's misogyny here 
this past week, and MacNiven documents Durrell's abusive relationships 
later in life quite well.  This does, however, continue to leave us at 
an impasse for the 1930s and 40s.  I would very much like to return to 
your queries about political issues then, and I'm not sure where we 
might go.  Can you perhaps say more about your thoughts on Durrell's 
pacifist / individualist views, in particular in the 30s and 40s?

Best,
James