From odos.fanourios at gmail.com  Mon Sep  8 19:24:05 2008
From: odos.fanourios at gmail.com (James Gifford)
Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:24:05 -0700
Subject: [ilds] [Fwd: QUESTION]
Message-ID: <48C5DE45.9090305@gmail.com>

Hello all,

I'm forwarding this question, which I assume someone here can answer 
quite quickly -- alas, by copies of the books are out reach at the moment...

Best,
James

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From albigensian at hotmail.com  Tue Sep  9 09:11:48 2008
From: albigensian at hotmail.com (Pamela Francis)
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 11:11:48 -0500
Subject: [ilds] [Fwd: QUESTION]
In-Reply-To: <48C5DE45.9090305@gmail.com>
References: <48C5DE45.9090305@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BLU102-W5490129B83C66D600FFE42B0540@phx.gbl>


I don't know how or why Mr. Apt had my address, but I answered his question--Larry and Claude lived near Donhead St. Andrew in Dorset in 1956-7. I had no idea that was T.E. Lawrence country though, so next time I'm across the pond, I'm headed to Dorset. Hope all are well--though we live in N. Louisiana, we got hit hard by Gustav--I tried to check in with Don K, but haven't heard back from him. This storm pounded the whole state--we were w/o power for 28 hours, but some folks in Alexandria (Louisiana, not Egypt!) are still without electricity! And now Ike is on its way...but maybe it's heading farther west this time--sorry, Texas, but we've had enough!

Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 19:24:05 -0700
From: odos.fanourios at gmail.com
To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
Subject: [ilds] [Fwd: QUESTION]

Hello all,
 
I'm forwarding this question, which I assume someone here can answer 
quite quickly -- alas, by copies of the books are out reach at the moment...
 
Best,
James
 
--------------


--Forwarded Message Attachment--
From: billyapt at hotmail.com
To: ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca
Subject: QUESTION
Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 13:10:54 -0500








I am getting ready to visit my girlfriend's family, who live in Hampshire Co., England.  We will be visiting Dorset to see TE Lawrence's cottage and gravesite.  Can you tell me where Durrell lived in Dorset when we was writing BITTER LEMONS?

 

Thanks.

 

WILLIAM APT

Austin, Texas

 



> Subject: Mailman privacy alert
> From: ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca
> To: billyapt at hotmail.com
> Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 10:52:01 -0700
> 
> An attempt was made to subscribe your address to the mailing list
> ilds at lists.uvic.ca. You are already subscribed to this mailing list.
> 
> Note that the list membership is not public, so it is possible that a bad
> person was trying to probe the list for its membership. This would be a
> privacy violation if we let them do this, but we didn't.
> 
> If you submitted the subscription request and forgot that you were already
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> to the list administrator at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca.


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From billyapt at hotmail.com  Tue Sep  9 09:52:52 2008
From: billyapt at hotmail.com (William Apt)
Date: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 11:52:52 -0500
Subject: [ilds] [Fwd: QUESTION]
In-Reply-To: <BLU102-W5490129B83C66D600FFE42B0540@phx.gbl>
References: <48C5DE45.9090305@gmail.com>
	<BLU102-W5490129B83C66D600FFE42B0540@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <BLU148-W25AE85E8BD12679BCF7186D8540@phx.gbl>


Thank you Ms. Francis.  I had not received yr note till now.  I got yr name from the Society website, regarding yr conference on literary movement cities.  I contacted you because I was not sure my initial inquiry to James went through.  Hope it wasn't a bother.
 
TE Lawrence spent his recluse years in Dorset, at his cottage, Clouds Hill, the front door lintel of which is inscribed in Greek with the words "I DON'T CARE".  He is buried, I believe, in Moreham.  His effigy, sculpted by Eric Kennington, is in an 11th century Saxon church in Wareham, nearby.
 
Insofar as literary movement cities, and as you are probably aware, Mexico City (where Katherine Ann Porter, Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, and the great Mexican muralists all lived at the same time); Taos (where Mabel Dodge Luhan, DH Lawrence, and Frieda Lawrence lived and where Mabel Dodge hosted the great mid-century American writers, artists, and photographers); Santa Fe (where Witter Bynner, Spud Johnson, Mary Austin lived, with a flux of great mid-century writers, artists and photographers); and Carmel, Calif. (where Robinson Jeffers, Edward Weston, John Kenneth Turner, and the early 20th century San Francisco lived), are not as well know as the scenes in Paris, New York, Berlin or London.
 
WILLIAM APT
Austin, Texas 



From: albigensian at hotmail.comTo: ilds at lists.uvic.caDate: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 11:11:48 -0500Subject: Re: [ilds] [Fwd: QUESTION]


I don't know how or why Mr. Apt had my address, but I answered his question--Larry and Claude lived near Donhead St. Andrew in Dorset in 1956-7. I had no idea that was T.E. Lawrence country though, so next time I'm across the pond, I'm headed to Dorset. Hope all are well--though we live in N. Louisiana, we got hit hard by Gustav--I tried to check in with Don K, but haven't heard back from him. This storm pounded the whole state--we were w/o power for 28 hours, but some folks in Alexandria (Louisiana, not Egypt!) are still without electricity! And now Ike is on its way...but maybe it's heading farther west this time--sorry, Texas, but we've had enough!Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 19:24:05 -0700From: odos.fanourios at gmail.comTo: ilds at lists.uvic.caSubject: [ilds] [Fwd: QUESTION]Hello all, I'm forwarding this question, which I assume someone here can answer quite quickly -- alas, by copies of the books are out reach at the moment... Best,James ----------------Forwarded Message Attachment--From: billyapt at hotmail.comTo: ilds-owner at lists.uvic.caSubject: QUESTIONDate: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 13:10:54 -0500

I am getting ready to visit my girlfriend's family, who live in Hampshire Co., England.  We will be visiting Dorset to see TE Lawrence's cottage and gravesite.  Can you tell me where Durrell lived in Dorset when we was writing BITTER LEMONS? Thanks. WILLIAM APTAustin, Texas > Subject: Mailman privacy alert> From: ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca> To: billyapt at hotmail.com> Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2008 10:52:01 -0700> > An attempt was made to subscribe your address to the mailing list> ilds at lists.uvic.ca. You are already subscribed to this mailing list.> > Note that the list membership is not public, so it is possible that a bad> person was trying to probe the list for its membership. This would be a> privacy violation if we let them do this, but we didn't.> > If you submitted the subscription request and forgot that you were already> subscribed to the list, then you can ignore this message. If you suspect that> an attempt is being made to covertly discover whether you are a member of this> list, and you are worried about your privacy, then feel free to send a message> to the list administrator at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca.

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From dtart at bigpond.net.au  Tue Sep  9 19:01:40 2008
From: dtart at bigpond.net.au (Denise Tart & David Green)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:01:40 +1000
Subject: [ilds] Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
Message-ID: <004a01c912e9$2a648340$0201a8c0@MumandDad>

Here's a Durrellian question to puzzle over.  In that great poem "Bitter Lemons,"  Durrell refers to the "dark globes of the fruit."  Lemons are yellow.  Moreover, the situation is night, with moonlight reflecting off the fruit, making them, to my mind, bright and shiny.  So why are the lemons "dark?"  Darkness is a key to understanding Lawrence Durrell.  

Bowker explores this strongly in his biography of LD "The Dark Labyrinth". The dark globes, the dark crystals are LD's discovery of himself and so we come to the the Prince of Darkness in the Avingon series. As Bruce Springsteen as said "in the Darkness on the Edge of Town" a song line I have always found very evocative. LD, egotist, eccentric, drunkard, nomad, outcast lived often in the darkness on the edge of town - consider his 'Vampire House' on the edge of town.

For all his wine, women, mirth and laughter, for all the sunlight of his prose, the black dog was on his back.

David

Denise Tart & David Green
16 William Street, Marrickville NSW 2204

+61 2 9564 6165
0412 707 625
dtart at bigpond.net.au
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From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu  Wed Sep 10 07:30:59 2008
From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (csligh)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:30:59 -0400
Subject: [ilds] Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
In-Reply-To: <004a01c912e9$2a648340$0201a8c0@MumandDad>
References: <004a01c912e9$2a648340$0201a8c0@MumandDad>
Message-ID: <48C7DA23.9@utc.edu>

Denise Tart & David Green wrote:
> So why are the lemons "dark?"  Darkness is a key to understanding 
> Lawrence Durrell.  
>  
A very interesting question, given that in popular reviews Durrell still 
maintains an identity as the writer of brightly-lit Mediterranean 
spaces.  I have always preferred "Durrell after Dark"--or "Durrell in 
whose works the Darkness offsets the Light"--the candles set out above 
the water in /Prospero's Cell/ and the dimly-lit Sitna Mariam incidents 
of the /Quartet/ are some of my favorites. 

I suspect that the answer to David's question would change in relation 
to the specific kind of work and the specific time of composition and 
publication.  For example, some of you have been spending time with the 
new editions of Durrell's early works of prose fiction.  Where do you 
find the darkness in those books from the mid-to-late 1930s?  How is 
darkness different in works from the late 1950s or the early 1980s?

My own hunch:  I think that the darkness changes its location and 
significance as Durrell ages.  Could the Darley / Pursewarden pairing 
stand mipoint in the shift?  The younger writer still perceives darkness 
as external; the older writer recognizes his own darkness.   A very 
Janus-faced pairing, indeed.  And to offer a guess about the later 
works, I think there could be little disagreement that the weave of the 
/Quintet/ is suffused with darkness of different kinds.  Who escapes 
Darkness in late Durrell?  A halo-bright Clea is no longer a tenable 
resource. . . .

Charles
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From odos.fanourios at gmail.com  Wed Sep 10 08:39:01 2008
From: odos.fanourios at gmail.com (James Gifford)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:39:01 -0700
Subject: [ilds] Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
In-Reply-To: <48C7DA23.9@utc.edu>
References: <004a01c912e9$2a648340$0201a8c0@MumandDad> <48C7DA23.9@utc.edu>
Message-ID: <48C7EA15.2090005@gmail.com>

Hi Charles & David,

And excellent approach...  I must admit, I can't imagine reading /Bitter 
Lemons/ without the darkness.  Even apart from the inward glance of 
those dark globes, the role of darkness in the book seems to me to 
constantly anticipate the inevitable ending.  Any reading in 1958 knew 
how the book was going to end -- and it wouldn't end well.  "Blood" is 
casually mixed with the colours of the sunrise on the first page, on the 
second the glass palaces of the Doges are being pounded in a crystal 
mortar, or as Venice ends, "my thoughts turned to another sad relic -- 
the flayed and stuffed skin of the great soldier Bragadino which lies 
mouldering."  We know what Cyprus holds.  In fact, "blood" suffuses the 
first pages of the book, so it's no surprise when the book ends with his 
recollections of gaiety displaced: "the whole had suddenly become 
darkened with the air itself, by blood."  It is a dark book...

But, I sense that both Charles and David are edging toward something 
more, something inward.  I must admit that I've not considered a shift 
from darkness without to darkness within, though I don't think the early 
works are devoid of inner darkness, especially not /The Black Book/. 
I've interpreted /Monsieur/ somewhere as an exploration of the harm the 
characters bring upon themselves out of fear.  That inward exploration 
leads to something dark, being both unseen and dark in the metaphorical 
sense.  And like Oedipus, they blind themselves to this realization.

I see precisely the same problem in /Pied Piper of Lovers/.  As Ian 
MacNiven has argued, the novel is suffused with death, and like 
/Monsieur/, I tend to see that knowledge as driving the character's to 
blindness about themselves and into more limited or destructive lives. 
Walsh's fears lead him to a life he does not want, although we do have 
an Edenic ending in which he has fled the city to his "island" in a 
cottage, but he's still there to wait for death.

/Pied/ opens and closes with death (the last implicit), but they are the 
deaths of others (yet pointing to the dreaded death of himself, gasp -- 
if only he'd read Gilgamesh).  Still, self-exploration is prominent, 
partly as the protagonist's aim and partly due to this being LD's most 
autobiographical book (I'd say it's more autobiographical than any of 
the 'foreign residence' books).

/Panic Spring/ is again caught up in obsessions with death, and death 
marks the climax of the novel (I won't make the joke).  It's not as 
obsessively inward as /Monsieur/, but nearly all the chapters focus on 
remembering.  The quest, if it can really be said to have one, is for 
characters to look inward in order to move outward into a more free and 
enriching life, which is how we see the novel end for two characters, 
but it does not end that way for the character watching them, nor does 
it end thus for the dead.

But, Charles is quite specific in his question, and I'm rambling...

> My own hunch:  I think that the darkness changes
> its location and significance as Durrell ages.  
> Could the Darley / Pursewarden pairing stand 
> mipoint in the shift?  The younger writer still 
> perceives darkness as external; the older writer 
> recognizes his own darkness.

I'd go with that, but as a difference in degree rather than kind.  The 
junior artist of /Pied Piper/ seems to be reaching after Joyce's 
/Portrait/, while Darley in the Quartet is able to look back at the time 
leading him up to that self-exploration through writing "Once upon a 
time..."  Darley can externalize it.  Still, the inward exploration in 
/Pied Piper/ finds only pain, so I think the path of darkness and the 
inevitable return to finding it on the inside rather than outside was 
set from the beginning.

In a way, I suppose I'm saying that the darkness of the 1950s is 
different, while the darkness before and after is akin.

For David's focus on the poem "Bitter Lemons," I'd point not just to the 
dark globes of the fruit in the moonlight but to what is censored 
(unsaid), who is tortured, and whose habits are dead (and are the habits 
a hint to the religious influence on the island's politics)?  Darkness 
then appears cradled between "beauty" and "vehemence," which seem to me 
a clue.  They're three sides of the same "dark crystal," if you will.

Yet, if the poem's narrator is to find peace, it seems that beauty, 
darkness, and deep belief must all be pitched into the sea (let the sea 
nurses keep them) -- if we want a beautiful book, it's going need to 
plumb the darkness of sea monsters, torture, and death, otherwise we 
can't have beauty either.  That strikes me as very much Durrell's 
attitude in his first two novels.  Still, I see an anti-political tone 
in the early Durrell too, and I wonder if this 'prayer' in the poem is 
for us to pitch the dark crystal into the sea in life but gaze deeply in 
art: let the darkness work itself out in art rather than in the world.

Thanks for letting me ramble over my morning coffee...  Now off to work!

Best,
James

From Mark2.Valentine at btinternet.com  Wed Sep 10 12:59:17 2008
From: Mark2.Valentine at btinternet.com (Mark Valentine)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:59:17 +0100
Subject: [ilds] Dark globes
References: <mailman.1.1221073204.1847484.ilds@lists.uvic.ca>
Message-ID: <002b01c9137f$b5b1c2f0$4101a8c0@william>

Lemons aren't globes either, are they ?

My interpretation would be that the fall of moon-shadow carves the lemons 
into the appearance of dark globes. It's both a poetic, literal description 
of what they look like, and a hint at the Gnostic belief that we live in a 
workd endarkened, hidden from the higher light.

Mark
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca>
To: <ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 8:00 PM
Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 18, Issue 9


> Send ILDS mailing list submissions to
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>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
>      (Denise Tart & David Green)
>   2. Re: Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town (csligh)
>   3. Re: Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
>      (James Gifford)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:01:40 +1000
> From: "Denise Tart & David Green" <dtart at bigpond.net.au>
> Subject: [ilds] Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
> To: "Durrel" <ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
> Message-ID: <004a01c912e9$2a648340$0201a8c0 at MumandDad>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
> Here's a Durrellian question to puzzle over.  In that great poem "Bitter 
> Lemons,"  Durrell refers to the "dark globes of the fruit."  Lemons are 
> yellow.  Moreover, the situation is night, with moonlight reflecting off 
> the fruit, making them, to my mind, bright and shiny.  So why are the 
> lemons "dark?"  Darkness is a key to understanding Lawrence Durrell.
>
> Bowker explores this strongly in his biography of LD "The Dark Labyrinth". 
> The dark globes, the dark crystals are LD's discovery of himself and so we 
> come to the the Prince of Darkness in the Avingon series. As Bruce 
> Springsteen as said "in the Darkness on the Edge of Town" a song line I 
> have always found very evocative. LD, egotist, eccentric, drunkard, nomad, 
> outcast lived often in the darkness on the edge of town - consider his 
> 'Vampire House' on the edge of town.
>
> For all his wine, women, mirth and laughter, for all the sunlight of his 
> prose, the black dog was on his back.
>
> David
>
> Denise Tart & David Green
> 16 William Street, Marrickville NSW 2204
>
> +61 2 9564 6165
> 0412 707 625
> dtart at bigpond.net.au
> -------------- next part --------------
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> URL: 
> http://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/attachments/20080910/2c038d95/attachment-0001.html
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:30:59 -0400
> From: csligh <Charles-Sligh at utc.edu>
> Subject: Re: [ilds] Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
> Message-ID: <48C7DA23.9 at utc.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Denise Tart & David Green wrote:
>> So why are the lemons "dark?"  Darkness is a key to understanding
>> Lawrence Durrell.
>>
> A very interesting question, given that in popular reviews Durrell still
> maintains an identity as the writer of brightly-lit Mediterranean
> spaces.  I have always preferred "Durrell after Dark"--or "Durrell in
> whose works the Darkness offsets the Light"--the candles set out above
> the water in /Prospero's Cell/ and the dimly-lit Sitna Mariam incidents
> of the /Quartet/ are some of my favorites.
>
> I suspect that the answer to David's question would change in relation
> to the specific kind of work and the specific time of composition and
> publication.  For example, some of you have been spending time with the
> new editions of Durrell's early works of prose fiction.  Where do you
> find the darkness in those books from the mid-to-late 1930s?  How is
> darkness different in works from the late 1950s or the early 1980s?
>
> My own hunch:  I think that the darkness changes its location and
> significance as Durrell ages.  Could the Darley / Pursewarden pairing
> stand mipoint in the shift?  The younger writer still perceives darkness
> as external; the older writer recognizes his own darkness.   A very
> Janus-faced pairing, indeed.  And to offer a guess about the later
> works, I think there could be little disagreement that the weave of the
> /Quintet/ is suffused with darkness of different kinds.  Who escapes
> Darkness in late Durrell?  A halo-bright Clea is no longer a tenable
> resource. . . .
>
> Charles
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: 
> http://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/attachments/20080910/b1abd4eb/attachment-0001.html
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:39:01 -0700
> From: James Gifford <odos.fanourios at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [ilds] Bitter Lemons and the darkness on the edge of town
> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
> Message-ID: <48C7EA15.2090005 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Hi Charles & David,
>
> And excellent approach...  I must admit, I can't imagine reading /Bitter
> Lemons/ without the darkness.  Even apart from the inward glance of
> those dark globes, the role of darkness in the book seems to me to
> constantly anticipate the inevitable ending.  Any reading in 1958 knew
> how the book was going to end -- and it wouldn't end well.  "Blood" is
> casually mixed with the colours of the sunrise on the first page, on the
> second the glass palaces of the Doges are being pounded in a crystal
> mortar, or as Venice ends, "my thoughts turned to another sad relic -- 
> the flayed and stuffed skin of the great soldier Bragadino which lies
> mouldering."  We know what Cyprus holds.  In fact, "blood" suffuses the
> first pages of the book, so it's no surprise when the book ends with his
> recollections of gaiety displaced: "the whole had suddenly become
> darkened with the air itself, by blood."  It is a dark book...
>
> But, I sense that both Charles and David are edging toward something
> more, something inward.  I must admit that I've not considered a shift
> from darkness without to darkness within, though I don't think the early
> works are devoid of inner darkness, especially not /The Black Book/.
> I've interpreted /Monsieur/ somewhere as an exploration of the harm the
> characters bring upon themselves out of fear.  That inward exploration
> leads to something dark, being both unseen and dark in the metaphorical
> sense.  And like Oedipus, they blind themselves to this realization.
>
> I see precisely the same problem in /Pied Piper of Lovers/.  As Ian
> MacNiven has argued, the novel is suffused with death, and like
> /Monsieur/, I tend to see that knowledge as driving the character's to
> blindness about themselves and into more limited or destructive lives.
> Walsh's fears lead him to a life he does not want, although we do have
> an Edenic ending in which he has fled the city to his "island" in a
> cottage, but he's still there to wait for death.
>
> /Pied/ opens and closes with death (the last implicit), but they are the
> deaths of others (yet pointing to the dreaded death of himself, gasp -- 
> if only he'd read Gilgamesh).  Still, self-exploration is prominent,
> partly as the protagonist's aim and partly due to this being LD's most
> autobiographical book (I'd say it's more autobiographical than any of
> the 'foreign residence' books).
>
> /Panic Spring/ is again caught up in obsessions with death, and death
> marks the climax of the novel (I won't make the joke).  It's not as
> obsessively inward as /Monsieur/, but nearly all the chapters focus on
> remembering.  The quest, if it can really be said to have one, is for
> characters to look inward in order to move outward into a more free and
> enriching life, which is how we see the novel end for two characters,
> but it does not end that way for the character watching them, nor does
> it end thus for the dead.
>
> But, Charles is quite specific in his question, and I'm rambling...
>
>> My own hunch:  I think that the darkness changes
>> its location and significance as Durrell ages.
>> Could the Darley / Pursewarden pairing stand
>> mipoint in the shift?  The younger writer still
>> perceives darkness as external; the older writer
>> recognizes his own darkness.
>
> I'd go with that, but as a difference in degree rather than kind.  The
> junior artist of /Pied Piper/ seems to be reaching after Joyce's
> /Portrait/, while Darley in the Quartet is able to look back at the time
> leading him up to that self-exploration through writing "Once upon a
> time..."  Darley can externalize it.  Still, the inward exploration in
> /Pied Piper/ finds only pain, so I think the path of darkness and the
> inevitable return to finding it on the inside rather than outside was
> set from the beginning.
>
> In a way, I suppose I'm saying that the darkness of the 1950s is
> different, while the darkness before and after is akin.
>
> For David's focus on the poem "Bitter Lemons," I'd point not just to the
> dark globes of the fruit in the moonlight but to what is censored
> (unsaid), who is tortured, and whose habits are dead (and are the habits
> a hint to the religious influence on the island's politics)?  Darkness
> then appears cradled between "beauty" and "vehemence," which seem to me
> a clue.  They're three sides of the same "dark crystal," if you will.
>
> Yet, if the poem's narrator is to find peace, it seems that beauty,
> darkness, and deep belief must all be pitched into the sea (let the sea
> nurses keep them) -- if we want a beautiful book, it's going need to
> plumb the darkness of sea monsters, torture, and death, otherwise we
> can't have beauty either.  That strikes me as very much Durrell's
> attitude in his first two novels.  Still, I see an anti-political tone
> in the early Durrell too, and I wonder if this 'prayer' in the poem is
> for us to pitch the dark crystal into the sea in life but gaze deeply in
> art: let the darkness work itself out in art rather than in the world.
>
> Thanks for letting me ramble over my morning coffee...  Now off to work!
>
> Best,
> James
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
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>
> End of ILDS Digest, Vol 18, Issue 9
> ***********************************
> 



From odos.fanourios at gmail.com  Wed Sep 10 14:52:31 2008
From: odos.fanourios at gmail.com (James Gifford)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:52:31 -0700
Subject: [ilds] Dark globes
In-Reply-To: <002b01c9137f$b5b1c2f0$4101a8c0@william>
References: <mailman.1.1221073204.1847484.ilds@lists.uvic.ca>
	<002b01c9137f$b5b1c2f0$4101a8c0@william>
Message-ID: <48C8419F.9080907@gmail.com>

Hello Mark,

What an illuminating (ahem) notion.  I like it, and the timing is quite 
good as well, since there is much Gnostic material in /Justine/, which 
is a close contemporary.

I wonder though, how would this image reframe the potential 
interpretations of "torture" and "vehemence," etc.?  Are we serving the 
demiurge by engaging in such passions, or are we becoming the demiurge 
in art when we (really, he) put them on paper.  I'm thinking of the 
ending of Durrell's "Oil for the Saint," in which he makes the 
artist/demiurge connection explicit, again during a nighttime scene near 
water.

I suppose we'd have to ask why the moon is there too, yet the stars are 
not.  Do you prefer to read the globes as spheres, their darkness 
blotting out the higher archons and such?  I could see such a reading 
becoming expansive...

Thanks for this.

Best,
James

Mark Valentine wrote:
> Lemons aren't globes either, are they ?
> 
> My interpretation would be that the fall of moon-shadow carves the lemons 
> into the appearance of dark globes. It's both a poetic, literal description 
> of what they look like, and a hint at the Gnostic belief that we live in a 
> workd endarkened, hidden from the higher light.
> 
> Mark

From hungerist at hotmail.com  Wed Sep 10 20:52:51 2008
From: hungerist at hotmail.com (Alejandro Adams)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:52:51 -0700
Subject: [ilds] Springsteen
References: <mailman.1.1221073204.1847484.ilds@lists.uvic.ca>
Message-ID: <BAY123-DAV3666C93AE2D782478144BA2560@phx.gbl>

There's nothing like a Springsteen reference now and then to bring things 
down to earth.  A different class of poet maybe, but of comparable caliber 
to Durrell.


From dtart at bigpond.net.au  Thu Sep 11 01:57:44 2008
From: dtart at bigpond.net.au (Denise Tart & David Green)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:57:44 +1000
Subject: [ilds] Springsteen
References: <mailman.1.1221073204.1847484.ilds@lists.uvic.ca>
	<BAY123-DAV3666C93AE2D782478144BA2560@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <004d01c913ec$74a882e0$0201a8c0@MumandDad>

I would have to agree, Alejandro. There is a lyrical power in Bruce 
Springteen that puts him right up there. The Album Devils and Dust is 
especially good and.....well, the theme of darkness is very strong in the 
Boss's songs be it  the the Darkness of the Edge of Town or the Darknes of 
Candy's room or the "at night we'd ride through mansions of glory in suicide 
machines' or 'the road is dark and it's a thin thin line'

Hey, the poetic soul; Cliche or truth? Now there is a question.

David


Denise Tart
Civil Celebrant - A8807
16 William Street
Marrickville NSW  2204
+61 2 9564 6165
0412 707 625
dtart at bigpond.net.au
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alejandro Adams" <hungerist at hotmail.com>
To: <ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 1:52 PM
Subject: Re: [ilds] Springsteen


> There's nothing like a Springsteen reference now and then to bring things
> down to earth.  A different class of poet maybe, but of comparable caliber
> to Durrell.
>
> _______________________________________________
> ILDS mailing list
> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca
> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds
> 



From odos.fanourios at gmail.com  Fri Sep 12 16:21:04 2008
From: odos.fanourios at gmail.com (James Gifford)
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:21:04 -0700
Subject: [ilds] More TLS letters
Message-ID: <48CAF960.30204@gmail.com>

Hello all,

Keith Fraser from Vancouver (evidently living only a few blocks from my 
sister) has written another letter responding to the the Durrell 
materials in the /TLS/:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article4722998.ece

Thoughts?  I like Aldington, but I must admit I'm not sure if I'd run 
him parallel to Pursewarden.

Best,
James
_________________________________________
James Gifford, University Core Director
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Vancouver
842 Cambie Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 2P6
http://members.shaw.ca/james.gifford