[ilds] spies and spying in Justine

[James Gifford]

 > Recently Michael Haag pointed out the many spies
 > /intrigues in the novel.

It's far too easy to forget that /Justine/ appeared the same year as 
/White Eagles Over Serbia/...  Personally, I first picked up /The 
Avignon Quintet/ because of the blurb on the back cover: "enigmatic and 
secretive work."  Looked like a good spy novel for a particularly snowy 
long weekend.

Claude's /Chair for the Saint/ packs much of the same 'thriller' punch, 
and I'd suspect from the style that they were influencing each other 
substantially through the whole period.

Cheers,
Jamie

william godshalk wrote:
> Recently Michael Haag pointed out the many spies /intrigues in the 
> novel. Here's what he wrote:
> 
> 
>> 'Obscure political ends' is in the first edition, first impression 
>> (p. 35).  But offhand I don't know if it was in the MS submitted to 
>> Faber.  I could check; it's in the British Library; but I would 
>> guess that it is.  In any case I do not think it matters.  Durrell 
>> was always playing with the idea of intrigues in Justine.  There is 
>> Balthazar and his cabal, of which Nessim was a part.  Scobie is 
>> working for intelligence.  And there was Cohen, who turns out to be 
>> a French agent, and the French are up to something in Syria (p 139 
>> omnibus 1962 edition); in the MS Cohen is a German agent; but it has 
>> not yet occurred to Durrell to make him a Zionist agent.  In his 
>> earliest letters to Miller, Durrell describes Justine as a book 
>> about sex and the secret service; intrigue was always meant as part 
>> of the atmosphere, and 'obscure ends' works well as atmosphere.
> 
> 
> Any comments?
> 
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> W. L. Godshalk		*
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