[ilds] Brilliant disguise

[Bruce Redwine]

David,

Yes.  Anyone who writes knows that a big part of that pleasure lies in  
creating a world and living in it.  Hence the obsession to write and  
sustain the experience, as long as you can.  Durrell was often  
successful at the latter.  He was indeed Prospero, the happy magician,  
or so he started off as a young man, in the bloom of youth, but toward  
the end, in the gloom, if you will, he seems to have turned in that  
disguise for Monsieur, the Demiurge.  Michael Haag has said that  
Durrell lies all the time, when talking about his writing.  I think  
this is true.  He has a great need for playful obfuscation.  Why is  
his poetry often so difficult?  As Charles Bryant says in his video,  
"what did it really mean?"  I believe the solution to that puzzle may  
have something to do with lying or invention as lying.  Liars don't  
want to be caught.  Writers want to share their work — but only to a  
point.  They also want to keep it private and will lie to do so.  It's  
a game that can lead to problems, if you stay in the real world.   
Better to go to Tibet or to jump into nothingness, like Campion.


Bruce



On Sep 26, 2009, at 7:48 PM, Denise Tart & David Green wrote:

> David, I'll drink a toast to you and Count D., who is really Durrell  
> himself in aristocratic disguise.
>
>
> Bruce
>
> Durrell Claims in the preface to Prospero's Cell that the Count D  
> was a real character only not a count according to Gordon Bowker.  
> Perhaps Larry invested much of himself into this person, whoever he  
> may be.
>
> Writers are often frustrated actors. They have multiple facets to  
> their characters and create personas and dramas through which to  
> enact a version of their lives in the same way as Lord Henry Wooton  
> in the Picture of Dorian Grey has been said to Oscar Wilde as he  
> wished himself to be.
>
> Re reading Justine I am struck again by how what was actually going  
> on Larry's life moves seemlessly in and out his fiction; reality and  
> creation being almost impossible to determine. Even when LD says  
> 'only the city is real' he is being disengenuous.
>
> We imagine Larry and Sapho on Cyprus. Larry aone in his gloomy  
> peasant home seeking to make sense of the Alexandria years and two  
> failed marriages. The real Durrell drifts in and out - or does he?
>
> This is Durrell's craft.
>
> Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow. With Larry the  
> shadows are deep indeed, almost dark.
>
> "so tell me who I see, when I look in eyes? is that you baby, or  
> just a brilliant disguise" - Bruce Springsteen
>
> DG
>
>
>
> 16 William Street
> Marrickville NSW  2204
> +61 2 9564 6165
> 0412 707 625
> dtart at bigpond.net.au
> www.denisetart.com.au
>
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