[ilds] Jumbled notetaker

[richardpin at eircom.net]

In addition to his wide and deep reading of books (literary, philosophical, scientific, etc) LD all his life took notes of unusual phenomena - e.g., one of his earliest extant notebooks, dating from the time he was reading in the British Musueum, contains photographs, clipped from a magazine, of an Amerindian tribe with extraordinary physical disorders - I seem to recall one was a child with three legs (reminiscent of the little girl with 2 cunts?). He continued to pursue this interest throughout his life, subscribing to at least one scientific magazine, and as we all know, in 'Nunquam' he used 'Koro' (penis panic) which he attributes to the BMJ 1968. As others have noted, there is a difference between 'borrowing' and 'plundering'. I think that most of the time, LD was 'borrowing' legitimately, without need for ascription.
On the question of 'influence', at the Durrell School we have taught classes on 'globalisation', using Iain Banks's 'The Business' as a model - it can be argued that it couldn't have been written without at least some awareness of Tunc/Nunquam.
RPine   
----- "William Godshalk (godshawl)" <godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu> wrote:
> Durrell was a note taker of noble proportions, and he was -- not being
> a scholar -- rather careless with using references. 
> 
> But where would I be if Durrell had been careful with his references?
> He has given me a fertile jumble to put straight.
> 
> 
> If I can.
> 
> Bill 
> 
> W. L. Godshalk *
> Department of English    *           *
> University of Cincinnati*   * Stellar Disorder  *
> OH 45221-0069 *  *
> ________________________________________
> From: ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca [ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca] On
> Behalf Of Bruce Redwine [bredwine1968 at earthlink.net]
> Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 9:17 PM
> To: marcpiel at interdesign.fr; ilds at lists.uvic.ca
> Cc: Bruce Redwine
> Subject: [ilds] Jumbled
> 
> Marc,
> 
> "Jumbled" refers to how Durrell remembered his sources, not to his
> writing.  Saying he couldn't keep his sources straight, who and what
> came from where, is one way to explain what appears to be examples of
> plagiarism in his fiction and non-fiction.  It's not uncommon for
> anyone to have "jumbled" memories.  Dreams are examples of jumbled
> memories, and Durrell himself says there's not much difference between
> reality and dreams.
> 
> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
> On Feb 5, 2010, at 4:18 PM, Marc Piel wrote:
> 
> > Bruce,
> >
> >> but I also think everything became jumbled
> > together in his memory.
> >
> > What on earth can make you "think" that???
> > There is nothing confusing that doesn't happen in
> > every day life in the LD novels.
> > @+
> > Marc
> >
> > Bruce Redwine a écrit :
> >> James,
> >>
> >> Thanks.  That helps to understand.  I wonder if he had total
> recall, some people do, and that would explain a lot.  Shirley Hazzard
> has this wonderful anecdote of how she first met Graham Greene on
> Capri.  They were both in a small café, and she overhead his
> conversation.  He was talking to someone and struggling to recall the
> last line of an obscure Browning poem.  She provided it.  Durrell
> probably had this rare ability, but I also think everything became
> jumbled together in his memory.
> >>
> >>
> >> Bruce
> >>
> >>
> >> On Feb 5, 2010, at 1:45 PM, James Gifford wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hey Bruce,
> >>>
> >>> To be honest, I don't know...  He certainly read his share of
> pulp,
> >>> but I'm not sure of the actual patterns.  The remnants of his
> library
> >>> in Nanterre and Carbondale (and small portions elsewhere) seem to
> >>> indicate he didn't really keep his sci-fi readings, but the texts
> >>> themselves show that he was reading it.  I think he was one of
> those
> >>> who might more or less read everything he got his hands on.
> >>>
> >>> As for the encyclopedic nature of his reading, I can't offer an
> >>> explanation either...  It's certainly beyond my scope, and he
> appears
> >>> to have had a near freakish ability for recollection.  He once
> claimed
> >>> to have read through the Elizabethans (drama at any rate) in full
> >>> before he left for Corfu -- that may be an exaggeration, but I
> can
> >>> assure everyone that retracing his allusions to Elizabethan
> materials
> >>> in the /Pied Piper/ and /Panic Spring/ editions was a serious
> chore.
> >>> I know there are things I simply couldn't find, and much of what I
> did
> >>> was fairly obscure.  My suspicion is that he simply read
> voluminously
> >>> and had a profound ability to recall the contents, more or less. 
> The
> >>> marginalia in his books show an ability to capture repeated
> phrases or
> >>> sentences across the book as a whole (or at least to mark them,
> for
> >>> whatever reason), and that habit is, to my readings, a stylistic
> trait
> >>> of his works: recurrence of word patterns across disparate parts
> of
> >>> the narrative.
> >>>
> >>> I think the later pattern for reading was morning work, mid-day
> read,
> >>> and evening drink (or mid-day), but in the early years it seemed
> the
> >>> opposite with day-time readings and late-night drinking and
> writing,
> >>> likely with much less drinking.  How he read, wrote, and drank
> while
> >>> working full-time I'll never understand!  Then again, he refused
> to
> >>> have a TV and tended to live relatively remotely...
> >>>
> >>> Richard Pine can attest to the breadth of Durrell's readings, and
> the
> >>> revised edition of /The Mindscape/ is still the best source for
> >>> retracing those interests.
> >>>
> >>> As for what drove him to it, I can't guess.  For myself, it was
> trying
> >>> to make sense of the world when the old beliefs fell off me -- I
> read
> >>> everything I could to try to find the pattern behind it all. 
> That's
> >>> when I ran into the /Avignon Quintet/ and started to ask if a
> pattern
> >>> means anything...
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> James
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> James,
> >>>>
> >>>> Any idea how Durrell acquired his interest in science fiction?
> >>>> Did he do much reading in it or did he just dabble?  I'm very
> >>>> much interested in his reading pattern, which appears vast
> >>>> and encyclopedic.  I also wonder how he had the time to
> >>>> read, write, correspond, enjoy some wine, and hold all those
> >>>> interviews!
> 
> 
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