From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Tue Jun 15 18:10:59 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:10:59 -0400 Subject: [ilds] =?windows-1252?q?=22the_almost_comic_inability_of_self-ana?= =?windows-1252?q?lysis=94?= Message-ID: <4C1824A3.8020102@utc.edu> I think that Durrellians will be interested to read Richard Pine's dispatch from a stormy and struggling Greece. Well done, Richard. Charles ** Greeks rail against being urged to become more 'European' The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 RICHARD PINE LETTER FROM GREECE: Austerity measures have raised the hackles of almost every sector to be hit by change http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0616/1224272613792.html > This is what Greek prime minister George Papandreou seems to be saying > to his fellow countrymen, as he tries to drag Greece back into Europe. > To save the country from bankruptcy, to renew world faith in Greece > and Greekness, Greekness itself must change. The characteristics that > produced the present crisis ? graft, lack of transparency, lax work > practices, tax evasion ? must be eradicated. > > Of course Greece can modernise, become more efficient and exterminate > (or at least minimise) bribery and corruption. But this is not enough > for the Brussels mandarins. The impossibility of leaving the euro zone > and reintroducing the drachma means that Greece is tied to a Europe > that is increasingly disturbed because its longed-for unity is > threatened: it contains elements that do not, and cannot, conform to > the idea of ?Europe?. > > In Spain, Portugal and Hungary, the local crisis is being described as > ?serious, but far less so than the Greek situation?. Yet no one is > asking the Spanish to be less Spanish, the Portuguese to be less > Portuguese, the Hungarians to be less Hungarian. > > How do you change a national culture? Why are these characteristics so > deeply embedded in the Greek character? From 1453 until the 1830s ? > and in some cases even up to 1913 ? Turkish rule over the Greek > mainland and Aegean islands meant that, as in Ireland, people > developed a mindset that was ?agin the government?. Such resistance to > authority persists. > > So does the problem of leadership. > > After 180 years, and several civil schisms, we are seeing yet another > rejection of a western system of government imposed by the great > powers in the 1830s, which has always caused a crisis of leadership. > Who should lead, and in which direction? > > Alessandros Papadiamandis (1851-1911), the father of modern Greek > fiction, wrote in 1892 of politicians ?deceiving the common people > with campaign promises, bribes and divisive techniques, all leading to > strife and corruption at a time when the nation was passing through > one of its most crucial phases?. Nothing new, then. > > But it goes deeper than that. Today?s commentators are not unlike the > 19th-century travellers who found the Greeks (and the Irish) > insufficiently western: incomprehensible, impenetrable, impervious to > ?reason?. > > In 1864, a Briton observed: ?A Greek will never confess any fact which > appears to tell against his country. Indeed, the general disregard of > accuracy by that nation is one of their most lamentable > characteristics, but it is no proof of the degeneracy of the race. The > ancient Greeks had the same failing.? > > Eighty years later, Lawrence Durrell also made the connection to the > ancient Greeks: The Odyssey is ?a portrait of a nation which rings as > clear to-day as when it was written. The loquacity, the shy cunning, > the mendacity, the generosity, the cowardice and bravery, the almost > comic inability of self-analysis?. > > Austerity measures have raised the hackles of almost every vested > interest. Taxi drivers have held strikes. Why? Because they now have > to keep accounts, issue receipts and pay taxes. Port workers are > striking because in a measure to increase tourism, cruise ships are no > longer limited to hiring Greek deck hands. PAME, the > communist-affiliated trade union, opposes the advent of the > International Monetary Fund. Teachers and civil servants oppose > cutbacks affecting them. Transport workers oppose the privatisation of > the railway service. > > Everyone agrees, in principle, that the measures are necessary if > Greece is to surmount the current crisis, but no one accepts that they > should apply to them. > > When the austerity measures were first announced, a ?social explosion? > was forecast, and this has indeed taken place, if violent street > protests are to be taken as a sign. Given the Greeks? natural > inclination towards demonstrative behaviour, that was only to be expected. > > Peaceful protests have been used by anti-state anarchists to provoke > violence. But even more disturbing is the malaise in the minds of > every Greek man and woman, a ?social implosion?, as Greeks reflect > inwardly. > > They have two parallel strands of contemplation: one is the physical > fact that austerity measures leave them with a higher cost of living, > and less in their pockets to meet it. The second strand is that > Papandreou is asking them to change the habits of a lifetime: not > merely to become honest, hard-working citizens, but to become a > different type of people ? more ?European?, more western. > > Europe is divided east and west: the west cannot tolerate the > indirectness, the obliqueness, of the eastern mind. And Greece is, > definitively, the meeting-place of east and west, which is why it > creates so much angst among those who are committed to the success of > the European project. > > It isn?t so much the cost of living, as the cost of loving. The price > of being Greek is the real cost of loving ? and embodying ? one?s country. > > ? 2010 The Irish Times -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From rpinecorfu at yahoo.com Wed Jun 16 01:12:42 2010 From: rpinecorfu at yahoo.com (Richard Pine) Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 01:12:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ilds] =?utf-8?q?=22the_almost_comic_inability_of_self-analysis?= =?utf-8?b?4oCd?= In-Reply-To: <4C1824A3.8020102@utc.edu> References: <4C1824A3.8020102@utc.edu> Message-ID: <249805.97730.qm@web65802.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Thanks Charles. It's actually a monthly column that I write. It's the first time I've quoted LD. I'm waiting to use the 'incorrigible thieves and liars' for the book I'm writing about Corfu. RP ----- Original Message ---- From: Charles Sligh To: "ilds at lists.uvic.ca" Sent: Wed, June 16, 2010 4:10:59 AM Subject: [ilds] "the almost comic inability of self-analysis? I think that Durrellians will be interested to read Richard Pine's dispatch from a stormy and struggling Greece. Well done, Richard. Charles ** Greeks rail against being urged to become more 'European' The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 RICHARD PINE LETTER FROM GREECE: Austerity measures have raised the hackles of almost every sector to be hit by change http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0616/1224272613792.html > This is what Greek prime minister George Papandreou seems to be saying > to his fellow countrymen, as he tries to drag Greece back into Europe. > To save the country from bankruptcy, to renew world faith in Greece > and Greekness, Greekness itself must change. The characteristics that > produced the present crisis ? graft, lack of transparency, lax work > practices, tax evasion ? must be eradicated. > > Of course Greece can modernise, become more efficient and exterminate > (or at least minimise) bribery and corruption. But this is not enough > for the Brussels mandarins. The impossibility of leaving the euro zone > and reintroducing the drachma means that Greece is tied to a Europe > that is increasingly disturbed because its longed-for unity is > threatened: it contains elements that do not, and cannot, conform to > the idea of ?Europe?. > > In Spain, Portugal and Hungary, the local crisis is being described as > ?serious, but far less so than the Greek situation?. Yet no one is > asking the Spanish to be less Spanish, the Portuguese to be less > Portuguese, the Hungarians to be less Hungarian. > > How do you change a national culture? Why are these characteristics so > deeply embedded in the Greek character? From 1453 until the 1830s ? > and in some cases even up to 1913 ? Turkish rule over the Greek > mainland and Aegean islands meant that, as in Ireland, people > developed a mindset that was ?agin the government?. Such resistance to > authority persists. > > So does the problem of leadership. > > After 180 years, and several civil schisms, we are seeing yet another > rejection of a western system of government imposed by the great > powers in the 1830s, which has always caused a crisis of leadership. > Who should lead, and in which direction? > > Alessandros Papadiamandis (1851-1911), the father of modern Greek > fiction, wrote in 1892 of politicians ?deceiving the common people > with campaign promises, bribes and divisive techniques, all leading to > strife and corruption at a time when the nation was passing through > one of its most crucial phases?. Nothing new, then. > > But it goes deeper than that. Today?s commentators are not unlike the > 19th-century travellers who found the Greeks (and the Irish) > insufficiently western: incomprehensible, impenetrable, impervious to > ?reason?. > > In 1864, a Briton observed: ?A Greek will never confess any fact which > appears to tell against his country. Indeed, the general disregard of > accuracy by that nation is one of their most lamentable > characteristics, but it is no proof of the degeneracy of the race. The > ancient Greeks had the same failing.? > > Eighty years later, Lawrence Durrell also made the connection to the > ancient Greeks: The Odyssey is ?a portrait of a nation which rings as > clear to-day as when it was written. The loquacity, the shy cunning, > the mendacity, the generosity, the cowardice and bravery, the almost > comic inability of self-analysis?. > > Austerity measures have raised the hackles of almost every vested > interest. Taxi drivers have held strikes. Why? Because they now have > to keep accounts, issue receipts and pay taxes. Port workers are > striking because in a measure to increase tourism, cruise ships are no > longer limited to hiring Greek deck hands. PAME, the > communist-affiliated trade union, opposes the advent of the > International Monetary Fund. Teachers and civil servants oppose > cutbacks affecting them. Transport workers oppose the privatisation of > the railway service. > > Everyone agrees, in principle, that the measures are necessary if > Greece is to surmount the current crisis, but no one accepts that they > should apply to them. > > When the austerity measures were first announced, a ?social explosion? > was forecast, and this has indeed taken place, if violent street > protests are to be taken as a sign. Given the Greeks? natural > inclination towards demonstrative behaviour, that was only to be expected. > > Peaceful protests have been used by anti-state anarchists to provoke > violence. But even more disturbing is the malaise in the minds of > every Greek man and woman, a ?social implosion?, as Greeks reflect > inwardly. > > They have two parallel strands of contemplation: one is the physical > fact that austerity measures leave them with a higher cost of living, > and less in their pockets to meet it. The second strand is that > Papandreou is asking them to change the habits of a lifetime: not > merely to become honest, hard-working citizens, but to become a > different type of people ? more ?European?, more western. > > Europe is divided east and west: the west cannot tolerate the > indirectness, the obliqueness, of the eastern mind. And Greece is, > definitively, the meeting-place of east and west, which is why it > creates so much angst among those who are committed to the success of > the European project. > > It isn?t so much the cost of living, as the cost of loving. The price > of being Greek is the real cost of loving ? and embodying ? one?s country. > > ? 2010 The Irish Times -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From marcpiel at interdesign.fr Wed Jun 16 07:13:05 2010 From: marcpiel at interdesign.fr (Marc Piel) Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:13:05 +0200 Subject: [ilds] Greece and China!!!?? to add to Richard Pine's prophesy Message-ID: <4C18DBF1.2020804@interdesign.fr> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/15/greece-china-contracts-signed Marc From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Wed Jun 16 07:58:57 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:58:57 -0700 Subject: [ilds] =?windows-1252?q?=22the_almost_comic_inability_of_self-ana?= =?windows-1252?q?lysis=94?= In-Reply-To: <4C1824A3.8020102@utc.edu> References: <4C1824A3.8020102@utc.edu> Message-ID: This is certainly an interesting slant on the financial crisis in Greece and its relations with the EU. I haven't read this take before. I don't see, however, the main point, namely, that changing the Greek character is what's really at stake. I'm simpleminded. The issue, as I understand it, is simply Greek debt and a social welfare system where a large percentage of the population works for the government, where some can retire at 55 at full salary, where corruption is widespread, and where tax evasion, particularly among the wealthy, is endemic. Are these the result of the Greek character? Are the Greeks predisposed to sloth and deceit? Are these traits "loving" or "embodying" Greek culture? The Greeks can be as Homeric, as Thucydidean, or as Durrellian as they want, so long as they correct these economic problems. Bruce On Jun 15, 2010, at 6:10 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: > I think that Durrellians will be interested to read Richard Pine's > dispatch from a stormy and struggling Greece. > > Well done, Richard. > > Charles > > ** > > Greeks rail against being urged to become more 'European' > The Irish Times - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 > > RICHARD PINE > > LETTER FROM GREECE: Austerity measures have raised the hackles of almost > every sector to be hit by change > > http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0616/1224272613792.html > >> This is what Greek prime minister George Papandreou seems to be saying >> to his fellow countrymen, as he tries to drag Greece back into Europe. >> To save the country from bankruptcy, to renew world faith in Greece >> and Greekness, Greekness itself must change. The characteristics that >> produced the present crisis ? graft, lack of transparency, lax work >> practices, tax evasion ? must be eradicated. >> >> Of course Greece can modernise, become more efficient and exterminate >> (or at least minimise) bribery and corruption. But this is not enough >> for the Brussels mandarins. The impossibility of leaving the euro zone >> and reintroducing the drachma means that Greece is tied to a Europe >> that is increasingly disturbed because its longed-for unity is >> threatened: it contains elements that do not, and cannot, conform to >> the idea of ?Europe?. >> >> In Spain, Portugal and Hungary, the local crisis is being described as >> ?serious, but far less so than the Greek situation?. Yet no one is >> asking the Spanish to be less Spanish, the Portuguese to be less >> Portuguese, the Hungarians to be less Hungarian. >> >> How do you change a national culture? Why are these characteristics so >> deeply embedded in the Greek character? From 1453 until the 1830s ? >> and in some cases even up to 1913 ? Turkish rule over the Greek >> mainland and Aegean islands meant that, as in Ireland, people >> developed a mindset that was ?agin the government?. Such resistance to >> authority persists. >> >> So does the problem of leadership. >> >> After 180 years, and several civil schisms, we are seeing yet another >> rejection of a western system of government imposed by the great >> powers in the 1830s, which has always caused a crisis of leadership. >> Who should lead, and in which direction? >> >> Alessandros Papadiamandis (1851-1911), the father of modern Greek >> fiction, wrote in 1892 of politicians ?deceiving the common people >> with campaign promises, bribes and divisive techniques, all leading to >> strife and corruption at a time when the nation was passing through >> one of its most crucial phases?. Nothing new, then. >> >> But it goes deeper than that. Today?s commentators are not unlike the >> 19th-century travellers who found the Greeks (and the Irish) >> insufficiently western: incomprehensible, impenetrable, impervious to >> ?reason?. >> >> In 1864, a Briton observed: ?A Greek will never confess any fact which >> appears to tell against his country. Indeed, the general disregard of >> accuracy by that nation is one of their most lamentable >> characteristics, but it is no proof of the degeneracy of the race. The >> ancient Greeks had the same failing.? >> >> Eighty years later, Lawrence Durrell also made the connection to the >> ancient Greeks: The Odyssey is ?a portrait of a nation which rings as >> clear to-day as when it was written. The loquacity, the shy cunning, >> the mendacity, the generosity, the cowardice and bravery, the almost >> comic inability of self-analysis?. >> >> Austerity measures have raised the hackles of almost every vested >> interest. Taxi drivers have held strikes. Why? Because they now have >> to keep accounts, issue receipts and pay taxes. Port workers are >> striking because in a measure to increase tourism, cruise ships are no >> longer limited to hiring Greek deck hands. PAME, the >> communist-affiliated trade union, opposes the advent of the >> International Monetary Fund. Teachers and civil servants oppose >> cutbacks affecting them. Transport workers oppose the privatisation of >> the railway service. >> >> Everyone agrees, in principle, that the measures are necessary if >> Greece is to surmount the current crisis, but no one accepts that they >> should apply to them. >> >> When the austerity measures were first announced, a ?social explosion? >> was forecast, and this has indeed taken place, if violent street >> protests are to be taken as a sign. Given the Greeks? natural >> inclination towards demonstrative behaviour, that was only to be expected. >> >> Peaceful protests have been used by anti-state anarchists to provoke >> violence. But even more disturbing is the malaise in the minds of >> every Greek man and woman, a ?social implosion?, as Greeks reflect >> inwardly. >> >> They have two parallel strands of contemplation: one is the physical >> fact that austerity measures leave them with a higher cost of living, >> and less in their pockets to meet it. The second strand is that >> Papandreou is asking them to change the habits of a lifetime: not >> merely to become honest, hard-working citizens, but to become a >> different type of people ? more ?European?, more western. >> >> Europe is divided east and west: the west cannot tolerate the >> indirectness, the obliqueness, of the eastern mind. And Greece is, >> definitively, the meeting-place of east and west, which is why it >> creates so much angst among those who are committed to the success of >> the European project. >> >> It isn?t so much the cost of living, as the cost of loving. The price >> of being Greek is the real cost of loving ? and embodying ? one?s country. >> >> ? 2010 The Irish Times > > > > > -- > ******************************************** > Charles L. Sligh > Assistant Professor > Department of English > University of Tennessee at Chattanooga > charles-sligh at utc.edu > ******************************************** From marcpiel at interdesign.fr Fri Jun 18 07:33:09 2010 From: marcpiel at interdesign.fr (Marc Piel) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:33:09 +0200 Subject: [ilds] Man in White Sharkskin Suit In-Reply-To: <1FC79B75-46C0-45B4-84D2-89BB29870509@earthlink.net> References: <4C0B7611.8010106@interdesign.fr> <4E9C9879-142E-4982-A6D3-524FBFCF3B91@earthlink.net> <4C0BD7CB.9040905@utc.edu> <72594629-B5A5-41E4-B9CA-652B6EA6852B@earthlink.net> <4C0BF42C.2060801@gmail.com> <1FC79B75-46C0-45B4-84D2-89BB29870509@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> Quote from Bruce " I would not be too surprised were she to say she hadn't read the Quartet." Here is what Lucette Lugnado sais about the Quartet: "No one has been able to capture soulful, sensuous Egypt like Durrell. In many ways, I thought that my father was like Durrell's female heroine--restless, tormented, both faithless and faithful, and a creature of the night. Each of the novels is an extraordinary work." I am enjoying it very much. Best regards, Marc Le 06/06/10 23:01, Bruce Redwine a ?crit : > James, > > Lawrence Durrell put modern Alexandria on the map. I'm not discounting > or belittling the work of Cavafy and Forster, but their very great > contributions were simply not that well known prior to Durrell's /magnum > opus./ In a sense, Durrell made his predecessors, whom he fully > acknowledges, famous with respect to "The City." Look at the publishing > history of Cavafy in English translation and Forster's two books on > Alexandria ? the flood of Cavafy translations, new editions of Forster, > and critical studies of the three, all those all start pouring out after > the appearance of the /Quartet./ Give credit where credit is due, and > that rightfully belongs to Lawrence Durrell. > > Now, in /Out of Egypt /(1994), Aciman has written a splendid memoir of > his Sephardic roots in Alexandria (a memoir, by the way, which is > slightly dishonest, for readers are led to believe it is factual but > others claim is partly fictional, much in the way that Durrell invented > people in his travel books). As you would expect from a specialist in > French literature, Aciman is literary, and his book reads with the grace > of fiction, but how he can clearly allude to Proust's /Temps Perdu/ and > not at least drop a hint of indebtedness to L. G. Durrell is beyond me. > As I argue in my /Arion/ article on Haag's work, Aciman wants to > disassociate himself from the Alexandria of Cavafy, Forster, and > Durrell. That's his choice, however. If he wants to be excluded from > that great tradition, then so be it, although I believe in at least > acknowledging those predecessors, whom he most certainly is aware of. > > Lucette Lugnado's book is about Cairo and her family. Although well > written, I would not call it literary, certainly not in the way that > Aciman's is. I would not be too surprised were she to say she hadn't > read the /Quartet./ After all, she was born when /Justine/ was being > written. But you're right, Durrell is the "elephant in the room," and > she may have felt intimidated by his omnipresence. Hence, no direct > allusions. The influence, if such, is in the sense of Cairo as a "place" > of special memories and experiences long gone. Her use of the balcony of > her family home on Malaka Nazli reminds me of similar tropes in Cavafy > and Haag. She mentions that balcony during the video of her reading in > Cairo. > > Read her book. It's a moving experience. > > > Bruce > > > > > On Jun 6, 2010, at 12:17 PM, James Gifford wrote: > >> Very few critical works have mentioned Durrell and Aciman together as >> well: >> >> Porter, Roger J. "Autobiography, Exile, Home: The Egyptian Memoirs of >> Gini Alhadeff, Andr? Aciman, and Edward Said." /Biography/ 24.1 (2001): >> 302-313. (Mentions the Durrell conference, On Miracle Ground XI, in >> Corfu, numerous times.) >> >> Giovannucci, Perri. The Modernizing Mission: Literature and Development >> in North Africa. Diss. University of Miami, 2005. >> >> I suspect that the same way Durrell's Eliotic influences are displaced >> by the "Old Poet of the city," Aciman and Lagnado may be avoiding the >> elephant in the room... I've not read the book, but are there >> Durrellian allusions or influences, Bruce? >> >> Cheers, >> James >> >> >> On 06/06/10 11:40 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote: >>> Thanks, Charles. I hadn't seen Ms. Lagnado speak before. She's >>> charming, no? She and Andre Aciman (Out of Egypt) are primarily >>> writing about nostalgia within an Egyptian context. I wonder why >>> neither mention or allude to Durrell. Aciman's omission in this >>> regard seems to me particularly grevious. >>> >>> >>> Bruce >>> >>> >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Charles Sligh>> > >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>>> Marc, >>>>> >>>>> True, Lucette Lagnado ("Loulou") was born in 1956, but her memoir is >>>>> mainly about her father, Leon Lagnado, who married her mother Edith >>>>> in >>>>> 1943. >>>> *** >>>> >>>> Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, talks >>>> about her book in Cairo Egypt >>>> http://vimeo.com/10151234 >>>> >>>> *** >>>> >>>> Lucette Lagnado >>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/29557/Lucette_Lagnado/index.aspx >>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Man-White-Sharkskin-Suit-Lucette-Lagnado/?isbn=9780060822187?AA=index_authorIntro_29557 >>>> >>>> *** >>>> >>>> Out of Egypt >>>> By ALANA NEWHOUSE >>>> Published: August 12, 2007 >>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/books/review/Newhouse-t.html?ex=1344571200&en=15f09d3482a0665f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss >>>> >>>> >>>> > > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Fri Jun 18 08:00:33 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:00:33 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Man in White Sharkskin Suit In-Reply-To: <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> References: <4C0B7611.8010106@interdesign.fr> <4E9C9879-142E-4982-A6D3-524FBFCF3B91@earthlink.net> <4C0BD7CB.9040905@utc.edu> <72594629-B5A5-41E4-B9CA-652B6EA6852B@earthlink.net> <4C0BF42C.2060801@gmail.com> <1FC79B75-46C0-45B4-84D2-89BB29870509@earthlink.net> <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> Message-ID: Thanks for the correction, Marc. I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. Bruce On Jun 18, 2010, at 7:33 AM, Marc Piel wrote: > Quote from Bruce " I would not be too surprised > were she to say she hadn't read the Quartet." > > Here is what Lucette Lugnado sais about the Quartet: > "No one has been able to capture soulful, sensuous > Egypt like Durrell. In many ways, I thought that > my father was like Durrell's female > heroine--restless, tormented, both faithless and > faithful, and a creature of the night. Each of the > novels is an extraordinary work." > > I am enjoying it very much. > > Best regards, > Marc > > Le 06/06/10 23:01, Bruce Redwine a ?crit : >> James, >> >> Lawrence Durrell put modern Alexandria on the map. I'm not discounting >> or belittling the work of Cavafy and Forster, but their very great >> contributions were simply not that well known prior to Durrell's /magnum >> opus./ In a sense, Durrell made his predecessors, whom he fully >> acknowledges, famous with respect to "The City." Look at the publishing >> history of Cavafy in English translation and Forster's two books on >> Alexandria ? the flood of Cavafy translations, new editions of Forster, >> and critical studies of the three, all those all start pouring out after >> the appearance of the /Quartet./ Give credit where credit is due, and >> that rightfully belongs to Lawrence Durrell. >> >> Now, in /Out of Egypt /(1994), Aciman has written a splendid memoir of >> his Sephardic roots in Alexandria (a memoir, by the way, which is >> slightly dishonest, for readers are led to believe it is factual but >> others claim is partly fictional, much in the way that Durrell invented >> people in his travel books). As you would expect from a specialist in >> French literature, Aciman is literary, and his book reads with the grace >> of fiction, but how he can clearly allude to Proust's /Temps Perdu/ and >> not at least drop a hint of indebtedness to L. G. Durrell is beyond me. >> As I argue in my /Arion/ article on Haag's work, Aciman wants to >> disassociate himself from the Alexandria of Cavafy, Forster, and >> Durrell. That's his choice, however. If he wants to be excluded from >> that great tradition, then so be it, although I believe in at least >> acknowledging those predecessors, whom he most certainly is aware of. >> >> Lucette Lugnado's book is about Cairo and her family. Although well >> written, I would not call it literary, certainly not in the way that >> Aciman's is. I would not be too surprised were she to say she hadn't >> read the /Quartet./ After all, she was born when /Justine/ was being >> written. But you're right, Durrell is the "elephant in the room," and >> she may have felt intimidated by his omnipresence. Hence, no direct >> allusions. The influence, if such, is in the sense of Cairo as a "place" >> of special memories and experiences long gone. Her use of the balcony of >> her family home on Malaka Nazli reminds me of similar tropes in Cavafy >> and Haag. She mentions that balcony during the video of her reading in >> Cairo. >> >> Read her book. It's a moving experience. >> >> >> Bruce >> >> >> >> >> On Jun 6, 2010, at 12:17 PM, James Gifford wrote: >> >>> Very few critical works have mentioned Durrell and Aciman together as >>> well: >>> >>> Porter, Roger J. "Autobiography, Exile, Home: The Egyptian Memoirs of >>> Gini Alhadeff, Andr? Aciman, and Edward Said." /Biography/ 24.1 (2001): >>> 302-313. (Mentions the Durrell conference, On Miracle Ground XI, in >>> Corfu, numerous times.) >>> >>> Giovannucci, Perri. The Modernizing Mission: Literature and Development >>> in North Africa. Diss. University of Miami, 2005. >>> >>> I suspect that the same way Durrell's Eliotic influences are displaced >>> by the "Old Poet of the city," Aciman and Lagnado may be avoiding the >>> elephant in the room... I've not read the book, but are there >>> Durrellian allusions or influences, Bruce? >>> >>> Cheers, >>> James >>> >>> >>> On 06/06/10 11:40 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>> Thanks, Charles. I hadn't seen Ms. Lagnado speak before. She's >>>> charming, no? She and Andre Aciman (Out of Egypt) are primarily >>>> writing about nostalgia within an Egyptian context. I wonder why >>>> neither mention or allude to Durrell. Aciman's omission in this >>>> regard seems to me particularly grevious. >>>> >>>> >>>> Bruce >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>> >>>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Charles Sligh>>> > >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>>>> Marc, >>>>>> >>>>>> True, Lucette Lagnado ("Loulou") was born in 1956, but her memoir is >>>>>> mainly about her father, Leon Lagnado, who married her mother Edith >>>>>> in >>>>>> 1943. >>>>> *** >>>>> >>>>> Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, talks >>>>> about her book in Cairo Egypt >>>>> http://vimeo.com/10151234 >>>>> >>>>> *** >>>>> >>>>> Lucette Lagnado >>>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/29557/Lucette_Lagnado/index.aspx >>>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Man-White-Sharkskin-Suit-Lucette-Lagnado/?isbn=9780060822187?AA=index_authorIntro_29557 >>>>> >>>>> *** >>>>> >>>>> Out of Egypt >>>>> By ALANA NEWHOUSE >>>>> Published: August 12, 2007 >>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/books/review/Newhouse-t.html?ex=1344571200&en=15f09d3482a0665f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> ILDS mailing list >> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Fri Jun 18 12:57:17 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:57:17 -0400 Subject: [ilds] Man in White Sharkskin Suit In-Reply-To: <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> References: <4C0B7611.8010106@interdesign.fr> <4E9C9879-142E-4982-A6D3-524FBFCF3B91@earthlink.net> <4C0BD7CB.9040905@utc.edu> <72594629-B5A5-41E4-B9CA-652B6EA6852B@earthlink.net> <4C0BF42C.2060801@gmail.com> <1FC79B75-46C0-45B4-84D2-89BB29870509@earthlink.net> <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> Message-ID: <4C1BCF9D.3080704@utc.edu> Marc Piel wrote: > Quote from Bruce " I would not be too surprised > were she to say she hadn't read the Quartet." > > Here is what Lucette Lugnado sais about the Quartet: > "No one has been able to capture soulful, sensuous > Egypt like Durrell. In many ways, I thought that > my father was like Durrell's female > heroine--restless, tormented, both faithless and > faithful, and a creature of the night. Each of the > novels is an extraordinary work." > > I appreciate these reports from Marc and Bruce. I will not have the time this summer to read Lucette Lugnado's book, so I must take the pleasure vicariously. I hope that others will feel welcome to share summer reading recommendations. Charles -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Fri Jun 18 21:06:25 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:06:25 -0400 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" Message-ID: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> More news from the mountains of Tennessee. *** Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee As told to Henry Hamman Published: June 19 2010 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html > I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the > usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was > there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our > most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From marcpiel at interdesign.fr Fri Jun 18 13:25:50 2010 From: marcpiel at interdesign.fr (Marc Piel) Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:25:50 +0200 Subject: [ilds] Man in White Sharkskin Suit In-Reply-To: References: <4C0B7611.8010106@interdesign.fr> <4E9C9879-142E-4982-A6D3-524FBFCF3B91@earthlink.net> <4C0BD7CB.9040905@utc.edu> <72594629-B5A5-41E4-B9CA-652B6EA6852B@earthlink.net> <4C0BF42C.2060801@gmail.com> <1FC79B75-46C0-45B4-84D2-89BB29870509@earthlink.net> <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> Message-ID: <4C1BD64E.5080306@interdesign.fr> Bruce, You are welcome. I have ordered "Out of Egypt" B.R. Marc Le 18/06/10 17:00, Bruce Redwine a ?crit : > Thanks for the correction, Marc. I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. > > > Bruce > > > > On Jun 18, 2010, at 7:33 AM, Marc Piel wrote: > >> Quote from Bruce " I would not be too surprised >> were she to say she hadn't read the Quartet." >> >> Here is what Lucette Lugnado sais about the Quartet: >> "No one has been able to capture soulful, sensuous >> Egypt like Durrell. In many ways, I thought that >> my father was like Durrell's female >> heroine--restless, tormented, both faithless and >> faithful, and a creature of the night. Each of the >> novels is an extraordinary work." >> >> I am enjoying it very much. >> >> Best regards, >> Marc >> >> Le 06/06/10 23:01, Bruce Redwine a ?crit : >>> James, >>> >>> Lawrence Durrell put modern Alexandria on the map. I'm not discounting >>> or belittling the work of Cavafy and Forster, but their very great >>> contributions were simply not that well known prior to Durrell's /magnum >>> opus./ In a sense, Durrell made his predecessors, whom he fully >>> acknowledges, famous with respect to "The City." Look at the publishing >>> history of Cavafy in English translation and Forster's two books on >>> Alexandria ? the flood of Cavafy translations, new editions of Forster, >>> and critical studies of the three, all those all start pouring out after >>> the appearance of the /Quartet./ Give credit where credit is due, and >>> that rightfully belongs to Lawrence Durrell. >>> >>> Now, in /Out of Egypt /(1994), Aciman has written a splendid memoir of >>> his Sephardic roots in Alexandria (a memoir, by the way, which is >>> slightly dishonest, for readers are led to believe it is factual but >>> others claim is partly fictional, much in the way that Durrell invented >>> people in his travel books). As you would expect from a specialist in >>> French literature, Aciman is literary, and his book reads with the grace >>> of fiction, but how he can clearly allude to Proust's /Temps Perdu/ and >>> not at least drop a hint of indebtedness to L. G. Durrell is beyond me. >>> As I argue in my /Arion/ article on Haag's work, Aciman wants to >>> disassociate himself from the Alexandria of Cavafy, Forster, and >>> Durrell. That's his choice, however. If he wants to be excluded from >>> that great tradition, then so be it, although I believe in at least >>> acknowledging those predecessors, whom he most certainly is aware of. >>> >>> Lucette Lugnado's book is about Cairo and her family. Although well >>> written, I would not call it literary, certainly not in the way that >>> Aciman's is. I would not be too surprised were she to say she hadn't >>> read the /Quartet./ After all, she was born when /Justine/ was being >>> written. But you're right, Durrell is the "elephant in the room," and >>> she may have felt intimidated by his omnipresence. Hence, no direct >>> allusions. The influence, if such, is in the sense of Cairo as a "place" >>> of special memories and experiences long gone. Her use of the balcony of >>> her family home on Malaka Nazli reminds me of similar tropes in Cavafy >>> and Haag. She mentions that balcony during the video of her reading in >>> Cairo. >>> >>> Read her book. It's a moving experience. >>> >>> >>> Bruce >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 12:17 PM, James Gifford wrote: >>> >>>> Very few critical works have mentioned Durrell and Aciman together as >>>> well: >>>> >>>> Porter, Roger J. "Autobiography, Exile, Home: The Egyptian Memoirs of >>>> Gini Alhadeff, Andr? Aciman, and Edward Said." /Biography/ 24.1 (2001): >>>> 302-313. (Mentions the Durrell conference, On Miracle Ground XI, in >>>> Corfu, numerous times.) >>>> >>>> Giovannucci, Perri. The Modernizing Mission: Literature and Development >>>> in North Africa. Diss. University of Miami, 2005. >>>> >>>> I suspect that the same way Durrell's Eliotic influences are displaced >>>> by the "Old Poet of the city," Aciman and Lagnado may be avoiding the >>>> elephant in the room... I've not read the book, but are there >>>> Durrellian allusions or influences, Bruce? >>>> >>>> Cheers, >>>> James >>>> >>>> >>>> On 06/06/10 11:40 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>>> Thanks, Charles. I hadn't seen Ms. Lagnado speak before. She's >>>>> charming, no? She and Andre Aciman (Out of Egypt) are primarily >>>>> writing about nostalgia within an Egyptian context. I wonder why >>>>> neither mention or allude to Durrell. Aciman's omission in this >>>>> regard seems to me particularly grevious. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Bruce >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>> >>>>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Charles Sligh>>>> > >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>>>>> Marc, >>>>>>> >>>>>>> True, Lucette Lagnado ("Loulou") was born in 1956, but her memoir is >>>>>>> mainly about her father, Leon Lagnado, who married her mother Edith >>>>>>> in >>>>>>> 1943. >>>>>> *** >>>>>> >>>>>> Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, talks >>>>>> about her book in Cairo Egypt >>>>>> http://vimeo.com/10151234 >>>>>> >>>>>> *** >>>>>> >>>>>> Lucette Lagnado >>>>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/29557/Lucette_Lagnado/index.aspx >>>>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Man-White-Sharkskin-Suit-Lucette-Lagnado/?isbn=9780060822187?AA=index_authorIntro_29557 >>>>>> >>>>>> *** >>>>>> >>>>>> Out of Egypt >>>>>> By ALANA NEWHOUSE >>>>>> Published: August 12, 2007 >>>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/books/review/Newhouse-t.html?ex=1344571200&en=15f09d3482a0665f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> ILDS mailing list >>> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >>> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds >> _______________________________________________ >> ILDS mailing list >> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > > From marcpiel at interdesign.fr Sat Jun 19 03:58:49 2010 From: marcpiel at interdesign.fr (Marc Piel) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 12:58:49 +0200 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> Message-ID: <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> Here is a complement to Lucette Lagnado's story. Please not that Durrell figures in the first and last sentences. BR Marc Le 19/06/10 06:06, Charles Sligh a ?crit : > More news from the mountains of Tennessee. > > *** > > Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee > As told to Henry Hamman > Published: June 19 2010 > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html >> I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the >> usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was >> there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our >> most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: The other within.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 201255 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/attachments/20100619/5747a989/attachment.pdf From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Sat Jun 19 06:30:29 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 09:30:29 -0400 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> Message-ID: <4C1CC675.90605@utc.edu> Marc Piel wrote: > Here is a complement to Lucette Lagnado's story. > > Please not that Durrell figures in the first and last sentences. > Very fine, Marc. Thank you for the pdf. You are correct: a Durrellian leitmotiv marks the overture and the coda of the article. C&c. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From marcpiel at interdesign.fr Sat Jun 19 06:37:20 2010 From: marcpiel at interdesign.fr (Marc Piel) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:37:20 +0200 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <4C1CC675.90605@utc.edu> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> <4C1CC675.90605@utc.edu> Message-ID: <4C1CC810.3000601@interdesign.fr> Actually if I am not mistaken it is not an article but a speek she gave at a meeting. Marc Le 19/06/10 15:30, Charles Sligh a ?crit : > Marc Piel wrote: >> Here is a complement to Lucette Lagnado's story. >> >> Please not that Durrell figures in the first and last sentences. >> > Very fine, Marc. Thank you for the pdf. > > You are correct: a Durrellian leitmotiv marks the overture and the coda > of the article. > > C&c. > From marcpiel at interdesign.fr Sat Jun 19 06:38:14 2010 From: marcpiel at interdesign.fr (Marc Piel) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:38:14 +0200 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <4C1CC675.90605@utc.edu> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> <4C1CC675.90605@utc.edu> Message-ID: <4C1CC846.1050403@interdesign.fr> Actualis? if I am not mistaken it is not an article but a speech she gave at a meeting. Marc Le 19/06/10 15:30, Charles Sligh a ?crit : > Marc Piel wrote: >> Here is a complement to Lucette Lagnado's story. >> >> Please not that Durrell figures in the first and last sentences. >> > Very fine, Marc. Thank you for the pdf. > > You are correct: a Durrellian leitmotiv marks the overture and the coda > of the article. > > C&c. > From rpinecorfu at yahoo.com Sat Jun 19 06:57:47 2010 From: rpinecorfu at yahoo.com (Richard Pine) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 06:57:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> <4C1CA2E9.9010304@interdesign.fr> Message-ID: <264471.40438.qm@web65819.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> 1 alumnus. 2 alumni. So much for a Jesuit education. Unless, of course, LD was an other, or both. ----- Original Message ---- From: Marc Piel To: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu; ilds at lists.uvic.ca Sent: Sat, June 19, 2010 1:58:49 PM Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" Here is a complement to Lucette Lagnado's story. Please not that Durrell figures in the first and last sentences. BR Marc Le 19/06/10 06:06, Charles Sligh a ?crit : > More news from the mountains of Tennessee. > > *** > > Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee > As told to Henry Hamman > Published: June 19 2010 > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html >> I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the >> usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was >> there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our >> most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. > From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sat Jun 19 08:43:37 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:43:37 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Man in White Sharkskin Suit In-Reply-To: <4C1BD64E.5080306@interdesign.fr> References: <4C0B7611.8010106@interdesign.fr> <4E9C9879-142E-4982-A6D3-524FBFCF3B91@earthlink.net> <4C0BD7CB.9040905@utc.edu> <72594629-B5A5-41E4-B9CA-652B6EA6852B@earthlink.net> <4C0BF42C.2060801@gmail.com> <1FC79B75-46C0-45B4-84D2-89BB29870509@earthlink.net> <4C1B83A5.2070006@interdesign.fr> <4C1BD64E.5080306@interdesign.fr> Message-ID: <88A36275-F08E-4AD7-8AC4-D68730F50C54@earthlink.net> Marc, Aciman's Out of Egypt is, as noted before, highly literary in a way that Lagnado's Sharkskin isn't. Aciman is an American scholar of Proust, and his memoir shows that influence, subtly acknowledged in the text. A very good book. Bruce On Jun 18, 2010, at 1:25 PM, Marc Piel wrote: > Bruce, > You are welcome. > I have ordered "Out of Egypt" > B.R. > Marc > > Le 18/06/10 17:00, Bruce Redwine a ?crit : >> Thanks for the correction, Marc. I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. >> >> >> Bruce >> >> >> >> On Jun 18, 2010, at 7:33 AM, Marc Piel wrote: >> >>> Quote from Bruce " I would not be too surprised >>> were she to say she hadn't read the Quartet." >>> >>> Here is what Lucette Lugnado sais about the Quartet: >>> "No one has been able to capture soulful, sensuous >>> Egypt like Durrell. In many ways, I thought that >>> my father was like Durrell's female >>> heroine--restless, tormented, both faithless and >>> faithful, and a creature of the night. Each of the >>> novels is an extraordinary work." >>> >>> I am enjoying it very much. >>> >>> Best regards, >>> Marc >>> >>> Le 06/06/10 23:01, Bruce Redwine a ?crit : >>>> James, >>>> >>>> Lawrence Durrell put modern Alexandria on the map. I'm not discounting >>>> or belittling the work of Cavafy and Forster, but their very great >>>> contributions were simply not that well known prior to Durrell's /magnum >>>> opus./ In a sense, Durrell made his predecessors, whom he fully >>>> acknowledges, famous with respect to "The City." Look at the publishing >>>> history of Cavafy in English translation and Forster's two books on >>>> Alexandria ? the flood of Cavafy translations, new editions of Forster, >>>> and critical studies of the three, all those all start pouring out after >>>> the appearance of the /Quartet./ Give credit where credit is due, and >>>> that rightfully belongs to Lawrence Durrell. >>>> >>>> Now, in /Out of Egypt /(1994), Aciman has written a splendid memoir of >>>> his Sephardic roots in Alexandria (a memoir, by the way, which is >>>> slightly dishonest, for readers are led to believe it is factual but >>>> others claim is partly fictional, much in the way that Durrell invented >>>> people in his travel books). As you would expect from a specialist in >>>> French literature, Aciman is literary, and his book reads with the grace >>>> of fiction, but how he can clearly allude to Proust's /Temps Perdu/ and >>>> not at least drop a hint of indebtedness to L. G. Durrell is beyond me. >>>> As I argue in my /Arion/ article on Haag's work, Aciman wants to >>>> disassociate himself from the Alexandria of Cavafy, Forster, and >>>> Durrell. That's his choice, however. If he wants to be excluded from >>>> that great tradition, then so be it, although I believe in at least >>>> acknowledging those predecessors, whom he most certainly is aware of. >>>> >>>> Lucette Lugnado's book is about Cairo and her family. Although well >>>> written, I would not call it literary, certainly not in the way that >>>> Aciman's is. I would not be too surprised were she to say she hadn't >>>> read the /Quartet./ After all, she was born when /Justine/ was being >>>> written. But you're right, Durrell is the "elephant in the room," and >>>> she may have felt intimidated by his omnipresence. Hence, no direct >>>> allusions. The influence, if such, is in the sense of Cairo as a "place" >>>> of special memories and experiences long gone. Her use of the balcony of >>>> her family home on Malaka Nazli reminds me of similar tropes in Cavafy >>>> and Haag. She mentions that balcony during the video of her reading in >>>> Cairo. >>>> >>>> Read her book. It's a moving experience. >>>> >>>> >>>> Bruce >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 12:17 PM, James Gifford wrote: >>>> >>>>> Very few critical works have mentioned Durrell and Aciman together as >>>>> well: >>>>> >>>>> Porter, Roger J. "Autobiography, Exile, Home: The Egyptian Memoirs of >>>>> Gini Alhadeff, Andr? Aciman, and Edward Said." /Biography/ 24.1 (2001): >>>>> 302-313. (Mentions the Durrell conference, On Miracle Ground XI, in >>>>> Corfu, numerous times.) >>>>> >>>>> Giovannucci, Perri. The Modernizing Mission: Literature and Development >>>>> in North Africa. Diss. University of Miami, 2005. >>>>> >>>>> I suspect that the same way Durrell's Eliotic influences are displaced >>>>> by the "Old Poet of the city," Aciman and Lagnado may be avoiding the >>>>> elephant in the room... I've not read the book, but are there >>>>> Durrellian allusions or influences, Bruce? >>>>> >>>>> Cheers, >>>>> James >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 06/06/10 11:40 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>>>> Thanks, Charles. I hadn't seen Ms. Lagnado speak before. She's >>>>>> charming, no? She and Andre Aciman (Out of Egypt) are primarily >>>>>> writing about nostalgia within an Egyptian context. I wonder why >>>>>> neither mention or allude to Durrell. Aciman's omission in this >>>>>> regard seems to me particularly grevious. >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Bruce >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Sent from my iPhone >>>>>> >>>>>> On Jun 6, 2010, at 10:15 AM, Charles Sligh>>>>> > >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Bruce Redwine wrote: >>>>>>>> Marc, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> True, Lucette Lagnado ("Loulou") was born in 1956, but her memoir is >>>>>>>> mainly about her father, Leon Lagnado, who married her mother Edith >>>>>>>> in >>>>>>>> 1943. >>>>>>> *** >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, talks >>>>>>> about her book in Cairo Egypt >>>>>>> http://vimeo.com/10151234 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> *** >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Lucette Lagnado >>>>>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/29557/Lucette_Lagnado/index.aspx >>>>>>> http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Man-White-Sharkskin-Suit-Lucette-Lagnado/?isbn=9780060822187?AA=index_authorIntro_29557 >>>>>>> >>>>>>> *** >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Out of Egypt >>>>>>> By ALANA NEWHOUSE >>>>>>> Published: August 12, 2007 >>>>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/books/review/Newhouse-t.html?ex=1344571200&en=15f09d3482a0665f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> ILDS mailing list >>>> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >>>> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds >>> _______________________________________________ >>> ILDS mailing list >>> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >>> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> ILDS mailing list >> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/attachments/20100619/dc3083e3/attachment.html From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sat Jun 19 09:21:03 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 09:21:03 -0700 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> Message-ID: In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" (Fiction Magazine), LD writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry wanted to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? Bruce On Jun 18, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: > More news from the mountains of Tennessee. > > *** > > Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee > As told to Henry Hamman > Published: June 19 2010 > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html >> I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the >> usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was >> there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our >> most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. > > -- > ******************************************** > Charles L. Sligh > Assistant Professor > Department of English > University of Tennessee at Chattanooga > charles-sligh at utc.edu > ******************************************** > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/attachments/20100619/554bd0f0/attachment.html From godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu Sat Jun 19 12:15:50 2010 From: godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu (Godshalk, William (godshawl)) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:15:50 -0400 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu>, Message-ID: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EE6@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> I met many years ago two Scottish/Dutch kids who were reared in the east. They spoken fluent English and Dutch --- and their parents found out one day, to their surprise, that the kids also spoke the local dialect (can't remember which) fluently. Why not Durrell too? 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: Saturday, June 19, 2010 12:21 PM To: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu; ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" (Fiction Magazine), LD writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry wanted to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? Bruce On Jun 18, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: More news from the mountains of Tennessee. *** Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee As told to Henry Hamman Published: June 19 2010 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Sat Jun 19 13:31:11 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:31:11 -0400 Subject: [ilds] rope tricks & "the completeness of falsehood" In-Reply-To: References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> Message-ID: <4C1D290F.6090408@utc.edu> > In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in > India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first > language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the > great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in /The Rise of > the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History/ (2004). > The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I think that this approach carries out a literal, agonistic, and somewhat selective reading of Durrell's highly-nuanced storytelling. As with most documents, consideration of context aids in interpretation. First of all, "From the Elephant's Back" was a spoken-word performance, with the later texts "amended and slightly expanded" from "a lecture first given in French at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, April 1, 1981 (/Poetry London/ 1). In his opening remarks, Durrell tells his audience that his purpose was to "discuss the theory and the practice of fiction in relation to myself." He also acknowledged his audience's Gallic subtlety, explaining how he thought that French-speakers would be better suited "to make fine distinctions" about his speech (/Poetry London/ 1). Sympathetic Anglophonic reader that I am, I am assuming that one important "fine distinction" would be to observe that the man invited to speak was "Lawrence Durrell," a writer who respected his reader's intelligence sufficiently never to claim that he was not an entertainer, an often contradictory dissembler, a teller of tall tales. Then the important paragraph: > I would prefer to present my case in terms of biography, for > my thinking is coloured by > the fact that I am a colonial, an Anglo-Indian, born into that > strange world of which the only > great poem is the novel /Kim/ by Kipling. I was brought up in > its shadow, and like its author I > was sent to England to be educated. The juxtaposition of the > two types of consciousness was > extraordinary and created, I think, an ambivalence of vision > which was to both help and hinder > me as a writer. At times I felt more Asiatic than European, at > times the opposite; at times I > felt like a white negro thinking in pidgin! (/Poetry London /1) The "colouring shadow"of /Kim/ is key. I may not be French, but I certainly know my Rudyard Kipling in the way that Durrell and others of his generation used to know their Rudyard Kipling. (RK really does give us a language and culture of our own, O best beloved.) Masterful disguises and dissimulation and "ambivalence of vision" are central to the education of Kim's character and to Kipling's storytelling. "Lies" and "spies" and survival and success go hand-in-glove in /Kim/ as much as in its precursor tales/, The Odyssey/ and /Huckleberry Finn/, so I think that Durrell is aligning himself with a very special story-telling and self-mythologizing inheritance. He claims to be like Kim--or like Mowgli on the run from the Bandar-log: > I have been followed from tree-top to tree-top by sportive > monkeys which pelted me with nuts and stones (Poetry London 1) or like the boy in "Baa Baa Black Sheep," torn from Mother India by his English parents, so he tells his own life story borrowing from those fictions, expecting the attentive listeners to pick up on the "colour." > I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten, and distinctly felt > the hypnotic > power of the conjuror over us as we sat round him in a circle. > I have been followed from > tree-top to tree-top by sportive monkeys which pelted me with > nuts and stones. Their anger > made them very accurate and I was glad I wore the stout pith > helmet of my father, made of > cork about two inches thick--better than a modern > crash-helmet! I have seen a cobra fight a > mongoose. I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of > l11.y bed in a gaunt dormitory in > Darjeeling! My first language was Hindi. And so on! (Poetry > London 1) Observe here how with a cobra and a mongoose Durrell even manages to transform himself into little Teddy from Kipling's "Rikki Tikk Tavi." "And so on!" is the key nudge. And so on and on and on and on--Durrell plays out his "rope trick." How high he climbs. Who would believe it! Yet there it is!! The point is not that "lying" occurs, but rather that one carries off the thing out with gusto and /sprezzatura/. Of course, the impression of the Raj's brilliant Neverland is as true as anything one could claim--and also a parody? The "Rope Trick" is another blatant nod to which we should attend. The trick most certainly did exist as an entertainer's routine first brought to England by the Brothers Davenport (American entrepreneurs from the 1860s, infamous for their Spiritualist ruses) and by Ramo Samee (a stagey name if ever), "the Hindoo Juggler." These Rope Tricks were illusions and hoaxes, very well documented and enjoyed because of the wonder of the performance. The audience knew it was top-shelf charlatanism, "but how does he do it?" Thus for Durrell's hoaxes and the wonder of his audience--"But /how/ does he do it? He makes it all so vivid, so charming, so real." So the I ask: Why would I read Lawrence Durrell if he was not, like Odysseus and Oscar Wilde, a consummate fabricator? What would it say about the quickness of my judgment if after all of these years I declared suddenly--"O! my surprise!--Lawrence Durrell told tall tales?" When in life or in works did Lawrence Durrell pretend otherwise? I think that we best give up reading Durrell if we come to him for truth, accuracy, hygiene, sanitation, temperance, salvation, social justice, child-rearing advice, political empowerment, accurate spelling, marital counseling, or uplifting message. Beauty, wit, infinite jest, perhaps. But these others--no. Durrell's writings and autobiography have all "the completeness of falsehood." C&c. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From james.d.gifford at gmail.com Sat Jun 19 13:34:40 2010 From: james.d.gifford at gmail.com (James Gifford) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 13:34:40 -0700 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu> Message-ID: <4C1D29E0.5030909@gmail.com> Hey Bruce, Look no further than the actual topic of the essay itself for your answer -- Durrell likely exaggerated, though not quite so much, his early languages for the sake of emphasizing his discomfited position within Englishness. The whole essay points to that. As for his Hindi and Urdu, it's sprinkled liberally throughout /Pied Piper of Lovers/, and Manzaloui complains that Durrell's Arabic words in the /Quartet/ are polluted with Urdu... I don't know those languages, so I can only pass along those comments. As for the rope trick, I remember many things from my childhood that I know are not real. While Durrell was *very* prone to obfuscation and outright lies in his interviews, I'm rather inclined to be generous in this instance. Many but not most of the other lies strike me as intentional baffle-gab. Best, James ps: sorry for plugging my /Pied/ edition, but... On 19/06/10 9:21 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote: > In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" /(Fiction Magazine),/ LD > writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a > gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven > writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry > /wanted/ to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point > in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at > least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also > writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick > when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian > Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont > exposes in /The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax > Became History/ (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell > claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was > "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to > lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? > > > Bruce > > > > On Jun 18, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: > >> More news from the mountains of Tennessee. >> >> *** >> >> Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee >> As told to Henry Hamman >> Published: June 19 2010 >> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html >>> I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the >>> usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was >>> there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our >>> most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. >> >> -- >> ******************************************** >> Charles L. Sligh >> Assistant Professor >> Department of English >> University of Tennessee at Chattanooga >> charles-sligh at utc.edu >> ******************************************** >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sat Jun 19 15:50:55 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:50:55 -0700 Subject: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In-Reply-To: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EE6@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> References: <4C1C4241.7070702@utc.edu>, <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EE6@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> Message-ID: <92C3F907-1841-4721-AA70-225FA4E25900@earthlink.net> Yes, it's entirely possible that a colonial child in the care of a local nanny would learn her language. MacNiven, however, has LD learning to speak in Burma and under the care of a Burmese "ayah" or nursemaid (pp. 16-17). So his first language would have been Burmese. Why doesn't he say that? Why no mention of Burma? Because he's inventing or embellishing his Indian genesis. When the family returns to India in 1915, he has a "new ayah," presumably a speaker of Hindi (p. 19). MacNiven also notes Durrell's claims about speaking Urdu and does not see a contradiction, the two languages being dialects of Hindustani (p. 693, n. 35). Somewhere along the line, Durrell also learns English. Learning multiple languages simultaneously is not unusual. I'm arguing that Durrell manipulates his facts to suit the occasion of whatever story he's presenting as fact. He's a fabulator, as I'll discuss in Charles's email. Bruce On Jun 19, 2010, at 12:15 PM, Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote: > I met many years ago two Scottish/Dutch kids who were reared in the east. They spoken fluent English and Dutch --- and their parents found out one day, to their surprise, that the kids also spoke the local dialect (can't remember which) fluently. > > Why not Durrell too? > > 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: Saturday, June 19, 2010 12:21 PM > To: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu; ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Cc: Bruce Redwine > Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" > > In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" (Fiction Magazine), LD writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry wanted to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? > > > Bruce > > From dtart at bigpond.net.au Sat Jun 19 16:19:43 2010 From: dtart at bigpond.net.au (Denise Tart & David Green) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:19:43 +1000 Subject: [ilds] Just Being, Unsullied Message-ID: Greetings from the antipodes., Came across the following in Robert Dessaix's Arabesques: "And, if I am honest with myself, I dont even much like North Africa, I always leave disillusioned: one oasis begins to look much like another after a while, one stretch of sand dunes is indistinguishable from the last, the cities, even Tunis, are for the most part chaotic, grubby and dangerous, the religion is too all pervasive for my taste, the unrelieved maleness of every encounter tiring, the disdain for almost every value I hold dear numbing after a while.....yet I go back. To disentangle myself from the educated clutter of my everyday life. To be naked again. To relive that moment when for the first time what had been kept invisible began to show through. For many Europeans with a veiled second self North Africa is still the perfect vantage point to let this happen. For some it might be an ashram in India or some remote village in Borneo, even a Greek Island might fill the bill for others, but for me it is North Africa. " (Dessaix, Arabesques, Picador, p 237) When I read these words I could not helping thinking Lawrence Durrell and his island narratives; places of escape after trauma, clutter & failed relationships: Corfu after Pudding Island and the English Death, Rhodes after World War Two and the 'apes in nightgowns' of Egypt, Cyprus after the relationship with Eve Cohen went pear shaped. On the islands Larry could just be, unsullied, absorbing the sea and sun and tangerine tones, the wine and timeless culture as he saw it, another self showing through and to me the real LD despite the fictionalisation of these places and characters. The island book are so enchanting because they are the veiled self speaking, the other Larry pouring through, not the tortured Larry of the Quartet and Quintet, a purer one - the one wrote This Unimportant Morning and one who would appreciate the lines: "How can men be so stupid as to clamber about galleries when one can just stand above Klima in Milos and feel the centuries where the shepherd is the artist and the goats make the music with the wind?" Cheers David 16 William Street Marrickville NSW 2204 +61 2 9564 6165 0412 707 625 dtart at bigpond.net.au www.denisetart.com.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.uvic.ca/pipermail/ilds/attachments/20100620/609657df/attachment.html From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Sat Jun 19 16:52:49 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:52:49 -0400 Subject: [ilds] Just Being, Unsullied In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4C1D5851.9040207@utc.edu> Denise Tart & David Green wrote: > > > When I read these words I could not helping thinking Lawrence Durrell > and his island narratives Very eloquent, David. Thank you for those Durrellian "reflections." I will trade you prose description for prose description--really, the only fair exchange. Here is an excerpt from Paul Bowles's "JOURNEY THROUGH MOROCCO" [1963]: > The landscape became constantly more dramatic. For two hours > the trail followed a valley that cut deeper and deeper into > the rock walls as it went downward. Sometimes we drove along > the bed of the stream for a half mile or so. At the date-palm > level we came across small oases, cool and green, that filled > the canyon floor from cliff to cliff. The lower we went, the > higher the mountain walls above, and the sunlight seemed to be > coming from farther away. When I was a child I used to imagine > Persephone going along a similar road each year on her way > down to Hades. A little like having found a back way out of > the world. No house, no car, no human being all afternoon. > Later, after we'd been driving in shadow a good while, the > canyon widened, and there on a promontory above a bend in the > dry riverbed, was Tassemsit, compact, orange-gold like the > naked rock of the countryside around it, still in the > sunlight. A small rich oasis just below it to the south. The > zaouia with its mosque and other buidings seemed to occupy a > large part of the town's space. A big, tall minaret in > northern style, well-preserved. We stopped and got out. > Complete silence throughout the valley. > > Monsieur Rousselot had seemed pensive and nervous all > during the afternoon. He got me aside on some pretext, and we > walked down the trail a way, he talking urgently the whole > time. It worried him very much that Monsieur Omar should be > with us: he felt that his presence represented a very real > danger to the status quo of the place. "One false move, and > the story of Tassemsit can be finished forever," he said. > "C'est tr?s d?licat. Above all, not a word about what I told > you. Any of it." I said he could count on me. C&c. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu Sat Jun 19 18:53:02 2010 From: godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu (Godshalk, William (godshawl)) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:53:02 -0400 Subject: [ilds] the rope trick Message-ID: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> Well, okay, it's a hoax. And a young kid was taken in -- as many older folks were. Durrell thought that the hoax was the real thing. Houdini got away with hoax after hoax. ----------------------------- Versions of the story spread worldwide, but little notice was taken of a short note published by the Chicago Tribune four months after the original story that admitted the article was a publicity stunt. It assumed readers would realise it was a hoax because the story was bylined "Fred S. Ellmore". Mr Lamont discovered the truth after a painstaking search that revealed the bizarre theories of others who claim to have "solved" the trick. "It is a legend which the West constructed," said Mr Lamont, 37, who is now planning to write a book on its history. One Viceroy of India is said to have offered a ?10,000 reward to the person who would reveal the secret so he could impress the visiting Prince of Wales. And one expert claims it involved twin boys, one of whom would actually be murdered. It is thought the hoax may have been inspired by the Indian street act of balancing a boy on a pole. "I suppose I have destroyed some people's beliefs," said Mr Lamont, of Edinburgh University's Koestler Parapsychology Unit. 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 Godshalk, William (godshawl) [godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu] Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 3:15 PM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" I met many years ago two Scottish/Dutch kids who were reared in the east. They spoken fluent English and Dutch --- and their parents found out one day, to their surprise, that the kids also spoke the local dialect (can't remember which) fluently. Why not Durrell too? 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: Saturday, June 19, 2010 12:21 PM To: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu; ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" (Fiction Magazine), LD writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry wanted to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? Bruce On Jun 18, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: More news from the mountains of Tennessee. *** Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee As told to Henry Hamman Published: June 19 2010 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sat Jun 19 19:36:48 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:36:48 -0700 Subject: [ilds] the rope trick In-Reply-To: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> References: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> Message-ID: <787317DB-F507-4269-AD48-69C6151D69F4@earthlink.net> Not quite. Lamont's point is that the "Indian Rope Trick" never existed in India, certainly as the legend would have it, namely, in an open area outdoors, a fakir causes a rope to rise into the air, a boy then climbs up it, disappears, and (in some versions) his dismembered body falls to the ground. So Durrell wasn't "taken in." He couldn't have seen what didn't exist ? rather he was inventing and playing to the crowd who thought the hoax was real. BR On Jun 19, 2010, at 6:53 PM, Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote: > Well, okay, it's a hoax. And a young kid was taken in -- as many older folks were. Durrell thought that the hoax was the real thing. Houdini got away with hoax after hoax. > ----------------------------- > Versions of the story spread worldwide, but little notice was taken of a short note published by the Chicago Tribune four months after the original story that admitted the article was a publicity stunt. It assumed readers would realise it was a hoax because the story was bylined "Fred S. Ellmore". > > Mr Lamont discovered the truth after a painstaking search that revealed the bizarre theories of others who claim to have "solved" the trick. "It is a legend which the West constructed," said Mr Lamont, 37, who is now planning to write a book on its history. > > One Viceroy of India is said to have offered a ?10,000 reward to the person who would reveal the secret so he could impress the visiting Prince of Wales. And one expert claims it involved twin boys, one of whom would actually be murdered. > > It is thought the hoax may have been inspired by the Indian street act of balancing a boy on a pole. "I suppose I have destroyed some people's beliefs," said Mr Lamont, of Edinburgh University's Koestler Parapsychology Unit. > > > 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 Godshalk, William (godshawl) [godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu] > Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 3:15 PM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" > > I met many years ago two Scottish/Dutch kids who were reared in the east. They spoken fluent English and Dutch --- and their parents found out one day, to their surprise, that the kids also spoke the local dialect (can't remember which) fluently. > > Why not Durrell too? > > 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: Saturday, June 19, 2010 12:21 PM > To: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu; ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Cc: Bruce Redwine > Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" > > In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" (Fiction Magazine), LD writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry wanted to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? > > > Bruce > > > > On Jun 18, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: > > More news from the mountains of Tennessee. > > *** > > Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee > As told to Henry Hamman > Published: June 19 2010 > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html > I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the > usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was > there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our > most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. > > -- > ******************************************** > Charles L. Sligh > Assistant Professor > Department of English > University of Tennessee at Chattanooga > charles-sligh at utc.edu > ******************************************** > > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From james.d.gifford at gmail.com Sat Jun 19 23:35:56 2010 From: james.d.gifford at gmail.com (James Gifford) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:35:56 -0700 Subject: [ilds] the rope trick In-Reply-To: <787317DB-F507-4269-AD48-69C6151D69F4@earthlink.net> References: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> <787317DB-F507-4269-AD48-69C6151D69F4@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <4C1DB6CC.5080300@gmail.com> Hey Bruce, What about the Nunc Stans in the speech? I thought you'd have been all over that... I've even done up a lovely footnote on it too. Perhaps most interesting is LD's comment on other grand charlatans, such as Yeats and Eliot on mysticism. Then again, isn't every mystic a fake in some way? Otherwise, I still say I recall many things from my childhood that I'm sure are pure invention. I've never *really* seen horrible borribles (antiauthoritarians that they are), nor did a bear really chase me in the woods... I wouldn't have outrun it. I'm also prone to think the rope trick is more than just an orientalist ruse to keep a flagging audience's attention -- Durrell wasn't above that, especially when he was hired specifically to entertain a middle-brow audience, though I think he was fairly self-conscious of this as an ethnocentric "trick". I just think there's more at work in this instance. I'd rather ask what it means that Durrell, a non-patrial barred from entering or settling in Britain without a visa (palpable at the time of the speech), would recall a fake orientalist image of India when discussing it with a French audience? How "in-between" is his position when both his Englishness and his Indianness are faked or based on cultural stereotypes that may never have existed? Well, probably about as fake as anyone else -- how many Americans think they get a phone call if the police arrest them? They don't -- it's a faked idea for films, though many police officers believe it too. We all know things, especially about our childhoods, that are total forgeries yet form crucial parts of our identities. That's (to me) because those identities are as faked as televangelists and late night salesmen, yet they are necessary. I'd be more inclined to look to the Indian double constructed for Walsh in /Pied/ who can recite Shakespeare (a striking scene), such that neither speak each other's nor their own languages fully -- setting the anguish of exile from India and that self-identity in his first novel against this later speech in French (!! when not English) and its attempts to assert a non-English identity while at the same time playing on the audience's orientalist exoticisms strikes me as a crucial part of Durrell's inescapable in-betweenness. What if one's nunc stans contained inescapable estrangement? Cheers from Portland, where I was not the only person to mention Durrell's works during the Space Between conference! I hope my sleepy comments make at least a little sense... -James From rpinecorfu at yahoo.com Sun Jun 20 03:55:22 2010 From: rpinecorfu at yahoo.com (Richard Pine) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 03:55:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie Message-ID: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Bruce Redwine asks 'Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie?' Has anyone fully explained his/her own propensity to lie? When was the last time you told a lie? And for what reason? For artistic effect? Or to deceive your wife? Or the tax collector? Or the traffic cop? Storytelling is predicated on the capacity to make truths of untruths: credo quia absurdum/impossibile depending on which version of Tertullian you prefer. If it were not fantastic, merveilleux, there would be no point in travelling on the elephant's back. RP From rpinecorfu at yahoo.com Sun Jun 20 05:11:01 2010 From: rpinecorfu at yahoo.com (Richard Pine) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 05:11:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ilds] Mongoose and cobra Message-ID: <410162.72126.qm@web65805.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> LD says 'I have seen a cobra fight a mongoose'. He didn't need to have 'seen' it in life. It's in his cousin, Richard Blaker's Scabby Dichson :? a mongoose of almost human character, with whom Dichson wins bets for snake-fighting. RP From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Sun Jun 20 06:14:42 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:14:42 -0400 Subject: [ilds] "Difficulty of Determining From the Evidence Its Reality or Unreality" In-Reply-To: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> References: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> Message-ID: <4C1E1442.5030700@utc.edu> Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote: > Well, okay, it's a hoax. And a young kid was taken in -- as many older folks were. Durrell thought that the hoax was the real thing. Houdini got away with hoax after hoax. > Professor Godshalk (a hand goes up in the back of the hall)-- What about the other sort of "rope tricks," sir? I mean, of course, the sort of "ropery" performed on the boards by Shakespeare and his gang of disreputable and dissolute Elizabethan fakers. Cf. the following selections, which show us that "rope-trick" clearly meant roguish rhetoric and tricks long before other storytellers exported the trick to India &c. > I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour > lasts. A my word, an she knew him as well as > I do, she would think scolding would do little > good upon him: she may perhaps call him half > a score knaves or so: why, that's nothing; an > he begin once, *he'll rail in his rope-tricks*. I'll > tell you what, sir, an she stand him but a little, > he will throw a figure in her face and so dis- > figure her with it that she shall have no more eyes > to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir. /The Taming of the Shrew/ 1.2.107+ > Marry, farewell!?I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was > this, that was *so full of his ropery *? /Romeo and Juliet /2.5.130+ "I'm all for tightrope acts, and fakirs, and trolleys full of pins, provided they entertain" (Cf. /The Black Book/). Let the "saucy merchants," showmen, and rogues thrive. Professor Godshalk and I will be keeping a close lookout for the "Rope Trick" when we go on expedition in July. We will write down in our notebooks and publish any findings that we make here. We will also be bound acknowledge that what we find or fail to find in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana does not determine what may or may not be found elsewhere upon this vasty globe &c. On "&c.," cf. /Hamlet/ 1.5. Admitting that I, for one, have never seen the Great Wall. C&c. ***************************************** > *MYSTERY OF THE INDIAN ROPE TRICK > * > *Difficulty of Determining From the Evidence Its Reality or Unreality* *Current Opinion LXVI (May 1919): 304 - 305.* > > INTEREST in the celebrated Indian rope trick has been developed by a > controversy in leading London newspapers and in organs of the black > art like The Magic Circular on the subject of the reality of the > phenomena and the historic evidence in support of them. The > controversialists, or most of them, concedes an expert in the London > Outlook, appear to have had some connection with India. The opinion > expressed by some of the disputants (distinguished men) is that the > so-called trick is a myth. The question suggests itself accordingly, > assuming the trick to be a sheer illusion, or rather a myth, how such > a wide-spread belief in it can have arisen. Some of the parties to the > dispute do boldly assert that it is not a myth at all and that they > have actually seen it. The force of their evidence is considerably > weakened by the fact that altho they describe the incidents of the > trick in detail they differ with regard to these in very important > particulars. According to some, the rope appears to be thrown up into > the air to a height of no more than eighteen feet and to resemble a > short and very slender rod or pillar up which a boy swarms and is then > visible sitting at the top. According to others, and here we have the > story in its old traditional form, says the London paper, the rope > rises into the sky until it is lost to sight and the climbing boy is > lost to sight along with it. > > This version of the trick, even on the supposition that a trick of > some such kind takes place, is vouched for by only one of the writers > who have recently made their views with regard to it public. Curiously > enough, this version, even tho corroborated by no contemporary > evidence, happens to correspond in the most minute of its essential > details with the evidence of a writer who declares that he himself > witnessed it as performed in China hundreds of years ago. This writer > is Ib'n Batuta, a wealthy Mohammedan of Tangiers, who .set out on his > travels about the time when Marco Polo was dying in Venice. The expert > in the London Outlook proceeds: > > "On one occasion a great entertainment was given in his honor in > Peking. The night being clear and warm, the guests, when the banquet > was over, were congregated in an open court, and were amused by > conjurors of a more or less ordinary kind. At last a man, followed by > a boy, came forward; and so far as my memory, which is fairly > accurate, serves me, I give what followed in the traveler's precise > words. The man, he says, had a leathern rope wound round him, which he > flung upwards, and which seemed to disappear in the starlight. He > ordered the boy to climb up it, which he did till he became invisible. > Then the conjuror shouted to him, telling him to come down. The call > met with no response. The conjuror shouted several times in > > succession, but with no better success. At last, with every sign of > anger, he drew out a formidable knife, climbed up the rope himself, > and became, like the boy, invisible. Then something happened. One of > the boy's bleeding limbs came tumbling down to the ground. This was > followed by another; 'and,' says the traveler, 'the spectacle was so > horrible that I fainted, and was conscious of nothing till I found my > host bending over me, and forcing me to swallow some sort of strong > liquor. "You needn't be afraid," he said with a complacent smile. "The > whole thing was merely a piece of jugglery." ' If the ropetrick is > really nothing more than a myth, how does it happen that the few > persons who declare that they have seen it ever conceived the idea of > so unlikely a performance, and agree so minutely with regard to its > essential details?" > > Ib'n Batuta was demonstrably a man of most accurate observation, as > many of the buildings described by him still exist. He was also > inclined to be skeptical rather than credulous. Thus he doubted the > existence of the great wall of China on the ground that he had failed > to come across a single human being who had seen it or could mention > any acquaintance who even pretended to have done so. Nevertheless, all > of us know the great wall to be a reality. May not the rope trick, > asks this writer, be a reality also, tho the question still remains > how the trick is performed? On the other hand, the editor of The Magic > Circular (London), Mr. W. S. Clarke, a high authority on tricks and > illusions of conjurors, doubted if anyone had ever seen the trick in > our time until two persons at the convention of magicians in England > last February announced that they had seen a version of the rope trick > performed. Here is an extract from the London Times: > > "One of the most interesting contributions to the debate came from > Lieutenant F. W. Holmes, V.C., who said that he had seen a version of > the trick on two or three occasions. On the last occasion, in 1917, he > was able to take a snapshot of the trick, which he produced. This > showed the fakir, with a taut rope or pole and the boy balanced at the > top of it Lieutenant Holmes declared emphatically that the boy never > disappeared from sight, and his own theory was that the fakir > substituted for the coil of rope a telescopic bamboo pole. Mr. A. > Yurif Ali, C.B.E., declared that as a boy of seven he saw the rope > trick performed, but never since, and he also saw the conjurer cut his > own tongue out, chop it up, and replace it. In the rope trick he is > convinced that the boy disappeared entirely." http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA304&dq=%22rope+trick%22&ei=KQkeTLvDCsL_lgfP0sHyDA&ct=result&id=dnwAAAAAYAAJ#v=onepage&q=%22rope%20trick%22&f=false -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From Charles-Sligh at utc.edu Sun Jun 20 06:44:12 2010 From: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu (Charles Sligh) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 09:44:12 -0400 Subject: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie In-Reply-To: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4C1E1B2C.4040802@utc.edu> Richard Pine wrote: > If it were not fantastic, merveilleux, there would be no point in travelling on the elephant's back. > > > Wait a minute. Hold it right there. The end of all this heresy will be to suggest that there is no giant tortoise beneath the globe. . . . "But the proverb says that whoever sees the world from the back of an elephant learns the secrets of the jungle and becomes a seer" (Poetry London 2). I sense another glance at /The Jungle Book/. Not to Mowgli this time, but rather to "Toomai of the Elephants": > And at last, when the flames died down, and the red light of > the logs made the elephants look as though they had been > dipped in blood too, Machua Appa, the head of all the drivers > of all the Keddahs?-Machua Appa, Petersen Sahib?s other self, > who had never seen a made road in forty years: Machua Appa, > who was so great that he had no other name than Machua > Appa,?-leaped to his feet, with Little Toomai held high in the > air above his head, and shouted: ?Listen, my brothers. Listen, > too, you my lords in the lines there, for I, Machua Appa, am > speaking! This little one shall no more be called Little > Toomai, but Toomai of the Elephants, as his great-grandfather > was called before him. What never man has seen he has seen > through the long night, and the favor of the elephant-folk and > of the Gods of the Jungles is with him. He shall become a > great tracker. He shall become greater than I, even I, Machua > Appa! He shall follow the new trail, and the stale trail, and > the mixed trail, with a clear eye! He shall take no harm in > the Keddah when he runs under their bellies to rope the wild > tuskers; and if he slips before the feet of the charging bull > elephant, the bull elephant shall know who he is and shall not > crush him. Aihai! my lords in the chains,"?-he whirled up the > line of pickets?-"here is the little one that has seen your > dances in your hidden places,?-the sight that never man saw! > Give him honor, my lords! Salaam karo, my children. Make your > salute to Toomai of the Elephants! Gunga Pershad, ahaa! Hira > Guj, Birchi Guj, Kuttar Guj, ahaa! Pudmini,?-thou hast seen > him at the dance, and thou too, Kala Nag, my pearl among > elephants!?-ahaa! Together! To Toomai of the Elephants. Barrao!? > > And at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their > trunks till the tips touched their foreheads, and broke out > into the full salute-?the crashing trumpet-peal that only the > Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut of the Keddah. > > But it was all for the sake of Little Toomai, who had seen > what never man had seen before?-the dance of the elephants at > night and alone in the heart of the Garo hills! Wonderful! C&c. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sun Jun 20 08:33:15 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 08:33:15 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie In-Reply-To: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Usually people make a distinction between storytelling, the process of making literature, and living in the real world of everyday life. I'm beginning to doubt that Lawrence G. Durrell saw a difference between the two. Re the real world, we all lie on occasion. I myself try to keep it at a minimum and hate myself when I do. Not so with Durrell, who seemed to make a profession of it and delight in the results, as some are suggesting. I suspect he justified lying either because he had a very flexible notion of Truth, which we've discussed before, or because he "wanted to believe" things happened in a certain way, as MacNiven suggests on one occasion. I grant that the latter may not be strictly speaking a "lie," which depends on self-awareness. If so, then we enter the area of the pathological. Bruce On Jun 20, 2010, at 3:55 AM, Richard Pine wrote: > Bruce Redwine asks 'Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie?' > Has anyone fully explained his/her own propensity to lie? When was the last time you told a lie? And for what reason? For artistic effect? Or to deceive your wife? Or the tax collector? Or the traffic cop? Storytelling is predicated on the capacity to make truths of untruths: credo quia absurdum/impossibile depending on which version of Tertullian you prefer. If it were not fantastic, merveilleux, there would be no point in travelling on the elephant's back. > RP > From godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu Sun Jun 20 12:07:20 2010 From: godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu (Godshalk, William (godshawl)) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:07:20 -0400 Subject: [ilds] the rope trick In-Reply-To: <787317DB-F507-4269-AD48-69C6151D69F4@earthlink.net> References: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C618679EEA@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu>, <787317DB-F507-4269-AD48-69C6151D69F4@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C61A8AD8ED@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> "So Durrell wasn't "taken in." He couldn't have seen what didn't exist ? rather he was inventing and playing to the crowd who thought the hoax was real." Is Durrell the person who is inventing and playing? You don't mean that Durrell invented the hoax, or do you? On Jun 19, 2010, at 6:53 PM, Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote: > Well, okay, it's a hoax. And a young kid was taken in -- as many older folks were. Durrell thought that the hoax was the real thing. Houdini got away with hoax after hoax. > ----------------------------- > Versions of the story spread worldwide, but little notice was taken of a short note published by the Chicago Tribune four months after the original story that admitted the article was a publicity stunt. It assumed readers would realise it was a hoax because the story was bylined "Fred S. Ellmore". > > Mr Lamont discovered the truth after a painstaking search that revealed the bizarre theories of others who claim to have "solved" the trick. "It is a legend which the West constructed," said Mr Lamont, 37, who is now planning to write a book on its history. > > One Viceroy of India is said to have offered a ?10,000 reward to the person who would reveal the secret so he could impress the visiting Prince of Wales. And one expert claims it involved twin boys, one of whom would actually be murdered. > > It is thought the hoax may have been inspired by the Indian street act of balancing a boy on a pole. "I suppose I have destroyed some people's beliefs," said Mr Lamont, of Edinburgh University's Koestler Parapsychology Unit. > > > 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 Godshalk, William (godshawl) [godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu] > Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 3:15 PM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" > > I met many years ago two Scottish/Dutch kids who were reared in the east. They spoken fluent English and Dutch --- and their parents found out one day, to their surprise, that the kids also spoke the local dialect (can't remember which) fluently. > > Why not Durrell too? > > 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: Saturday, June 19, 2010 12:21 PM > To: Charles-Sligh at utc.edu; ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Cc: Bruce Redwine > Subject: Re: [ilds] "Our most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell" > > In his 1983 memoir, "From the Elephant's Back" (Fiction Magazine), LD writes, "I have seen the peak of Everest from the foot of my bed in a gaunt dormitory in Darjeeling" (p. 59). In his biography of LD, MacNiven writes, "Here was an innocent example of fiction revising reality: Larry wanted to remember it that way. Everest is not visible from any point in Darjeeling" (p. 40). I assume MacNiven takes this memoir, in part at least, as fiction ? and for good reason. In the same essay, LD also writes about his early experiences in India, "I have seen the Rope Trick when I was ten . . . My first language was Hindi" (p. 59). The "Indian Rope Trick" is one of the great hoaxes of recent times, as Peter Lamont exposes in The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History (2004). The "rope trick" never existed, but Durrell claims he saw it. I seriously doubt that LD's "first language" was "Hindi." Another lie. Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie? Was it as "innocent" as MacNiven graciously says? > > > Bruce > > > > On Jun 18, 2010, at 9:06 PM, Charles Sligh wrote: > > More news from the mountains of Tennessee. > > *** > > Spy for Tibet finds karma in Tennessee > As told to Henry Hamman > Published: June 19 2010 > http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/18de46d4-799d-11df-85be-00144feabdc0.html > I was educated at a Jesuit school in Darjeeling, St Joseph?s, the > usual kind of English-language school in India at the time. I was > there with the Dalai Lama?s youngest brother and other Tibetans. Our > most exalted alumni was Lawrence Durrell. > > -- > ******************************************** > Charles L. Sligh > Assistant Professor > Department of English > University of Tennessee at Chattanooga > charles-sligh at utc.edu > ******************************************** > > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu Sun Jun 20 17:28:25 2010 From: godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu (Godshalk, William (godshawl)) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:28:25 -0400 Subject: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie In-Reply-To: References: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>, Message-ID: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C61A8AD8F0@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> I've said it before, and I say it again---- Read K. K. Ruthven's excellent book, Faking Literature. Ruthven approaches this topic from various and sundry places, some of which you may not really care for. 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: Sunday, June 20, 2010 11:33 AM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: Re: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie Usually people make a distinction between storytelling, the process of making literature, and living in the real world of everyday life. I'm beginning to doubt that Lawrence G. Durrell saw a difference between the two. Re the real world, we all lie on occasion. I myself try to keep it at a minimum and hate myself when I do. Not so with Durrell, who seemed to make a profession of it and delight in the results, as some are suggesting. I suspect he justified lying either because he had a very flexible notion of Truth, which we've discussed before, or because he "wanted to believe" things happened in a certain way, as MacNiven suggests on one occasion. I grant that the latter may not be strictly speaking a "lie," which depends on self-awareness. If so, then we enter the area of the pathological. Bruce On Jun 20, 2010, at 3:55 AM, Richard Pine wrote: > Bruce Redwine asks 'Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie?' > Has anyone fully explained his/her own propensity to lie? When was the last time you told a lie? And for what reason? For artistic effect? Or to deceive your wife? Or the tax collector? Or the traffic cop? Storytelling is predicated on the capacity to make truths of untruths: credo quia absurdum/impossibile depending on which version of Tertullian you prefer. If it were not fantastic, merveilleux, there would be no point in travelling on the elephant's back. > RP > _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu Sun Jun 20 20:34:17 2010 From: godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu (Godshalk, William (godshawl)) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:34:17 -0400 Subject: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie In-Reply-To: <4C1E1B2C.4040802@utc.edu> References: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>, <4C1E1B2C.4040802@utc.edu> Message-ID: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C61A8AD8F3@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> turtles all the way down -- older woman to Sagan 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 Charles Sligh [Charles-Sligh at utc.edu] Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 9:44 AM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: Re: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie Richard Pine wrote: > If it were not fantastic, merveilleux, there would be no point in travelling on the elephant's back. > > > Wait a minute. Hold it right there. The end of all this heresy will be to suggest that there is no giant tortoise beneath the globe. . . . "But the proverb says that whoever sees the world from the back of an elephant learns the secrets of the jungle and becomes a seer" (Poetry London 2). I sense another glance at /The Jungle Book/. Not to Mowgli this time, but rather to "Toomai of the Elephants": > And at last, when the flames died down, and the red light of > the logs made the elephants look as though they had been > dipped in blood too, Machua Appa, the head of all the drivers > of all the Keddahs?-Machua Appa, Petersen Sahib?s other self, > who had never seen a made road in forty years: Machua Appa, > who was so great that he had no other name than Machua > Appa,?-leaped to his feet, with Little Toomai held high in the > air above his head, and shouted: ?Listen, my brothers. Listen, > too, you my lords in the lines there, for I, Machua Appa, am > speaking! This little one shall no more be called Little > Toomai, but Toomai of the Elephants, as his great-grandfather > was called before him. What never man has seen he has seen > through the long night, and the favor of the elephant-folk and > of the Gods of the Jungles is with him. He shall become a > great tracker. He shall become greater than I, even I, Machua > Appa! He shall follow the new trail, and the stale trail, and > the mixed trail, with a clear eye! He shall take no harm in > the Keddah when he runs under their bellies to rope the wild > tuskers; and if he slips before the feet of the charging bull > elephant, the bull elephant shall know who he is and shall not > crush him. Aihai! my lords in the chains,"?-he whirled up the > line of pickets?-"here is the little one that has seen your > dances in your hidden places,?-the sight that never man saw! > Give him honor, my lords! Salaam karo, my children. Make your > salute to Toomai of the Elephants! Gunga Pershad, ahaa! Hira > Guj, Birchi Guj, Kuttar Guj, ahaa! Pudmini,?-thou hast seen > him at the dance, and thou too, Kala Nag, my pearl among > elephants!?-ahaa! Together! To Toomai of the Elephants. Barrao!? > > And at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their > trunks till the tips touched their foreheads, and broke out > into the full salute-?the crashing trumpet-peal that only the > Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut of the Keddah. > > But it was all for the sake of Little Toomai, who had seen > what never man had seen before?-the dance of the elephants at > night and alone in the heart of the Garo hills! Wonderful! C&c. -- ******************************************** Charles L. Sligh Assistant Professor Department of English University of Tennessee at Chattanooga charles-sligh at utc.edu ******************************************** _______________________________________________ ILDS mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sun Jun 20 20:54:08 2010 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:54:08 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie In-Reply-To: <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C61A8AD8F0@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> References: <700678.89860.qm@web65810.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>, <94B18F18BF859846A11A82A6166B6C4201C61A8AD8F0@UCMAILBE2.ad.uc.edu> Message-ID: Bill, Perhaps you could briefly summarize Ruthven's arguments, as I've done in the past with other authors (John R. Searle and Peter Lamont, to name two). I'm particularly interested in how Ruthven distinguishes between faking it in literature and faking it in everyday life. Bruce On Jun 20, 2010, at 5:28 PM, Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote: > I've said it before, and I say it again---- > > Read K. K. Ruthven's excellent book, Faking Literature. Ruthven approaches this topic from various and sundry places, some of which you may not really care for. > > 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: Sunday, June 20, 2010 11:33 AM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Cc: Bruce Redwine > Subject: Re: [ilds] Durrell's propensity to lie > > Usually people make a distinction between storytelling, the process of making literature, and living in the real world of everyday life. I'm beginning to doubt that Lawrence G. Durrell saw a difference between the two. Re the real world, we all lie on occasion. I myself try to keep it at a minimum and hate myself when I do. Not so with Durrell, who seemed to make a profession of it and delight in the results, as some are suggesting. I suspect he justified lying either because he had a very flexible notion of Truth, which we've discussed before, or because he "wanted to believe" things happened in a certain way, as MacNiven suggests on one occasion. I grant that the latter may not be strictly speaking a "lie," which depends on self-awareness. If so, then we enter the area of the pathological. > > > Bruce > > > > On Jun 20, 2010, at 3:55 AM, Richard Pine wrote: > >> Bruce Redwine asks 'Has anyone fully explained Durrell's propensity to lie?' >> Has anyone fully explained his/her own propensity to lie? When was the last time you told a lie? And for what reason? For artistic effect? Or to deceive your wife? Or the tax collector? Or the traffic cop? Storytelling is predicated on the capacity to make truths of untruths: credo quia absurdum/impossibile depending on which version of Tertullian you prefer. If it were not fantastic, merveilleux, there would be no point in travelling on the elephant's back. >> RP >> > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds