[ilds] 'Taisez-vous, petit babouin. . . .'

[Charles Sligh]

Bruce Redwine wrote:
>
> That's why I find Scobie's character fascinating — in particular, 
> Durrell's deification of /El Scob.  /Scobie is Durrell's mind at its 
> best and most outrageous.
>
I agree, Bruce.  I always find myself looking forward the first Scobie 
episode, which occurs in Part II of /Justine/.  Something shifts there 
in terms of prose style and voicing--perhaps in terms of rhythm, 
sustained presentation of a single character, and (most importantly) 
humor? 

I think that this change in style holds true for me whether I imagine 
Darley reporting the Scobie anecdotes or Lawrence Durrell writing about 
his character Scobie in a novel called /Justine/.  In either case, these 
Scobie paragraphs strike me as somehow different from the previous 
paragraphs in Parts I and II of /Justine/.  If the transatlantic 
criss-crossings of Da Capo's father and Sabina and Kelly had merited a 
sustained treatment extending over several pages, then we might have 
something similar in Part I of /Justine/. . . .

Linda Rashidi and Aljaz Groselj are linguists interested in Durrell's 
writings, and I think that they would be able to help me chart out the 
sea-change at a micro-level, or else explain to me what continues with a 
difference here. 

Whatever the case, I will observe how 1) for me, the Scobie episodes 
mark a storytelling "voice" or "style" that differs in manner and 
subject from, say, the voices of Darley or Pursewarden--Durrellian, but 
different; 2) apart from Durrell's other characters, Scobie and 
Pursewarden achieved an afterlife, occupying Durrell's imagination after 
the publication of the /Quartet/. 

These two--especially Scobie--were Durrell's "routines" for new sketches 
in notebooks and informal recitals for friends and visitors.  I use 
"routines" in the sense that Charles Dickens did "routines," climbing up 
on a dining room chair or mounting a stage and "doing" the voices of 
Micawber or Skimpole &c. 

I think those two Dickensian characters come to mind for a reason.  In 
/David Copperfield/ and /Bleak House/, Dickens allowed extended 
anecdotes about Micawber and Skimpole (their appearances, mannerisms, 
and characteristic speech) to take over the narrative, giving readers a 
bit of comic relief from the "earnestness" of Esther or David's voices.  
In his own way, Darley is similarly "earnest" about his /ennui/.  As the 
years go by, I am more and more struck about Darley's seriousness about 
being a bankrupt--Darley certainly works earnestly to prove that he does 
not care a great deal about work &c. 

N.B.: Unlike Dickens' corrective treatment of his cartoons Micawber or 
Skimpole, Durrell does not end by showing up or correcting Scobie's 
quirks.  Scobie cannot be contained by those rules.  Even Scobie's 
funeral at the Catholic cemetery ends with Rabelaisian overturn and 
carnival. 

Scobie's appearance in Part II of /Justine/ is good fortune, a Tiresian 
breeze, offering me a bit of relief from the rest of the Alexandrian 
hothouse.  The fact that the old pirate seems so well adapted, such an 
integral part of Durrell's City, makes this character all the more 
wonderful.

Joshua Samuel Scobie and Old Ron.  Capodistria /père/ and Sabina.   
(Again, there is something Dickensian in having a character with an 
appendage or a sidekick.)  I am grateful for these fellows, two of my 
oldest and fondest friends in the /Quartet/. 

Charles

-- 
********************************************
Charles L. Sligh
Assistant Professor
Department of English
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
charles-sligh at utc.edu
********************************************