[ilds] Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu theblue reallybegins

Wed Sep 8 23:31:59 PDT 2010

Bruce,

I have seen references to the beast with two backs in other texts - older than Shakespeare's. it appears to be a late medieval English term but may have translations in other languages. I am sure the French have something equally descriptive?

Re Durrell and Douglas I like the idea posted recently regarding 'where the blue really begins' which suggests that Durrell was acknowledging Douglas but moving beyond Italy to Greece. It may have been unconscious, but it is a nice idea anyway. Durrell owed a fair bit to Norman Douglas. Old Calabria and South Wind are great reads. But I have to say that the blue really begins in the Aegean around Rhodes and Crete.

David

From: Bruce Redwine 
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 3:22 AM
To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca 
Cc: Bruce Redwine 
Subject: Re: [ilds] Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu theblue reallybegins

Gotta say no to the C. Morley allusion and go with a reference to N. Douglas, as Grove notes below.  Along this line, I always thought Iago's slur, "making the beast with two backs," was original with Shakespeare, but it wasn't — a note in the Arden Othello says the phrase was proverbial.  Still, Shakespeare gets the credit, and Durrell will too.

BR

On Sep 8, 2010, at 2:27 AM, Wilson, Fraser wrote:

  Douglas certainly knew how to describe a boat trip - as in South Wind,
  below - which can be grabbed online from Project Gutenburg at no cost.

  His companion, meanwhile, beheld the panorama in all its nightmarish
  splendour, as it drifted past him. He saw the bluffs of feathery
  pumice, the lava precipices--frozen cataracts of white, black, blood
  red, pale grey and sombre brown, smeared over with a vitreous enamel of
  obsidian or pierced by oily, writhing dykes that blazed with metallic
  scintillations. Anon came some yawning cleft or an assemblage of dizzy
  rock-needles, fused into whimsical tints and attitudes, spiky,
  distorted, over-toppling; then a bold tufa rampart, immaculate in its
  beauty, stainless as a curtain of silk. And as the boat moved on he
  looked into horrid dells which the rains had torn out of the loose
  scoriae. Gaping wounds, they wore the bright hues of corruption. Their
  flanks were blotched with a livid nitrous efflorescence, with flaring
  sulphur, unhealthy verdure of pitchstone, streaks of arsenical
  vermilion; their beds--a frantic maze of boulders.

  He beheld this crazy stratification, this chaos of incandescent nature,
  sent in a flame of deep blue sky and sea. It lay there calmly, like
  some phantasmagoric flower, some monstrous rose that swoons away, with
  upturned face, in a solar caress.

  -----Original Message-----
  From: ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca] On
  Behalf Of gkoger at mindspring.com
  Sent: 08 September 2010 03:44
  To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
  Subject: Re: [ilds] Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu theblue really
  begins

  Gissing? As in George Gissing, who wrote /By the Ionian Sea/? 

  I've always assumed that Durrell's line is a reference to Norman Douglas
  and his /Old Calabria/, in which Douglas devotes several pages to
  Gissing, by the way. In doing so Durrell acknowledges a debt to Douglas
  AND announces that he is moving beyond him, geographically and
  otherwise. Douglas devoted one short book to Greece but his interests
  lay primarily in Italy.

  Grove

  -----Original Message-----

    From: "Godshalk, William (godshawl)" <godshawl at ucmail.uc.edu>

    Sent: Sep 7, 2010 7:23 PM

    To: "ilds at lists.uvic.ca" <ilds at lists.uvic.ca>

    Subject: Re: [ilds] Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue

  really begins

    Well, there are plenty of references to ships, islands, etc. No Corfu

  though.

    The book ends with: "clear immortal blue." 

    Did Larry read it? I leave it to you. 

    O, yes, the chief character is a man called Gissing. 

    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: Tuesday, September 07, 2010 8:25 PM

    To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca

    Cc: Bruce Redwine

    Subject: Re: [ilds] Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue

  really        begins

    Does Morely's book have related subject matter, i.e., the Ionian or the

  Aegean?  The next question:  any evidence that LD knew of this title?
  I'm inclined to think it's a coincidence.

    BR

    On Sep 7, 2010, at 5:01 PM, Godshalk, William (godshawl) wrote:

      "Where the Blue Begins" is a book by Christopher Morley published in

  1922.

      "Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins."

      Is Durrell's "really" a reply and a correction?

      W. L. Godshalk *

      Department of English    *           *

      University of Cincinnati*   * Stellar Disorder  *

      OH 45221-0069 *  *

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