[ilds] Dark Labyrinth

[Denise Tart & David Green]

Happy New Year. Just posting that I had received from Denise, my wife, first edition, hard cover Faber copies of Bitter Lemons and Prospero's Cell. She got them from England at very reasonable price and they are in in excellent condition. Also got a copy of Dark Labyrinth from R W Hedges of blessed memory, he of octopus in red sauce washed down by copious amount of red wine. 

Dark Labyrinth - early on very Norman Douglas in style then Durrell's own voice becomes stronger. Graecen, Fearmax and Campion are all splinters of LD for sure and what an amazing chapter 'Roof of the World' is; Durrell's whole existential quest for isolation and the physical and spiritual union with nature, hearkening for his mountain homeland or beloved island state, not to mention his lust for fit blonds with curvy bodies and the simple rustic life he found on the Garrique. I thought 'anyone who wants to go to the heart of the man need only read this chapter. It also reminded me of the last two verses of standing on Milos that Roy Hedges and I wrote:

Embrace the stony, stark white and blue Aegean. 

Islands, sun-swept and circling slowly,

Refracted on the edge of sight,

Gorse and yellow broom of spring

Sweeping hillsides where gnarled peasant

And olive tree bow to fading light,

         As fishermen beat octopus on ancient stone.

 

How can men clamber about galleries and shrines,

When they could stand above Klima on Milos

And feel the centuries where the shepherd is artist

And goats make music with the wind?




Cheers

David
16 William Street
Marrickville NSW 2204
+ 61 2 9564 6165
0412 707 625
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