[ilds] The Dark Labyrinth

Sat Apr 23 09:00:09 PDT 2011

David,

Good point.  Or he'd written in a different way, if at all.  Durrell knew Zen in a theoretical sense (the "religion" is praxis, not theory), and Zen is not otherworldly.  It's a spiritual journey ultimately ending in the real world, the here and now.  Take Arthur Rimbaud, whom both Durrell and Miller use as a model.  That genius finished his writing career around the age of nineteen.  Then he abandoned poetry for soldiering, gun-running, slave trading (possibly), business, etc.  Miller tries to argue, at times, that Rimbaud immersed himself in everyday life after achieving his "illumination."  I strongly doubt this.  Rimbaud was not a holy man living in Abyssinia who had forsaken civilization, but young Durrell in a letter talks about "leaving for Ethiopia to join Rimbaud" (May 1937).  He's joking, of course, but that's also the kind of Romantic nonsense the two friends indulge in.  Rimbaud was a burnt-out case, as Graham Greene writes in another context.  Resolution, however, does not necessarily entail loss of creativity.  Look at Shakespeare and his late work, the four Romances, The Tempest, in particular.  Durrell may have been moving in that direction.

Bruce

On Apr 23, 2011, at 1:45 AM, Denise Tart & David Green wrote:

> neither does Campion. many of the other characters in DL become new selves. Campion goes back into the apothecaries mix. If Durrell had found resolution, he would have ceased to write..
>  
> DG
> 
> From: Bruce Redwine
> Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 1:54 PM
> To: Denise Tart & David Green ; ilds at lists.uvic.ca
> Cc: Bruce Redwine
> Subject: Re: [ilds] The Dark Labyrinth
> 
> David,
> 
> Good association.  Neither.  But now were getting to the transcendent.  I think Campion, who takes a leap into space and then disappears entirely from the narrative, "dissolved into the Infinite," in the way that Zen artists depict the ten stages of ox-herding pictures, the eighth stage being, "Both Bull and Self Transcendent."  (See Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones [1957].)  That stage is represented as the enzo, a large, empty circle:  Sunyata.  Durrell knew this tradition, and that's what Campion reaches.  Two stages, however, follow.  A return to the world as a new self.  That final stage I don't think Durrell himself ever reached.
> 
> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
>   
> On Apr 22, 2011, at 6:33 PM, Denise Tart & David Green wrote:
> 
>> "Rimbaud's solution is always in the air."
>>  
>> Bruce, I am imagining Campion leaping into the blue Cretan air above the even bluer Med, an act of vast faith as water from that height is concrete hard. did he die or did he swim to safety...
>>  
>> DG
>>  
>> 
>> From: Bruce Redwine
>> Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2011 4:35 AM
>> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca
>> Cc: Bruce Redwine
>> Subject: [ilds] The Dark Labyrinth
>> 
>> Meta,
>> 
>> I'm currently working on an essay dealing with Durrell's use of pastoral, which will include aspects of his peculiar "transcendental dimension."  David Green below encapsulates well, as you note, some of those characteristics.  I too find The Dark Labyrinth an extraordinary work of fiction.  Why did Durrell dismiss it?  I'd guess because it didn't fit in which his grandiose plans for making his mark on world literature (hence the need to produce "big works," "man-size piece[s]," i.e., novels in sets, epic fashion).  Yes, that's hard.  But, if I may expand on Frank Kermode's observations (Critical Inquiry 7 (1980), no. 1, 83-101), authors are not always in full control of their material and don't always know when they're succeeding or not.  As far as the "transcendental" goes, the escape into some mythological unknown was there at an early age.  In a letter to Henry Miller (27 January 1937), Durrell writes, "Rimbaud's solution is always in the air." The statement is problematic, but I take it to mean that young Durrell is romanticizing Arthur Rimbaud's escape into the wilds of Abyssinia, i.e., seeking out some primitive haven not unlike the Roof of the World in DL.  Of course, what Durrell was probably unaware of is that Rimbaud was bored stiff with life in remote East Africa.  Read his letters to chères mère et sœur.  No matter.  The idea of pastoral is more important than facts.
>> 
>> 
>> Bruce
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Apr 22, 2011, at 2:39 AM, Meta Cerar wrote:
>> 
>>> This is beautifully put, thank you for this post. I am so glad that other Durrell fans also find the transcendental dimension in the Dark Labyrinth (which I recently translated into Slovenian). I have always wondered why Durrell himself was so dismissive of this novel? Referred to it as a potboiler, written to pay for the divorce from Nancy. And why was it hardly ever mentioned by his biographers, and not even once in the interviews which were compiled into a book (I think the author was Ingersoll or something similar)?     
>>> Best regards
>>> Meta Cerar
>>> Ljubljana, Slovenia
>>>  
>>> From: ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca] On Behalf Of Denise Tart & David Green
>>> Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 5:00 AM
>>> To: Durrel
>>> Subject: [ilds] LGD and the Three Pillars of Happiness
>>>  
>>> LGD was a highly spiritual person and sought enlightenment through a variety of faiths and beliefs: Gnosticism, the cabbala, Buddhism and of the transcendental quest for spirit of place . it pervades all his work and no finer example than that found in Dark Labyrinth and the metaphoric discovery of the Tibetan upland!  My feeling is that LGD discovered many elements of spiritual upland when, after the bitter lemons of Cyprus, he went to the Midi with Claude and lived a plain rustic life at the Mazet, in country side he liked, with the woman he loved and doing work he enjoyed - writing and pottering about his farm. The other day Denise said that she heard that the three pillars of happiness are: someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to. I only add that the second pillar is stronger when you like what you do. LGD had all those when with Claude and it was his best time as a man, lover and writer. Later, he did not have love, found writing more difficult and had only the bottle to look forward to ...and female American uni students.
>>>  
>>>  
>>> David
>>> 16 William Street
>>> Marrickville NSW 2204
>>> + 61 2 9564 6165
>>> 0412 707 625
>>> www.denisetart.com.au
> 
> 
> 
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