[ilds] The Dark Labyrinth
Marc Piel
marc at marcpiel.fr
Thu May 5 16:56:10 PDT 2011
And do you call it critical when you announce
"..... nor do many participants on the ILDS
list-serve".
What quantifiable evidence do you have of this????
... or should we all sit around and say "bravo"
Bruce ( BB) , non of us could have critically
thought that out!
I have been at loggerheads with you in the past
for just this sort of unsupported affirmations,
that you try to foist on the list.
Marc
Le 05/05/11 19:23, Bruce Redwine a écrit :
> "Free of jargon, free of extra-textual
> considerations, free of critical prejudice" —
> now what does all that sound and fury mean? I
> guess it means that all discussion should end,
> and we should all sit around the campfire and
> sing the praises of LGD and say how much we
> enjoy everything he writes. Not much of a
> critical discussion, in my opinion.
>
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
> On May 5, 2011, at 9:17 AM, Richard Pine wrote:
>
>> I think we should educate ourselves out of the
>> literary snobbism in which most of us have been
>> trained - I mean the Leavisite idea of a
>> 'canon' or 'tradition' into which a writer
>> either does or does not 'fit'. (Leavis is said
>> to have remarked of LD 'not one of us'. Both
>> Leavises suffered, in my opinion, from an
>> appalling - in the strict Adlerian sense -
>> inferiority complex. Reading QD Leavis's
>> 'Fiction and the Reading Public' one could be
>> forgiven for wondering how she could have
>> possibly expressed such banal, untenable
>> opinions about major authors of whom she did
>> not approve.)
>> We have to remember that LD very early on tried
>> to become 2 writers - LD and 'Charles Norden'
>> and that H Miller put the lid on that idea. But
>> he did go forward writing one 'real' (as he
>> called it) book followed by one lighter book.
>> He himself described 'Sicilian Carousel' to me
>> as 'a makeweight' while waiting for the
>> successor to Monsieur.
>> Eliot didn't dismiss DL: he said there was too
>> much Durrell for a Norden, and not enough
>> Durrell for a Durrell. If you elide Norden, the
>> problem goes away.
>> Look at the chronology: heavy/light/heavy/light
>> all the way through. BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT
>> WE HAVE TO REGARD THE 'LIGHT' AS INFERIOR. It
>> is the Leavises et al who have conditioned us
>> to think that way. What is it? It's what LD
>> himself described as 'British critics suffering
>> from penis envy'. i.e. we spend so much energy
>> lauding the 'real' books that we think it
>> inferior of us as lit crits to also acknowledge
>> the in-between stuff, and yet we secretly want
>> to admire it. Somehow, we feel guilty at
>> admitting that 'DL' or 'White Eagles' excites
>> us, because we have been trained to act as
>> snobs. LD himself said that one would seldom
>> meet a reader who admits to enjoying Proust AND
>> Wodehouse. But HE DID and so do I and I HAVE NO
>> PATIENCE with the school of thought which
>> pretends that we have to make a special case
>> for DL or White Eagles or Antrobus. We DON'T.
>> Just ENJOY! Or is that impossible for a
>> po-faced critic? I'm afraid it is, in most
>> cases. And then there are those toilet-trained
>> in 'theory' who can't make up their minds about
>> anything they've read until they have decided
>> what Derrida might have thought. They don't
>> deserve to be critics at all, because they
>> haven't got a mind of their own, not even a
>> Leavisite one. Urrrgh
>> So could we please stop agonising about whether
>> DL is a great book or even an important book,
>> and just read the damn thing for what it is
>> worth - free of jargon, free of extra-textual
>> considerations, free of critical prejudice?
>> RP
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> *From:*Meta Cerar <meta.cerar at guest.arnes.si
>> <mailto:meta.cerar at guest.arnes.si>>
>> *To:*ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto:ilds at lists.uvic.ca>
>> *Sent:*Wed, May 4, 2011 2:45:00 PM
>> *Subject:*Re: [ilds] The Dark Labyrinth
>>
>> Bruce,
>> I would be most grateful if you could send me
>> this essay on Durrell you're working on as I'm
>> preparing an article about Durrell to accompany
>> the publication of Dark Labyrinth.
>> Recently I went through both biographies
>> (Bowker and McNiven) again and through the
>> collection of D's most important interviews,
>> and nowhere, really nowhere have I found
>> anything on the DL except very brief and
>> occassional remarks. If it may be right that
>> Durrell was so dismissive because it reflects
>> his own life and philosophy and there was »too
>> much of LD in DL«, I am still curious if this
>> attitude on the part of his biographers was due
>> to Durrell's wish or whether they too thought
>> the novel to be so irrelevant in relation to
>> other works of D's as to deserve no more than a
>> casual mention. I'd really like to clarify
>> this, so I would appreciate your opinion as
>> well as the opinions of other list members. I
>> think Dark Labyrinth is one of Durrell's best
>> pieces, introducing many of the leitmotifs that
>> appear in the AQ, so it surely deserves more
>> recognition. Apart from the Roof of the World
>> chapter I especially like the chapter about
>> Baird's visit to the monastery and the
>> character of the old abbot.
>> I can only hope that Slovenian readers will be
>> more appreciative of the book than Durrell's
>> biographers.
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Meta
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------
>> *From:*ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca
>> <mailto:ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca>[mailto:ilds-bounces at lists.uvic.ca]*On
>> Behalf Of*Bruce Redwine
>> *Sent:*Friday, April 22, 2011 8:35 PM
>> *To:*ilds at lists.uvic.ca <mailto: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>[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
>> <http://www.denisetart.com.au/>
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