[ilds] Mention of the Alexandria Quartet in an Interesting and Controversial New Book

[Merrianne]

Before attending the OMG conference in Vancouver, I purchased a recently
published book - The Homoerotics of Orientalism by Joseph Allen Boone,
published by Columbia University Press. The book is generating some
controversy. Having spent many years researching 19th century orientalist
art, I am finding this book very interesting, but not your usual summer
read. It weaves together many diverse threads - art, literature, gender,
sexuality, colonialism, mass marketing, etc., and introduces some unique
analysis. Illustrations range from traditional Ingres nudes to Norman Mailer
as a pharaoh on the cover of New York magazine. 

 

Included in the chapter "Epic Ambitions and Epicurean Appetites" is a
subchapter titled "The Return of the Repressed in Durrell's Alexandria
Quartet" that focuses on the depiction of Darley. Footnote 70 for this
chapter cites James Gifford's "The Frontiers of Love: Sexual and Territorial
Ambiguity in Lawrence Durrell's Monsieur." 

 

Bottom line - this is a book that some of you might want to peruse. For me,
it provides new insight into the many "textbook" images of orientalism I
have enjoyed over the years, and introduces me to many "new" contemporary
photographs, paintings, and ideas.

 

Best,

Merrianne Timko

 

 

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