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

[James Gifford]

Dear all,

I'll ask for calmer tempers in my role as moderator...  Let us not 
prevent discourse just as it resumes, though we should temper our 
temperance as well.

As the person Boone cites in his book, I'll only briefly note that he 
has written a few very interesting pieces on Durrell (and I'd be happy 
to list them if anyone wishes).  Time presses, so quick comments.  I've 
pointed out that Durrell's highly autobiographical first novel, /Pied 
Piper of Lovers/, does refers to homosexual experience in an explicit 
way, and the protagonist goes some lengths to indicate general 
acceptance of homosexuality as a perfectly normal part of the human 
spectrum.  That said, he is also described as not finding it to his 
personal tastes.  The woman the protagonist is infatuated with at this 
point in the book (Pamela) is also based on a bisexual woman Durrell 
knew at the time.

Across his career, Durrell is fairly persistent in including homosexual 
characters and scenarios in his books, and homosexuality is important in 
virtually all of his novels.  He's also relatively persistent 
(especially for the period) in not derogating it.  I personal think 
those matters all point to a reasonably non-repressed sense of his own 
sexuality, whatever myriad traits it may have taken (though I don't 
think an author's experiences can be simply equated with the body of work).

The role of homosexuality and bisexuality in Durrell's works is, in my 
view, more complex than I can get into now.  But I think it's important. 
  Vitally important to both form and content.

For Boone's work (and Bowen's, Hawthorne's, etc.), I think a further 
care is needed -- Joe doesn't point to *Durrell* being a repressed 
homosexual (very much a 90s notion, IMO) but rather to the repression of 
homosexual discourse in the novel and the constitutive function of 
homosexual desire to heteronormativity.  This is to say, the couterpoise 
of homosexuality is important to the Quartet's discourses of desire, but 
in contrast to (in his example) Doris Lessing's apparent homophobia in 
something like the Golden Notebook, the Quartet uses the false binary as 
a definitional tool.  By noticing the irruptions of homoeroticism in the 
narrative and textual details (the return of the repressed in a textual, 
formal sense), we lose that binary but also come to understand the 
definitional work the book is doing.  Who can forget that Melissa's 
gender isn't at first disclosed, and she appears as Darley's lover 
following on Balthazar's and Cavafy's homosexual lovers -- she's also 
the bee carrying pollen between her flowers (Darley and her Johns), 
which certainly queers Darley's sense of their kisses being 
pollen-dusted, etc...  Was Durrell writing this textual parapraxis 
accidentally as a repressed author, or was he making the parapraxis a 
part of the textuality of the book?  I, most certainly, suspect the 
latter, though I ultimately don't care which since I'm interested in 
what's in the book not the author, and it's certainly in the book! 
Personally, I like Joe's work on this a lot, but he's playing with a 
more nuanced set of discourses than we might get into here.

As for the matter of incest, I suspect there's been too much 
sensationalism on the matter for reasonable thought.  The biographies 
are fairly conclusive and agreed in this -- the allegation was 
sensationalism, or at least that seems the most reasonable understanding 
for something about which there's no evidence either way.  The shoddy 
scholarship in Hamer's work is purely self-serving invention, as I've 
said in a review of her book.  Things are made up across her book in 
many areas, not just the chapter on Durrell.  Fabrication at its worst.

All of that said, I don't think we ought to desist in discussing the 
complexities of sexuality in Durrell's works, though I do suspect a 
healthy sense of the difference between the writer and the work is 
important to keep at the fore of such a discussion.

I don't want to ask anyone to self-censor, but if it's possible, perhaps 
we can all orient ourselves toward what we think will bring the most 
productive discussions?

Typed in haste!

All best,
James