[ilds] Response to James Gifford's comments on Judith (Vol. 90, issue 6)

[Bruce Redwine]

As most of us do, Durrell had his falling out with people, individual and collective.  My understanding is that he was pro-Israel until the Six-Day War in 1967.  That war, however, didn’t generate much anti-Israeli sentiment until many years later (with the exception of the USS Liberty incident in which 34 U.S. sailors were killed by Israeli planes).  So it would be interesting to know exactly what caused Durrell’s disenchantment.  At the time, many American conservatives praised the stunning Israeli victory.  William F. Buckley cited it on one occasion as an example of war solving a political problem.  How wrong he was.  Was Durrell prescient?

Bruce




On Oct 10, 2014, at 2:50 PM, Denise Tart & David Green <dtart at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> Michael Haag knows a good deal about Durrell's views on Israel too. If he is out there somewhere he may care to shine some light. The 6 Day War changed many people's views about Israel although it was more or less set up by the UN 1947 partition plan which gave neither side anything remotely workable in the long term.
> 
> David
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On 11 Oct 2014, at 8:40 am, James Gifford <james.d.gifford at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2014-10-09 9:39 AM, Bruce Redwine wrote:
>>> Finally, just what were Durrell’s views towards the
>>> state of Israel?  Didn’t they change?
>> 
>> I think this is the most interesting question, and it's why I would set the text beside Claude's /A Chair for the Prophet/ (1959), which is openly Zionist.  Michael Haag has demonstrated the importance of the Menasce family as source material for the Hosnanis in the Quartet, and the "inter-writing" of the two books (Quartet and Chair) seems fairly clear at the stylistic level and obvious for the timeline.  (is "inter-writing" the right word?  co-authored seems inapt)
>> 
>> Durrell seemed to support Israel strongly until 1967, at which point either Claude's death or the Six-Day War may have changed his stance or his interest in the Judith project.  The similarities between /Judith/ and /A Chair for the Prophet/ might also indicate Claude's possible contributions to (drive behind?) the novel, but that would need more scrutiny.
>> 
>> I haven't actually read /Judith/ or /A Chair for the Prophet/ for 5 or 6 years, maybe more, so I should sit down with them before saying anything more meaningful.
>> 
>> All best,
>> James