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

[James Gifford]

Hi Bruce,

On 2014-10-10 4:53 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote:
> My understanding is that he was pro-Israel until the
> Six-Day War in 1967.

I wouldn't have a clear basis for asserting that, but it's my own sense 
too.  It also helps for context to know he was helping Albert Cossery 
with funds and getting his work to America for publication (and quite 
likely Georges Henein as well), which is to say I don't accept the 
simplification of his position as anti-Egyptian for being pro-Israel.

> So it would be interesting to know exactly what
> caused Durrell’s disenchantment.

It's fascinating that he could write so very little about the war (WWII) 
in his poetry *during* the war.  /Personal Landscape/ is fascinating to 
me for the paucity of overtly war-related content, and I don't think 
it's accidental.  By 1967, he'd been on Cyprus, in Yugoslavia in the 
aftermath of Tito's break from the Cominform, and could express (I think 
typically not in his major texts) an explicit and clear sense of the 
political conflicts.  I don't think he'd celebrate the military element.

But I also think it's entirely plausible that Claude was the driving 
voice in /Judith/, though I'd have to sit down with it and her own novel 
to really feel comfortable saying that.  It's also possible (in 
contrast) that Durrell was largely ghost writing her novel, /A Chair for 
the Prophet/.

> 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?

After Cyprus, I doubt he would have seen 1967 as a resolution of the 
conflict.  In a sense, /A Chair for the Prophet/ can work because it 
doesn't think about the Palestinians and other interests in the region. 
  But that's a narrative not a political position, and what works in a 
novel can be quite different from what an author recognizes as reality 
in the world.  Or it could just be that it's how Claude understood 
Israel, and it's her book, not his.  I'd suspect Durrell would have 
sensed the instability.

In any case after 1967, whether due to Claude's death or the Six-Day 
War, or perhaps most likely due to both, we don't find Durrell taking up 
those kinds of projects again.  The commentary in /The Avignon Quintet/ 
is much different.

But I have other books before me, and I have to work my way through 
those before I can set /Judith/ and /A Chair/ down for a weekend chat!

All best,
James