[ilds] Durrell’s Characters

[Bruce Redwine]

Sumantra, yes, it is a lot.  That’s why I say Durrell is a highly autobiographical writer.  I don’t see Haag’s claims in conflict with mine.  A character can have more than one origin and can be put to multiple uses.  As to how Toto, Da Capo, and Memlik connect, that’s part of an argument I make in a forthcoming essay in Mosaic, an interdisciplinary journal.  Durrell and his Scobie is more complicated.  The latter’s fluid sexuality is one aspect, his fluid use of language another.  Durrell spends a lot of time on Scobie, more than he really deserves.  Why?

Bruce




> On May 15, 2015, at 10:04 PM, Sumantra Nag <sumantranag at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Bruce!
> 
> That's a lot of characters bearing some aspect of Lawrence Durrell's mental or physical makeup.
> 
> Scobie?! Forgive me for sounding a bit bewildered. I read somewhere that Scobie's character was derived - partly at least - from an eccentric in Cairo whom Durrell was familiar with. And Da Capo appears to symbolise a predatory lecher in whom Durrell projects characteristics of familiar males in Alexandria. In Justine and the AQ, Da Capo is supposed to have raped Justine in her adolescence. But Haag's book describes a similar experience in the life of Elizabeth David, who, rightly perhaps, has been mentioned in these recent posts as a person on whom Durrell has drawn while creating Justine.
> 
> Based on references I made my from Michael Haag's book on Alexandria (City of Memory) I wrote at some length in The Guardian discussion of 2012 that Durrell seems to have transposed some of the conduct of British people resident in Alexandria during the 1940s and WWII on to the indigenous population of Alexandria.
> 
> Sumantra
> 
> Sent from my Asus Zenfone
> 
> Charles Dickens is usually praised for the variety and profusion of his characterizations.  I don’t think of Durrell as another Dickens.  His many characterizations seem connected, seem to have a common origin.  So we have Count D.  Durrell once joked in an interview that he himself was Justine.  Was it entirely a joke?  Sappho Jane saw herself as the prototype for Livia.  Here we may have characterization by consanguinity.  I would argue (and have) that even subsidiary characters such as Da Capo, Toto de Brunel, and Memlik Pasha have aspects of their creator.  Perhaps the “old pirate” and his “tendencies” should also be included.  And maybe old LD is the “real Constance.”  That may have appealed to Sappho Jane.
> 
> Bruce
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On May 13, 2015, at 7:09 PM, Kennedy Gammage <gammage.kennedy at gmail.com <mailto:gammage.kennedy at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> I’m not widely read in Saul Bellow (I enjoyed Humbolt’s Gift, which lead me to Delmore Schwartz) but I am reading a lot about Bellow now because of Leader’s new bio – and there are some contrasts or parallels we can make with our friend. Louis Menand’s YOUNG SAUL article in the May 11 issue of The New Yorker says “From the beginning, Bellow drew on people he knew, including his wives and girlfriends and the members of his own family, for his characters.” Maybe this statement applies to all writers (“write what you know”) – but I’m not sure it applies to Durrell so much.
>> 
>> How many characters are there in the Quartet, and how many can you draw a line to, linking a character to a person Durrell knew? We were just discussing Clea, Justine and Melissa – but Durrell had a finite number of wives, and there are literally dozens of characters. According to Menand’s review, ‘”Herzog” is a revenge novel.’ To a ridiculous extent! Not only are the characters directly linked to friends/wives/lovers – but many of these people favorably reviewed the novel, as if it didn’t apply to them.
>> 
>> I really think Durrell is a different animal: someone who conjured characters out of his head like Zeus! Who is the real Constance? Answer that and I’ll buy you a drink at the next OMG!
>> 
>> Cheers - Ken
>> 
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