From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Mon Aug 17 07:50:25 2015 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 07:50:25 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Villa Ambron In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6BB201DE-AAAE-4C42-A342-4E535EE8A12C@earthlink.net> Thanks. I listened to the short program, somewhat like David Green's, only much less favorable. Egyptians don't like Durrell, nor many Brits, for that matter. By the way, listen to the Brit pronunciation of Durrell's name. That's authentic! Bruce Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 16, 2015, at 7:45 PM, PETER BALDWIN wrote: > > BBC Radio 4 carried an interview yesterday [16 August 2015] about the possible [likely?] loss of the villa to developers. > > If you can access the BBC iPlayer website, the programme is Broadcasting House and the interview itself comes at c0921hrs. > > This link may work: > http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b065rt1x > > Peter Baldwin > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From james.d.gifford at gmail.com Mon Aug 17 09:44:05 2015 From: james.d.gifford at gmail.com (James Gifford) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 09:44:05 -0700 Subject: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived In-Reply-To: References:

Message-ID: <55D20F55.9080701@gmail.com> Hi Bruce and Ken, Thanks for the comments! The "From the Elephant's Back" essay in the book does show some of the recurring themes, especially those you've noted. Bill was right, and he used "fabulist" in a fairly specific context -- Scholes' /The Fabulators/ (he's also behind the Modernist Journals Project) in which he links the "fabulist" to postmodernism. Since the 1990s, I think the "postmodern" has been coming under increasing interrogation, especially with the rise of the New Modernist Studies. Durrell, in this sense, certainly fits the bill and Bill, both for his inventiveness with "real" history (a concept the formal elements of his work openly challenges) and his disruptions of the typical expectations of the novel. I think the essays in /Elephant/ are symptomatic of that same fabulation. For "From the Elephant's Back," we have the inventions of his own history, and like his dubious Irishness, we have his invention of an Indianness that was really only partial, but allowed him to generate some distance from old Pudding Island. It's a posture, or as Charles may remind us from his Egyptian notebooks, a "pose." To a degree, we all live in our inventions of our past lives only partially remembered and very largely reconstructed. I'd be certain he believed part of it and had great fun making up the rest. But, for his use of Urdu and Hindi, there are indeed many *words* from both in his first novel, /Pied Piper of Lovers/, and Manzalaoui complains his Arabic words in the Quartet contain "Urdu bastardizations." I'd imagine his Hindi was like my Greek: vocabulary and phrases without any real grammar. However, he did have a real talent for languages. He also commented that he'd lived his "real life" in books, which is perhaps the most interesting part of the reference to the rope trick. It's obviously a bit of colonial mystique trotted out for a specific audience and later a specific readership, but the textual origin is perhaps the most telling element to my mind. In any case, I hope you enjoy the rest of the book! The Introduction is deliberately provocative, so I hope it generates some disputes and renewed activity. All best, James On 2015-08-16 3:03 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote: > Let?s remember Bill Godshalk, who said, in the context of these > discussions, that Durrell was a ?fabulist.? Eve Cohen also said much > the same thing?he wasn?t to be trusted when relating anything. Which > means, Durrell liked to tell stories. MacNiven confirms this > repeatedly. There never was an ?Indian rope trick,? it?s highly > unlikely Durrell?s first language was an Indian dialect, and there was > no view of Mount Everest from a window at St. Joseph?s in Darjeeling. > Asserting otherwise, however, makes good fiction. My only question is > how much he was aware of what he was doing. > > Bruce > > > > > > > >> On Aug 16, 2015, at 2:23 PM, Kennedy Gammage >> > wrote: >> >> P.S. Very good notes on that first essay (which I ended up enjoying >> very much.) >> >> Re: the Rope trick and the hypnotic power of the conjurer as they sat >> about him in a circle...who can say what the 10 year old Durrell >> actually saw? He doesn't make any specific claims... >> >> - Ken >> >> On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 1:44 PM, Kennedy Gammage >> > wrote: >> >> On a Sunday no less! Cheers James ? it?s a beautiful book. A >> significant work of scholarship, not to mention large animal >> veterinary! >> >> So I?ve read all the introductions, and reading the title essay I >> find myself entirely viewing it through the ?Redwine Lens? ? it >> appears to be a pack of lies! Not that I?m offended by that. I >> find it charming, but curious. Bruce and I had previously >> exchanged emails about Rope trick. How could Durrell have seen it? >> It?s not a Penn & Teller piece of stage legerdemain ? it?s a bit >> of cultural supernaturalism, like Durrell in Haiti watching Papa >> Legba turn a corpse into a Zombie! >> >> His first language was Hindi? Maybe in the same way my infant son >> picked up some Spanish words from his babysitter 20 years ago? >> >> Seeing the peak of Mt. Everest from his room? >> >> This conversation always becomes inflammatory on the listserv, but >> I wanted to report this very interesting experience. I can assure >> you I will be reading the rest of the book cover-to-cover with >> great enjoyment. >> >> Thanks very much - Ken >> >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Mon Aug 17 10:45:47 2015 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 10:45:47 -0700 Subject: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived In-Reply-To: <55D20F55.9080701@gmail.com> References:

<55D20F55.9080701@gmail.com> Message-ID: <871FEFAA-228B-4683-BBCF-82958D9DFA69@earthlink.net> James, I think your comments are fair and reasonable as to how Durrell was fond of portraying himself. Above all, he lived in his imagination and all that entailed. I would add, however, that there?s a big difference between the affability he presents to his public and the volatility experienced by those who knew him. This too is understandable?great artists aren?t necessarily nice people. Good luck on your companion piece of Durrell?s works. Bruce > On Aug 17, 2015, at 9:44 AM, James Gifford wrote: > > Hi Bruce and Ken, > > Thanks for the comments! > > The "From the Elephant's Back" essay in the book does show some of the recurring themes, especially those you've noted. Bill was right, and he used "fabulist" in a fairly specific context -- Scholes' /The Fabulators/ (he's also behind the Modernist Journals Project) in which he links the "fabulist" to postmodernism. Since the 1990s, I think the "postmodern" has been coming under increasing interrogation, especially with the rise of the New Modernist Studies. > > Durrell, in this sense, certainly fits the bill and Bill, both for his inventiveness with "real" history (a concept the formal elements of his work openly challenges) and his disruptions of the typical expectations of the novel. I think the essays in /Elephant/ are symptomatic of that same fabulation. > > For "From the Elephant's Back," we have the inventions of his own history, and like his dubious Irishness, we have his invention of an Indianness that was really only partial, but allowed him to generate some distance from old Pudding Island. It's a posture, or as Charles may remind us from his Egyptian notebooks, a "pose." To a degree, we all live in our inventions of our past lives only partially remembered and very largely reconstructed. I'd be certain he believed part of it and had great fun making up the rest. But, for his use of Urdu and Hindi, there are indeed many *words* from both in his first novel, /Pied Piper of Lovers/, and Manzalaoui complains his Arabic words in the Quartet contain "Urdu bastardizations." I'd imagine his Hindi was like my Greek: vocabulary and phrases without any real grammar. However, he did have a real talent for languages. > > He also commented that he'd lived his "real life" in books, which is perhaps the most interesting part of the reference to the rope trick. It's obviously a bit of colonial mystique trotted out for a specific audience and later a specific readership, but the textual origin is perhaps the most telling element to my mind. > > In any case, I hope you enjoy the rest of the book! The Introduction is deliberately provocative, so I hope it generates some disputes and renewed activity. > > All best, > James > > On 2015-08-16 3:03 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote: >> Let?s remember Bill Godshalk, who said, in the context of these >> discussions, that Durrell was a ?fabulist.? Eve Cohen also said much >> the same thing?he wasn?t to be trusted when relating anything. Which >> means, Durrell liked to tell stories. MacNiven confirms this >> repeatedly. There never was an ?Indian rope trick,? it?s highly >> unlikely Durrell?s first language was an Indian dialect, and there was >> no view of Mount Everest from a window at St. Joseph?s in Darjeeling. >> Asserting otherwise, however, makes good fiction. My only question is >> how much he was aware of what he was doing. >> >> Bruce >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>> On Aug 16, 2015, at 2:23 PM, Kennedy Gammage >>> >> wrote: >>> >>> P.S. Very good notes on that first essay (which I ended up enjoying >>> very much.) >>> >>> Re: the Rope trick and the hypnotic power of the conjurer as they sat >>> about him in a circle...who can say what the 10 year old Durrell >>> actually saw? He doesn't make any specific claims... >>> >>> - Ken >>> >>> On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 1:44 PM, Kennedy Gammage >>> >> wrote: >>> >>> On a Sunday no less! Cheers James ? it?s a beautiful book. A >>> significant work of scholarship, not to mention large animal >>> veterinary! >>> >>> So I?ve read all the introductions, and reading the title essay I >>> find myself entirely viewing it through the ?Redwine Lens? ? it >>> appears to be a pack of lies! Not that I?m offended by that. I >>> find it charming, but curious. Bruce and I had previously >>> exchanged emails about Rope trick. How could Durrell have seen it? >>> It?s not a Penn & Teller piece of stage legerdemain ? it?s a bit >>> of cultural supernaturalism, like Durrell in Haiti watching Papa >>> Legba turn a corpse into a Zombie! >>> >>> His first language was Hindi? Maybe in the same way my infant son >>> picked up some Spanish words from his babysitter 20 years ago? >>> >>> Seeing the peak of Mt. Everest from his room? >>> >>> This conversation always becomes inflammatory on the listserv, but >>> I wanted to report this very interesting experience. I can assure >>> you I will be reading the rest of the book cover-to-cover with >>> great enjoyment. >>> >>> Thanks very much - Ken >>> >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> ILDS mailing list >> ILDS at lists.uvic.ca >> https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds >> > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Tue Aug 18 13:01:07 2015 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:01:07 -0700 Subject: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived In-Reply-To: <55D37A2E.7070703@gmail.com> References:

<55D20F55.9080701@gmail.com> <871FEFAA-228B-4683-BBCF-82958D9DFA69@earthlink.net> <55D37A2E.7070703@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5D305EE1-6A8D-467E-AFFA-0CB27557A4F3@earthlink.net> James and Ken, what you two are suggesting is that a lot in Durrell pretends to be objective but is in fact self-referential. Bisexuality included? That is a big topic in Freud. Bruce Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:32 AM, James Gifford wrote: > > Thanks Ken! As for the notes, it is indeed a balancing act for some, pushing for something here, leaving things unsaid there, etc... Durrell also used the Wordsworth mis-quotation for the opening of the final volume of the Quintet. For what it's worth, the bisexuality element of Shakespeare is lifted from Wilde (who also stole it), though with a nod -- the original of "an investigation of modern love" was also "an investigation of the bisexual psyche" in the Quartet drafts, but Faber wanted it changed evidently. Likewise, the continuation of the quotation from Freud at the opening of Justine is "As for bisexuality, I am sure you are right!", also trimmed at the last minute... > > I have a paper on that coming out (so to speak) this month or next. > > BEST! > James > >> On 2015-08-18 11:27 AM, Kennedy Gammage wrote: >> I just laughed out loud twice in one set of notes to the Zarian article. >> You say: >> >> 4. Respighi (1879-1936) was a famous Italian composer who set several of >> Zarian?s texts to music, although he does not appear to have ever set >> this specific work. >> >> 11. ?This suggests he is articulating his own notions here rather than >> Zarian?s. >> >> Yes! I had exactly these sentiments starting with Durrell?s delightful >> homage to Wordsworth: he is praising himself the whole time, finding a >> congenial surrogate. I agreed with everything Durrell says about the >> esteemed author of The Prelude ? but it all can apply to him too: ??Each >> original work of art,? cries Wordsworth, ?must create the taste by which >> it is to be judged.? Read and mark!10? >> >> Then Durrell tackles Shakespeare?s poetry, with an interesting >> discussion of the sexuality of the sonnets, sure to be controversial on >> the listserv if he was continuing to talk about himself the whole time. >> >> But this is just one of the threads running through the Elephant essays. >> Thoroughly enjoying them. >> >> Cheers - Ken >> From mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org Thu Aug 20 06:42:19 2015 From: mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org (mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org) Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:42:19 +0000 Subject: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12 Message-ID: I think we are getting out of focus on two issues: how far do writers import their "real" lives (if any of us live such things as "real" lives) into their work, and secondly, as a corollary, how far does their writing also involve allusion, "borrowing", plagiarism, referent points...? How many of us think of an old girlfriend as "the one that got away" and are determined to recapture in memories that turn into elegies? How many of us had appalling childhoods that result in channelling our energies creatively rather than destructively? How many of us have experienced homelessness, or being uprooted from a childhood paradise and constantly seek it in our writing. I plead guilty, happily, to all of these. As a scholar, I read about 400+ books in order to write one+. But as long as I ackowledge the influence with a footnote, I'ts ok - this is seldom (apart from D Foster Wallace) available to novelists. Any writer, whether s/he is novelist, biographer or astrophysicist, is writng the book of him/her self, regardless of the apparent subject matter. Describing particle physics is part of the search for one's place in the universe, and we rely on earlier science, ESPECIALLY when we borrow from Joyce and call them "quarks". LD was no exception. All people, whether writers or train drivers (and especially German pilots) tell themselves lies, and include them in their fictions. We write about an inner corner of anxiety/disturbance, and when we've done that book we find another corner of .... and we write the next book. Any writer who denies this is a liar. And as for importing other peple's words/worlds, we do it every time we watch the news on tv and then describe it to someone who hasn't. ALL writers do what some of us on this list are identifying in LD: Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, her son TS, Dan Brown... all relied on external influences, effluents, imaginings from other, precedent writers or just plain other people. Think several times before singling out LD in all of this. What is SPECIAL about LD is the use he makes of himself and the world, in order to write affordable, compelling prose and poetry. And that's why we read him. Not to argue over the provenance of his paper-clips. RP -----Original Message----- From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 03:00 PM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12 Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.caTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ildsor, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.caYou can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.caWhen replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specificthan "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..."Today's Topics: 1. Re: The Elephant has Arrived (Bruce Redwine)----------------------------------------------------------------------Message: 1Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:01:07 -0700From: Bruce Redwine To: "james.d.gifford at gmail.com" , ilds at lists.uvic.caCc: Kennedy Gammage Subject: Re: [ilds] The Elephant has ArrivedMessage-ID: <5D305EE1-6A8D-467E-AFFA-0CB27557A4F3 at earthlink.net>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8James and Ken, what you two are suggesting is that a lot in Durrell pretends to be objective but is in fact self-referential. Bisexuality included? That is a big topic in Freud.Bruce Sent from my iPhone> On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:32 AM, James Gifford wrote:> > Thanks Ken! As for the notes, it is indeed a balancing act for some, pushing for something here, leaving things unsaid there, etc... Durrell also used the Wordsworth mis-quotation for the opening of the final volume of the Quintet. For what it's worth, the bisexuality element of Shakespeare is lifted from Wilde (who also stole it), though with a nod -- the original of "an investigation of modern love" was also "an investigation of the bisexual psyche" in the Quartet drafts, but Faber wanted it changed evidently. Likewise, the continuation of the quotation from Freud at the opening of Justine is "As for bisexuality, I am sure you are right!", also trimmed at the last minute...> > I have a paper on that coming out (so to speak) this month or next.> > BEST!> James> >> On 2015-08-18 11:27 AM, Kennedy Gammage wrote:>> I just laughed out loud twice in one set of notes to the Zarian article.>> You say:>> >> 4. Respighi (1879-1936) was a famous Italian composer who set several of>> Zarian?s texts to music, although he does not appear to have ever set>> this specific work.>> >> 11. ?This suggests he is articulating his own notions here rather than>> Zarian?s.>> >> Yes! I had exactly these sentiments starting with Durrell?s delightful>> homage to Wordsworth: he is praising himself the whole time, finding a>> congenial surrogate. I agreed with everything Durrell says about the>> esteemed author of The Prelude ? but it all can apply to him too: ??Each>> original work of art,? cries Wordsworth, ?must create the taste by which>> it is to be judged.? Read and mark!10?>> >> Then Durrell tackles Shakespeare?s poetry, with an interesting>> discussion of the sexuality of the sonnets, sure to be controversial on>> the listserv if he was continuing to talk about himself the whole time.>> >> But this is just one of the threads running through the Elephant essays.>> Thoroughly enjoying them.>> >> Cheers - Ken>> ------------------------------Subject: Digest Footer_______________________________________________ILDS mailing listILDS at lists.uvic.cahttps://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds------------------------------End of ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12************************************* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From james.d.gifford at gmail.com Fri Aug 21 08:58:49 2015 From: james.d.gifford at gmail.com (James Gifford) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 08:58:49 -0700 Subject: [ilds] =?utf-8?q?The_fl=C3=A2neuse_and_the_City?= Message-ID: <55D74AB9.9030709@gmail.com> Dear all, I'd like to draw attention to Allyson Kreuiter's recently released article in /Literator/, Vol 36, No 1 (2015), "The fl?neuse and the City as uncanny home in Lawrence Durrell?s /The Alexandria quartet/": http://www.literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/view/1165 All best, James From bredwine1968 at gmail.com Fri Aug 21 19:29:57 2015 From: bredwine1968 at gmail.com (Bruce Redwine) Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 19:29:57 -0700 Subject: [ilds] Lawrence Durrell, man and artist In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <888BDF43-D40D-4551-A43A-3764F912FF73@earthlink.net> I never met Lawrence Durrell. My whole experience with the man is second hand?through his works, published interviews, films, broadcasts, biographies, and other secondary sources. Not meeting him may be an advantage, for that means being less exposed to the power of his personality, which was formidable. Durrell readily made himself available to his public (over a hundred interviews). Given this fact, I think it?s fair to say that his public persona is fair game as far as analysis goes. He invited such discussion. Why do we read any great author? Not simply for the pleasure of their writings. Otherwise, how do you explain the need for biographies? Which major author doesn?t have one? Literary biographies try to explain the works in terms of the man. They occasionally go into personal detail, minutiae even, maybe even the ?provenance of paper-clips,? if relevant, of course. I?ve read the following biographies of Durrell: MacNiven?s full-length study (definitive), Bowker?s early take (good on the ?dark side?), Sappho Jane?s redacted diaries and letters (not entirely suspect), Chamberlin?s chronology (highly useful), Haag?s Alexandrian account (provocative), and Hodgkin?s sketch of the first marriage (disturbing). I?ll take my cue from the first sentence of MacNiven?s Preface: ?To understand Lawrence Durrell one must go to India, physically, if possible, but otherwise at least in the imagination? (p. xvii). That first paragraph is marvelous. MacNiven has it right?the object is ?to understand? an author?s works. How else to do that without examining his or her life in great detail? Bruce > On Aug 20, 2015, at 6:42 AM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote: > > I think we are getting out of focus on two issues: how far do writers import their "real" lives (if any of us live such things as "real" lives) into their work, and secondly, as a corollary, how far does their writing also involve allusion, "borrowing", plagiarism, referent points...? How many of us think of an old girlfriend as "the one that got away" and are determined to recapture in memories that turn into elegies? How many of us had appalling childhoods that result in channelling our energies creatively rather than destructively? How many of us have experienced homelessness, or being uprooted from a childhood paradise and constantly seek it in our writing. I plead guilty, happily, to all of these. As a scholar, I read about 400+ books in order to write one+. But as long as I ackowledge the influence with a footnote, I'ts ok - this is seldom (apart from D Foster Wallace) available to novelists. > Any writer, whether s/he is novelist, biographer or astrophysicist, is writng the book of him/her self, regardless of the apparent subject matter. Describing particle physics is part of the search for one's place in the universe, and we rely on earlier science, ESPECIALLY when we borrow from Joyce and call them "quarks". > LD was no exception. All people, whether writers or train drivers (and especially German pilots) tell themselves lies, and include them in their fictions. We write about an inner corner of anxiety/disturbance, and when we've done that book we find another corner of .... and we write the next book. Any writer who denies this is a liar. > And as for importing other peple's words/worlds, we do it every time we watch the news on tv and then describe it to someone who hasn't. > ALL writers do what some of us on this list are identifying in LD: Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, her son TS, Dan Brown... all relied on external influences, effluents, imaginings from other, precedent writers or just plain other people. > Think several times before singling out LD in all of this. What is SPECIAL about LD is the use he makes of himself and the world, in order to write affordable, compelling prose and poetry. And that's why we read him. Not to argue over the provenance of his paper-clips. > RP > -----Original Message----- > From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] > Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 03:00 PM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12 > > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: The Elephant has Arrived (Bruce Redwine) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:01:07 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: "james.d.gifford at gmail.com" , ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Kennedy Gammage Subject: Re: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived Message-ID: <5D305EE1-6A8D-467E-AFFA-0CB27557A4F3 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 James and Ken, what you two are suggesting is that a lot in Durrell pretends to be objective but is in fact self-referential. Bisexuality included? That is a big topic in Freud. Bruce Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:32 AM, James Gifford wrote: > > Thanks Ken! As for the notes, it is indeed a balancing act for some, pushing for something here, leaving things unsaid there, etc... Durrell also used the Wordsworth mis-quotation for the opening of the final volume of the Quintet. For what it's worth, the bisexuality element of Shakespeare is lifted from Wilde (who also stole it), though with a nod -- the original of "an investigation of modern love" was also "an investigation of the bisexual psyche" in the Quartet drafts, but Faber wanted it changed evidently. Likewise, the continuation of the quotation from Freud at the opening of Justine is "As for bisexuality, I am sure you are right!", also trimmed at the last minute... > > I have a paper on that coming out (so to speak) this month or next. > > BEST! > James > >> On 2015-08-18 11:27 AM, Kennedy Gammage wrote: >> I just laughed out loud twice in one set of notes to the Zarian article. >> You say: >> >> 4. Respighi (1879-1936) was a famous Italian composer who set several of >> Zarian?s texts to music, although he does not appear to have ever set >> this specific work. >> >> 11. ?This suggests he is articulating his own notions here rather than >> Zarian?s. >> >> Yes! I had exactly these sentiments starting with Durrell?s delightful >> homage to Wordsworth: he is praising himself the whole time, finding a >> congenial surrogate. I agreed with everything Durrell says about the >> esteemed author of The Prelude ? but it all can apply to him too: ??Each >> original work of art,? cries Wordsworth, ?must create the taste by which >> it is to be judged.? Read and mark!10? >> >> Then Durrell tackles Shakespeare?s poetry, with an interesting >> discussion of the sexuality of the sonnets, sure to be controversial on >> the listserv if he was continuing to talk about himself the whole time. >> >> But this is just one of the threads running through the Elephant essays. >> Thoroughly enjoying them. >> >> Cheers - Ken >> ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org Sun Aug 23 01:40:31 2015 From: mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org (mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org) Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2015 08:40:31 +0000 Subject: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 Message-ID: I agree with Brude Redwine (and I can't see that he disagrees with me) except for one point: one can of course read a biography WITHOUT EVER READING BOOKS WRITTEN BY THE SUBJECT OF THE BIOGRAPHY. Conversely ONE CAN READ WORKS OF LITERATURE WITHOUT EVER NEEDING TO READ THEIR AUTHORS' BIOGRAPHIES. It is only prurience that compels the reader to pursue the novelist through his biography. MacNiven is of course right to point out our need to visit India imaginatively in order to BETTER appreciate LD's childhood and interest in things Indian, but a reader of "Pied Piper of Lovers" finds that DURRELL DORES THAT ON HIS BEHALF. To know (again, per NacNiven) that LD could not actually see the Himalayas from his dormitory corrects LD himself, ONLY IF WE HAVE BEEN STUDIOUS ENOUGH TO READ "FRom the Elephant's Back". The vast majority of readers of LD's fiction don't need to read "From the Elephant's Back" and if they do, is it really necessary that they get drawen into a debate about LD's veracity??? No. Only the studious critic, probably academically ambitious, needs this insight in pursuit of a thesis on which LD would probably have passed water. If we know, for example, that LD had read Stekel's "The Homosexuial Neurosis" it helps (maybe) to understand his interest, AS A WRITER, in homosexuality, but our appreciation of his novels does not REQUIRE that knowledge. We thank the biographer for pointing it out to us, and maybe it enhances our knowledge but does it necessarily DEEPEN our appreciation of the novel? And we need to know that LD read Stekel BEFORE writing a homosexual theme (he did) before we can use that prurience to scholarly advantage. 99.9% of LD's readers don't know, and probably couldn't give a tinker's fart, whether he read Stekel or Lombroso or E Graham Howe. And they are right. Someone who wants to impress the world by producing an "Annotated Durrell" might find some use for this knowledge (and I am not denigrating that kind of scholarship) but the general reader (on whom, ultimately a writer's reputation rests, rather than on the arcane views of us critics) reads regardless and in happy ignorance. And the estate earns royalties. That's good. RP -----Original Message----- From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2015 03:01 PM To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.caTo subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ildsor, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.caYou can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.caWhen replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specificthan "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..."Today's Topics: 1. Lawrence Durrell, man and artist (Bruce Redwine)----------------------------------------------------------------------Message: 1Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 19:29:57 -0700From: Bruce Redwine To: ilds at lists.uvic.caCc: Bruce Redwine Subject: [ilds] Lawrence Durrell, man and artistMessage-ID: <888BDF43-D40D-4551-A43A-3764F912FF73 at earthlink.net>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"I never met Lawrence Durrell. My whole experience with the man is second hand?through his works, published interviews, films, broadcasts, biographies, and other secondary sources. Not meeting him may be an advantage, for that means being less exposed to the power of his personality, which was formidable. Durrell readily made himself available to his public (over a hundred interviews). Given this fact, I think it?s fair to say that his public persona is fair game as far as analysis goes. He invited such discussion.Why do we read any great author? Not simply for the pleasure of their writings. Otherwise, how do you explain the need for biographies? Which major author doesn?t have one? Literary biographies try to explain the works in terms of the man. They occasionally go into personal detail, minutiae even, maybe even the ?provenance of paper-clips,? if relevant, of course. I?ve read the following biographies of Durrell: MacNiven?s full-length study (definitive), Bowker?s early take (good on the ?dark side?), Sappho Jane?s redacted diaries and letters (not entirely suspect), Chamberlin?s chronology (highly useful), Haag?s Alexandrian account (provocative), and Hodgkin?s sketch of the first marriage (disturbing).I?ll take my cue from the first sentence of MacNiven?s Preface: ?To understand Lawrence Durrell one must go to India, physically, if possible, but otherwise at least in the imagination? (p. xvii). That first paragraph is marvelous. MacNiven has it right?the object is ?to understand? an author?s works. How else to do that without examining his or her life in great detail?Bruce> On Aug 20, 2015, at 6:42 AM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote:> > I think we are getting out of focus on two issues: how far do writers import their "real" lives (if any of us live such things as "real" lives) into their work, and secondly, as a corollary, how far does their writing also involve allusion, "borrowing", plagiarism, referent points...? How many of us think of an old girlfriend as "the one that got away" and are determined to recapture in memories that turn into elegies? How many of us had appalling childhoods that result in channelling our energies creatively rather than destructively? How many of us have experienced homelessness, or being uprooted from a childhood paradise and constantly seek it in our writing. I plead guilty, happily, to all of these. As a scholar, I read about 400+ books in order to write one+. But as long as I ackowledge the influence with a footnote, I'ts ok - this is seldom (apart from D Foster Wallace) available to novelists.> Any writer, whether s/he is novelist, biographer or astrophysicist, is writng the book of him/her self, regardless of the apparent subject matter. Describing particle physics is part of the search for one's place in the universe, and we rely on earlier science, ESPECIALLY when we borrow from Joyce and call them "quarks". > LD was no exception. All people, whether writers or train drivers (and especially German pilots) tell themselves lies, and include them in their fictions. We write about an inner corner of anxiety/disturbance, and when we've done that book we find another corner of .... and we write the next book. Any writer who denies this is a liar.> And as for importing other peple's words/worlds, we do it every time we watch the news on tv and then describe it to someone who hasn't.> ALL writers do what some of us on this list are identifying in LD: Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, her son TS, Dan Brown... all relied on external influences, effluents, imaginings from other, precedent writers or just plain other people.> Think several times before singling out LD in all of this. What is SPECIAL about LD is the use he makes of himself and the world, in order to write affordable, compelling prose and poetry. And that's why we read him. Not to argue over the provenance of his paper-clips.> RP> -----Original Message-----> From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca]> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 03:00 PM> To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca> Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12> > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: The Elephant has Arrived (Bruce Redwine) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:01:07 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: "james.d.gifford at gmail.com" , ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Kennedy Gammage Subject: Re: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived Message-ID: <5D305EE1-6A8D-467E-AFFA-0CB27557A4F3 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 James and Ken, what you two are suggesting is that a lot in Durrell pretends to be objective but is in fact self-referential. Bisexualit! y included? That is a big topic in Freud. Bruce Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:32 AM, James Gifford wrote: > > Thanks Ken! As for the notes, it is indeed a balancing act for some, pushing for something here, leaving things unsaid there, etc... Durrell also used the Wordsworth mis-quotation for the opening of the final volume of the Quintet. For what it's worth, the bisexuality element of Shakespeare is lifted from Wilde (who also stole it), though with a nod -- the original of "an investigation of modern love" was also "an investigation of the bisexual psyche" in the Quartet drafts, but Faber wanted it changed evidently. Likewise, the continuation of the quotation from Freud at the opening of Justine is "As for bisexuality, I am sure you are right!", also trimmed at the last minute... > > I have a paper on that coming out (so to speak) this month or next. > > BEST! > James > >> On 2015-08-18 11:27 AM, Kennedy Gammage wrote: >> I just laughed out loud twice in ! one set of notes to the Zarian article. >> You say: >> >> 4. Respighi (1879-1936) was a famous Italian composer who set several of >> Zarian?s texts to music, although he does not appear to have ever set >> this specific work. >> >> 11. ?This suggests he is articulating his own notions here rather than >> Zarian?s. >> >> Yes! I had exactly these sentiments starting with Durrell?s delightful >> homage to Wordsworth: he is praising himself the whole time, finding a >> congenial surrogate. I agreed with everything Durrell says about the >> esteemed author of The Prelude ? but it all can apply to him too: ??Each >> original work of art,? cries Wordsworth, ?must create the taste by which >> it is to be judged.? Read and mark!10? >> >> Then Durrell tackles Shakespeare?s poetry, with an interesting >> discussion of the sexuality of the sonnets, sure to be controversial on >> the listserv if he was continuing to talk about himself the whole time. >> >> But this is just one of the threads running through the Elephant essays. >> Thoroughly enjoying them! . >> >> Cheers - Ken >> ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer -------------- next part --------------An HTML attachment was scrubbed...URL: ------------------------------Subject: Digest Footer_______________________________________________ILDS mailing listILDS at lists.uvic.cahttps://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds------------------------------End of ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15************************************* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gammage.kennedy at gmail.com Sun Aug 23 17:20:08 2015 From: gammage.kennedy at gmail.com (Kennedy Gammage) Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2015 17:20:08 -0700 Subject: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This was a fascinating post by Richard Pine about biography. Of course, he was mainly speaking of biographies of writers. It would be interesting to discuss the differences between those versus biographies of other prominent people. But I wanted to suggest this overall paraphrase of his post: That for the general reader, the less one knows about Durrell, the better. These innocent readers proceed "...in happy ignorance. And the estate earns royalties." The word prurience was used: perhaps general readers would not pick up a copy of the Quartet or Bitter Lemons if they had somehow been exposed to what we might call ugly rumors. Of course, few of us on this list probably have any direct concern about the Estate per se. I believe there was a relative mentioned in the Elephant, and I am happy for this person if they are receiving checks from F&F. But of course the ILDS is a scholarly organization, and the scholars certainly have a stake in this as well. Scholars and critics - I hope they are open to free and frank discussion, warts and all...even if they still hope to keep some of the gory details out of the Daily Mail. The ILDS is also a community of readers. Not general readers - specific readers who have a compelling interest in both the author and his works. The lucky ones met and interacted with him in person, while the rest of us (I feel confident in saying) would have liked to! If we comment on issues of veracity, that is not an indictment of the man's place in 20th century literature, or on our fond wish that would could have shared a glass of wine with the man! Cheers - Ken On Sun, Aug 23, 2015 at 1:40 AM, wrote: > I agree with Brude Redwine (and I can't see that he disagrees with me) > except for one point: one can of course read a biography WITHOUT EVER > READING BOOKS WRITTEN BY THE SUBJECT OF THE BIOGRAPHY. Conversely ONE CAN > READ WORKS OF LITERATURE WITHOUT EVER NEEDING TO READ THEIR AUTHORS' > BIOGRAPHIES. It is only prurience that compels the reader to pursue the > novelist through his biography. MacNiven is of course right to point out > our need to visit India imaginatively in order to BETTER appreciate LD's > childhood and interest in things Indian, but a reader of "Pied Piper of > Lovers" finds that DURRELL DORES THAT ON HIS BEHALF. To know (again, per > NacNiven) that LD could not actually see the Himalayas from his dormitory > corrects LD himself, ONLY IF WE HAVE BEEN STUDIOUS ENOUGH TO READ "FRom the > Elephant's Back". The vast majority of readers of LD's fiction don't need > to read "From the Elephant's Back" and if they do, is it really necessary > that they get drawen into a debate about LD's veracity??? No. Only the > studious critic, probably academically ambitious, needs this insight in > pursuit of a thesis on which LD would probably have passed water. If we > know, for example, that LD had read Stekel's "The Homosexuial Neurosis" it > helps (maybe) to understand his interest, AS A WRITER, in homosexuality, > but our appreciation of his novels does not REQUIRE that knowledge. We > thank the biographer for pointing it out to us, and maybe it enhances our > knowledge but does it necessarily DEEPEN our appreciation of the novel? And > we need to know that LD read Stekel BEFORE writing a homosexual theme (he > did) before we can use that prurience to scholarly advantage. 99.9% of LD's > readers don't know, and probably couldn't give a tinker's fart, whether he > read Stekel or Lombroso or E Graham Howe. And they are right. Someone who > wants to impress the world by producing an "Annotated Durrell" might find > some use for this knowledge (and I am not denigrating that kind of > scholarship) but the general reader (on whom, ultimately a writer's > reputation rests, rather than on the arcane views of us critics) reads > regardless and in happy ignorance. And the estate earns royalties. That's > good. > RP > > -----Original Message----- > *From:* ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] > *Sent:* Saturday, August 22, 2015 03:01 PM > *To:* ilds at lists.uvic.ca > *Subject:* ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 > > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or > unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a message > with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can reach > the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When replying, > please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of > ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Lawrence Durrell, man and artist (Bruce > Redwine) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Message: 1 Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 19:29:57 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: > ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: [ilds] Lawrence Durrell, > man and artist Message-ID: < > 888BDF43-D40D-4551-A43A-3764F912FF73 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: > text/plain; charset="utf-8" I never met Lawrence Durrell. My whole > experience with the man is second hand?through his works, published > interviews, films, broadcasts, biographies, and other secondary sources. > Not meeting him may be an advantage, for that means being less exposed to > the power of his personality, which was formidable. Durrell readily made > himself available to his public (over a hundred interviews). Given this > fact, I think it?s fair to say that his public persona is fair game as far > as analysis goes. He invited such discussion. Why do we read any great > author? Not simply for the pleasure of their writings. Otherwise, how do > you explain the need for biographies? Which major author doesn?t have one? > Literary biographies try to explain the works in terms of the man. They > occasionally go into personal detail, minutiae even, maybe even the > ?provenance of paper-clips,? if relevant, of course. I?ve read the > following biographies of Durrell: MacNiven?s full-length study > (definitive), Bowker?s early take (good on the ?dark side?), Sappho Jane?s > redacted diaries and letters (not entirely suspect), Chamberlin?s > chronology (highly useful), Haag?s Alexandrian account (provocative), and > Hodgkin?s sketch of the first marriage (disturbing). I?ll take my cue from > the first sentence of MacNiven?s Preface: ?To understand Lawrence Durrell > one must go to India, physically, if possible, but otherwise at least in > the imagination? (p. xvii). That first paragraph is marvelous. MacNiven has > it right?the object is ?to understand? an author?s works. How else to do > that without examining his or her life in great detail? Bruce > On Aug 20, > 2015, at 6:42 AM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote: > > I think we are > getting out of focus on two issues: how far do writers import their "real" > lives (if any of us live such things as "real" lives) into their work, and > secondly, as a corollary, how far does their writing also involve allusion, > "borrowing", plagiarism, referent points...? How many of us think of an old > girlfriend as "the one that got away" and are determined to recapture in > memories that turn into elegies? How many of us had appalling childhoods > that result in channelling our energies creatively rather than > destructively? How many of us have experienced homelessness, or being > uprooted from a childhood paradise and constantly seek it in our writing. I > plead guilty, happily, to all of these. As a scholar, I read about 400+ > books in order to write one+. But as long as I ackowledge the influence > with a footnote, I'ts ok - this is seldom (apart from D Foster Wallace) > available to novelists. > Any writer, whether s/he is novelist, biographer > or astrophysicist, is writng the book of him/her self, regardless of the > apparent subject matter. Describing particle physics is part of the search > for one's place in the universe, and we rely on earlier science, ESPECIALLY > when we borrow from Joyce and call them "quarks". > LD was no exception. > All people, whether writers or train drivers (and especially German pilots) > tell themselves lies, and include them in their fictions. We write about an > inner corner of anxiety/disturbance, and when we've done that book we find > another corner of .... and we write the next book. Any writer who denies > this is a liar. > And as for importing other peple's words/worlds, we do it > every time we watch the news on tv and then describe it to someone who > hasn't. > ALL writers do what some of us on this list are identifying in > LD: Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, her son TS, Dan Brown... all relied > on external influences, effluents, imaginings from other, precedent writers > or just plain other people. > Think several times before singling out LD in > all of this. What is SPECIAL about LD is the use he makes of himself and > the world, in order to write affordable, compelling prose and poetry. And > that's why we read him. Not to argue over the provenance of his > paper-clips. > RP > -----Original Message----- > From: > ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] > Sent: > Wednesday, August 19, 2015 03:00 PM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: > ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12 > > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to > ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, > visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a > message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can > reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When > replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: > Contents of ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: The Elephant has Arrived > (Bruce Redwine) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:01:07 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: " > james.d.gifford at gmail.com" , ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Kennedy Gammage > Subject: Re: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived Message-ID: < > 5D305EE1-6A8D-467E-AFFA-0CB27557A4F3 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: > text/plain; charset=utf-8 James and Ken, what you two are suggesting is > that a lot in Durrell pretends to be objective but is in fact > self-referential. Bisexualit! y included? That is a big topic in Freud. > Bruce Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:32 AM, James Gifford > wrote: > > Thanks Ken! As for the notes, it is indeed a balancing act for > some, pushing for something here, leaving things unsaid there, etc... > Durrell also used the Wordsworth mis-quotation for the opening of the final > volume of the Quintet. For what it's worth, the bisexuality element of > Shakespeare is lifted from Wilde (who also stole it), though with a nod -- > the original of "an investigation of modern love" was also "an > investigation of the bisexual psyche" in the Quartet drafts, but Faber > wanted it changed evidently. Likewise, the continuation of the quotation > from Freud at the opening of Justine is "As for bisexuality, I am sure you > are right!", also trimmed at the last minute... > > I have a paper on that > coming out (so to speak) this month or next. > > BEST! > James > >> On > 2015-08-18 11:27 AM, Kennedy Gammage wrote: >> I just laughed out loud > twice in ! one set of notes to the Zarian article. >> You say: >> >> 4. > Respighi (1879-1936) was a famous Italian composer who set several of >> > Zarian?s texts to music, although he does not appear to have ever set >> > this specific work. >> >> 11. ?This suggests he is articulating his own > notions here rather than >> Zarian?s. >> >> Yes! I had exactly these > sentiments starting with Durrell?s delightful >> homage to Wordsworth: he > is praising himself the whole time, finding a >> congenial surrogate. I > agreed with everything Durrell says about the >> esteemed author of The > Prelude ? but it all can apply to him too: ??Each >> original work of art,? > cries Wordsworth, ?must create the taste by which >> it is to be judged.? > Read and mark!10? >> >> Then Durrell tackles Shakespeare?s poetry, with an > interesting >> discussion of the sexuality of the sonnets, sure to be > controversial on >> the listserv if he was continuing to talk about himself > the whole time. >> >> But this is just one of the threads running through > the Elephant essays. >> Thoroughly enjoying them! . >> >> Cheers - Ken >> > ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer -------------- next > part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ > Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ ILDS > mailing list ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > ------------------------------ End of ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 > ************************************* > > > _______________________________________________ > ILDS mailing list > ILDS at lists.uvic.ca > https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bredwine1968 at earthlink.net Sun Aug 23 18:57:09 2015 From: bredwine1968 at earthlink.net (Bruce Redwine) Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2015 18:57:09 -0700 Subject: [ilds] ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <72FB979E-8321-4E37-A264-1200605C1B46@earthlink.net> Richard Pine raises a very interesting question, which I haven?t thought about, namely, why do we read biographies? In particular, why do we read literary biographies? As Pine says, shouldn?t the literary work itself be enough? Why go behind the work and explore the life of an author? Is this necessary? Is this a form of gossip or a satisfaction of some ?prurient? need? I agree that we don?t need a biography to enjoy an author?s work. Nor do we need literary critics telling us why we enjoy what we enjoy. True. I first became enthralled with the Quartet before I knew anything about LD. But that truism doesn?t explain the need for literary biographies. We first have to own up to the fact that people (sometimes writers themselves) have been writing literary biographies (and criticism) for a very long time. This is part of a writer?s heritage and is not to be dismissed. The life of Sappho comes down to us through various fragmentary sources, Strabo among them, scholars who felt the need to explain her life and what she was doing. Her so-called lesbianism is part of that tradition (which would be hard to extract solely from the fragments). Dr. Johnson has his Lives of the English Poets (1779-81), and James Joyce encouraged scholarly activity when famously declaring that he?d planted enough allusions to keep academics busy for hundreds of years (or whatever the number). So, Ellmann enhances Joyce. Authors themselves encourage such activity among their readership. They save their letters and papers. They save their libraries. Coleridge even published his marginalia. So the question?why did Durrell and Miller publish their private correspondence? Why did they open up their friendship to prying eyes? To promote prurience? I think not. Miller and Durrell wanted explicators. Money was also a factor, as was a lot of egotism (to wit, young Durrell, the self-professed author of ?deathless prose,? according to brother Gerald). Now with respect to Lawrence Durrell, I admit to a bias?the need to explain biographically his literary quirks. I see Durrell as a highly biographical writer who worked out his various obsessions through his writings. Which obsessions? Incest, bisexuality, suicide, violence. I don?t see these as literary devices?tropes?to promote some worldview. True, they end up as appearing as philosophical positions, but they originate in the man himself as aspects of his personality, in my opinion. All this is simply my preference for reading Durrell. He can be enjoyed on many levels. Bruce > On Aug 23, 2015, at 1:40 AM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote: > > I agree with Brude Redwine (and I can't see that he disagrees with me) except for one point: one can of course read a biography WITHOUT EVER READING BOOKS WRITTEN BY THE SUBJECT OF THE BIOGRAPHY. Conversely ONE CAN READ WORKS OF LITERATURE WITHOUT EVER NEEDING TO READ THEIR AUTHORS' BIOGRAPHIES. It is only prurience that compels the reader to pursue the novelist through his biography. MacNiven is of course right to point out our need to visit India imaginatively in order to BETTER appreciate LD's childhood and interest in things Indian, but a reader of "Pied Piper of Lovers" finds that DURRELL DORES THAT ON HIS BEHALF. To know (again, per NacNiven) that LD could not actually see the Himalayas from his dormitory corrects LD himself, ONLY IF WE HAVE BEEN STUDIOUS ENOUGH TO READ "FRom the Elephant's Back". The vast majority of readers of LD's fiction don't need to read "From the Elephant's Back" and if they do, is it really necessary that they get drawen into a debate about LD's veracity??? No. Only the studious critic, probably academically ambitious, needs this insight in pursuit of a thesis on which LD would probably have passed water. If we know, for example, that LD had read Stekel's "The Homosexuial Neurosis" it helps (maybe) to understand his interest, AS A WRITER, in homosexuality, but our appreciation of his novels does not REQUIRE that knowledge. We thank the biographer for pointing it out to us, and maybe it enhances our knowledge but does it necessarily DEEPEN our appreciation of the novel? And we need to know that LD read Stekel BEFORE writing a homosexual theme (he did) before we can use that prurience to scholarly advantage. 99.9% of LD's readers don't know, and probably couldn't give a tinker's fart, whether he read Stekel or Lombroso or E Graham Howe. And they are right. Someone who wants to impress the world by producing an "Annotated Durrell" might find some use for this knowledge (and I am not denigrating that kind of scholarship) but the general reader (on whom, ultimately a writer's reputation rests, rather than on the arcane views of us critics) reads regardless and in happy ignorance. And the estate earns royalties. That's good. > RP > -----Original Message----- > From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] > Sent: Saturday, August 22, 2015 03:01 PM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 15 > > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Lawrence Durrell, man and artist (Bruce Redwine) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2015 19:29:57 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Bruce Redwine Subject: [ilds] Lawrence Durrell, man and artist Message-ID: <888BDF43-D40D-4551-A43A-3764F912FF73 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I never met Lawrence Durrell. My whole experience with the man is second hand?through his works, published interviews, films, broadcasts, biographies, and other secondary sources. Not meeting him may be an advantage, for that means being less exposed to the power of his personality, which was formidable. Durrell readily made himself available to his public (over a hundred interviews). Given this fact, I think it?s fair to say that his public persona is fair game as far as analysis goes. He invited such discussion. Why do we read any great author? Not simply for the pleasure of their writings. Otherwise, how do you explain the need for biographies? Which major author doesn?t have one? Literary biographies try to explain the works in terms of the man. They occasionally go into personal detail, minutiae even, maybe even the ?provenance of paper-clips,? if relevant, of course. I?ve read the following biographies of Durrell: MacNiven?s full-length study (definitive), Bowker?s early take (good on the ?dark side?), Sappho Jane?s redacted diaries and letters (not entirely suspect), Chamberlin?s chronology (highly useful), Haag?s Alexandrian account (provocative), and Hodgkin?s sketch of the first marriage (disturbing). I?ll take my cue from the first sentence of MacNiven?s Preface: ?To understand Lawrence Durrell one must go to India, physically, if possible, but otherwise at least in the imagination? (p. xvii). That first paragraph is marvelous. MacNiven has it right?the object is ?to understand? an author?s works. How else to do that without examining his or her life in great detail? Bruce > On Aug 20, 2015, at 6:42 AM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote: > > I think we are getting out of focus on two issues: how far do writers import their "real" lives (if any of us live such things as "real" lives) into their work, and secondly, as a corollary, how far does their writing also involve allusion, "borrowing", plagiarism, referent points...? How many of us think of an old girlfriend as "the one that got away" and are determined to recapture in memories that turn into elegies? How many of us had appalling childhoods that result in channelling our energies creatively rather than destructively? How many of us have experienced homelessness, or being uprooted from a childhood paradise and constantly seek it in our writing. I plead guilty, happily, to all of these. As a scholar, I read about 400+ books in order to write one+. But as long as I ackowledge the influence with a footnote, I'ts ok - this is seldom (apart from D Foster Wallace) available to novelists. > Any writer, whether s/he is novelist, biographer or astrophysicist, is writng the book of him/her self, regardless of the apparent subject matter. Describing particle physics is part of the search for one's place in the universe, and we rely on earlier science, ESPECIALLY when we borrow from Joyce and call them "quarks". > LD was no exception. All people, whether writers or train drivers (and especially German pilots) tell themselves lies, and include them in their fictions. We write about an inner corner of anxiety/disturbance, and when we've done that book we find another corner of .... and we write the next book. Any writer who denies this is a liar. > And as for importing other peple's words/worlds, we do it every time we watch the news on tv and then describe it to someone who hasn't. > ALL writers do what some of us on this list are identifying in LD: Shakespeare, Dickens, George Eliot, her son TS, Dan Brown... all relied on external influences, effluents, imaginings from other, precedent writers or just plain other people. > Think several times before singling out LD in all of this. What is SPECIAL about LD is the use he makes of himself and the world, in order to write affordable, compelling prose and poetry. And that's why we read him. Not to argue over the provenance of his paper-clips. > RP > -----Original Message----- > From: ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca [mailto:ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca] > Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 03:00 PM > To: ilds at lists.uvic.ca > Subject: ILDS Digest, Vol 100, Issue 12 > > Send ILDS mailing list submissions to ilds at lists.uvic.ca To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/ilds or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to ilds-request at lists.uvic.ca You can reach the person managing the list at ilds-owner at lists.uvic.ca When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of ILDS digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: The Elephant has Arrived (Bruce Redwine) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2015 13:01:07 -0700 From: Bruce Redwine To: "james.d.gifford at gmail.com" , ilds at lists.uvic.ca Cc: Kennedy Gammage Subject: Re: [ilds] The Elephant has Arrived Message-ID: <5D305EE1-6A8D-467E-AFFA-0CB27557A4F3 at earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 James and Ken, what you two are suggesting is that a lot in Durrell pretends to be objective but is in fact self-referential. Bisexualit! y included? That is a big topic in Freud. Bruce Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 18, 2015, at 11:32 AM, James Gifford wrote: > > Thanks Ken! As for the notes, it is indeed a balancing act for some, pushing for something here, leaving things unsaid there, etc... Durrell also used the Wordsworth mis-quotation for the opening of the final volume of the Quintet. For what it's worth, the bisexuality element of Shakespeare is lifted from Wilde (who also stole it), though with a nod -- the original of "an investigation of modern love" was also "an investigation of the bisexual psyche" in the Quartet drafts, but Faber wanted it changed evidently. Likewise, the continuation of the quotation from Freud at the opening of Justine is "As for bisexuality, I am sure you are right!", also trimmed at the last minute... > > I have a paper on that coming out (so to speak) this month or next. > > BEST! > James > >> On 2015-08-18 11:27 AM, Kennedy Gammage wrote: >> I just laughed out loud twice in ! one set of notes to the Zarian article. >> You say: >> >> 4. Respighi (1879-1936) was a famous Italian composer who set several of >> Zarian?s texts to music, although he does not appear to have ever set >> this specific work. >> >> 11. ?This suggests he is articulating his own notions here rather than >> Zarian?s. >> >> Yes! I had exactly these sentiments starting with Durrell?s delightful >> homage to Wordsworth: he is praising himself the whole time, finding a >> congenial surrogate. I agreed with everything Durrell says about the >> esteemed author of The Prelude ? but it all can apply to him too: ??Each >> original work of art,? cries Wordsworth, ?must create the taste by which >> it is to be judged.? Read and mark!10? >> >> Then Durrell tackles Shakespeare?s poetry, with an interesting >> discussion of the sexuality of the sonnets, sure to be controversial on >> the listserv if he was continuing to talk about himself the whole time. >> >> But this is just one of the threads running through the Elephant essays. >> Thoroughly enjoying them! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: