[ilds] An Indian View of an Indian View: Durrell’s India

[James Gifford]

I don't think I'd see that as a very contentious point to make, David. 
Indeed, why move?  You're right.

That said, France is also there from the beginning, in /Pied Piper of 
Lovers/ and /Panic Spring/, so the affection for the French world seems 
very genuine as well, long before 1956 ('57?).  His intentions seem to 
have been very much to stay on Cyprus, but then the world intervened. He 
hadn't chosen Egypt, but would he have left Rhodes or Corfu? Yugoslavia 
and Argentine were clearly never "home," but he did write a very tender 
piece about Yugoslavia that's been quite overlooked.  The wound over 
"home" that Sharbani gestures to is, I think, very real for Durrell -- 
his position between locations rather than /in/ any of them is telling, 
and the first divide was between father England and mother India, sent 
"home" to a land his parents had never seen.

You have much to say on the vampire house that I think needs to be said.

Best,
James

On 2015-11-17 9:46 PM, Denise Tart & David Green wrote:
> James, good point there. He was not made to leave France. Suspect he would have stayed on Cyprus had be not been forced out, but he could have gone back. No, Claude was French, so France it was and I do think he liked southern France, the climate, the wine the people. Of course , he liked the French approach to art and life and his works were popular there. I think by the time Durrell got out of Cyprus, he had had enough of being an exile, a displaced person. So now I am coming to my negative feeling and his own negative feelings about the vampire house in sommieres - just couldn't be bothered moving and he had the bottle for company.
>
> David
> Sent from my iPad