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

[Kennedy Gammage]

Yes - but his friend Yehudi Menuhin could do it standing on his head!

:>)

Cheers - Ken

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 10:50 AM, sharbani banerjee(mukherjee) <
sharbanibm at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with David and James that he was, perhaps, happiest in Cypress and
> Corfu.....the ambience somehow alleviated the occidental sense of
> oppression that he abhorred. This brings me back to the Indian influence
> upon his psyche. Places like Jamshedpur, Jullunder where he was born,
> Mymenshing, presently in Bangladesh and most importantly Kurseong and
> Darjeeling somehow shaped and coloured his preference of the topos. In his
> interviews while visiting USA.....he mentions how the hills and the
> Buddhist ascetics keep revisiting his subconscious mind. He even shows how
> he could do the Indian Yoga by sitting in the Lotus position!
> On 18-Nov-2015 9:12 pm, "James Gifford" <james.d.gifford at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
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