[ilds] Enjoying DEUS LOCI NS14

[Kennedy Gammage]

That’s the Lawrence Durrell Journal 2014-2015, edited by Dr. Anna Lillios.
I say enjoying because I am reading it more than once. Here are some first
impressions:

FOUND ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR: LEFT OUT OF THE BIOGRAPHY by Ian S.
MacNiven

What a great way to start the volume with this reminiscence. There are too
many great stories, quotes and observations – you must read it for
yourself. But I really appreciated this choice of words: ‘…one has to look
to D. H. Lawrence’s travel writing, to Norman Douglas and Patrick Leigh
Fermor, to find Durrell’s peers in “foreign residence” writing.’ I agree:
_South Wind_ (a novel,) _A Time of Gifts_ (a travel book,) and Durrell’s
foreign residence books are literary peers, related in many respects. But
Durrell is not to be pigeonholed, and in particular I think Prospero’s Cell
is a sport and hybrid, in a category all its own even among its siblings.
That’s why Freya Stark’s “gem-like miniature quality” blurb continues to
resonate 70 years later.

“SWEET UNDISCOVERED ENDS”: A MEMOIR OF COLLECTING AND PUBLISHING LAWRENCE
DURRELL by Peter Baldwin

As previously noted on the listserv: ‘Peter Baldwin just made me laugh out
loud on page 26: "...with no sign of anything non-alcoholic for the
children."’ This is a charming and very funny reminiscence about Baldwin’s
dealings with our hero. Please note that MacNiven quoted a similar story
from Katie Wheelock that ‘Larry was very nice with the children – he soon
got their three-year-old son tipsy on champagne.’ Larry either didn’t have
a taste for fruit juice around the house or just preferred the fermented
variety!

GHOSTS AND SHAPE-SHIFTING DOPPELGANGERS: EXPLORING THE UNCANNY IN LAWRENCE
DURRELL’S AVIGNON QUINTET by Dianne Vipond

I really wanted to like this article because I respect Dr. Vipond, but my
main reservation is: I feel that many academics have a tough time
associating Lawrence Durrell with science-fiction ( words he himself used
in Balthazar) and fantasy writing – so instead they resort to code words
like “post-modern.” Or “the uncanny.” Listen – when Durrell was talking
about some of his characters coming from “other time-fields and other
contingent realities” in Quinx – you can describe that as uncanny, but I
think it would be fairer to call it SF.

JUDITH: A NOVEL BY LAWRENCE DURRELL by Richard Pine

This was fascinating. Hollywood demands multiple rewrites, and Durrell’s
endlessly inventive brain could supply them! Some of the plot and character
shifts in his drafts are seismic and disconcerting – but always there is a
kind of twisted companion story to the Quartet: Justine & Judith in
Palestine.

“IT IS NOT MEANING THAT WE NEED BUT SIGHT”: LAWRENCE DURRELL’S RED LIMBO
LINGO AS A POETIC QUEST FOR FREEDOM by Isabelle Privat-Keller

Wow. This was very interesting. Unfortunately I haven’t read Red Limbo
Lingo but I would like to now.

A TALE OF TWO VILLAGES: LAWRENCE DURRELL, HASSAN FATHY, AND THE STORY OF
GOURNA by David
Roessel and Gerald L. Vincent
Check out the pictures! A good one of Larry on Cyprus. This is also about
Durrell’s friend Austen Harrison. Was Caradoc from the Revolt based on him?
They were both architects. Yes, here it is on page 102: “The more one
looks, the more one sees links to Harrison in the creation of Caradoc.”

CURATE’S EGG ON HIS FACE: BEING A REPLY TO MAHMOUD MANZALAOUI’S “CURATE’S
EGG: AN ALEXANDRIAN OPINION OF DURRELL’S QUARTET” by Michael Haag

This was great – a classic scholarly beat-down. Haag takes this poser out –
but what took you so long? Manzalaoui published this squalid and slanderous
misreading of the AQ in ’62! Haag wrestles him to the ground point by
point: it’s an entertaining and beautiful piece of argumentative rhetoric.
It’s also pretty funny how many Durrell scholars Haag mentions who were
taken in by MM’s egg.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF LONDON IN THE WRITING OF LAWRENCE DURRELL by Paul
Lorenz

Very interesting. Of course when you think about it, London was formative
“foreign residence” material for Durrell from the get-go:  ages 11 to 23.
Right – welcome to ould blighty mate. Dr. Lorenz delivers a panoramic
overview of the very different ways Larry treated the place over time in
his poetry and prose.  “…there are many Londons reflected in Durrell’s
eyes.”

ENDGAME: FROM THE CLOSURE OF TEXTS TO THE ENDING OF A LIFETIME’S OUEVRE by
Corinne Alexandre-Garner

How did all the books end, and what did he intend to convey in those
endings? It’s a fascinating question, which leads to a discussion of his
last book: Caesar’s Vast Ghost, “…the published copy of which Durrell
received by mail the day before his death in November 1990.” That was a
true valedictory – though I’m sure he would have liked it more if it came
with a check.

#

I’m recusing myself from reviewing the POETRY because I’m still sulking -
but I thought was all very fine.

Under Notes & Queries there is another essay, and it’s a corker:

LAWRENCE DURRELL AND THE INFORMATION SERVICES DEPARTMENT IN CYPRUS by
Jonathan Stubbs

Anyone who likes BITTER LEMONS (and who doesn’t – but dammit can’t you all
see that Bitter Lemons is a foreign residence book, not a “travel book”?) -
*ahem* sorry. You really need to read this essay! Fascinating
recently-declassified materials from the official Pudding Island Archives
about what Durrell was up to in 1954, running the Cyprus Broadcasting
Service (CBS.) Gets down to the nitty-gritty level of imperialist
propaganda to bring a colonial outpost back into line at a critical time.
Maybe the highlight of the volume considering the factual documentation.

#

I would like to generally caution the editor of the REVIEWS section to more
studiously avoid what I call “log rolling.” Authors included in this very
volume review or are reviewed in a somewhat incestuous muddle. That being
said – there are gems as usual. Michael Haag reviews Dr. Kaczvinsky’s
Durrell and the City: Collected Essays on Place, which flowed from the
enjoyable OMG I attended in New Orleans in 2010, and he is nonplussed by
the negativity of Alan Friedman’s reappraisal of the AQ:  50 Years Later.
This was in fact the keynote of the conference, and it was a blast of cold
water in the face! Definitely woke me up at the time – Dr. Friedman is a
great speaker. You will find my own paper from the conference, “The
Characters in Durrell’s Avignon Quintet   Real or imaginary - or both?” in
A CAFÉ IN SPACE The Anais Nin Literary Journal Vol. 9 from 2012.

The volume closes out with Grove Koger’s  valuable DURRELL BIBLIOGRAPHY
1999 – 2002. An excellent resource which is gradually being brought up to
date.

OK – that’s it. The ILDS owes a huge debt of gratitude to Dr. Lillios for
all her hard work in bringing out another key milestone in Durrell studies.
As usual – I am hungry for NS15!

Best regards - Ken
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