[ilds] Wordspinner

[james Esposito]

Forgive me as a newcomer, but surely Lawrence Durrell made it clear that he
saw his paid work as distinct from his serious novels,poetry et cetera? His
boast about the writing of the 'Antrobus' stories and the use to which he
put the money and the comparison with P G Wodehouse and Proust suggest that
he really did see himself as two types of writer. I'm not saying that these
two writers were entirely separable, but I think Durrell was conscious of a
difference in his approach to different tasks - the ephemeral newspaper and
magazine assignments and the major works. And perhaps "avaricious hack" is
not quite the way to describe him when he sat down to quickly write a
piece, maybe off the top of his head, which would earn him some necessary
money so that he could get back to spending quality time on his 'serious'
or 'real' (as he called it) work?
James Esposito

On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 4:29 PM, Bruce Redwine <bredwine1968 at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> I guess you could also say the same about Shakespeare, who also wrote for
> money and got rich at it.  So I guess there's no need for any secondary
> material.  I don't think that Durrell divided his time between being an
> avaricious hack and a "serious" writer and that there's no connection
> between the two.
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Mar 19, 2016, at 5:35 AM, mail at durrelllibrarycorfu.org wrote:
>
> All this talk of a green finger-stall prompts me to suggest that the
> green-ness of the thing may have originated in LD's sense of his Irishness.
> The green finger-stall, on an upraised finger, might suggest rectal
> penetration which would accord perfectly with the idea of his fascination
> with dirt/mud. An Irish suppository up the British arse, which he DID
> specifically refer to.
> I'm only joking of course but jokes seem to be the only recourse in the
> face of such pointless waffle.
> LD was a wordspinner. He wrote for money. So whatever words were to hand
> at the time had to do service. He was NOT trying to say anything profound
> about mud-bricks, just using what he had (or hadn't) seen, in an article
> for which he was going to be paid much-needed cash.
> Admittedly he did espouse and entertain ideas (I've tried to show as much
> in my book) but these were kept for his 'serious' work and let's remember
> that at the outset he sharply distinguished between 'Durrell' and 'Norden'
> (from which Miller dissuaded him). Norden wrote for money, Durrell wrote as
> a quest. Let's not confuse the two.
> RP
>
>
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