Lawrence Durrell
The Black Book
The Black Book is the novel that gained Lawrence Durrell notice in the literary world. T. S. Eliot called it "the first piece of work by a new English writer to give me any hope for the future of prose fiction." Henry Miller worked to get a private edition printed in Paris when Durrell had difficulty finding a publisher.
I find some interesting parallels between The Black Book and the Alexandria Quartet (AQ). It's almost as if this was a first attempt which gave him the experience to produce the much larger work, four novels in the Alexandria Quartet, instead of one.
Both novels are 1st person narratives, and the narrators of both are now on islands in the Mediterranean, writing of their experiences of the past year or two. While the narrator in the AQ writes of his experiences in Alexandria just before WWII, the narrator of The Black Book tells the reader in the past year he has spent in a tired, rundown hotel in London. Both narrators struggle as they are in the process of learning their craft.
We don't find out the narrator's name in the AQ until the second novel, Balthazar. And then, it's only his last name, Darley. However we do get a clue in the first novel when Darley is told that he's referred to as Lineaments of Gratified Desire. These are his initials, which coincidentally happen to be the same as the author's: Lawrence George Durrell. The narrator in The Black Book jokingly refers to himself several times as Lawrence Lucifer.
Those are not the only parallels. As in the AQ, various forms of love or lust are portrayed in The Black Book, although limited in comparison to the AQ. Another is that at least one other writer is featured prominently in both works. Journals and diaries also play an important role in both works. One last commonality is the broken narrative structure in both works wherein the time line is fractured. Characters are brought into the narrative, and we learn that they are dead or have left before we find out anything about them, including their relationship to the narrator. It is only later that we learn their significance
Of course, differences exist. Aside from the size of the two works, one major difference is tone. The AQ seems to be, to me anyway, a celebration of Alexandria, with all its marvelous characters, its romantic and tragic tales, and its history. On the other hand, The Black Book is a bitter, biting satire on England between the two world wars. The narrator refers to "the English death" frequently when speaking of the England of the 1930's. In the AQ, the golden, if sometimes harsh, light of the sun is an important characteristic of the natural world, while England is usually portrayed as dark, gloomy, and rainy.
I had first read The Black Book only after reading The Alexandria Quartet, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to judge it on its own merits. How much of my interest in the work is the result of having read it after The Alexandria Quartet and, therefore, seeing the relationship of this work to the larger work is debatable. I just don't know. What my feelings toward this work would be if I had read it first is difficult to say right now.
Showing posts with label The Alexandria Quartet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Alexandria Quartet. Show all posts
Monday, September 18, 2017
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Lawrence Durrell's The Avignon Quintet: an overall view (my view anyway)
The Avignon Quintet (five novels)
Monsieur
Livia
Constance
Sebastian
Quinx
The following quotation from Constance provides a glimpse into the workings of The Avignon Quintet.
"If real people could cohabit with the creatures of their imagination--say, in a novel--then what sort of children would be the fruit of their union: changelings?"
Lawrence Durrell
"The Avignon Quintet" (aka The Quincunx)
The following is my reading of the structure of "The Avignon Quintet." I don't know if it will make sense to anybody else, but it helps me keep the characters and events of the Quintet straight. FL is the abbreviation for Fiction Level.
FL0: Lawrence Durrell, the Person.
FL1: Lawrence Durrell, the Novelist. I read somewhere that the Person creates a fictional construct who is the writer, sometimes referred to as the second self or the implied author. So, Lawrence Durrell, the Novelist, is a creation of of Lawrence Durrell, the Person, and it is this fictional construct who wrote "The Avignon Quintet." One might wonder about the common practice of pseudonyms or aliases adopted by many writers in this context.
FL2: The Avignon Quintet:
Monsieur, the first novel, has a unique structure. It has five parts. These five parts constitute the external or the Durrell Monsieur. I call the first four parts the internal or Blanford Monsieur. These four parts contain the story of Piers, Sylvia, and Bruce. The fifth part of the Durrell or external Monsieur introduces the reader to Aubrey Blanford, who has "written" the internal Monsieur.
The remaining four novels tell the reader of the lives of Aubrey Blanford and those around him. As the readers go through these four novels, they see how Blanford has modified and combined the personalities of the people he knows and the events of their lives to create the characters in the first four parts of Monsieur.
Major Characters in the Avignon Quintet: Aubrey Blanford, Constance, Hillary, Sylvia, Sam
FL3: Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness (the internal or Blanford Monsieur)
This is the internal novel "written" by Aubrey Blanford. It takes up the first four parts of the external or Durrell Monsieur. The three most significant characters are Piers de Nogaret, his sister Sylvie, and Bruce Drexel, the narrator of the internal novel. The three share a long, complex, and intimate relationship.
Important characters: Piers, Sylvie, Bruce, Sutcliffe, Pia, Toby,
What is most confusing is that the reader encounters FL3, the internal Monsieur, first and, moreover, doesn't realize what is going on until Part 5 when Aubrey Blanford is introduced. At this point the reader then moves from FL3 to FL2.
But, these fiction levels are permeable. Characters from FL3 frequently cross the line and interact with characters in FL2. Some examples--
FL2: Aubrey Blanford talks to Sutcliffe, the novelist he created in Monsieur, the internal novel. At times it's difficult to determine whether Sutcliffe is only Blanford's sounding board, existing only in his mind, or whether Sutcliffe has somehow become an independent person at Blanford's level. However, in Constance, the third novel in the Avignon Quintet, Constance meets Sutcliffe and Pia, who have now moved from FL3 to FL2.
FL3: Sutcliffe, a character in Blanford's internal novel, says he wrote a novel about Bruce, Piers, and Sylvie. His novel begins with the same words that Blanford begins his novel, the internal Monsieur in FL2.
While reading the Quintet, I couldn't help thinking about Philip K. Dick, the SF writer who delights in creating works in which the boundary between reality and fantasy blurs and frequently disappears.
To add to the fun, Durrell sends several of his characters to Alexandria during WWII and also brings in several characters from The Alexandria Quartet: Pursewarden and Melissa, while two members of the British military in Egypt, Maskelyne and Telford, make brief appearances. The two series, The Alexandria Quartet and The Avignon Quintet, overlap chronologically, both taking place during WWII.
Some of the themes and issues brought up in The Avignon Quintet
--the German occupation of France during WWII
--Gnosticism
--the Knights Templar and their lost treasure
--various forms of love
--Provence and Alexandria, although Provence is the place where most of the novels take place
--Freud and psychoanalytic theory
I find The Avignon Quintet a complex and, at times, a confusing work, which may account for much of my interest in it. I've now read it at least twice, and possibly three times now. No doubt, I shall reread it in the near future.
I hope I haven't confused you too much.
Monsieur
Livia
Constance
Sebastian
Quinx
The following quotation from Constance provides a glimpse into the workings of The Avignon Quintet.
"If real people could cohabit with the creatures of their imagination--say, in a novel--then what sort of children would be the fruit of their union: changelings?"
Lawrence Durrell
"The Avignon Quintet" (aka The Quincunx)
The following is my reading of the structure of "The Avignon Quintet." I don't know if it will make sense to anybody else, but it helps me keep the characters and events of the Quintet straight. FL is the abbreviation for Fiction Level.
FL0: Lawrence Durrell, the Person.
FL1: Lawrence Durrell, the Novelist. I read somewhere that the Person creates a fictional construct who is the writer, sometimes referred to as the second self or the implied author. So, Lawrence Durrell, the Novelist, is a creation of of Lawrence Durrell, the Person, and it is this fictional construct who wrote "The Avignon Quintet." One might wonder about the common practice of pseudonyms or aliases adopted by many writers in this context.
FL2: The Avignon Quintet:
Monsieur, the first novel, has a unique structure. It has five parts. These five parts constitute the external or the Durrell Monsieur. I call the first four parts the internal or Blanford Monsieur. These four parts contain the story of Piers, Sylvia, and Bruce. The fifth part of the Durrell or external Monsieur introduces the reader to Aubrey Blanford, who has "written" the internal Monsieur.
The remaining four novels tell the reader of the lives of Aubrey Blanford and those around him. As the readers go through these four novels, they see how Blanford has modified and combined the personalities of the people he knows and the events of their lives to create the characters in the first four parts of Monsieur.
Major Characters in the Avignon Quintet: Aubrey Blanford, Constance, Hillary, Sylvia, Sam
FL3: Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness (the internal or Blanford Monsieur)
This is the internal novel "written" by Aubrey Blanford. It takes up the first four parts of the external or Durrell Monsieur. The three most significant characters are Piers de Nogaret, his sister Sylvie, and Bruce Drexel, the narrator of the internal novel. The three share a long, complex, and intimate relationship.
Important characters: Piers, Sylvie, Bruce, Sutcliffe, Pia, Toby,
What is most confusing is that the reader encounters FL3, the internal Monsieur, first and, moreover, doesn't realize what is going on until Part 5 when Aubrey Blanford is introduced. At this point the reader then moves from FL3 to FL2.
But, these fiction levels are permeable. Characters from FL3 frequently cross the line and interact with characters in FL2. Some examples--
FL2: Aubrey Blanford talks to Sutcliffe, the novelist he created in Monsieur, the internal novel. At times it's difficult to determine whether Sutcliffe is only Blanford's sounding board, existing only in his mind, or whether Sutcliffe has somehow become an independent person at Blanford's level. However, in Constance, the third novel in the Avignon Quintet, Constance meets Sutcliffe and Pia, who have now moved from FL3 to FL2.
FL3: Sutcliffe, a character in Blanford's internal novel, says he wrote a novel about Bruce, Piers, and Sylvie. His novel begins with the same words that Blanford begins his novel, the internal Monsieur in FL2.
While reading the Quintet, I couldn't help thinking about Philip K. Dick, the SF writer who delights in creating works in which the boundary between reality and fantasy blurs and frequently disappears.
To add to the fun, Durrell sends several of his characters to Alexandria during WWII and also brings in several characters from The Alexandria Quartet: Pursewarden and Melissa, while two members of the British military in Egypt, Maskelyne and Telford, make brief appearances. The two series, The Alexandria Quartet and The Avignon Quintet, overlap chronologically, both taking place during WWII.
Some of the themes and issues brought up in The Avignon Quintet
--the German occupation of France during WWII
--Gnosticism
--the Knights Templar and their lost treasure
--various forms of love
--Provence and Alexandria, although Provence is the place where most of the novels take place
--Freud and psychoanalytic theory
I find The Avignon Quintet a complex and, at times, a confusing work, which may account for much of my interest in it. I've now read it at least twice, and possibly three times now. No doubt, I shall reread it in the near future.
I hope I haven't confused you too much.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Lawrence Durrell: Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness
Lawrence Durrell
Monsieur or Prince of Darkness
Book 1 of "The Avignon Quintet" (aka The Quincunx)
Please do not expect an organized, coherent, illuminating post on this work; instead, you will find some random, chaotic ramblings about a work I am fascinated by. It is probably this fascination that keeps me from stepping back and objectively looking at Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness.
I have now finished Lawrence Durrell's Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness, the first book in his "Avignon Quintet." This is a reread, but it's been some time since I last read it, and therefore I remember little aside from the general overall structure of the Quintet.
The title can be misleading. Monsieur is ambiguous for it could refer to any man, but the subtitle clarifies it. There are those who believe that to say the devil's name out loud will act as a summons and the devil will appear. Therefore, to prevent this, certain agreed upon circumlocutions are used, and "Monsieur" is one of them. However, the rest of the title, The Prince of Darkness, makes it very clear who is meant because that is one of the devil's titles, along with The Prince of Lies and The Lord of Flies.
My overall reaction was that of meeting an old and familiar friend, one very comfortable to be with. This, of course, is strange because I remember little of the book so far. I think that familiar, comfortable feeling comes from just having recently finished his "Alexandria Quartet. As I turned the pages of Monsieur, certain similarities came to mind between it and Justine, the first book in the "Alexandria Quartet."
To begin with, the first novels of the two sets, Monsieur and Justine, are first person narratives, and, therefore, we will see all from that limited viewpoint. Of course, one significant difference is that we don't learn the name of the narrator until the second book in the Quartet, while we learn the narrator's name on the first page of the first book in the Quintet.
Both works include considerable flashbacks, works involving memories as they intrude upon and influence the present. Characters in both are mentioned with little or no introductory information as to who they are and why they are important. That will be revealed later, sometimes much later. In both, within the first three pages, the reader learns that someone has died, and that is all that the reader is told. That this person must be important in some way is suggested by being mentioned so early in the work.
In Monsieur, several of the characters are members of the diplomatic corp of France and England, or are attached in some way to French and English embassies. This is also true of characters in Justine.
Again, in each work, a novelist is mentioned and quoted frequently. But, again, it is later that the reader is given more information about the writer and his relationship with the narrator. And in both novels, that writer is dead at this point in the novel.
Alexandria, the City, is a significant character in the Quartet, so important that the human inhabitants seem to be only puppets controlled by the city.
" 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays."
-- The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLIX
In this case, read Alexandria for "Destiny." I am only guessing about Avignon at this point, but the treatment of the city suggests that it too will be an important character throughout the work.
Because of the above, I wasn't too surprised to find myself, along with many of the characters, in Alexandria at the beginning of the second part of Monsieur.
SPOILERS
However, there exists a complication which I haven't mentioned yet. The structure of this, the first book, is a novel-within-a-novel. And, this we don't find out until the last chapters, when we suddenly emerge out of the internal novel into the external novel, or the frame. Actually, it isn't much of a frame as the frame only appears at the very end of this book. The internal novel is also called Monsieur, which illustrates the link between the "two" novels.
In the last few chapters, we meet Aubrey Blanford, who claims to have written the internal Monsieur. Future volumes will then tell the story of Blanford's life and his relationships with his wife, his friends, and relatives. In those volumes we will see how Blanford changed and modified what he knows about the people and events of his life into the characters of the internal novel.
After finishing the first volume, it appears as though this is a novel about writing a novel. And no, it isn't dismal at all. I dislike those sorts of novels, but Durrell does it so well that I really don't notice it. Perhaps my dislike for this meta-fictional cliche is the result of finding that it is so often poorly done, and that may be my argument with it.
One more note: sometimes "The Avignon Quintet" is called "The Quincunx." A quincunx is a landscaping feature of five trees. Four of the trees are placed at the corners of a square, while the fifth tree is placed exactly at the center. The first book of the quintet, Monsieur, is placed at the center with the other four at the corners, a suggestion of the relationship among the five novels.
I now regret only waiting so long to revisit "The Avignon Quintet."
Monsieur or Prince of Darkness
Book 1 of "The Avignon Quintet" (aka The Quincunx)
Please do not expect an organized, coherent, illuminating post on this work; instead, you will find some random, chaotic ramblings about a work I am fascinated by. It is probably this fascination that keeps me from stepping back and objectively looking at Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness.
I have now finished Lawrence Durrell's Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness, the first book in his "Avignon Quintet." This is a reread, but it's been some time since I last read it, and therefore I remember little aside from the general overall structure of the Quintet.
The title can be misleading. Monsieur is ambiguous for it could refer to any man, but the subtitle clarifies it. There are those who believe that to say the devil's name out loud will act as a summons and the devil will appear. Therefore, to prevent this, certain agreed upon circumlocutions are used, and "Monsieur" is one of them. However, the rest of the title, The Prince of Darkness, makes it very clear who is meant because that is one of the devil's titles, along with The Prince of Lies and The Lord of Flies.
My overall reaction was that of meeting an old and familiar friend, one very comfortable to be with. This, of course, is strange because I remember little of the book so far. I think that familiar, comfortable feeling comes from just having recently finished his "Alexandria Quartet. As I turned the pages of Monsieur, certain similarities came to mind between it and Justine, the first book in the "Alexandria Quartet."
To begin with, the first novels of the two sets, Monsieur and Justine, are first person narratives, and, therefore, we will see all from that limited viewpoint. Of course, one significant difference is that we don't learn the name of the narrator until the second book in the Quartet, while we learn the narrator's name on the first page of the first book in the Quintet.
Both works include considerable flashbacks, works involving memories as they intrude upon and influence the present. Characters in both are mentioned with little or no introductory information as to who they are and why they are important. That will be revealed later, sometimes much later. In both, within the first three pages, the reader learns that someone has died, and that is all that the reader is told. That this person must be important in some way is suggested by being mentioned so early in the work.
In Monsieur, several of the characters are members of the diplomatic corp of France and England, or are attached in some way to French and English embassies. This is also true of characters in Justine.
Again, in each work, a novelist is mentioned and quoted frequently. But, again, it is later that the reader is given more information about the writer and his relationship with the narrator. And in both novels, that writer is dead at this point in the novel.
Alexandria, the City, is a significant character in the Quartet, so important that the human inhabitants seem to be only puppets controlled by the city.
" 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays."
-- The Rubaiyat: Quatrain XLIX
In this case, read Alexandria for "Destiny." I am only guessing about Avignon at this point, but the treatment of the city suggests that it too will be an important character throughout the work.
Because of the above, I wasn't too surprised to find myself, along with many of the characters, in Alexandria at the beginning of the second part of Monsieur.
SPOILERS
However, there exists a complication which I haven't mentioned yet. The structure of this, the first book, is a novel-within-a-novel. And, this we don't find out until the last chapters, when we suddenly emerge out of the internal novel into the external novel, or the frame. Actually, it isn't much of a frame as the frame only appears at the very end of this book. The internal novel is also called Monsieur, which illustrates the link between the "two" novels.
In the last few chapters, we meet Aubrey Blanford, who claims to have written the internal Monsieur. Future volumes will then tell the story of Blanford's life and his relationships with his wife, his friends, and relatives. In those volumes we will see how Blanford changed and modified what he knows about the people and events of his life into the characters of the internal novel.
After finishing the first volume, it appears as though this is a novel about writing a novel. And no, it isn't dismal at all. I dislike those sorts of novels, but Durrell does it so well that I really don't notice it. Perhaps my dislike for this meta-fictional cliche is the result of finding that it is so often poorly done, and that may be my argument with it.
One more note: sometimes "The Avignon Quintet" is called "The Quincunx." A quincunx is a landscaping feature of five trees. Four of the trees are placed at the corners of a square, while the fifth tree is placed exactly at the center. The first book of the quintet, Monsieur, is placed at the center with the other four at the corners, a suggestion of the relationship among the five novels.
I now regret only waiting so long to revisit "The Avignon Quintet."
Monday, April 17, 2017
Lawrence Durrell: Justine, Pt. 3
Lawrence Durrell
Justine
As many have said before and many will repeat in the future, one of the joys and benefits of rereading some works is the discovery of the "new" or actually unnoticed elements in the work. Sometimes the "new" brings out new themes or motifs in the work. Sometimes it forces a re-thinking about of the work. This is rare, but it does occur, and this is what has happened with this rereading. In spite of three? or four? readings, I never noticed this before or never realized the significance of it.
Justine is Darley's attempt to reconstruct the events of his life in Alexandria and make sense of it. It is flashback, but with a very interrupted and convoluted narrative. He does not go back and start with his arrival in Alexandria and move forward in a chronological straightforward way to the present. Instead, it is almost impossible to construct a chronology without considerable effort, and perhaps considerable guesswork by the reconstructor. I had always taken this as an example of what many modern writers insist is the way that memories work--not in a chronological fashion, but somewhat randomly and those random memories bring up related memories. This is what it seemed was happening in Justine. But, then I read this, seemingly for the first time.
(What I most need to do is to record experiences, not in the order in which they took place--for that is history--but in the order in which they first became significant for me.)
If this is so, then the events presented us are those which became significant in his reconstruction of his past life in Alexandria, and are not simply the random productions of memory. I don't have time now, but I shall leave a note for my next rereading of Justine. I wonder how this will affect my reading.
Justine
As many have said before and many will repeat in the future, one of the joys and benefits of rereading some works is the discovery of the "new" or actually unnoticed elements in the work. Sometimes the "new" brings out new themes or motifs in the work. Sometimes it forces a re-thinking about of the work. This is rare, but it does occur, and this is what has happened with this rereading. In spite of three? or four? readings, I never noticed this before or never realized the significance of it.
Justine is Darley's attempt to reconstruct the events of his life in Alexandria and make sense of it. It is flashback, but with a very interrupted and convoluted narrative. He does not go back and start with his arrival in Alexandria and move forward in a chronological straightforward way to the present. Instead, it is almost impossible to construct a chronology without considerable effort, and perhaps considerable guesswork by the reconstructor. I had always taken this as an example of what many modern writers insist is the way that memories work--not in a chronological fashion, but somewhat randomly and those random memories bring up related memories. This is what it seemed was happening in Justine. But, then I read this, seemingly for the first time.
(What I most need to do is to record experiences, not in the order in which they took place--for that is history--but in the order in which they first became significant for me.)
If this is so, then the events presented us are those which became significant in his reconstruction of his past life in Alexandria, and are not simply the random productions of memory. I don't have time now, but I shall leave a note for my next rereading of Justine. I wonder how this will affect my reading.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Lawrence Durrell: Justine, Pt. 2
For some reason, the narrator neglected to introduce us to Balthazar, who will be a very important character, as suggested by his name given to the second book in the Quartet.
Balthazar's importance is considerable. To be precise, Darley has sent the manuscript to Balthazar. Balthazar then "corrects" or adds what he knows, from a different perspective, about the events Darley has portrayed and returns the manuscript and the interlinear to Darley. The second novel, Balthazar, Darley's attempt to rewrite Justine based on Balthazar's information.
In Part II, the narrator recognizes this and quickly describes him and their strange meeting.
I see a tall man in a black hat with a narrow brim. Pombal christened him, "the botanical goat". He is thin, stoops slightly, and has a deep croaking voice of great beauty, particularly when he quotes or recites. . . It is a mystery how he can have, suspended from his trunk, hands of such monstrous ugliness. I would long since have cut them off and thrown them into the sea. Under his chin he has one dark spur of hair growing, such as one sometimes sees upon the hoof of a sculptured Pan.
. . . . .
. . . . .
I remember meeting him, too , one bleak winter evening, walking along the rain-swept Corniche, dodging the sudden gushes of salt water from the conduits which lined it. . . . We had met before, it is true, but glancingly: and would have perhaps passed each other with a nod had not his agitation made him stop me and take my arm. "Ah! you can help me!" he cried, taking me by the arm. "Please help me." His pale face with its gleaming goat-eyes lowered itself toward mine in the approaching dusk.
Balthazar had lost the key to his pocket-watch, which had belonged to his father. While he could have had another key cut for it, it wouldn't be the same for that key--"It belonged to this watch. It was part of it. They searched briefly, but it got too dark and they went to a cafe and got acquainted.
The key was found, but the circumstances surrounding it were strange and never fully explained, at least in Justine. Perhaps we will learn more about the key and the mystery that enveloped it in the next volume, Balthazar.
PS
We do find out later.
PPS
Balthazar has his counterpart in Durrell's "The Avignon Quintet," in Akkad, the leader of a cult of Gnostics who is also a very talented and convincing speaker/reader at the meetings.
Balthazar's importance is considerable. To be precise, Darley has sent the manuscript to Balthazar. Balthazar then "corrects" or adds what he knows, from a different perspective, about the events Darley has portrayed and returns the manuscript and the interlinear to Darley. The second novel, Balthazar, Darley's attempt to rewrite Justine based on Balthazar's information.
In Part II, the narrator recognizes this and quickly describes him and their strange meeting.
I see a tall man in a black hat with a narrow brim. Pombal christened him, "the botanical goat". He is thin, stoops slightly, and has a deep croaking voice of great beauty, particularly when he quotes or recites. . . It is a mystery how he can have, suspended from his trunk, hands of such monstrous ugliness. I would long since have cut them off and thrown them into the sea. Under his chin he has one dark spur of hair growing, such as one sometimes sees upon the hoof of a sculptured Pan.
. . . . .
. . . . .
I remember meeting him, too , one bleak winter evening, walking along the rain-swept Corniche, dodging the sudden gushes of salt water from the conduits which lined it. . . . We had met before, it is true, but glancingly: and would have perhaps passed each other with a nod had not his agitation made him stop me and take my arm. "Ah! you can help me!" he cried, taking me by the arm. "Please help me." His pale face with its gleaming goat-eyes lowered itself toward mine in the approaching dusk.
Balthazar had lost the key to his pocket-watch, which had belonged to his father. While he could have had another key cut for it, it wouldn't be the same for that key--"It belonged to this watch. It was part of it. They searched briefly, but it got too dark and they went to a cafe and got acquainted.
The key was found, but the circumstances surrounding it were strange and never fully explained, at least in Justine. Perhaps we will learn more about the key and the mystery that enveloped it in the next volume, Balthazar.
PS
We do find out later.
PPS
Balthazar has his counterpart in Durrell's "The Avignon Quintet," in Akkad, the leader of a cult of Gnostics who is also a very talented and convincing speaker/reader at the meetings.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Lawrence Durrell: Justine, Part I
Lawrence Durrell
Justine: the first book in the Alexandria Quartet
This is my fourth visit to Alexandria with the aid of Lawrence Durrell, my personal tour guide. Isn't that what writers are, guides to their worlds? It has been some time since my last visit, so I had only the vaguest ideas of what was coming. However, once I started, I began recognize some of what I was reading.
What came first was the memory of the initial confusion I felt when I began to read the novel. Durrell doesn't believe, at least in Justine, straightforward chronological narrative structure. Instead, I was faced with short paragraphs and brief references to characters, without any help from Durrell. Here and there characters were brought up briefly and then off to something else. It was only I had gotten a way into Part I that I began finding introductions to the characters but in a disjointed fashion, though.
This time though I understood what Durrell was doing. As the narrator explains very early in the novel, the first page or so, he was going to put down on paper the events of the past year. If I had decided to do something similar, it would have been difficult to begin as I know that all I would have been able to come up with at first would be fragments, disjointed, and randomly recalled without any chronological order. However, the longer I worked at it, the more material I would be able to bring up, and each memory would be accompanied by other memories. So, as I got deeper into Part 1, I found the fragments were now longer and more complete. If it had been me, though, I wouldn't have had to courage to include those first brief fragments in my work, for I would have edited them out and produced a standard commonplace traditional account. That, no doubt, is why Durrell is a great writer, and I am not.
While Durrell introduces some seven or eight characters, he returns again and again to two of them: Justine and Melissa. But, at first I found it difficult to immediately know just which one the narrator was referring to. It's as if the narrator mistakenly believes we are as familiar with Justine and Melissa as he is, so he really doesn't have to identify them immediately. The male characters are introduced without the confusion that surrounded the female characters. The males are named and their relationship to the narrator is spelled out and occasionally brought back into the narrative.
As I mentioned earlier, the narrator doesn't provide his reader with a chronological sequence. When we first meet Justine and Melissa, it quickly becomes clear that he is intimately involved with both of them. It is only much later in Part I that we are told of their first meeting. Then comes their first sexual encounter, but not necessarily in that order.
The Quartet, I find, consists of a number of character and plot threads that are intertwined throughout the story. Because of this, at times I simply stop reading, go back to the beginning of the novel, and follow a particular thread, ignoring whatever else is going on at that time. It is surprising what I find when I do this, even if I limit it just to Part 1.
For example, let's follow the Justine thread and stop when we reach when we reach the part when the narrator tells us how and when they first met. We first meet, or hear of her actually, on the first page when she is mentioned by the narrator as one of his friends: "Justine and Nessim, of Melissa and Balthazar.". Several pages later, the narrator tells us that he has Justine's diary, which he got from her husband, Nessim, who still hoped that Justine would come back to him. The narrator tells us that he believes he will never see Justine for he and his friends have "taken different paths now." However, the narrator does have Melissa's child with him and tells us that he "has not named it yet. Of course it will be Justine--who else?"
Several pages later we read that he catches a glimpse of her from his balcony. In fact he has seen her many times and knows who she is, even though they haven't met. He now mentions their many meetings at the cafe, El Bab. Again, pages later, we get a much fuller description of her, and it is obvious they have just been intimate.
Later, the narrator tells us that he had once agreed to give a lecture on the 'poet of the city,' Cavafy, which was attended by "a dignified semicircle of society ladies." Justine was in the audience. He recognizes her, but they do not speak because they have yet to meet. After the lecture, the narrator, that evening, stops at a small cafe. Justine suddenly appears and asks a question about the lecture. Then she says, "I want to take you to Nessim, my husband. Will you come?" She drives them to the house and searched "from room to room, fracturing the silences. He (Nessim) answered at last from the great studio on the roof and racing to him like a gundog she metaphorically dropped me at his feet and stood back, wagging her tail. She had achieved me.
Nessim was sitting on the top of the ladder reading, and he came slowly down to us, looking first at one and then at the other. . .for my part, I could offer no explanation of my presence, since I did not know for what purpose I had been brought here."
If I may cheat here, the narrator believes, later, that he knows why she approached him, gathered him up, and brought him to her husband. But that's in Justine. In the second book, Balthazar, he will hear a different explanation, and the reader will find yet one more in Mountolive.
It is said that a sign of great literature is that one discovers something new in every reading. That is certainly true of Justine. Even though this was at least the fourth reading, I was surprised to discover clues, interspersed in Part 1, to future events, some that will take place in the other volumes of the quartet. The narrator would make some offhand remark and then go on to something else and would never refer to it again. It meant nothing to the narrator and nothing to me until this the fourth reading. I should have picked up on them on subsequent readings.
I wonder what I will find on my fifth reading.
Justine: the first book in the Alexandria Quartet
This is my fourth visit to Alexandria with the aid of Lawrence Durrell, my personal tour guide. Isn't that what writers are, guides to their worlds? It has been some time since my last visit, so I had only the vaguest ideas of what was coming. However, once I started, I began recognize some of what I was reading.
What came first was the memory of the initial confusion I felt when I began to read the novel. Durrell doesn't believe, at least in Justine, straightforward chronological narrative structure. Instead, I was faced with short paragraphs and brief references to characters, without any help from Durrell. Here and there characters were brought up briefly and then off to something else. It was only I had gotten a way into Part I that I began finding introductions to the characters but in a disjointed fashion, though.
This time though I understood what Durrell was doing. As the narrator explains very early in the novel, the first page or so, he was going to put down on paper the events of the past year. If I had decided to do something similar, it would have been difficult to begin as I know that all I would have been able to come up with at first would be fragments, disjointed, and randomly recalled without any chronological order. However, the longer I worked at it, the more material I would be able to bring up, and each memory would be accompanied by other memories. So, as I got deeper into Part 1, I found the fragments were now longer and more complete. If it had been me, though, I wouldn't have had to courage to include those first brief fragments in my work, for I would have edited them out and produced a standard commonplace traditional account. That, no doubt, is why Durrell is a great writer, and I am not.
While Durrell introduces some seven or eight characters, he returns again and again to two of them: Justine and Melissa. But, at first I found it difficult to immediately know just which one the narrator was referring to. It's as if the narrator mistakenly believes we are as familiar with Justine and Melissa as he is, so he really doesn't have to identify them immediately. The male characters are introduced without the confusion that surrounded the female characters. The males are named and their relationship to the narrator is spelled out and occasionally brought back into the narrative.
As I mentioned earlier, the narrator doesn't provide his reader with a chronological sequence. When we first meet Justine and Melissa, it quickly becomes clear that he is intimately involved with both of them. It is only much later in Part I that we are told of their first meeting. Then comes their first sexual encounter, but not necessarily in that order.
The Quartet, I find, consists of a number of character and plot threads that are intertwined throughout the story. Because of this, at times I simply stop reading, go back to the beginning of the novel, and follow a particular thread, ignoring whatever else is going on at that time. It is surprising what I find when I do this, even if I limit it just to Part 1.
For example, let's follow the Justine thread and stop when we reach when we reach the part when the narrator tells us how and when they first met. We first meet, or hear of her actually, on the first page when she is mentioned by the narrator as one of his friends: "Justine and Nessim, of Melissa and Balthazar.". Several pages later, the narrator tells us that he has Justine's diary, which he got from her husband, Nessim, who still hoped that Justine would come back to him. The narrator tells us that he believes he will never see Justine for he and his friends have "taken different paths now." However, the narrator does have Melissa's child with him and tells us that he "has not named it yet. Of course it will be Justine--who else?"
Several pages later we read that he catches a glimpse of her from his balcony. In fact he has seen her many times and knows who she is, even though they haven't met. He now mentions their many meetings at the cafe, El Bab. Again, pages later, we get a much fuller description of her, and it is obvious they have just been intimate.
Later, the narrator tells us that he had once agreed to give a lecture on the 'poet of the city,' Cavafy, which was attended by "a dignified semicircle of society ladies." Justine was in the audience. He recognizes her, but they do not speak because they have yet to meet. After the lecture, the narrator, that evening, stops at a small cafe. Justine suddenly appears and asks a question about the lecture. Then she says, "I want to take you to Nessim, my husband. Will you come?" She drives them to the house and searched "from room to room, fracturing the silences. He (Nessim) answered at last from the great studio on the roof and racing to him like a gundog she metaphorically dropped me at his feet and stood back, wagging her tail. She had achieved me.
Nessim was sitting on the top of the ladder reading, and he came slowly down to us, looking first at one and then at the other. . .for my part, I could offer no explanation of my presence, since I did not know for what purpose I had been brought here."
If I may cheat here, the narrator believes, later, that he knows why she approached him, gathered him up, and brought him to her husband. But that's in Justine. In the second book, Balthazar, he will hear a different explanation, and the reader will find yet one more in Mountolive.
It is said that a sign of great literature is that one discovers something new in every reading. That is certainly true of Justine. Even though this was at least the fourth reading, I was surprised to discover clues, interspersed in Part 1, to future events, some that will take place in the other volumes of the quartet. The narrator would make some offhand remark and then go on to something else and would never refer to it again. It meant nothing to the narrator and nothing to me until this the fourth reading. I should have picked up on them on subsequent readings.
I wonder what I will find on my fifth reading.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Lawrence Durrell: Justine
One of my New Year's resolutions was to read as much of Lawrence Durrell's works this year as I could. Today I begin with Justine, which is only appropriate since my first introduction to his writings was this work. Several decades ago, I was in grad school and on the reading list for a course in 20th century novels (or perhaps 20th century English novels) was Justine. I had heard of Lawrence Durrell and the Alexandria Quartet, but I had never read anything by him before.
I started reading and was confused and bewildered by the first three or four pages as it seemed to be nothing but randomly placed paragraphs with no coherent plan to structure them. I was a bit dismayed, a complete novel like this! Then the following jumped out at me. It wasn't the first sentence of a chapter, or even of a paragraph. It was buried in a longish paragraph, but I had to stop and read it again, and again. It told me what Durrell was up to. I was hooked. I read Justine and then went on to read as much of Durrell as I could find. Now, it's time to do it again.
The sentence:
"The solace of such work as I do with brain and heart lies in this--that only there, in the silences of the painter or the writer can reality be reordered, reworked and made to show its significant side."
I doubt if it grabs others the way it grabbed me, and I can't explain why. It just did.
I started reading and was confused and bewildered by the first three or four pages as it seemed to be nothing but randomly placed paragraphs with no coherent plan to structure them. I was a bit dismayed, a complete novel like this! Then the following jumped out at me. It wasn't the first sentence of a chapter, or even of a paragraph. It was buried in a longish paragraph, but I had to stop and read it again, and again. It told me what Durrell was up to. I was hooked. I read Justine and then went on to read as much of Durrell as I could find. Now, it's time to do it again.
The sentence:
"The solace of such work as I do with brain and heart lies in this--that only there, in the silences of the painter or the writer can reality be reordered, reworked and made to show its significant side."
I doubt if it grabs others the way it grabbed me, and I can't explain why. It just did.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Lawrence Durrell: "A Bowl of Roses"
A Bowl of Roses
'Spring' says your Alexandrian poet
'Means time of the remission of the rose.'
Now here at this tattered old cafe',
By the sea-wall, where so many like us
Have felt the revengeful power of life,
Are roses trapped in blue tin bowls.
I think of you somewhere among them -
Other roses - outworn by our literature,
Made tenants of calf-love or else
The poet's portion, a black black rose
Coughed into the helpless lap of love,
Or fallen from a lapel - a night-club rose.
It would take more than this loving imagination
To claim them for you out of time,
To make them dense and fecund so that
Snow would never pocket them, nor would
They travel under glass to great sanatoria
And like a sibling of the sickness thrust
Flushed faces up beside a dead man's plate.
No, you should have picked one from a poem
Being written softly with a brush -
The deathless ideogram for love we writers hunt.
Now alas the writing and the roses, Melissa,
Are nearly over: who will next remember
Their spring remission in kept promises,
Or even the true ground of their invention
In some dry heart or earthen inkwell.
-- Lawrence Durrell --
"Alexandrian poet" Cavafy
"a night-club rose" Melissa
"sanatoria" Melissa ends up in a TB sanatorium
"Melissa" a night-club singer and prostitute in Justine who loves
Darley
"A Bowl of Roses" takes its inspiration from Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. The "Alexandrian poet" is C. P. Cavafy, the 20th century Greek poet. Durrell refers frequently to him throughout the Quartet and has written at least one poem celebrating Cavafy. The title is "Cavafy" (of course) and the first stanza of the three stanza poem is as follows:
Cavafy
I like to see so much the old man's loves
Egregious if you like and often shabby
Protruding from the ass's skin of verse,
For better or for worse,
The bones of poems cultured by a thirst--
Dilapidated taverns, dark eyes washed
Now in the wry and loving brilliance
Of such barbaric memories
As held them when the dyes of passion ran.
No cant about the sottishness of man!
-- Lawrence Durrell --
In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare claimed that his poem about her would make her immortal, long after everyone else would be forgotten. Do you think the Poet/Narrator thinks the same way about Melissa?
It's been some time since I've last looked into any of Durrell's fiction. Perhaps it's time to take another look.
'Spring' says your Alexandrian poet
'Means time of the remission of the rose.'
Now here at this tattered old cafe',
By the sea-wall, where so many like us
Have felt the revengeful power of life,
Are roses trapped in blue tin bowls.
I think of you somewhere among them -
Other roses - outworn by our literature,
Made tenants of calf-love or else
The poet's portion, a black black rose
Coughed into the helpless lap of love,
Or fallen from a lapel - a night-club rose.
It would take more than this loving imagination
To claim them for you out of time,
To make them dense and fecund so that
Snow would never pocket them, nor would
They travel under glass to great sanatoria
And like a sibling of the sickness thrust
Flushed faces up beside a dead man's plate.
No, you should have picked one from a poem
Being written softly with a brush -
The deathless ideogram for love we writers hunt.
Now alas the writing and the roses, Melissa,
Are nearly over: who will next remember
Their spring remission in kept promises,
Or even the true ground of their invention
In some dry heart or earthen inkwell.
-- Lawrence Durrell --
"Alexandrian poet" Cavafy
"a night-club rose" Melissa
"sanatoria" Melissa ends up in a TB sanatorium
"Melissa" a night-club singer and prostitute in Justine who loves
Darley
"A Bowl of Roses" takes its inspiration from Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. The "Alexandrian poet" is C. P. Cavafy, the 20th century Greek poet. Durrell refers frequently to him throughout the Quartet and has written at least one poem celebrating Cavafy. The title is "Cavafy" (of course) and the first stanza of the three stanza poem is as follows:
Cavafy
I like to see so much the old man's loves
Egregious if you like and often shabby
Protruding from the ass's skin of verse,
For better or for worse,
The bones of poems cultured by a thirst--
Dilapidated taverns, dark eyes washed
Now in the wry and loving brilliance
Of such barbaric memories
As held them when the dyes of passion ran.
No cant about the sottishness of man!
-- Lawrence Durrell --
In one of his sonnets, Shakespeare claimed that his poem about her would make her immortal, long after everyone else would be forgotten. Do you think the Poet/Narrator thinks the same way about Melissa?
It's been some time since I've last looked into any of Durrell's fiction. Perhaps it's time to take another look.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Lawrence Durrell: February 27, 1912--November 7, 1990
A Bowl of Roses
'Spring' says your Alexandrian poet
'Means time of the remission of the rose'
Now here at this tattered old cafe,
By the sea-wall, where so many like us
Have felt the revengeful power of life,
Are roses trapped in blue tin bowls.
I think of you somewhere among them--
Other roses--outworn by our literature,
Made tenants of calf-love or else
The poet's portion, a black black rose
Coughed into the helpless lap of love,
Or fallen from a lapel--a night club rose.
It would take more than this loving imagination
To claim them for you out of time,
To make them dense and fecund so that
Snow would never pocket them, nor would
They travel under glass to great sanatoria
And like a sibling of the sickness thrust
Flushed faces up beside a dead man's plate.
No, you should have picked one from a poem
Being written softly with a brush--
The deathless ideogram for love we writers hunt.
Now alas the writing and the roses, Melissa,
Are nearly over: who will next remember
Their spring remission in kept promises,
Or even the true ground of their invention
In some dry heart or earthen inkwell?
Alexandria--many faint echoes here of the Alexandria Quartet
the Alexandrian poet--Constantine Cavafy
the cafe by the sea-wall, where met, by chance or design
Darley, Pursewarden, Melissa, Justine
a night club rose--Melissa, an "entertainer/dancer" at the nightclub
a dead man's plate--Melissa's Old Lover whose family kept her from his deathbed
sanatoria--Melissa--TB, sanitarium
it's been awhile since I visited them
Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
'Spring' says your Alexandrian poet
'Means time of the remission of the rose'
Now here at this tattered old cafe,
By the sea-wall, where so many like us
Have felt the revengeful power of life,
Are roses trapped in blue tin bowls.
I think of you somewhere among them--
Other roses--outworn by our literature,
Made tenants of calf-love or else
The poet's portion, a black black rose
Coughed into the helpless lap of love,
Or fallen from a lapel--a night club rose.
It would take more than this loving imagination
To claim them for you out of time,
To make them dense and fecund so that
Snow would never pocket them, nor would
They travel under glass to great sanatoria
And like a sibling of the sickness thrust
Flushed faces up beside a dead man's plate.
No, you should have picked one from a poem
Being written softly with a brush--
The deathless ideogram for love we writers hunt.
Now alas the writing and the roses, Melissa,
Are nearly over: who will next remember
Their spring remission in kept promises,
Or even the true ground of their invention
In some dry heart or earthen inkwell?
Alexandria--many faint echoes here of the Alexandria Quartet
the Alexandrian poet--Constantine Cavafy
the cafe by the sea-wall, where met, by chance or design
Darley, Pursewarden, Melissa, Justine
a night club rose--Melissa, an "entertainer/dancer" at the nightclub
a dead man's plate--Melissa's Old Lover whose family kept her from his deathbed
sanatoria--Melissa--TB, sanitarium
it's been awhile since I visited them
Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea
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