LAWRENCE DURRELL: THE MINDSCAPE Also by Richard Pine

OSCAR WILDE THE DUBLIN GATE THEATRE *THE DANDY AND THE HERALD Manners, Mind and Morals from Brummell to Durrell BRIAN FRIEL AND IRELAND'S DRAMA WILDE AND IRISHNESS HOMECOMINGS Ireland and the Post-Colonial World

*From the same publishers Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape

Richard Pine

M St. Martin's Press © Richard Pine 1994 Previously unpublished material by Lawrence Durrell © estate of Lawrence Durrell1994 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published in Great Britain 1994 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-349-23414-1 ISBN 978-1-349-23412-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23412-7

First published in the United States of America 1994 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth A venue, New York, N.Y. 10010

ISBN 978-0-312-12157-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pine, Richard. Lawrence Durrell : the mindscape I Richard Pine. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-12157-0 1. Durrell, Lawrence--Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. PR6007.U76Z83 1994 828' .91209-dc20 94-234 CIP for Judy

You, life's quiddity, velvet tiger curling in the loin of my mind

recalling 24 May 1990, at Emlaghmore when the world made love and sense Contents

Preface ix

Chronology xi

List of Abbreviations xiii

Acknowledgement xiv

Introduction 1

Part 1 The Child 19

1 'Une vie artistique' 21

2 'Quests, Confessions and Puzzles' 55

3 The Child and the House 80

Part 2 The Island 105

4 'Islomania' 107

5 'Pessaries of Grace' 123

6 An 'Ionian Quartet' 146

Part 3 The City 167

7 The City as Field 169

8 The City as Metaphor 207

vii viii Contents 9 The City as Court of Love 223

Part4 The Refusal 245

10 Subversions 247

11 Ireland as a State of Mind 274

12 Sperectomy 292

PartS The Miracle 323

13 The Unreadable Book 325

14 'Why?': The Question of Writing 351

15 The Heart Evolved 376

Notes and References 388

Select Bibliography 438

Index 444 Preface

I first met Lawrence Durrell during his only visit to Ireland, in January 1972; I met him once again in October 1988. In the mean­ time we corresponded, trying in vain to create another meeting: in the intervening years, his support for this book was unhesitating. He greeted my first attempt at establishing his 'literary genealogy', The Dandy and the Herald: Manners, Mind and Morals from Brummell to Durrell (1988) with enthusiasm, and contributed helpfully to the present volume. Most of this book was written before his death in 1990, but has been reconsidered and reshaped in the light of that 'disappearance', and the new availability of research material both in France and the USA. I owe very considerable debb; of gratitude to many Durrellians: most of all to his official biographers, Ian MacNiven and Susan MacNiven, who shared many confidences and have proved superb colleagues; equally Shelley Cox, Keeper of Special Collections at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, which houses the most substantial Durrell archive, has been a pillar of support, knowledge and helpfulness; at University of California, Los Angeles, Special Collections, Anne Caiger was generous in supplying copies of Durrell material; in Ireland, Charles Benson, Keeper of Older Printed Books at Trinity College, Dublin, was indispensable in locating copies of Pied Piper of Lovers and Panic Spring. Charles Acton lent me his set of the 1932 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan­ nica, which was the edition Durrell used. At the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Lawrence Durrell in Sommieres, Fran<;oise Kestsman has been a friend; another, Mary Byrne, once of Dublin and now of St Jean de Fos, was an invaluable go-between with Lawrence Durrell in his last years; the editor of Durrell's poems, Jay Brigham, gave charming and humorous support and advice; Carol Peirce, doyenne of Durrell scholars, and Stephanie Moore, first winner of the Prix Lawrence Durrell, both contributed significantly; Emily Pine made a notable debut as a research assistant; other Durrell scholars, too numerous to mention here, are, I trust, satisfactorily acknowledged in my notes. Regular friendship manifested itself in a concern for the progress of this book: for quite different reasons Tony Roche, Tom McGrath

ix X Preface and Sebastian Garrett gave sustenance exactly when and where it was needed: the first, because he empathised with the need to write; the second, because over the past decade he has made it possible for me to live these books by finding them in myself; and the third, my oldest friend, because not only did he know the landscape of the book and could tell whether or not I was making sense, but also was able to reduce an unwieldy typescript to manageable proportions and to make many sensible and helpful suggestions - a rare honour. Nor should I neglect to acknowledge, wholeheartedly, the privilege of residing, on several occasions, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan. But above all, this book belongs, and is dedicated, to the woman who made it happen and for whom, ultimately, it has been written: who helped me to understand why 'life is elsewhere', and who shared with me the most exciting, most real and most magical year of my life.

The Long House, RICHARD PINE Emlaghmore Chronology

1912 Lawrence Durrell born, 27 February 1935 Pied Piper of Lovers [novel] 1937 Panic Spring [novel] 1938 The Black Book [novel] 1943 A Private Country [poems] 1945 Prospera's Cell [Corfu] 1946 Cities, Plains and People [poems] 1947 CefalU [novel] (as The Dark Labyrinth, 1961 edition) 1948 On Seeming to Presume [poems] 1950 Sappho [play] 1952 A Key to Modern British Poetry [lectures] 1953 Reflections on a Marine Venus [Rhodes] 1955 The Tree of Idleness [poems] 1956 Selected Poems 1957 Bitter Lemons [Cyprus] Esprit de Corps [sketches of diplomatic life] Justine [novel] White Eagles Over Serbia [novel] 1958 Balthazar [novel] Mountolive [novel] Stiff Upper Lip [diplomatic sketches] 1960 Clea [novel] Pope Joan [novel, translation] Complete Poems (new edition, 1980) 1962 Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea published as The Alexandria Quartet 1963 An Irish Faustus [play] 1965 Acte [play] 1966 Sauve Qui Peut [diplomatic sketches] Esprit de Corps, Stiff Upper Lip, Sauve Qui Peut published 1985 as Antrobus Complete The Ikons [poems] 1968 Tunc [novel] 1969 Spirit of Place [letters, essays] 1970 Nunquam [novel] Tunc, Nunquam published 1974 as The Revolt of Aphrodite•

xi xii Chronology 1973 Vega [poems] 1974 Monsieur [novel] 1977 Sicilian Carousel [Sicily] 1978 Livia [novel] The Greek Islands [travel] 1980 A Smile in the Mind's Eye [philosophy] 1982 Constance [novel] 1983 Sebastian [novel] 1985 Quinx [novel] Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, Quinx published 1992 as The Avignon Quintet 1988 The Durrell-Miller Letters 1990 Caesar's Vast Ghost [Provence] Durrell dies, 7 November

*The one-volume edition of The Revolt of Aphrodite retains the original pagination of Tunc and Nunquam as individual volumes. List of Abbreviations

AC Antrobus Complete (Esprit de Corps, Stiff Upper Lip and Sauve Qui Peut) BB The Black Book BL Bitter Lemons CP Complete Poems CVG Caesar's Vast Ghost DL The Dark Labyrinth DML The Durrell-Miller Letters GI The Greek Islands IF An Irish Faustus Key A Key to Modern British Poetry PC Prospero's Cell PPL Pied Piper of Lovers PS Panic Spring Quartet The Alexandria Quartet Uustine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea) Quintet The Avignon Quintet (Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx) RMV Reflections on a Marine Venus SME A Smile in the Mind's Eye SP Spirit of Place The Revolt The Revolt of Aphrodite (Tunc and Nunquam)

xiii Acknowledgement

The author and publishers would like to thank Curtis Brown Ltd, London, for permission to reproduce the extracts from published and unpublished works by Lawrence Durrell, copyright the estate of Lawrence Durrell.

xiv