Posts
Her paper was entitled "Paradise Lost? Lawrence Durrell's 'Romance' with the Hellenic World" and dealt with the change in Durrell's relationship (and the nature of his British sense of identity and his Philhellenism over time) with Greeks and three Mediterranean islands (Corfu, Rhodes and Cyprus), as reflected in his three island books.
It was particularly interesting to listen to a young Greek scholar's assessment of the writer of these much-admired works. I found myself in agreement with a great deal of what she said, although I wouldn't necessarily have read back from "Bitter Lemons" to "Prospero's Cell". For me, each book stands on its own within the time, space and political environment in which it was written.
In the questions afterwards, on the subject of colonial attitudes in "Bitter Lemons", I made the point that, much to his credit, Durrell had encouraged the Greek poet Dimitris Tsaloumas, when Durrell lived on Rhodes. See also my earlier posting on Tsaloumas.
David Roessel demonstrated on 21 June that the printed book we have is not always the book that the author intended us to read. A whole chapter, and important large chunks of "Reflections on a Marine Venus" were omitted after the typescript was submitted and edited down to a publishable size by Anne Ridler at Faber and Faber. In his acknowledgements, Durrell expresses his gratitude "for her help in editing an overgrown MS".
As a result, we have lost, amongst other things, a wonderful paragraph about the nature of the Greek way of happiness, which the talented Courtney Sherman performed at the seminar and again, at my request, over coffee with David and his wife at a meeting at Coffee and Books in Corfu's Upper Plateia.
I wish I could get to read her paper. Will their be a publication of the proceedings? I guess 'read back' is the price you pay for being brilliant enough for all you've written to be read and critiqued as a whole. I think Prospero's Cell does stand alone. I'm quite pleased I didn't read it until we'd been connected with Corfu for a couple of years. I didn't come there as some have come to Greece with 'love letters' from Miller, Durrell, Leigh-Fermor, or Andrews in their suitcases. When I did get curious and start asking about proper histories of Kerkyra in the town I drew a blank which is why I was so happy with your book and also with being directed to Eleni Calligas' work on the Ionian rizopasti. I'm still vexed that the auido-visuals didn't work when I gave that talk in Feb 2010 on successive High Commissioners. I did a lot of work on that and then had to extemporise. Still I've got it now on google.docs and I'm still trying to find that 1860s letter from the elders of Ano Korakiana and Kinopiastes!
ReplyDelete'their' Ouch!
DeleteHadn't noticed the 'their'- too interested in the thoughts. I hope the papers will be published, but Anthony Hirst, the Academic Director, has been working flat-out, and says he is behind with the editing of papers from a previous seminar.
ReplyDeleteI bought 'Prospero's Cell' and 'The Colossus of Maroussi' about six months after I first arrived in Corfu, well after I'd explored and discovered the island for myself (I'm not sure I ever "discovered myself" and I won't reveal here which year that was!) How do I locate your High Commissioner talk on google.docs? The Durrell story is a complex one, from idealistic young writer weary of 'Pudding Island' England, to servant of the crown exhibiting some colonial attitudes and obliged to represent official policy. I guess we can all find whatever we want to find, when we read between the lines. We should also take into account what he wrote about Corfu and Greece long after the publication of "Bitter Lemons". The story doesn't end with the third island book.
Those first lines press buttons as effectively as a few notes of a great musician 'Somewhere between Calabria and Corfu the blue really begins' and that moment on leaving Greece when Durrell wrote of an 'amputation' for which 'all Epiceptus' could not suffice. He must have known he could return and of course he did. The 'amputation' was his youth and its illusions wasn't it? We've already discussed the fact that the real Corfu of the mid-30s was not quite the paradise of Prospero's Cell, but for Durrell his departure to Crete was his personal Fall, the final dissolution of his 'clouds of glory'. The presentation (let me know if the link works) is in Google.docs at https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/10pxhDlirxnaEbPLGv0vhTqvsn5VkFIu8UCtjLM4km7o/edit?pli=1#slide=id.p14
ReplyDeleteYou could be right, but there is room for a number of different theories, I suspect. The Second World War itself..? Much later works like "A Smile in the Mind's Eye" and "Blue Thirst" (1975)provide valuable insights into his ongoing "spiritual" or "Taoist" relationship with Corfu, even without the need for residence there. Have you read Edmund Keeley's "Inventing Paradise: The Greek Journey, 1937-1947"?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Inventing-Paradise-Greek-Journey-1937-47/dp/0810119390/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1341120428&sr=1-1-catcorr
Yes the link to your presentation works, thank you, very useful to have it available in this form. I haven't tried using google.docs, I must explore further.
ReplyDeletePS, re Durrell and Corfu, I'm sure you know his 1966 article "Oil for the Saint; Return to Corfu", reprinted in "Spirit of Place, Letters and Essays on Travel"? If one is going to "read back", one can't stop with "Bitter Lemons".
ReplyDelete