Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence George Durrell (Jalandhar, India, February 27, 1912-Sommières, France, November 7, 1990) was a British writer, brother of the writer and zoologist Gerald Durrell. He wrote biographies, poetry, plays, travel plays and novels. Durrell resisted being associated with the United Kingdom, preferring to be considered cosmopolitan. Posthumously it was discovered that he never actually had British citizenship. His masterpiece is considered to be the tetralogy called The Alexandria Quartet.

Life and work

Early years

He was born in 1912 in Jalandhar (India) as the son of British settlers. At age eleven, he was sent to school in England, where he was never happy and which he left as soon as he could. Although his formal education was unsuccessful and he failed his university entrance exams, Durrell had begun writing poetry at the age of fifteen: his first collection, Quaint Fragment, was published in 1931. On the 22nd January 1935, Durrell married Nancy Isobel Myers, the first of his four wives. In March of that year Durrell, Nancy, his mother, and his siblings (including brother Gerald Durrell, later one of the most prominent British naturalists and successful writer) moved to the Greek island of Corfu. That same year Durrell published his first novel, Pied Piper of Lovers; He also wrote to Henry Miller expressing his intense admiration for his novel Tropic of Cancer, which ignited a lasting friendship and mutually critical relationship.

In August 1937 he and Nancy traveled to the Villa Seurat in Paris, to meet Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin. Durrell and Miller got along well, since at that time they were dealing with similar themes in their works. Together with Alfred Perles, Nin, Miller and Durrell perhaps he began a collaboration that sought to found his own literary movement. They began the Villa Seurat series to publish Durrell's The Black Book, Miller's Max and the White Phagocytes, and Winter of Artifice by Nin, with Jack Kahane of Obelisk Press as editor.

He became known as a poet and novelist in the 1930s and obtained his first great critical success with The Black Book, written in Paris in 1938. In this work "words" abound. profanity... the grotesque,... [and] its very apocalyptic mood" (as in Trópico, by Miller). The Black Notebook is a "striking and obscene eccentricity that could not be published in England until thirty years later.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, his mother and other siblings returned to England, while Durrell remained in Corfu. After the fall of Greece, Lawrence escaped, via Crete, to Alexandria in Egypt, where he wrote about Corfu and his life on 'this brilliant apex of an island in the Ionian'. in the poetic Prospero's Cell.

During the war, Durrell served as a press attaché in the British embassies, first in Cairo and then in Alexandria. After the war he held various diplomatic and teaching positions. It was in Alexandria where he met Eve (Yvette) Cohen, who would become his model for Justine.

Durrell separated from Nancy in 1942. In 1947 he married Eve Cohen and in 1951 they had a daughter, Sappho Jane, named after the legendary Greek poetess Sappho of Lesbos.

In 1947 he was appointed director of the British Council in Córdoba (Argentina) where, for the next eighteen months, he taught classes on cultural topics. He returned to London in the summer of 1948, around the time that Marshal Tito broke ties with Stalin's Cominform, and Durrell received a position in Belgrade, where he would remain until 1952. The stay provided him with material for his book White Eagles over Serbia (1957). In 1952 he moved to Cyprus, bought a house and dedicated himself to teaching English literature at the Pancyprian Gymnasium to support himself while he wrote; He later had a public relations job with the British government during the agitation for union with Greece. In Bitter Lemons he talks about this time in Cyprus.

The Alexandria Quartet

The Alexandria Quartet, the impressive tetralogy composed by Justine (1957)—first novel of the tetralogy—, Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958) and Clea (1960), is the work that makes it a classic of our time, largely due to its exploration of the possibilities of language. narrative. It provoked enthusiastic comparisons of the author with Proust and Faulkner. Like much of his narrative, it comes from his personal experience as a diplomat in Greece, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, and Egypt, and is characterized by formal experimentation in the treatment of time and space.

These works refer to the events in Alexandria just before and during the Second World War. The first three books tell essentially the same story, but from different perspectives, a technique that Durrell described in his introductory note to Balthazar as "relativistic." Only in the final part, Clea, does the story advance in time and reach a conclusion.

In these novels he investigates love in all its forms. Passages of great beauty are mixed with studies on corruption and a complex sensual investigation.

The quartet impressed critics with the richness of their style, the variety and vividness of their characters, their movement between the personal and the political, and their exotic locations in and around the city, which Durrell portrays as their main protagonist: «... the city that used us as its flora – precipitating in us conflicts that were hers and that we mistakenly believed were ours –: dear Alexandria!» In The Times's literary supplement review of the 'Quartet' it was stated: "If ever a work carried an instantly recognizable signature on every sentence, This is". It was suggested that Durrell might be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but this did not materialise.

Given the complexity of the work, it was probably inevitable that George Cukor's film version, Justine (1969), simplified the story into a melodrama, and it was not well received.

Later years

After separating from Eve in 1955, Durrell married again in 1961 to Claude-Marie Vincendon. She died of cancer in 1967. Durrell settled in Sommières, a small village in Provence, France.

His later work includes Tunc, The Dark Labyrinth, Nunquam and A Smile in the Mind's Eye i>. Tunc (1968) and Numquam (1970) make up The Revolt of Aphrodite. A smile in the mind's eye, halfway between autobiography, fiction and essay, has become an initiatory text of Taoist philosophy in the West, of which Durrell revealed himself to be a profound connoisseur.

With The Avignon Quintet, he attempted to repeat the success of the Alexandria Quartet and revised many of the motifs and styles found in his earlier work. Although it is often described as a quintet, Durrell himself referred to it as a quincunx (a way of arranging five units that corresponds to the five dots in dice, card games, or dominoes; it is named for the coin Roman of the same name). The Avignon Quintet is on the whole less successful than the Alexandrian Quartet, although its central book, Constance, or Solitary Practice, which describes France under German occupation, it was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1982.

He is also the author of poetry (Complete Poems, 1931-1974), which has been obscured by his novels. Peter Porter, in his introduction to Selected Poems, writes of Durrell as a poet: “one of the best of the last hundred years. And one of the most enjoyable.” He considers his poetry to be “always beautiful in sound and syntax. The novelty of him lies in his refusal to be more of higher principles than the things he describes, together with his handling of the total lexicon of the language. "He is also the author of several works halfway between the essay and the book. travel.

In 1962 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, on a short list made up of John Steinbeck, who won, Robert Graves, the French playwright Jean Anouilh and the Danish author Karen Blixen.

Durrell suffered from emphysema for many years. He died of a stroke at his home in Sommières in November 1990.

Main works

Novels

• Pied Piper of Lovers (1935).
• Panic Springwith the pseudonym of Charles Norden (1937).
• The Black Book (1938; reissued in the United Kingdom on 1 January 1977 by Faber and Faber). In Argentina: The black notebookSouth, 1958. In Spain: The Black BookEdhasa, 1987. ISBN 84-350-0781-2.
• The Dark Labyrinth (1958; published as "Cefalu" in 1947). In Spain: The Dark Maze (Cefalú)Edhasa, 1988. ISBN 84-350-1566-1 and CefalúEdhasa, 1982. ISBN 84-350-0254-3.
• White Eagles Over Serbia (1957). In Spain: White Eagles on Serbia, Editorial Fundamentos, 1988. ISBN 978-84-245-0462-5.
• The Quartet of Alexandria (o) Alexandria Quartet), has been published complete by the Editorial Sudamericana, of Argentina and, subsequently, with the same translation by Edhasa:
  • Justine (1957). In Argentina, several editions, since 1960 by South American. In Spain, several editions, from 1970 by Edhasa (ISBN 84-350-0011-7) to 2006 by Diario El País (ISBN 84-89669-72-4).
  • Balthazar (1958). Edited by South American (1960) and Edhasa (1970).
  • Mountolive (1958). Edited by South American (1960) and by Edhasa (1970 and 1984).
  • Clea (1960). Edited by South American and Edhasa.
• The Revolt of Aphrodite
  • Tunc (1968). In Spain: TuncEdhasa, 1986. ISBN 84-350-0762-6.
  • Nunquam (1970). In Spain: Edhasa, 1986. ISBN 84-350-0764-2.
• The quintet of Avignon
  • Monsieur: or, The Prince of Darkness (1974). In Spain: Monsieur, or the prince of darkness, several editions.
  • Livia: or, Buried Alive (1978). In Spain: (Livia or buried in life, Editions Versal (1986), Noguer Editions (1987), Plaza & Janés Publishers (1996, ISBN 978-84-01-41293-6).
  • Constance: or, Solitary Practices (1982). In Spain: Constance or solitary practices, Editions Versal (1986), Plaza & Janés Editores (1997) and El Aleph Editores, 1999.
  • Sebastian: or, Ruling Passions (1983). In Spain: Sebastian or the domain of passions, Versal Editions in 1987, Janes Square in 1997, and Planeta Editorial in 1999.
  • Quinx: or, The Ripper's Tale (1985). In Spain: Quinx or the story of the killer, Versa Editions in 1986 and 1987, Plaza & Janés in 1996.

Stories

• Antrobus. In Spain, Tusquets Editores, 1996. ISBN 978-84-8310-509-2.

Travel

• Prospero's Cell: A guide to the landscape and manners of the island of Corcyra (1945; reissued in 2000) (ISBN 0-571-20165-2). In Spain: The cell of Prospero: a guide to the landscape and customs of the island of Corfu (Edhasa, 1988) and The cell of Prospero: memories of the island of Corfu (Editions B, 2003, ISBN 978-84-666-1087-2).
• Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953). In Spain: Reflections on a marine vein: trips to Rhodes, Reader Circle, 1999. ISBN 84-226-7648-6.
• Bitter Lemons (1957; reedited as Bitter Lemons of Cyprus 2001). In Spain: Limons bitter Edhasa, 1987. ISBN 84-350-1426-6.
• Blue Thirst (1975)
• Sicilian Carousel (1977). In Spain: Carrusel SicilianoNoguer Ediciones, 1990. ISBN 84-279-1176-9.
• The Greek Islands (1978). In Spain: The Greek islands, Editions of the Serbal, 1983 and 1991; Editions Folio, 2004, ISBN 978-84-413-1988-2.
• Caesar's Vast Ghost (1990)
• Vision of Provence, Editorial Seix Barral 1999. ISBN 84-322-1927-4.

Poetry

• Selected Poems: 1953–1963, edited by Alan Ross (1964)
• Collected Poems: 1931–1974, edited by James A. Brigham (1980)

In Spain:

• Poems selected (1935-1963). Alberto Corazón. ISBN 84-7053-077-1.
• Durrell: Selected Poems (1983). Visor Books, ISBN 84-7522-023-1.

Theatre

• Sappho: A Play in Verse (1950)
• An Irish Faustus: A Morality in Nine Scenes (1963)
• Acte (1964)

Humor

• Esprit de Corps (1957)
• Stiff Upper Lip (1958)
• Sauve Qui Peut (1966)

Letters and essays

• A Key to Modern British Poetry (1952)
• Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays on Travel (1969) edited by Alan G. Thomas
• Literary Lifelines: The Richard Aldington—Lawrence Durrell Correspondence (1981) edited by Ian S. MacNiven and Harry T. Moore
• A Smile in the Mind's Eye (A smile in the eye of the mind) (1982). Edhasa, 1984 and 1989
• The Durrell-Miller Letters: 1935–80 (1988), edited by Ian S. MacNiven. In Spain: Durrell-Miller Letters: 1935-1980Edhasa, 1992. ISBN 84-350-1221-2.
• Reading Henry Miller. In Spain: Plaza & Janés Editores, 1984 ISBN 84-01-38022-7.