Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)

Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990)
Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, best known for THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET (1957-60). Many once believed it would secure Durrell the Nobel Prize for Literature. The experimental novel of mystery, love, and espionage explored memory, contradicting a love affair of a young writer with the recollections of the other people. Durrell spent most of his life outside England - in India, Corfu, Egypt, Yugoslavia, Rhodes, Cyprus, and the south of France. Durrell was born in Darjeeling, India, as the son of Lawrence Samuel Durrell, a British engineer, and Louisa (Dixie) Durrell, who was an Irish. At the age of twelve he was taken to England. Durrell had little feeling for England and the English. He attended numerous schools from 1923 to 1928 without much success, and worked for some time as a jazz pianist in a London nightclub. In the 1930s he went to Paris, where he started his career as a writer and associated with such author as Henry Miller, who became his mentor. The two kept up an exchange of letters over 45 years. In 1935 Durrell moved with his mother to the island of Corfu - several of his works were later connected to Mediterranean countries. His brother Gerald Durrell described life there in his book My Family and Other Animals (1956). Between the years 1934 and 1940 he edited a little magazine called Booster (later Delta). Durrell's first novel of interest, THE BLACK BOOK: AN AGON, heavily influenced by Miller, was published in Paris in 1938. The mildly pornographic fantasia did not appear in Britain until 1973. In the story Lawrence Lucifer struggles to escape the spiritual sterility of dying England, and finds Greece's warmth and fertility. During WW II Durrell served as a press attaché to the British embassies in Cairo and Alexandria from 1941 to 1944. After the war he held various diplomatic and teaching jobs. He worked in Rhodos, Belgrad, finally settling in Cyprus in 1953. From 1947 to 1948 he was a director of the British Council Institute in Argentina. Durrell's observation of the diplomatic life at the British legation in Belgrade, where he was from 1949 to 1952, gave him material for WHITE EAGLES OVER SERBIA (1957), which gained considerable success.

In the story Colonel Methuen of Special Operations Q Branch is called to the office of his commanding officer and asked: "How far would it be if one walked from Belgrade to Salonika? Methuen starts his perilious mission which takes him deep into the mountains of Yugoslavia. Durrell's description of the highlands of the country forms an intrinsic part of the novel. "The woods were carpeted with flowers, sweet-smelling salvia, cranesbill, and a variety of ferns. Here and there, too, bright dots of scarlet showed him where the wild strawberries grew, and in these verdant woods the pines and beeches increased in size until he calculated that he was walking among glades of trees nearly a hundred feet in height. He could not help contrasting all this place and beauty with the grim errand upon which he was bent, and which might lead to him to sudden death." (from White Eagles over Serbia)
In 1953 Durrell left diplomatic service and moved to Cyprus, but from 1954 to 1956 he returned to it, on account of the Cypriot revolution, as director of Public Relations for the British Government. He finally settled in Provence, France, where he lived for the rest of his life. Among his later works are JUSTINE (1957), in which Justine's emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly-charged atmosphere, BALTHAZAR (1958), MOUNTOLIVE (1959) and CLEA (1960), formig together the Alexandria Quartet, entitled 'The Book of the Dead.' All four parts in the work climax in death. Set in Alexandria during the period just before World War II, the first three novels cover roughly the same period of time and the events, while Clea advances the action in time. Principal characters include the narrator L.G. Darley, his Greek mistress Melissa, the British ambassador Mountolive, the British intelligence agent Pursewarden, Durrell's spokesman for artistic vision, although his ambiquous death already in Justine, the artist Clea, and Justine, and her wealthy Coptic husband Nessim. All are bound together in a web of political and sexual intrigue: each novel reveals different aspect of the truth. Darley's point of view from Justine is contradicted by others in Balthazar, Mountolive gives the facts, and Clea tells of the writer's journey of self discovery. Conventional distinctions - major/minor characters, main plots/subplots - are denied. Numerous characters disappear, then reemerge in altered form. The books gained critical acclaim, but the movie based upon the story was a flop. Durrell sought to replicate his success with The Avignon Quintet: MONSIEUR; OR, THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1974), LIVIA; OR, BURIED ALIVE (1978), CONSTANCE; OR, SOLITARY PRACTICES (1982); SEBASTIAN; OR, RULING PASSIONS (1983).

Although the works had much in common, The Avignon Quintet did not beat commercially its predecessor. Durrell also produced several travel books describing the places he had visited. Other publications include humorous short stories, plays in verse, and poems. Durrell was married four times, in 1935 with Nancy Meyers (divorced in 1947), and then with Yvette Cohen. His third marriage, in 1961 to a Frenchwoman, Claude, ended with her death in 1967. In 1973 he married Ghislaine de Boysson (divorced in 1979). He had two daughter by each of his first two marriages. His second daughter, Sappho, committed suicide in 1985, leaving behind writings that pointed accusingly to his father - probably without basis. Durrell died of a stroke at his home in Sommeèrs, on November 7, 1990, following a lenghty struggle with emphysema. Durrell's brother Gerald Durrell (see below), zoologist and traveller, gained popularity with his animal stories, including My Family and Other Animals (1956), A Zoo in My Luggage (1960), Birds, Beasts and Relatives (1969), Catch me a Colobus (1972), The Mockery Bird (1981), Marrying Off Mother (1991). For further reading: Lawrence Durrell: A Biography by Ian S. MacNiven (1998); Lawrence Durrell: Coversations, ed. by Earl G. Ingersoll (1998); Through the Dark Labyrinth by Gordon Bowker (1997); Lawrence Durrell's Major Novels by Donald P. Kaczvisnky (1997); Lawrence Durrel: Comprehending the Whole, by Julius Rowan Raper et al (1995); Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape by Richard Pine (1994); On Miracle Ground, ed. by Michael H. Begnal (1990); Lawrence Durrell by John A. Weigel (1989); Critical Essays on Lawrence Durrell, ed. by A.W. Friedman (1986); Joyce Cary and Lawrence Durrell by S. Vander Closter (1985); Lawrence Durrell and the Alexandria Quartet by A.W. Friedman (1970); The Muse of Science and the Alexandria Quartet (1978); Lawrence Durrell by G.S. Fraser (1970); Lawrence Durrell: A Study by G.S. Fraser (1968, rev. ed. 1973); The World of Lawrence Durrell by H.T. Moore (1962); My Friend Lawrence Durrell by A.

Perles (1961) - Other writers who have depicted Alexandria: Constantine Cavafy, Naguib Mahfouz, Edward el-Kharrat
Selected works:
· QUAINT FRAGMENT, 1931
· TEN POEMS, 1932
· BALLADE OF SLOW DECAY, 1932
· BROMO BOMBASTES, 1933
· TRANSITION, 1934
· MASS FOR THE OLD YEAR, 1935
· PIED PIPER OF LOVERS, 1935
· PANIC SPRING, 1937 (as Charles Norden)
· THE BLACK BOOK, 1938 - Musta kirja
· POEMS, 1938
· A PRIVATE COUNTRY, 1943
· PROSPERO'S CELL, 1945
· CITIES, PLAINS AND PEOPLE, 1946
· ZERO, AND ASYLUM IN THE SNOW, 1946
· THE PARTHENON, 1946
· CEFFALÚ, 1947 - Pimeä sokkelo
· ON SEEMING TO PRESUME, 1948
· A LANDMARK GONE, 1949
· DEUS LOCI, 1950
· SAPPHO, 1950
· KEY TO MODERN POETRY, 1952
· THE TREE OF IDLENESS, 1953
· REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS, 1953
· THE TREE OF IDLENESS, 1955
· PRIVATE DRAFTS, 1955
· SELECTED POEMS, 1956
· ESPRIT DE CORPS, 1957
· BITTER LEMONS, 1957 - Katkerat sitruunat, suom. T.A. Engström
· WHITE EAGLES OVER SERBIA, 1957 - Serbian valkoiset kotkat
· Alexandria Quartet: JUSTINE, 1957 - suom. BALTHAZAR, 1958 - suom. MOUNTOLIVE, 1959 - suom. CLEA, 1960 - suom. T.A. Engström
· STIFF UPPER LIP, 1958
· ed.: THE HENRY MILLER READER, 1959
· ed.: THE BEST OF HENRY MILLER, 1960
· GRODDECK, 1960
· COLLECTED POEMS, 1960
· ACTÉ OR THE PRISONER OF TIME, 1961
· THE POETRY OF LAWRENCE DURRELL, 1962
· L.D. AND H. MILLER,1963 (a private correspondence with Henry Miller)
· AN IRISH FAUSTUS, 1963
· A PERSIAN LADY, 1963
· SELECTED POEMS, 1964
· ACTE, 1965
· THE ICONS, 1966
· SAUVE QUI PEUT, 1966
· TUNC, 1968
· NUMQUAM, 1970
· FAUSTUS, 1970
· THE RED LIMBO LINGO, 1971
· ON THE SUCHNESS OF THE OLD BOY, 1972
· VEGA, 1973
· THE PLAIN-MAGIC MAN, 1973
· LIFELINES, 1974
· COLLECTED POEMS, 1974
· THE BEST OF ANTROBUS, 1975
· MONSIEUR, 1975 - suom. · BLUE THIRST, 1975
· SICILIAN CAROUSEL, 1977
· LIVIA, 1978 - suom. · THE GREEK ISLANDS, 1978
· COLLECTED POEMS 1931-74, 1980
· A SMILE IN THE MINDS EYE, 1980
· LITERARY LIFELINES, 1981
· CONSTANCE; OR, SOLITARY PRACTICES, 1982
· SEBASTIAN, 1983
· QUINX, 1983
· ANTROBUS COMPLETE, 1985
· THE DURRELL-MILLER LETTERS 1935-1980, 1988
· LETTERS TO JEANFANCHETTE 1958-63, 1988
· CAESAR'S VAST GHOST, 1990
· HENRI MICHAUX, 1990
Muita suomennoksia: Engström, Saarikoski, Ilmari (transl.) Durrell, Lawrence - Miller, Henry - Perlés, Alfred: Kirjeitä, 1968 - Suomennettu myös osia Avignon-kvintetistä (Monsier ja Livia)

GERALD DURRELL (1925-1995)
British zoologist, traveller, writer, and broadcaster, brother of author Lawrence Durrell. - Gerald Durrell was born in Jamshedpur, India. When he was ten, his widowed mother took her family to live on the Greek island of Corfu. Durrell was educated by private tutors. From 1945 to 46 he worked at Whipsnade Zoo and then went on several animal collecting expeditions to Cameroon, Guyana, and other countries. In the 1950s Durrell published his first animal stories, which became very popular and have been translated into many languages. My Family and Other Animals (1956) told tales about his unconventional family and the islanders on Corfu. In The Drunken Forest (1978) and ThreeTickets to Adventure (1954) Durrell described animal-collecting expeditions. With his second wife Lee, a conservationist, Durrell bred rare species for eventual return to the wild.

In 1958 Durrell founded the Jersey Zoological Park. He was also founder chairman of Wildlife Preservation Trust International in 1972. Durrell died on January 30, 1995.