From the Elephant’s Back: Collected Essays & Travel Writings by Lawrence Durrell (PDF)

Description

“the proverb says that whoever sees the world from the back of an elephant learns the secrets of the jungle and becomes a seer. I had to be content to become a poet.”―Lawrence DurrellBest known for his novels and travel writing, Lawrence Durrell defied easy classification within twentieth-century Modernism. His anti-authoritarian tendencies put him at odds with many contemporaries―aesthetically and politically. However, thanks to a compelling recontextualization by editor James Gifford, these thirty-eight previously unpublished and out-of-print essays and letters reveal that Durrell’s maturation as an artist was rich, complex, and subtle. Durrell fans will treasure this selection of rare nonfiction, while scholars of Durrell, Modernist literature, anti-authoritarian artists, and the Personalist movement will also appreciate Gifford’s fine editorial work.”Gifford’s scholarly command of the archives shows―especially his working intimacy with the unpublished archived words of Durrell’s editors, publishers, and collaborators. I have no doubt that this collection will serve as a starting point for any number of new critical ventures into the life and writing of Lawrence Durrell.”―Charles Sligh, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Editor James Gifford has done a great favor to worldwide Durrell readers by shepherding – sorry, wrong word – this delightful volume of virtually unpublished Durrelliana. If he’s ‘out of favor’ along with his great friend Henry Miller, I’m pretty confident their millions of fans will prevail to see them read anew in the near future. For right now, this is a welcome presentation of rare materials, starting with the title essay: originally a French language talk delivered at the Pompidue Center in 1982. After some initial self-mythologizing (charming but beside-the-fact,) the author reveals his thinking about the work-in-progress, which should point anyone who hasn’t yet had the pleasure to the Avignon Quintet. There are lovely homages to Wordsworth (amusingly co-praising Durrell by the same token), Cavafy, Seferis, Groddeck, Zarian et al. I wasn’t so taken with his Shakespeare criticism except about the Sonnets, which became quite steamy. I’d mostly been laughing out loud at the notes, in a good way. Editor Gifford more than once calls out the esteemed author of the Alexandria Quartet and his unique Island books, and more, for some no-doubt inadvertent errors and omissions…but this amusing one was by Durrell himself near the end of the book, writing movingly about Sadat at the time of the Camp David accords and the risk he was running – all perfectly prescient in hindsight. But this was his bon mot about tourism to the Pyramids in 1978: “The Egyptians were rather astonished by the great age of many of the American tourists, and they marveled at their stamina. I must say, it did seem sometimes as if whole geriatric wards had been swept up and pushed into aeroplanes.” The author was 66 at the time, young at heart with sense of humor intact! Durrell fans – this belongs in your collection.

⭐Great book! Really enjoyed reading it over the break. Would recommend!

⭐Gifford has collected a wide variety of Durrell’s writings and has organized them in a meaningful and useful manner. The physical book is beautiful and the design and layout are noteworthy.

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