Klappentext

LAWRENCE DURRELL

This book studies the works of Lawrence Durrell (February 27, 1912 - November 7, 1990), the great British writer. It explores all of Durrell s major works, including The Alexandria Quartet, The Black Book, the poetry, The Avignon Quintet and the Tunc-Nunquam books, many of lesser-known pieces, and reviews all of the Durrell criticism, and Durrell s literary friendships (with Henry Miller, T. S. Eliot, George Seferis, Richard Aldington, etc).

The response that Lawrence Durrell so often generates is negative: critics call him pretentious, baroque, overblown, high-flown, too intellectual, too metaphysical, overwritten, too rich, etc. The Avignon Quintet, his last major work, was received as lush , with fantastic characters, opulent landscapes , flamboyant... rich, easy style , prose that was ringingly evocative , an elaborate tapestry .

For some critics, Durrell s books are accurate, moving and intensely readable as a critic wrote of Bitter Lemons, while another critic sees Durrell s novels as so beautiful in surface and so uncertain below it .

It was the 1950s novel Justine that really launched Durrell s career, for Justine was a large, complex work that promised much for the following instalments in The Alexandria Quartet. Durrell s reputation rests largely on the achievement of The Alexandria Quartet, and it is to the Quartet that critics generally refer when they discuss Durrell. And when Durrell s name appears in the index of a book of literary criticism, The Alexandria Quartet is usually being considered.

Includes illustrations, a full bibliography and notes.