Imaginary conversations with my bookshelf
Lawrence Durrell is looking at me.
The Avignon Quintet, which I bought recently at a used bookstore in an unusually northern location of the city, has had its eye on me for weeks. It's making it hard to work.
The trouble is that Larry -- if I may call him that -- is a demanding, needy, consuming literary boyfriend.
No, you may not call me Larry, the book answers. You may call me Mr. Durrell.
Problematical, I scoff at the book. (Not really a word, but some situations require the extra syllable.) This doesn't help: nothing irritates Mr. Durrell more than made-up language.
Mr. Durrell, I try to reason, I am already reading David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable, which in addition to being able to fit in my purse is also funny. (Given the choice of authors to have at a dinner party, Rakoff wins. He is witty, brilliant and, at this moment, alive.)
Avignon is a big book; weighty; not portable. It requires the reader to hold in his or her head a full mythology of people, place, timeline, legend, mystery and fact over five books and a dense 1370 pages. Some of the characters are the imagined creations of other characters; there are hidden forces at work which are only illuminated to that devoted reader who has remained faithful and focused. I've been through this before. I spent a summer with the lush, orchidacious prose of the Alexandria Quartet, which I still hold as one of my most favourite books for its exactness, its complexity and the precise if perhaps earnest articulation of language and landscape and psychology. In Alexandria, it was not uncommon for Durrell to slip part of a sentence into Greek or Latin or French, a conceit which was forgiven because his command over language was so masterful and precise as to humble rather than annoy.
I last attempted Avignon some years ago while in Japan. I needed the isolation that Durrell demands, especially on those days when any trip outside my apartment required effort (to deal with the looks, the leers, the peeking into my grocery basket, the endless curiosity). Durrell is everything my Japanese life was not: articulate and based on a thorough understanding of motives.
I got a book and a half into the five, then gave up. I think came home for a holiday, and you can't leave Durrell alone or it all gets mouldy.
Incidentally, the Rackoff book is wonderful, highly recommended, and only demands that you be awake.
The Avignon Quintet, which I bought recently at a used bookstore in an unusually northern location of the city, has had its eye on me for weeks. It's making it hard to work.
The trouble is that Larry -- if I may call him that -- is a demanding, needy, consuming literary boyfriend.
No, you may not call me Larry, the book answers. You may call me Mr. Durrell.
Problematical, I scoff at the book. (Not really a word, but some situations require the extra syllable.) This doesn't help: nothing irritates Mr. Durrell more than made-up language.
Mr. Durrell, I try to reason, I am already reading David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable, which in addition to being able to fit in my purse is also funny. (Given the choice of authors to have at a dinner party, Rakoff wins. He is witty, brilliant and, at this moment, alive.)
Avignon is a big book; weighty; not portable. It requires the reader to hold in his or her head a full mythology of people, place, timeline, legend, mystery and fact over five books and a dense 1370 pages. Some of the characters are the imagined creations of other characters; there are hidden forces at work which are only illuminated to that devoted reader who has remained faithful and focused. I've been through this before. I spent a summer with the lush, orchidacious prose of the Alexandria Quartet, which I still hold as one of my most favourite books for its exactness, its complexity and the precise if perhaps earnest articulation of language and landscape and psychology. In Alexandria, it was not uncommon for Durrell to slip part of a sentence into Greek or Latin or French, a conceit which was forgiven because his command over language was so masterful and precise as to humble rather than annoy.
I last attempted Avignon some years ago while in Japan. I needed the isolation that Durrell demands, especially on those days when any trip outside my apartment required effort (to deal with the looks, the leers, the peeking into my grocery basket, the endless curiosity). Durrell is everything my Japanese life was not: articulate and based on a thorough understanding of motives.
I got a book and a half into the five, then gave up. I think came home for a holiday, and you can't leave Durrell alone or it all gets mouldy.
Incidentally, the Rackoff book is wonderful, highly recommended, and only demands that you be awake.
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