LIFE AND ART Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria home to be demolished


The train of thought here is why haven’t they made a film of his life in Alex? His art was his life with The Alexandria Quartet.

There was Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals – “comic exaggeration of the foibles of his family – especially his eldest brother Lawrence Durrell” – but no direct depiction of Lawrence in his milieu as he wrote.

This seems filmable. Though perhaps TAQ was so much him that it was considered a waste of time.

Another view: abstracting the real Durrell from his novel diminishes the novel. Not much read nowadays anyway as the style is deemed too old-fashioned and full of words that need to be looked up. I found it hard going myself, reading Justine in the 70s, then decades later the others. I was brought up in the Middle East and North Africa, so I took to it despite the densities.

Robert Fisk in looking at Durrell’s novel Judith mentions he wrote a script for it. Now we need to know if he ever wrote one for TAQ or even thought about it and discussed it. Maybe the letters to Henry Miller might help.