Panic Spring: A Romance (E L S Monograph Series) by Lawrence Durrell

by Lawrence Durrell

First published in 1937, two years after Durrell took up residence on the Greek island Kerkyra, Panic Spring broke with the realist tradition in 1930s novels and shows the young author s first attempts to extend High Modernist innovations in rural and personal landscapes. Cubist, surrealist, and imagist techniques merge with rural life and the peasant village that an international group of expatriates are led to by a curiously Pan-like boatman. Unavailable for seven decades, this new edition of Panic Spring shows Durrell s emerging passion for Mediterranean life and the Greek world as well as his first attempts to articulate a political-aesthetic direction distinct from his peers, George Orwell and W.H. Auden. Under the shadow of financial and political ruin, on the verge of revolution and war, the one chance summer depicted in Panic Spring will make readers reconsider the impetus and interests behind Durrell s late modernist masterpieces, The Alexandria Quartet, The Black Book, and Prospero s Cell.

Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

Lawrence George Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for The Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. A passionate and dedicated writer from an early age, Durrell’s prolific career also included the groundbreaking Avignon Quintet, whose first novel, Monsieur (1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and whose third novel, Constance (1982), was nominated for the Booker Prize. He also penned the celebrated travel memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize. Durrell corresponded with author Henry Miller for forty-five years, and Miller influenced much of his early work, including a provocative and controversial novel, The Black Book (1938). Durrell died in France in 1990.

The time Lawrence spent with his family, mother Louisa, siblings Leslie, Margaret Durrell, and Gerald Durrell, on the island of Corfu were the subject of Gerald's memoirs and have been filmed numerous times for TV.

Reviews

[Pamela Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Given my involvement in all things Durrell, I have wanted to read this for a while. This is Durrell's second novel, and like his first, Pied Piper of Lovers, this was published under the pseudonym Charles Norden. Durrell was not a fan of his own first two novels, and when the unsold copies were destroyed during the Blitz, he opted not to have them reprinted. Most readers are not even aware these two novels exist, but Durrell scholar James Gifford, after editing and adding numerous mostly helpful footnotes, published it with a foreword by another Durrell scholar Richard Pine, and an afterword by yet another big name in Durrell studies, the late James A. Brigham. The articles are useful, as are most of the footnotes; however, I spent a great deal of time looking up odd phrases and references that should have had explanations, while other notes address the perfectly obvious (I think most readers know who Jonathan Swift was, know that Madama Butterfly is an opera, and that "thine is the kingdom" comes from the Lord's Prayer/Our Father; yet I still haven't figured out what the sentence "it would take more than a verse of the Electra to stop them" means; is it a reference to Sophocles' play? How does it work in this passage?) However, the essays and the footnotes are useful, and I am grateful for this edited edition; I would have been fairly lost if I had just picked up the book without any sort of context.

The novel itself is not plot driven (written in 1936, it hearkens back to the modernist novels of the twenties; there are also numerous references to Eliot and Pound), and quite frankly, is more useful as an introduction to themes, characters, and motifs that Durrell will use throughout the rest of his oeuvre than it is an enjoyable read on its own. Readers of the Alexandria Quartet will be familiar with Durrell's concept of "work points," that is, an appendix in which he notes ideas that he might develop in later novels. This book is generally two hundred pages of work points; not a bad thing, especially for someone interested in Durrell's development.

Mainly, this book is a collection of character studies, most of whom engage in the constant self-evaluation and deep philosophizing we see later in the Avignon Quintet. What "happens" is that five English citizens wind up on a Greek island that is owned by a very wealthy but broken hearted Greek tycoon. That is the extent of the plot. I kept hoping that eventually the characters would engage in some sort of mystery (one thinks of Fowles' The Magus; I wonder if Fowles read this novel), but they don't, and if I were a writer and not too worried about plagiarism, I would take these characters and add a Gothic plot...I mean, all the elements are there).

For my own interests, the Dionysian aspects of the novel were attractive, but never carried out; there are references to goat-like hooves, Pan-like flutes, and the like, but again, there are only these motifs, and they never go anywhere. I actually wanted there to be a "Panic Spring," some sort of locus where the contrast between the Dionysian and the Apollonian might be played out. I suppose the death of Roumanades could be paralleled with the death of Pan, but if that is what Durrell meant, he needed to make Roumanades in Pan's image, but instead he is dour and much too civilized to be a Panic figure. The tease of the title does not pan out, if you will (please) forgive the pun.

Again, the novel seems to be more a collection of notes for future reference, which is fine, and made the novel worth the read for me. However, a couple of aspects of the novel are VERY annoying and elicited a few caustic marginal notes. First of all, there is way too much Hamlet. Durrell references the play or quotes it numerous times, almost it seems (to this irritated reader) every other page. I may have missed something important here, but I don't even see the connection; perhaps the hesitation of the characters as they hover between a few life choices? There certainly isn't much in the way of Oedipal relationships. So, generally, these constant quotes and references didn't do anything but annoy; I have little patience with Hamlet to begin with, and the unsubtle references did not do a thing to change that.

But the MOST annoying aspect of this book is Durrell's reference so many of the characters as "the boy" and "the girl." The characters are all adults, at least in their mid-twenties or older. Furthermore, many times, the reader isn't sure which "boy" he is referring to. This usage was off-putting to say the least and even if I could have tolerated the objectification and gendering once or twice, the overuse of these terms actively diverted one's attention. In addition to constantly having to track down who "the boy" in question might be, the usage detracts from Durrell's otherwise colorful descriptions. I'm very glad he did not continue this usage; it was truly irritating.

As always, Durrell's prose is full-blown, like a rose at the end of its vase-life: it verges on the cloying, but also mesmerizes. I'm very glad to have read this book, but also glad that it's almost a secret. I would be sad for anyone to come to Durrell through this book; it is more related to his notebooks (in Durrell lingo, what are called "quarry books") than any sort of the grand ideas he developed in the Quartet, the Revolt of Aphrodite, or the Quintet. Durrell scholars should definitely read this book, but the casual reader would be much more satisfied by Durrell's major novels.

[Write Room · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoying another fascinating book from the Durrell family!