Afrodit'in Başkaldırısı: Tunc ve Nunquam

by Lawrence Durrell, Aslı Biçen (Translator)

" Bütün “has” okurlarda derin bir iz bırakmış o müthiş İskenderiye Dörtlüsü’nün yazarı Lawrence Durrell’ın en az onun kadar etkileyici bir başka romanını sunuyoruz... Afrodit’in Başkaldırısı’nda olaylar Atina-İstanbul-Londra üçgeni içinde, Merlin adlı uluslararası bir şirket etrafında geçiyor. Merlin, Doğu-İstanbul kanadını bir kardeşin, Batı-Londra kanadını bir diğerinin yönettiği son derece karanlık, siyasi anlamda çok etkili ve dünyanın dört bir yanındaki yetenekli insanların girmeye can attığı dev bir şirketler topluluğudur. Atina’da bir “bellek ve öngörü makinesi” üstünde çalışmalar yapan bir mucit şirketin dikkatini çeker, İstanbul’a çağrılır. Mucit, alımlı, gizemli, Doğulu ve sinir hastası bir kadın olan “son kardeş”e âşık olur, şirkete en tepesinden girer... Durrell, kapitalizm ve teknoloji merkezli modern kültürel değerleri inceler ve eleştirirken yer yer bilim-kurgu tekniklerinden yararlanır. Olayları denetleme gücü neredeyse tanrısal boyutlara varan Merlin’e ya da onun temsil ettiği müteşebbis kültüre karşı verilen amansız özgürlük mücadelesini anlatırken, karakterler arasındaki aşk-nefret ilişkilerini de olağanüstü bir derinlikle işler, insan olmanın anlamını sorgular... Doğu ve Batı kültürleri içindeki insanlar birbirlerinden ne bakımdan farklıdırlar? Kişi, kültürünü ne ölçüde aşabilir? “Yanılsamaların en verimlisi” olan özgürlük neden bu denli gereklidir, insan ne kadar özgür olabilir? İnsanın yarattığı bir şey (bir robot, bir şirket, bir sistem) kendisinden daha özgür olabilir mi? İnsan, belleği olan bir yaratık olmanın ötesinde nedir? Aşk ve yaratım kurtuluş mudur? Güzelliği ve acımasızlığıyla insanı iliklerine kadar sarsan bir roman. Müthiş bir edebiyat şöleni. “İskenderiye Dörtlüsü, bizi tatmin eder; Afrodit’in Başkaldırısı bizi rahatsız eder. Şiddetli ama gülünç, vahşi ama eğlenceli bir saldırıdır komplekslerimize. Durrel bir sanatçı olarak gelişmesinde okuyucusunu ardında bırakan ne ilk ne de son sanatçıdır. Eğer İskenderiye Dörtlüsü ve Afrodit’in Başkaldırısı arasındaki farkın bir gelişme olduğunu anlayabilmişsek Durrel’ın en dolambaçlı, en güçlü ve en tatmin edici eseri olan Afrodit’in Başkaldırısı’nı da anlamaya başlamışız demektir.” Reed Way Dasenbrock / Cumhuriyet Kitap

Genres: Novels, British Literature

506 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 1990

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

[Майя Ставитская · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Dilogy, not without snobbery called Tunc and Nunquam, an obvious reference to the Latin "Aut Tunc, aut Nunquam..." - "now or never", which rather das not even suggest, that the reader is familiar with classical Latin, but fixes the reading status of intellectual, even before it begin.

Published in nineteen seventy for, twelve years after "The Alexandria Quartet", did not repeat the success. The critics and readers reacted rather coolly to it. I think not without reason. The meсhaniсal transfer of the themes and types of the for books from Alexandria to Athens and Konstantinopol, with the replacement of the Writer with the Inventor did not work.

The cities of the "Revolt of Afrodita" did not come to life like the Alexandria of the first circle. And shameless self-copy is closer to the market than to the literature.


Обедня безбожника или Евангелие от Ларри
Марк, Иоанн, Матфей, Лука
Шли ко мне издалека,
А с ними бог Содома -
Садо - Задо - Поли - Гомо.
"Блин, вы ж только ж то птсали, что не любите Лоренса Даррела, или то были не вы?" - прилетает вопрос из читающего сообщества ЖЖ. То была я. Читать кого-то, вовсе не означает любить его. Разные бывают причины взять книгу, "Бунт Афродиты" игровое задание "Долгой прогулки". Если бы не оно, сомневаюсь, что обратилась бы когда-нибудь снова к писателю, куда менее известному у нас, чем его младший брат Джеральд - мне "Александрийского квартета" за глаза хватило.

Кстати, об авторе "Моей семьи других зверей", говорят, что в англоязычных странах, статус "брата писателя Даррелла" закреплен не за Ларри, а как раз за Джерри, там литературный авторитет Лоренса Джорджа Даррелла по сей день непререкаем. Так или иначе, заставить братьев мериться, хм, известностью не входило в мои сегодняшние планы. Остается порадоваться за жителей острова Корфу, чей уровень жизни, благодаря "Дарреловской индустрии" значительно улучшился.

Однако к роману. Дилогия включающая книги, не без снобизма названные Tunc и Nunquam, явная отсылка к латинскому "Aut Tunc, aut Nunquam …" - "теперь или никогда", скорее даже не предполагающая в читателе знакомства с классической латынью, но закрепляющая за чтением статус интеллектуального еще до его начала.

Увидевший свет в тысяча девятьсот семьдесят четвертом, через двенадцать лет после "Александрийского квартета", двухтомник не повторил успеха. Критики и читающая публика отнеслись к нему довольно прохладно, думаю, не без оснований. Механическая пересадка тем и типажей четырехкнижия из Александрии в Афины, Константинополь (и чуть Лондона, хотя в Квартете немножко его тоже было), с заменой Писателя на Изобретателя, не выстрелила.

Города "Бунта Афродиты" не ожили на страницах, как это случилось с Александрией первого цикла, которая стала равноправным героем повествования. А беззастенчивое самокопирование по принципу: раз читателю нравится молодой талантливый но пока не добившийся успеха герой, чужак в умеренно-экзотической бедной стране, который одновременно крутит романы с прекрасной шлюхой и светской львицей; вхож в дипломатические круги; пользуется покровительством сказочно богатого и могущественного мецената, становясь пешкой в его играх - что ж, дадим ему это. Такая позиция ближе к рынку, чем к литературе.

Знаете, что напоминает эта история? Произошедшее пятью годами раньше с Набоковым, когда весьма умеренных литературных достоинств "Ада или Эротиада", брошена была читающей публике жалким подобием "Лолиты", соединенной с "Бледным пламенем": "Читатель ждет уж рифмы "розы"? На вот, бери ее скорей!", нравятся вам эротические картинки с участием малолетних девочек и "Россия_которую_мы_потеряли" - пожалуйста, еще и клубнички прибавим. В том и другом случае это стало дорогой в никуда. Дар требовательный симбионт, не выносящий попыток накормить его осетриной второй свежести. Только горячая соленая пульсирующая кровь сердца.

Герои выглядят не слишком удачными копиями Дарли, Мелиссы, Жюстин, Нессима, Клео и Маунтолива из "Квартета". Малосимпатичный Феликс Ч. - гениальный, по замыслу автора, изобретатель, всю первую книгу занят унылым отлаживанием диктофона, однако во второй внезапно курирует создание робота-андроида, неотличимого от человека и между делом, во время лыжной прогулки, записывает губнушкой жены на рулоне туалетной бумаги революционный метод энергопотребления, на порядок снижающий потери, и способный увести человечество прямиком в золотой век. Чтобы понятнее, это как дядя Миша охранник вдруг стал бы директором завода, на проходной которого сидел. В остальное время герой рефлексирует, жалуясь на жизнь, впрочем, довольно поэтично, интеллектуально и забавно.

Материальная часть тоже из рук вон плоха. Как могло случиться, что интересы предвосхитившей свое время глобальной мегакорпорации, какой предстает Фирма, столь мелки? Чем они там вообще занимаются? В чем роль Джулиана, кроме эффектных дефиле по книжному пространству на супердорогих авто в стильных костюмах? Впрочем, такое обычно случается, когда человек принимается говорить о вещах, о которых имеет смутное представление.

Неудивительно, что западные читатели невысоко оценили дилогию. Кому другому простили бы вторичность и дурновкусие, но когда ожидания высоки, Noblesse Oblige. В остальном, недурственное и занятное чтение, затрагивающее многие вопросы, актуальные по сей день: соотношение свободы творчества и зависимости творца от материальных факторов, любовь и дружба, уважение и сотрудничество, всякого рода нежность к ревущему зверю.

А также, тут мне подсказали - возможность решения психологических проблем и преодоления депрессивных состояний, связанных с одиночеством, путем создания цифрового симулякра средствами искусственного интеллекта.

[Pete Marchetto · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vague memories of having read 'The Alexandria Quartet' decades ago, remembering nothing about it bar having enjoyed it, led me to give this work a whirl with happy expectations.

They were soon dashed. I will now have to return to the quartet to find out what I enjoyed.

Kicking off with the first novel, 'Tunc', we are thrown into a mishmash of verbiage in brief section segments. Retrospectively, this looks like the repetitious turning of an ignition key in a car that refuses to start. No doubt I missed a great deal - indeed, I sought out some sort of plot summary on the internet for fear I had done so but to no avail - but what I certainly noticed was the plethora of unfamiliar words. No slouch when it comes to my vocabulary sure, I have to look up the odd word here and there - no one is perfect - but this? They came in battalions, and I gave up looking.

I knew something was going on. There were after all sentences and these sentences described actions. Unfortunately, I glazed over with such frequency that I wasn't getting a handle on how it all hung together.

But then, suddenly, with a roar, the key turned and the engine started. We were off! In a long section lacking breaks - or brakes to extend the analogy - we shot down a fascinating road together, Durrell and I, and I fell in love with the man all over again. Definite overtones here of Fowles with 'The Magus', a strange realism of a mysterious company and its odd denizens promising wonders. All the verbiage that had gone before didn't seem to matter. It was as if nothing of any great importance had been missed. Which was odd.

Then the car stalled again and it was back to the fruitless turning of the ignition key. Mysteries didn't so much resolve themselves as fizzle out. Spoilers? Hmm... okay, not sure whether it counts as a spoiler if the giveaway is '... and then nothing happened', but if you fear even that, maybe stop here.

Not such a spoiler alert, then.

Take Julian. A most mysterious gentleman. Does he even exist? His presence is always inexplicably just out of reach beyond a disembodied voice on the telephone. So much potential there... and then we just... well... meet him. And that's it. For the rest of the book. He's just there like any other character in a book. Does that count as a spoiler? Maybe.

Then there's a murder plot. It feels like a strange overreaction to events but okay, we go with it. Only, it goes wrong. Sure, there's a death... but the wrong victim. The murderer should have been devastated but, instead, takes it in his stride. Indeed, I can only remember one reference to it later on along the lines of 'Oh dear, how sad, what's for dinner?' Beyond that, no sign of trauma.

Nor does the killer turn again on his intended victim. Indeed, they seem to get on perfectly well. Nor does his intended victim, aware of the intention, seem to have any concern about the killer whatsoever.

Essentially, nothing seems consequential. People die... but then come back again, not having died really for example, a suggestion of what is to come when someone who has really died comes back anyway.

But the sense is that Durrell has no real plan here, he's just mucking around until something comes up that looks promising which he then follows for a while before getting bored and wandering off to look for something else.

Suspension of disbelief in the first book is taxed in the background by technological innovations centuries in advance of the book's setting which, being the real world of the nineteenwhatevers, means familiarity makes the challenge still more taxing. In the second book, with an even more advanced technology taking centre stage, disbelief is no longer suspended but crashes and burns.

Ah, but this is allegory, right? Well no, not really. Magic realism? Science fiction? Nope, none of these things. It's just an unwarranted intrusion into realism as if Gandalf suddenly popped up in EastEnders. Then, having intruded, just sat there picking his nose. It doesn't even really go anywhere.

At this point, I am sure a few readers will be looking down their nose at me and saying 'Ah, but he didn't spot...' and 'Why didn't he realise that it...' etc. This is a work that lends itself to analysis. Like diving into some cloudy waters off an unknown land I'm sure exotic species can be descried through the murk.

Some of them may even be real.

It's the kind of work you could lay before a class of English literature undergraduates knowing they can write reams on all the hidden meanings lurking within the work but which, in reality, are plucked from their own imaginations. Durrell is, after all, an intellect to be reckoned with or why would we need to consult a dictionary so often? And some of the passages are undoubtedly beautifully written.

But me? Nah, sorry. I don't buy it. All I see here is a chancer work where the author struck out waiting for something to turn up, but after 500+ pages it hadn't, so he stopped. (Okay, yes, dramatic ending, forgot that bit, a couple of pages that felt like real closure. Unfortunately, there was nothing really there to close).

No doubt I've missed something. Perhaps I've missed much. But honestly? I've no interest in going back to look for it.

[Lysergius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing after "The Alexandrian Quartet" and "The Avignon Quintet". The plot seems a little far fetched, and the conclusion forced. One has the feeling that the writer was out of his depth writing what is effectively science fiction. There are some fine descriptions of Greece and Turkey and the concept of the Merlin organisation is interesting, but it all seems a bit thin somehow.

[Tadzio Koelb · Rating 3 out of 5]

From my short biography of Lawrence Durrell for British Writers: Retrospective Supplement III :

"The evident reversal of intentions between The Alexandria Quartet and The Revolt of Aphrodite could not have occurred without the resolve of the author, whose work is always intellectually constructed – perhaps increasingly so. If The Alexandria Quartet feels to some extent like a great novel sometimes altered to indulge a theory, The Revolt of Aphrodite reads in long sections rather like a grand, albeit unfocussed theory – eschatological, quasi-Marxist, and strongly Freudian – fashioned unconvincingly to resemble a novel. The change certainly did not go unnoticed by his readers, who were in general displeased, or by his American publisher, who refused the manuscript.

"There may have been other reasons for the book’s poor reception, however. One is that Durrell’s obvious lack of familiarity with – or even interest in – international business beyond its symbolic value to the novel means that The Revolt of Aphrodite is always tinged with an irremediable implausibility. Merlin is hard to swallow not because it is too powerful (in fact, it is in many ways prophetic of the contemporary multi-national), but because despite its power, its influence is strangely limited, and its concerns remarkably petty. How is it possible, in a notable instance, that a company seemingly in control of all world industry nevertheless fails to take over Iolanthe’s film career?

"The same can be said for the science part of this science-fiction story: if Charlock invents a series of revolutionary machines, why is there no revolution – no change, that is, to the nature of society? Readers may have found the space in which the story takes place, however clearly and intentionally anachronistic, somehow incomplete. Whatever the case, The Revolt of Aphrodite is a complex, demanding, and difficult work of art, one that does not fall easily into any category, and one that confounded readers and critics alike."

[Lewis Manalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read the first book so far, but it's really great. Not the kind of plot-driven story that would get published these days.

[Andy Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read but astonishing, brilliant use of language and highly original.

[Nava]

Wild!!!