Theorems and the purity of the desert (by L. Durrell)

The masterpiece of the English writer Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990) was undoubtedly The Alexandria Quartet, consisting of the novels Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958) and Clea (1960). They portray pre-World War II Alexandria in choral form and offer multiple points of view on the same events, to the point of questioning whether there is indeed a single reality or a multiplicity of them. In his novels, Durrell did not shy away from metaphors with a clear scientific and mathematical flavour, of which I bring to mind the following example (taken from Balthazar):

And then: the first pure draughts of desert air, and the nakedness of space, pure as a theorem, stretching away into the sky drenched in all its own silence and majesty,…

Indeed, in a note prior to Justine, Durrell appealed to relativity to explain, in part, what he was proposing with his tetralogy: “Since modern literature offers us no Units, I have turned to science to make a novel like a four-bridge ship whose shape is based on the principle of relativity. Three sides of space and one of time constitute the recipe for cooking a continuum. All four novels follow this scheme. However, the first three parts unfold in space (hence I consider them as sisters, not successors to each other) and do not constitute a series. They are interposed, interwoven in a purely spatial relationship. Time is in suspense. Only the last part represents time and is a true successor”. Without detracting from this explanation, I think quantum mechanics would have provided Durrell with a better scientific metaphor for what the reader ends up finding in The Alexandria Quartet.

For those who want a good profile of the young Lawrence Durrell, I recommend The Durrells TV series, based on the memoirs that his brother, the zoologist and writer Gerald Durrell, wrote about the years the family spent on the Greek island of Corfu (1935-1939); Gerald Durrell’s memoirs make up a trilogy that is also highly recommended: My Family and Other Animals, Bugs and Other Relatives, and Garden of the Gods.