In
Egypt, in Alexandria to be precise, if precision be our goal, Lawrence Durrell
once attempted to fuse fiction into a relativistic universe that, poorly
interpreted, might blur perception to render all positions relevant. The aim
was vast and its non-achievement eventually irrelevant, for the quartet that
grew out of it proved to be an enduring masterpiece. Half a generation later,
and self-referentially, Lawrence Durrell began a quest to go one better. Over
the decade it took to construct, this magnum opus grew into a Quincunx, five
books that formed a whole, five petals of a great flower of a novel, all
attached, apparently, to a non-existent core. So now, thirty years on, what
does a new visit to Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx reveal?
Perhaps
Blanford should be offered the opportunity to open the discussion. Who is
Blanford? Now there’s a question. “My style may be described as one of
jump-cutting as with cinema film. The basic illustration is of course the
admission that reincarnation is a fact. The old stable outlines of the dear old
linear novel have been side-stepped in favour of soft focus palimpsest which
enables the actors to turn into each other, to melt into each other’s inner
lifespace if they wish. Everything and everyone comes closer and closer
together, moving towards the one. … But the book, my book, proved to be a guide
to the human heart, whose basic method is to loiter with intent…” This is how
Blanford himself describes his own work, for he, we are told, is the author.
A
word of warning: Lawrence Durrell is as good as Blanford’s word. Lawrence Durrell
is a wrier, a novelist, who invents Blanford, who is also a novelist. In his
novel, Lawrence Durrell has his creation, Blanford, write a novel, in which he
invents a character called Stucliffe, who is a novelist, and who writes a book.
Characters that Durrell invents, or even perhaps knows, live alongside
Blanford, himself a fiction, and are reinvented by Sutcliffe, under different
titles but with the same character, in his own fiction, which really is written
by Blanford, who is Durrell.
So
we have a fiction within a fiction, featuring the same characters, but with
different names. They sometimes meet one another and, ego to alter ego, discuss
the others and sometimes themselves. Here and there, just to clarify things,
the writer also includes thoughts and actions from characters in the Alexandria
Quartet, who seem to relish being cameo-quoted in these new surroundings. Don’t
worry, because they don’t exist either.
Blanford’s
assertion that material will be inter-cut has to be taken seriously. There is barely
a page in the five novels of the Quincunx that does not slip from a layer of
apparent fact into fiction in order to render it fact and the source fiction.
And, of course, the whole thing is nothing more than the musings of Durrell,
who perhaps intends to loiter a little longer than he ought.
The
five books of the Quincunx, Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx,
often approach an approximation of plot. There’s Tu Duc near Avignon in France,
an old house near the city of Popes. It has its own memories, almost its own
character. But is it real? Of course it isn’t! Just ask one of the characters
to confirm its fiction. There’s a cult of Gnostics in the Egyptian desert who
seem to convene like some diplomatic corps whose party has lost its bearings
while on its way to an official gathering. There is drug abuse, and a lot of
sex. They are human, after all, aren’t they?
There
is also mental illness and breakdown. There is congenital deformity, illness
and death. There is sexuality of every persuasion, visits to bordellos and
yearnings for more, something more. There’s a Templar treasure to be
discovered, a Nazi occupation to endure, labour camps and internment, novels to
be written, relationships to perfect. Confused? Why should anyone be confused?
What, after all, is there to be confused about? We wake up and, as long as we
loiter around long enough, we go to bed and, if we are lucky again with the
loitering, we sleep or, if we are a tad luckier, make love. So what?
Lawrence
Durrell’s Quincunx, the Avignon Quintet, feels very much like an author’s
commonplace. It’s a disjointed and sometimes deliberately obtuse, often
intentionally banal set of musings. It’s five books that head in no particular
direction and go nowhere on their extensive travels, but explore character
along the way, without ever really getting near any of the humanity they
encounter. They dip into history which is always present, and seek material
consequences in ethereal ideas. And, sure enough, it loiters around in its
unfocused way for what increasingly seems like a lifetime. And where does it
go? Where does it finish? Now there’ a question…
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