Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell's Novels 1443853151, 9781443853156

Table of contents :
Dedication
Epigraph
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword • Corinne Alexandre-Garner
Introduction • Ian S. MacNiven
List of Abbreviations
1. Durrell and India
2. Re-reading The Alexandria Quartet in the Light of J. Krishnamurti
3. Sexuality and Interior Liberation
4. Affad: A Cultural Hero and Contemplative Scientist
5. Illusion and Reality: The Existential Dilemma
Appendix: An Interview with Mulk Raj Anand about Lawrence Durrell
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels

Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels

By

C. Ravindran Nambiar

Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels, by C. Ravindran Nambiar This book first published 2014 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2014 by C. Ravindran Nambiar All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-5315-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-5315-6

Dedicated to my wife Prabha

I know that the bone structure of my work is metaphysically solid, so to speak, and that’s what counts. —Lawrence Durrell

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................. viii Foreword .................................................................................................... xi Dr. Corinne Alexandre-Garner Introduction ............................................................................................. xvii Prof. Ian S. MacNiven List of Abbreviations ............................................................................... xxii Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Durrell and India Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 36 Re-reading The Alexandria Quartet in the Light of J. Krishnamurti Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 68 Sexuality and Interior Liberation Chapter Four ............................................................................................ 103 Affad: A Cultural Hero and Contemplative Scientist Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 136 Illusion and Reality: The Existential Dilemma Appendix ................................................................................................. 165 An Interview with Mulk Raj Anand about Lawrence Durrell Notes........................................................................................................ 192 References ............................................................................................... 206 Index ........................................................................................................ 212

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr. James A. Brigham, the editor of Lawrence Durrell: Collected Poems, once expressed his desire to work with me on the Eastern mysticism in Lawrence Durrell’s works at Lawrence Durrell Research centre, S B College, Changanassery, Kerala, and the centre accepted the research project that he had submitted. Thus, he stayed in Kerala for over a month. He had interaction at Kochi with a professor who was known to be an authority on oriental philosophy, particularly on Buddhism, and he tried his best to give shape to his Eastern thoughts. The working title of his project was: “The Rays of the Sadhus: The Metaphysic of Lawrence Durrell”. In the project he submitted to the centre he stated that the proposed project would study the growth of Durrell’s metaphysic through his published work through sixty years and the independent work of both Ravi Nambiar and Brigham. After returning to Canada he planned to continue this project. During his stay in Kerala I could meet him only occasionally as I was working in Kochi, about three hours of drive from S. B. College. At the end of his stay in Kerala, he confessed to me that he could make no headway in his endeavour to grasp Indian philosophy. However, he promised to keep in touch with me when he got back to Canada. Before leaving, he left a copy of Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy with me, telling me that it would become useful if I ever decided to work further on Durrell. Indeed, the book has been greatly useful to me and, I hope, the present work will stay as a perennial proof of his brief friendship with me. I had agreed with Brigham before he left Kerala to continue our scholarly friendship and had suggested to him that we could still pursue our research together. My suggestion was that he could work on the Gnostic side of Durrell and I on his Indian side. He agreed. But fate decided other way. I received only two letters from him after his return to Canada. Later I came to know, to my utter shock, that he had left this world. In fact, I had no idea about the extent of the studies he had done on the subject and I also had no intension to pursue the project alone. But I owe him many thanks. All my papers presented at different Lawrence Durrell conferences are either part of the thesis I had written for my PhD degree or are extensions of the research work I had carried out for my doctoral degree. The advice

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to consolidate my papers and develop them into a book came from my Durrellian friend, Prof. Dianne Vipond, during a dinner meeting at Goodenough College, London, in June 2012, when we had gathered there for Lawrence Durrell Centenary Conference. Of course, all my papers put together would only be less than fifty pages, but they contain the essence of the present book. I offer my warm thanks to Vipond. However, the real scholarly inspiration I received is from Isabelle Keller-Privat, Toulouse University. I remain indebted to her for reading my manuscript with tremendous patience and giving me very valuable suggestions. Her insightful comments are inserted in the text at the appropriate places and my acknowledgement here should serve as the textual reference to her remarks. It was a great pleasure to work with Keller-Privat. She also helped me by sending material from Durrell Archive at Paris University, Nanterre. I extend my sincere thanks to her. I thank Prof. Ian S. MacNiven and Prof. Corinne Alexandre-Garner for the “Introduction” and the “Foreword”. My friendship with Prof. MacNiven goes back to 1992. I could not have attended the International Lawrence Durrell conferences without the support that kept coming from MacNiven. In fact, he is my Guru in many respects. He was quite busy writing a book; but he managed to snatch time for reading my manuscript and writing the introduction. I must also thank him for giving me permission to quote from his earlier letters written to me. I met Alexandre-Garner first at the Avignon Durrell conference in 1992. I thank her for permitting me to use my own essays published by her at her university (Lawrence Durrell at the Crossroads of Arts and Sciences (2010) and Lawrence Durrell: Borderlands & Borderlines (2005), Presses Universitaires de Paris 10). She has been kind enough to read my manuscript minutely and I thank her for the valuable observations she made in the “Foreword”. I could always approach the great writer, Michael Haag, whenever I needed any help and within minutes he would respond. I thank him. I must recall Dr. Mulk Raj Anand who gave me a chance to interview him. The valuable observations he made in the interview about Lawrence Durrell’s metaphysical ideas enrich the arguments I have presented in my text. I also thank my brother, Radhakrishnan, who read out my questionnaire to Anand and recorded the interview. I am grateful to Georges Hoffman for permitting CSP to use the image, Epfs’ painting, on the book cover. I am also grateful to Roy Bhaskar, the renowned philosopher, whose books have been immensely helpful to me in developing the idea of metarealism. I must also thank Julien Yuseloff,

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Manager, Associated University Presses, for permitting me to quote from Lawrence Durrell: Conversations. I am grateful to Prof. Anna Lillios for permitting me to use my essay published in Deus Loci (“The Spirit of Tantric Maithuna in The Avignon Quintet”, NS 10, 2006-07). Similarly, I thank all the living and departed writers whose works helped me in developing my ideas in this book. It was Dr. James Gifford who advised me to approach CSP for permission to publish this book. I thank him and the publisher who was kind enough to accept my proposal. This book would not have seen the light of the day without the interest shown by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. I must thank my friend Vinod Nayanar for the help and guidance he rendered to me. He has been inspiring me ever since I signed the contract with the publisher. I am grateful to Dr. Gigy joseph of S. B. College, Changanassery, Kerala, for sending me material from the Lawrence Durrell Research Centre at S. B. College. My nephew, Santosh, too mailed me some material from Mysore University. I thank him. Prof. K. C. Nambiar (Oxford 1954-56), former professor at Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages (now EFLU), was kind enough to proof-read the final draft of my manuscript. I sincerely thank him. Last but not the least; I thank my mother, father, wife, children (Roopa and Surjith, Sandeep and Aparna), my sweet grandchildren (Adithya and Samhita), and all my dear friends. C. Ravindran Nambiar [email protected]

FOREWORD

Professor Ravi Nambiar has long been known to the community of Durrell scholars. In 1992 in Avignon, France, he gave a paper on Indian thought and Lawrence Durrell’s Avignon Quintet, which was published in Deus Loci, the Journal of the International Lawrence Durrell Society. It is also in France, at Paris Ouest University, that he developed this initial research when he compared Lawrence Durrell’s Constance to D.H. Lawrence’s Connie, and particularly their love-making in the light of Indian philosophy. This paper was published in a book, Lawrence Durrell: A Writer at the Crossroads between Arts and Sciences. Finally in London in 2012, for the writer’s centenary conference, he talked about Krishnamurti in Durrell’s work and this essay can be found in the book which is published today. What had driven Professor Nambiar’s research as early as 1987 to Lawrence Durrell’s two major sets of novels was the writer’s approach to sex, the psyche and love and the artist’s Indian metaphysical perspective which Ravi Nambiar then decided to explain to scholars from the West. A story from Zen Buddhism that he told me during an interview at Changarnassery, Kerala, in July 2013 while the monsoon was raging, is a good introduction to Professor Nambiar’s book. It can be seen in our mind’s eye as a traditional scroll-like Chinese painting in ink with three characters standing on the banks of a river. Two monks who were taking a stroll came to a river that had flooded. There was a lady there, stranded because of the heavy rains. She was standing on the bank of the river and could not walk across. The first monk offered to bring her to the other side. He lifted her and dropped her on the opposite bank. The two monks resumed their walk and the second monk told the rescuer: ‘you are a monk, you are not supposed to hold a lady'. The first one replied: ‘I have brought her to the other side but YOU are still carrying her in your mind, your psyche, whereas I have dropped her’. This story might illustrate how, in his book, Ravi Nambiar attempts to open the door to Indian metaphysics for western readers and researchers and how he tries to carry us to that other side of the river. Some of us have glimpsed at this other side over the years and have written on the Indian intertext but few if none of us have been able to really enter this other country, to go beyond the main roads in this landscape and penetrate the

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mindscape of this other culture. As academics from the West we have been neglecting the enduring significance of Indian metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s work because as outsiders and onlookers, we are not impregnated with Indian culture so that something always eludes our understanding. The late James Brigham may have been a precursor in this field of research with his text ‘An intruder from the East', published in 1998, in which he quoted many of the important annotated books on Buddhism and Asian philosophy that can be found in the Bibliothèque Lawrence Durrell in Paris Ouest University, which he had studied closely. He was the first researcher to have paid close attention to Durrell’s Asian source texts. He was to have pursued his research with Ravi Nambiar, who in this book, in a way, carries on their common project and succeeds in enriching our knowledge even though sometimes we might feel somewhat puzzled by a methodology we are not accustomed to. It takes an Indian academic, born and bred in the Indian world in which spirituality, philosophy and everyday life are entangled to make us aware not only of all the references we might have ignored until now but also to reveal the crucial impact of Indian metaphysics on the work and life of the artist. Dr Nambiar’s book is about the relationship between Lawrence Durrell and India, particularly illustrated in the question of the vanishing of the stable ego in the Quartet and sexuality as inner liberation and the art of dying in the Quintet. But what Professor Nambiar thinks is most significant and original in his book is what he writes about illusion and reality and about ‘Maya’ in a chapter devoted to what he calls the existential dilemma. ‘We have to remember that when Durrell, who could transcend all kinds of religious and ideological boundaries, uses the word 'India’, he uses it as a metaphor, and not as a physical state with its own boundaries. India for him is the mythical India, the philosophical India, the spiritual India, and the perennial India' writes Professor Nambiar. He adds that he wants to understand why a writer like Durrell had to seek different metaphysics. To illustrate why Durrell rejected one world view to adopt another, R. Nambiar presents the opposition between the Victorian poet Tennyson’s and the Japanese poet Basho’s world views. Darley like Tennyson, says R. Nambiar, was for splitting reality, whereas a poet like Basho tries to see everything holistically. That is why when Professor Nambiar quotes Lord Tennyson’s well known verses from ‘Ulysses’ which would exemplify the Western attitude ‘to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield’ he emphasizes how Durrell’s transformed this verse into his very own ‘to surrender, to yield, to abdicate, to receive’, a very Eastern perspective.

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Then Ravi Nambiar insists on the fact that what Durrell gained from India was ‘the art of demolishing the ego’ which comes from his reading the Bhagavat Gita while his ideas on sexuality and liberation came from Tantrism, and the art of dying/surrendering from yoga. Durrell, he says, also followed the principle of skandha to develop his idea of personality. Other writers who might have inspired Durrell like Forster, Huxley and of course Henry Miller were attracted by the idea of ‘the wisdom of the East’, and we can say with Ravi Nambiar that Durrell has impressed his whole work with his oriental vision which he wanted to express or even ‘realise’ in what he called his 'Tibetan novel’ The Avignon Quintet which was to change the way we look at ourselves and the world, at Man and the universe. As he told the French writer Cécile Wajsbrot, ‘The Quintet offers a solution: the East as a way out for the West’. This is also the opinion expressed by Mulk Raj Anand in his interview with Ravi Nambiar when he says that ‘(Durrell) certainly did not believe in Kipling’s idea of 'the white man’s burden'. (….). Kipling said that ‘East is East and West is West. And never the twain shall meet’. (But) Durrell had a romantic idea of Indian civilization, as dominantly tender and replete with thought – having gone deeper into the human predicament.' It is this interview which appears in the Appendix to the book while the other five, some of which have already been published in academic journals, revisit the Alexandria Quartet and the Avignon Quintet from a new perspective and deal with Lawrence Durrell’s main interrogations on the ego, tantric sex, death and illusion and reality in the light of an Indian theoretical corpus. Ravi Nambiar brings us back to the main references of Indian metaphysics, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishad and the Vedas which we know Lawrence Durrell had read. He also mentions Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) and the heavily annotated book by Daisetz Teitaro Szuki’s Zen Buddhism. Professor Nambiar draws from the work of philosophers like Shri Adi Shankaracharya (788-820) and pores over the texts of the more recent thinkers who have tried to build bridges between Indian metaphysics and Western philosophical systems like Sarvepalli Rahakrishnan and Jiddu Krisnamurti in his dialogue with David Bohm, just to mention a few. During my interview with Professor Nambiar, the words dropping and shedding came back again and again. Just as the first monk in the Zen Buddhist story carries the lady across the flooding river but can drop her on the other side and shed her from his own mind, to become his own self or reach his cosmic SELF, Darley, in the Quartet has to drop and shed all his haunting memories from Alexandria, which anyway, says R. Nambiar,

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were mere illusions and absolutely not the reality he thought he had to revisit. And it is this process of shedding that reveals simultaneously the world of illusion the narrator is living in and the problems of time, memory and thought the writer has to deal with, which are among the moot points of the fiction. In this perspective, Justine can be seen as one of the many embodiments or incarnations of love or the Goddess. Darley discovers his cosmic self at the end of The Quartet when he realises that just as in Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope, the serpent he thought he had seen is nothing but a rope: his Alexandria was but a mental construction, a creation of his imagination, a total illusion. Thus the first four chapters are preparations for the most original essay which Professor Nambiar himself thinks will change western academics’ reading of Lawrence Durrell’s work. Turning to the East could be taken as a metaphor, a metaphor for one’s attempt to transcend one’s personality from a life of “craving and self-interest, of ego-centric thinking, feeling, wishing and acting ’’, as Huxley states in his Perennial Philosophy (96). Like his mentor, D. H. Lawrence, Durrell found it difficult to accept the ideologies which moulded his society and to live in it as a writer was not only a difficult problem for him (…) because he knew that a true writer cannot make any compromise with the truth. This is precisely the reason why Durrell, like D. H. Lawrence, looked for other spiritual alternatives. Therefore, Durrell’s oriental curiosity was not entirely born out of his sense of longing for the country of his birth. India was also ‘a possible passage towards a spiritual shelter’. Like Miller he had made this philosophy from the East his own, and like him, he was looking for a kind of truth and a way to change his and our perception of the world through his writing. In the Quintet, which R. Nambiar describes as an intellectual autobiography, when Durrell comes to the final stage of writing, he draws an ultimate figure, that of the lovers-philosophers which can be seen as one single unit both male and female who has reached a stage of bliss and ‘intelligence’( knowledge, awareness and liberation), a kind of Buddhist happiness to be transmitted to others which could also be exemplified in the expression ‘tat tvam asi’ ( Thou art that ) from the Shuka Rahasya Upanishad. In his fifth chapter also R. Nambiar develops the notions of Sat (body), Chit (awareness), Ananda (bliss). According to him, if we are to understand Lawrence Durrell’s work in the light of Indian metaphysics, we have to remember how the writer must have been willing to illustrate the Sanskrit word Ananda when he presents the relationship between Affad and Constance, in which sex, knowledge and awareness cannot be

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dissociated while the notion of’ awareness’ is passed on along a sort of chain, reminiscent of and yet different from the Quartet’s iron chain of memory, from Affad to Constance and from Constance to Blandford. According to Professor Nambiar, using the expression 'Bliss side up’ is a clue that Lawrence Durrell was well aware of the metaphysics he was weaving into his narrative. Thus it is through shedding, submitting and surrendering that the heroes reach a kind of liberation (Moksha) and empowered creation (Shakti). Having transmitted this power and awareness, Affad can prepare for death and Nirvana while Constance will pass this ‘awareness and bliss’ on through her own body to Blandford while the readers themselves will become the ultimate elements in this chain of growing awareness. For Ravi Nambiar, Lawrence Durrell is searching for a new reality and fiction. The Quintet craves for a reality beyond the reality in which everything is dualistic. It is again Affad who exhibits a non-dual reality. Peace and happiness is his only motto. If every individual can attain that and pass it on to others, as Affad does, the whole society will become a paradise. This Utopian dream is possible if the focus shifts from group to individual, the essence of Indian metaphysics. So Durrell moves from metafiction to metarealism (Livia 9). ‘He struggles for a metarealistic narration’ says Ravi Nambiar and ‘thus his Quintet can be classified as a Eudaemonistic novel’. The three stages of Durrell's writing, formerly described by the writer himself, can be seen as Sat-Chit-Ananda: Being-Consciousness-Bliss : the Quartet at the conscious level, with Freud as a reference, the Quintet, the purely Indian novel, would be based on the notion of bliss and the five volumes of which would stand for the five skandhas which would fuse to make one. In his interview with Ravi Nambiar, Mulk Raj Anand reminds us that Gandhi wrote: ‘the truth about oneself should be the starting point of all writing. No use writing about others, when one has not written about one’s own feelings, ideas, uncertainties, one’s own agonies’. He then mentions a tale from the Upanishad in which a disciple asked his master, a sage: ’What shall I do with my life?’ The sage answered: ‘Ask yourself everyday who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?’ (…). He adds that unless one asks the questions “Who am I, where have I come from, where am I going?” one cannot get over egoisms and achieve transcendence. Professor Nambiar writes about how, through his two sets of fiction, Durrell, just like Affad, the perennial philosopher, keeps asking those questions, though sometimes in a more subtle way, and passes his spiritual

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knowledge to his readers. This is precisely what Professor Nambiar himself is doing in his book. Yet we should not forget that, however impregnated by Indian metaphysics Durrell might have been, he tried to warn us about any too specific reading of his poetic prose when he wrote in the manuscript of his text of 1981 ‘From the Elephant’s Back’: ‘But all the symbols one uses, on the disquisition of words like ‘relativity’ or ‘Tao’, or ‘matter’ or ‘Maya’ are to be regarded as road signals which indicate the density and direction of the intellectual traffic. They are not absolutes. I imagine that the sage considers them to be simply paint rags upon which the artist wipes his brushes once the painting is complete.’ (Manuscript17). However, I would agree with Isabelle Keller-Privat, who has proofread the whole manuscript, when she says that : ‘Reading Professor Nambiar's analysis of the influence of Indian metaphysics on Lawrence Durrell's novels amounts to rereading Durrell's entire opus and questioning our previous interpretations not just of his prose but of his poetry as well. A new perspective is revealed that highlights, for instance, the quality of the poet's silence within the larger frame of what Professor Nambiar calls ‘cosmic passivity’ and enables readers to perceive the scope of Durrell's search for a universal awareness, an intimate knowledge of the self and of the world that ranges from Freud's theories to Indian metaphysics. The further one delves into Professor Nambiar's book, the better one grasps the maturing process from the Quartet to the Quintet, forcing narrator, writer and reader alike to wait and cultivate the Tantric art of patience which is a pre-requisite to full realization. Eventually, Professor Nambiar's book manages to question subtly all past and contemporary interpretations of Durrell through his insightful analyses. This book will become an essential milestone in the Durrellian landscape’. Dr Corinne Alexandre-Garner, Associate Professor Director of The Lawrence Durrell Research Library Director of the Research Center ‘Espaces/Ecritures’ (CREA) University Paris Ouest

INTRODUCTION

Like Lawrence Durrell, Dr. C. Ravindran Nambiar stands astride two of the world’s most significant cultures, as well as at least two major languages. He is a bridging figure, and as such he occupies a distinguished place among scholars of modernist literature, one that is in fact unique in Durrell studies. Along with a deep immersion in the classics of Western Modernism, Professor Nambiar combines an intimate knowledge of the Indian culture that Durrell lived in until his “exile” to England for schooling. Nothing provides the same entry into the artistry and thought of another author like translation of his work into another language, and Nambiar has translated Durrell’s Justine and Balthazar into Malayalam, one of the four great languages of south India. To my knowledge, Nambiar was introduced to Durrell’s work in 1976, and has spent over a score of years studying, speaking, and writing on Durrell. Ravi Nambiar is an old friend, and where Larry Durrell is concerned, he is a True Believer. I intend this in the most complimentary of senses: he takes his subject seriously. He has searched through Durrell’s works for evidence of his debt to India, and his findings are impressive, his lists of the traces of Indian thought extensive, his conclusions hard to dispute. I tried long ago to warn Nambiar, telling him that Durrell was a shapeshifter, harder to pin down than the God Proteus. I told Nambiar, for instance, that when a critic tried to corner Durrell on the stage-worthiness of one of his plays, Durrell said blandly, “I don’t know – when I wrote this I had seen only two plays, and one of them was, uh, Charley’s Aunt.” (In fact, Durrell had spent a considerable portion of his early life in London at the theatre: his lover and future wife Nancy Myers was an actress, and the actor Peter Bull was a good friend.) Durrell was a fabulist, a game-player, a homo ludens, I cautioned Nambiar. “You have to weigh and evaluate everything”, he said. A dedicated scholar, Nambiar refused to be put off. He persevered, and the present book is the result of his many years on the Durrell trail. The playful nature that Durrell pretended to, however, did not mean that he did not take his writing seriously. He played with ideas – as a bright child, an alpha child, might play with an Omega watch: he looks at it, listens to it – and takes it apart. As a boy, Henry Ford took watches apart, and then put them back together, becoming known in his

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neighbourhood as a watch repairman, and eventually as a tycoon of the automotive industry. Durrell’s metaphorical watches in contrast, would never keep Earth-time again. More an originator than Henry Ford, Durrell moved time into new dimensions, stretched and distorted time into new chronologies. As a word-scientist, Durrell set out to move literature into the twenty-first century. Famously, Durrell claimed that in The Alexandria Quartet he set out to apply Einsteinian physics to fiction, three parts of space and one of time, et cetera! Durrell approached ideas, philosophies, and people as mysteries to be brought into his imaginative and affective world. He lacked the patience of the research scientist, of the scholar. Instead, he became an artist in language. As a teenager, he fled from his English public school to the reading room of the British Museum, where he embraced the Elizabethans and the Jacobeans. In his early twenties he became interested in the human body – he would become a doctor, he said! Then he decided that he could take on patients as a psychiatrist – imitating, perhaps, his friend Anaïs Nin who with no greater qualifications worked as an assistant to the pioneering psychoanalyst Otto Rank. On Corfu in the 1930s, Durrell set out to read all the science articles in his 1933 edition of The Encyclopaedia Britannica. At some point he discovered Einstein and nuclear physics. And he kept up with India, through his friendships with Mulk Raj Anand and the Sinhalese J. Meary Tambimuttu in the 1930s. Of great interest to readers of this book is the appearance in the appendix of Nambiar’s 1993 interview with Anand, in which the two men discuss not only Durrell, but also Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, and Anand’s friends among the London Bloomsbury circle, individuals who knew D. H. Lawrence. This contact with one of the major figures of Indian writing, himself another culture-bridging figure, has lent additional authority to Nambiar’s pronouncements. Durrell may not have been sufficiently disciplined to master any particular branch of studies, but he trusted serendipity, those elements of chance or luck that landed in his lap what he needed at the time. He had a capacious memory, the ability to recall facts, whole histories, and the mannerisms and accents of everyone, seemingly, whom he encountered. A part of his genius was his uncanny ability to adapt to his uses such littleknown figures as the psychoanalyst Georg Groddeck or the herbalist Ludo Chardenon (inspiration for the “honey man” in The Avignon Quintet). Again, here too Nambiar is a valuable guide, for instance in identifying Carlo Suarès as one of the inspirations for Balthazar, and, much more important, the extent to which Durrell assimilated Indian metaphysics. An opportunist in the plot lines and characters on which he structured

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his novels, Durrell nonetheless had a master plan that he developed early in his career. To T. S. Eliot he mapped out three major works, at a time when he had written only the first of these, The Black Book, which he termed his agon, the conflict and suffering of the artist. Next would come the pathos (not yet named, The Alexandria Quartet, in which the artist, Darley, learns pity and compassion), and finally Durrell would write the anagnorisis, the resolution, the knotting up (the future Avignon Quintet). Well, it sounds convincing, does it not? That Durrell had a master plan for the Quartet, based on Einstein’s relativity theory, from the moment he started writing the first volume, Justine? In fact he wrote a stand-alone volume, Justine, and sent off the manuscript to Faber and Faber in London, to Dutton in the United States. Justine rose to the top of the bestseller lists, and to capitalize on its success, Durrell resolved on a sequel, Balthazar, which he initially called “Justine II.” Soon he decided upon writing a quartet, and published Balthazar with a preface in which he announced, “I have turned to science and am trying to complete a fourdecker novel whose form is based on the relativity proposition.” That artist of distorted watches, Salvador Dali, caught on to Durrell’s time scheme intuitively. When he read the Quartet, Dali sent Durrell a telegram of congratulation, “DARLEY MON FRERE . . . LOVE DALI,” thus claiming Durrell/Darley as his brother in future time. It is the simultaneity of time past, time present, and time future of Indian philosophy that Nambiar tracks throughout Durrell’s writing. One of Durrell’s main complaints about Christianity – and about English society – is the lack of humor in both. He had enjoyed thoroughly the main comic character in the Quartet, the transvestite Joshua Scobie, so, taking an artistic holiday from his master plan, Durrell set out to write a pair of comic novels, the diptych The Revolt of Aphrodite, under the working title, “An Attic Comedy.” Set partly in Istanbul, it showed Durrell again turning toward the East; but at the center of Revolt is matter, as represented by the international mega-corporation, the hyper-materialistic Merlin’s. And the central conflict is the one between Iolanthe/Aphrodite, standing at once for love and spirit, and Julian, the emasculated Director of Merlin’s. If this sounds like an attempt to consummate the union of spirit and matter, in the manner symbolized by the Goddess Kundalini/Shakti, that is surely no accident. Durrell is laying the groundwork for the attempt to achieve just this union that Nambiar sees in the Quintet. Then Durrell wrote Monsieur, the first volume of The Avignon Quintet, and just before it appeared in print he went to Pasadena in California to teach for a few months at CalTech, that legendary American haven of advanced scientists. Fatefully, he was lodged in the suite at the CalTech

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faculty club that had been Einstein’s apartment. Durrell fled the faculty club after two weeks because he was told to wear a jacket and tie to dinner, and he did not want to repeat the Einsteinian space-and-time formula either, but reached back to his Indian memories and his readings in Indian philosophy and religion for a core of ideas on which to hang the thought-and-theme structure of The Avignon Quintet. This is where Nambiar comes into his own, with his recognition that it is here, in the five linked novels, that Durrell has returned to the India of his early remembrance, the India that he described in his late memoir, “From the Elephant’s Back,” and to the philosophic India of his reading and discussions. Equally important to Nambiar’s contributions to the understanding of Durrell in times past are the implications of Durrell for the twenty-first century – and also for India, already becoming again one of the great economic and political powers of the world. Durrell has started with his memories of the Old Raj in “From the Elephant’s Back,” and then moved on to the timeless run of Indian philosophy in Constance, has taken human sexuality beyond Freud, beyond D. H. Lawrence. In verse Durrell wrote, poking fun at Lawrence, “like Chatterleys of high romance/ Get carried off in Sex, the ambulance.” Going beyond Durrell’s jibe at Lawrence, Nambiar brings into sharp focus the importance of sex, of a fully achieved maithuna, a sexual union in a sacred Tantric context. He is quite right to bring this focus to our attention. Sure, Durrell liked to call his Quartet “an investigation of modern love,” because the importance of sex per se in both the Quartet and the Quintet is easy to miss, I believe. Although there is considerable talk about love in both novel groupings, there is precious little sex. Take a look at Durrell’s pal Henry Miller if you want to see a writer who could be called truly sex-obsessed. Durrell had learned a lot since he wrote The Black Book, a rather mild book by today’s standards, but with enough four-letter-words to prevent Faber and Faber from publishing it in 1938. It is not the tender portrayal of love and sex that Nambiar has so perceptively seen in Constance. Nambiar turns the powerful lens of his Indian perspective especially on Durrell’s description of the crucial sex act in Constance, in which Affad enters Constance, lying on a table, bathed in her menstrual flow. (As Nambiar notes, sex at a time of menstruation while tabu in some cultures in the West is sanctioned by Indian religious thought.) The red blood flow on her thighs is shocking to the Western-oriented mind, especially because Durrell has been so sparing in his descriptions of the sex act. Also, it is a tender love act – “Thank you, Constance,” says a moved and grateful

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Affad. (Affad, by the way, is soon to be murdered by the madman Mnemidis, a death that becomes a symbolic Liebestod, a love-death consummation, seen in the perspective of Constance’s blood flow. The Alexandria Quartet was a huge popular success for Durrell, and many critics still treat it as his most important work. However, a few major Durrell scholars, notably among them Paul Lorenz, Richard Pine, and Donald Kaczvinsky, have come to see The Avignon Quintet as central to any consideration of Durrell. With Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels, Nambiar has added his voice, bringing a vital new perspective to Durrell studies. Ian S. MacNiven Athens, New York, September 2013

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AQ BB Key CVG LCL

The Alexandria Quartet The Black Book A Key to Modern British Poetry Caesar’s Vast Ghost The Lady Chatterley’s Lover

CHAPTER ONE DURRELL AND INDIA

I have memories of India involving silence, grandeur, and space. —Lawrence Durrell

Ian S. MacNiven in the “Preface” to his book, Lawrence Durrell: A Biography, points out that India “remains the fiery shade behind Durrell’s thought and work”. He immediately adds a conditional clause: If he succeeded… his life’s work will come to be seen as a keystone, a clou, a bridge linking the human physical and spiritual centres of East and West, a passage from India to the British homeland of his ancestors and back east again.1

The purpose of this book is to bring out the “fiery shade” of India behind “Durrell’s thought and work” to which a serious scholarly study has so far not been devoted. His artistic role as a spiritual bridge-builder between the East and West needs critical scrutiny. While his love of India can be attributed to the fact that he was born in that country, his Oriental insight may have nothing to do with the place he was born in. On the contrary, his friendship with Henry Miller and his ardent respect for D. H. Lawrence and his works must have drawn Durrell deep into the study of Eastern wisdom. Many literary writers, like Aldous Huxley and E. M. Forster, were equally attracted towards the wisdom of the East. Though Durrell’s keen interest in India can be traced back to his earlier works, it is in The Avignon Quintet that he finally succeeded in expressing his oriental vision. In fact, the Quintet can be approached by remembering the words of Will Durant, the great American writer and philosopher: “As our energies tire in the daily struggle against imperial nature and hostile time, we look with more tolerance upon Oriental philosophies of surrender and peace”.2

2

Chapter One

These words have the echo of the insightful utterances of Akkad and Affad in the Quintet. Lawrence George Durrell, one of the greatest writers who lived in the twentieth century, was born in India. The biographies that are available, particularly the one written by MacNiven, give us elaborate details about Durrell’s personal life and his development as a literary writer. Therefore, his relationship with Indian thought and how far it helped him in his literary pursuit are the only subjects coming up here for analysis in this book. Durrell found in Indian metaphysics a possible solution to the problem of the cultural anarchy infecting this world. This is what one can gather from his writings. When we look at his entire work in the light of this fact, we can notice the steady attempt he made in his literary career at achieving an oriental or Indian insight, an ultimate insight. “But one feels that real bliss, the smiling silence of pure transcendence is Asiatic”, writes Durrell in Caesar’s Vast Ghost (CVG 13), in his last work. In other words, most of the insightful qualities with which he created his serious characters or the way he moulded his vision in his works can be traced to the wisdom he gathered from oriental philosophy and mysticism. As he reached his final novels, his Indian insight gains more and more depth. Durrell’s ardent desire to build a rich and complete view of life in his artistic creations is, therefore, backed by the insightful knowledge he gathered from the East. The main creative emphasis Durrell gives in his novels is in illustrating the inner crises of his characters, and subjecting them to an objective scientific enquiry. The habit of carrying out an inner scrutiny, an insightful scrutiny in life, no doubt, is a Buddhist or a Hindu feature. Durrell’s readers know that he even went to the extent of calling his Quintet a Tibetan novel. In an interview with Cecile Wajsbrot, which is published in Earl G. Ingersoll’s Conversations, Durrell states, “The Quintet accordingly offers a solution: the East as a way out for the West”.3 Therefore, it is essential here to examine to what extent Indian metaphysics helped him in his literary ventures. The main focus of this chapter is to trace the development of Durrell’s interest in Indian thought and to scan how far his knowledge of the East helped him in his literary pursuits, particularly as a novelist. As Durrell was not the only writer in the West to seek Eastern wisdom, an effort to probe the reasons that led to such a metaphysical starvation in the West also becomes part of this chapter. This obviously demands the inclusion of some valuable observations made by a few thinkers and writers in the West. Such observations easily substantiate the arguments presented in this chapter, the arguments which explain why Durrell sought Oriental wisdom. Therefore, a small deviation into the

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subject of the socio-political scenario in the West, created by hollow religious faith, automatically gets space in this chapter. In fact, it was the frustrating socio-political situation that pushed writers like Durrell towards the East to seek better insight. One of the best sources to study the difference between Western and Eastern metaphysics is D. T. Suzuki, who was a great exponent of Zen Buddhism in the West. The publication of his work, Essays in Zen Buddhism, in 1927 marked a turning point in the study of philosophy; he was recognized as “the foremost interpreter of Eastern thought for Western minds”.4 Therefore, a purposeful peep at Suzuki’s essay, “East and West”, will be of immense help to readers in understanding the reasons why the writers in the West took keen interest in Oriental wisdom. Durrell’s personal copy of the book, Essays in Zen Buddhism, is now in the Durrell Archive in Paris.5 All the important passages in the book are not only thickly marked by Durrell, but are also underscored and given different codes, indicating that they would in future be pulled out for pasting them in suitable places in his creative writing. The markings in the book also highlight to what extent Durrell had assimilated the great Buddhist principles. Durrell’s claim that his The Alexandria Quartet is a Western novel and The Avignon Quintet is an Eastern one6 can be examined under the light of Suzuki’s essay, “East and West”. In his essay, Suzuki compares two short poems written by two famous poets: one by a seventeenth century Japanese poet, named Basho, and the other by the great Victorian poet, Lord Tennyson. The subject of both poems is a flower. Basho observes a flower from a distance, appreciates its beauty, and loves it as a wonderful object in nature. He admires the flower, realizes that its existence is rooted in nature and finally leaves an exclamation mark in the poem. Tennyson, on the other hand, “plucks the flower from where it grows. He separates it from where it belongs. Quite differently from the Oriental poet, he does not leave the flower alone”.7 Suzuki observes that Tennyson “does not care for its destiny, his curiosity must be satisfied.”8 This comparison speaks volumes. If we can put on Suzuki’s spectacles and read Durrell’s Quartet, we may find that either Darley, the protagonist in the novel, cannot leave any object in Alexandria alone, in his “beloved” Alexandria, or he does not have the patience to stand at a distance and appreciate or admire anything there. He must pluck each and every “flower” he came into contact with in his life and analyse it. Finally, he makes his own life a muddle, because he is not able to arrive at any satisfying inferences about Alexandria or her people, in spite of the subjective and relative analyses he makes as a writer. In the Quintet, on the other hand, it is silence with

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Chapter One

which the heroic role of Affad, one of the key characters in the novel, is qualified. Suzuki says, “The East is silent while the West is eloquent.… Silence in many cases is as eloquent as being wordy”.9 Durrell probably expects his readers to understand the significance of the “eloquent silence” in the Quintet. It is only obvious that readers prefer the Quartet, a “wordy” novel, instead of the embedded silence in the Quintet. The Quartet displays the Tennysonian attitude to life and nature, whereas it is the silent and serene attitude of Basho that we can find in the Quintet. To be more precise, to appreciate the exclamations and silence in the Quintet, one needs to have a better metaphysical base. Presuming that we have understood the key to the difference between the West and the East, we can now have a look at Suzuki’s deeper analysis of the actual differences between them. He writes: According to this, the Western mind is: analytical, discriminative, differential, inductive, individualistic, intellectual, objective, generalizing, conceptual, schematic, legalistic, organizing, power-wielding, selfassertive, disposed to impose its will upon others, etc. Against these Western traits those of the East can be characterized as follows: synthetic, totalyzing, integrative, nondiscriminative, deductive, nonsystematic, dogmatic, intuitive (rather, affective), nondiscursive, subjective, spiritually individualistic and socially group-minded, etc.10

The reason for quoting Suzuki at length here is that it can help us in understanding the writer, Lawrence Durrell, and his great novels, the Quartet and the Quintet. There might be some difficulty in applying all the given differences to Durrell’s novels, but they will surely help us in studying his novels in the light of the contrast enunciated by Suzuki. For example, Durrell’s works reveal that he does not accept the view that the East is dogmatic. Therefore, the differences given by Suzuki may be taken as a guide for understanding the growth of Darley’s consciousness in the Quartet, or to see how it responds to the reality in which he lives. In other words, Suzuki’s analysis tells us that it is difficult for a character like Darley who is shaped by Western culture to act differently in his life. At the same time, the qualities with which Suzuki identifies the East are almost the same qualities with which Durrell tried to cast his central characters in the Quintet. In short, a proper understanding of the metaphysical differences between the East and the West can be of enormous help to those who would like to enter into the labyrinths of Durrell’s novels. To begin with, it is advisable to know what Indian Metaphysics really means, what its broad features are, and how it differs from Western

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metaphysics. However, a full discussion is not required in this chapter, as a clear idea of it will emerge from the total discourse presented in this book. “Traditionally”, E. Jonathan Lowe, a Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, writes in his book, The Possibility of Metaphysics: “metaphysics has been thought of as the systematic study of the most fundamental structure of reality”.11 In Dr. Sarvapally Radhakrishnan’s words: The very name metaphysics characterises the type of inquiry which goes beyond what is given to us. Whereas science deals with existent objects, philosophy tries to envisage the guiding concepts of ontological reality.12

There are a number of books available today on Indian metaphysics, written by both western and eastern writers. We have great sages in India, like Swami Vivekananda, Sri. Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Sri. Aurobindo Ghosh, Swami Chinmayananda, and similar thinkers of the modern period, apart from the great philosophers of the ancient past, like Sri. Adi Sankaracharya13, who have done well in interpreting Indian philosophy to the common man. However, the greatest of all Indian philosophers, who is superb in analysing the Indian insight and who is equally great in discussing all the existing philosophies in the world, is certainly Dr. Radhakrishnan. P. T. Raju, an eminent Indian philosopher, says that Radhakrishnan is “the liaison officer between East and West.”14 Among the modern philosophers, Radhakrishnan is sure to be more helpful to the students of Durrell. To understand Durrell’s gnostic and Indian ideas it is imperative to understand how ancient Indian thought reached the West via Greece. One can get a clear idea of this historical development from Radhakrishnan’s philosophical work. Durrell told the two French interviewers, Jean Pierre Graf and Bernard-Claude Gauthier, who met him in 1984 that Greece was the right place to make up the philosophical loss he felt in his life.15 He felt that he must use his stay in Greece to facilitate his return to India and he achieved it perfectly well. For tracing how Indian philosophy made its journey from India to West via Greece, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, a great philosopher and a teacher, is the most suitable and reliable guide. Durrell not only rediscovered India when he was in Greece, but also realized that all the beliefs of the Greeks are greatly influenced by Hinduism. As he told Jean Montalbetti, it was in Greece that he discovered the Indian root of the great Greek philosophers.16 Richard Pine observes that “the Mediterranean in general, and Greece in particular, offered Durrell a spiritual accommodation as well as a comfortable place to settle…. He also made strenuous claims for linking some aspects of Greek civilization to those of India.17 Greece was

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Chapter One

his metaphysical collection centre. The underlying fact is that the study of Durrell’s fiction can generate in readers an enthusiasm for almost all the philosophies and psychological ideas in the world. But, the discourse in this book is confined to search and discover the depth of Indian metaphysics in Durrell’s novels. The love for the East, for some of the western writers, originates from their revulsion to what was going on in the West, both politically and culturally, and it also comes from the fact that life in the twentieth century was getting more and more difficult to be lived. We know that Durrell’s utter loathing of Western culture lies sprinkled in the pages of his works, from The Black Book to his last work, Caesar’s Vast Ghost. To the question why some people have this dislike of Western culture Fritjof Capra gives right answer in his Tao of Physics: We have favoured self-assertion over integration, analysis over synthesis, rational knowledge over intuitive wisdom, science over religion, competition over cooperation, expansion over conservation, and so on.18

Capra echoes what Suzuki has said about East and West. In short, the opposite of what Capra says about the West form the bricks on which the Eastern metaphysics is built. In his lecture, “India: What Can It Teach Us?” F. Max Muller, the renowned German-born philologist and orientalist, states: If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant--I should point to India.19

Sanskrit language and Indian religions were Muller’s special area of interest. As a true literary artist who always yearns to create a world in which man could be seen living in peace, Durrell too, like Muller, Will Durant, Suzuki, Heinrich Zimmer, T. S. Eliot, Henry Miller, Aldous Huxley, Fritjof Capra, Joseph Campbell and Ken Wilber, like so many such thinkers and writers, turns to India, seeking a metaphysical shelter. In A Key to Modern British Poetry Durrell writes, “In the literature of the last decade there has been a distinct growth of interest in mysticism, and more noticeably in Eastern religion” (Key 33). In fact, Key is the key to the way Durrell as an artist was getting shaped, and it also reflects the subject matter with which he was going to write his novels in three stages. If anyone has a question, why some of his contemporary writers were so

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deeply engaged in the study of Eastern philosophies, Durrell’s words in A Key serve as the right answer: Herein I believe lies the key to the new influences creeping into art – influences which may be recognized in the Eastern philosophies which are being studied by writers as diverse as Huxley, Heard, Isherwood, Maugham (Key 64).

Altogether, there developed a situation in the twentieth century which demanded a change in writing, because the creative artists found that each swelling individual ego was trying to give shape to separate or isolated realities, resulting in the formation of difficult and dangerous boundaries, and the net result was the growth of hatred and violence in society. According to Aldous Huxley: For four hundred years, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, most of the Christian nations of Europe have spent a good part of their time and energy in attacking, conquering and exploiting their non-Christian neighbours in other continents.20

This kind of situation made human life difficult and there arose a great longing for peace, love, and harmony in life and also for a need to rectify the prevailing angle of vision. There is a way of life in the East, Durrell realized, that is ready to offer peace and Harmony, if only man understands the spiritual significance of the East and accepts it. He told Stephen Gray in an interview in 1965: Think of the bloodstained record of our Christian civilization and then of the sort of things that were going on in people’s nuts compared to, say, a system like Buddhism which is so simple, which hasn’t an organized dogmatic system, has never caused a war, that has no party system, and which you can do at home, as you wish.21

How greatly Durrell is convinced of the Eastern metaphysical approach to human life is evident from these words. It is something “you can do at home”, Durrell reminds his readers. What troubled Durrell most, right from his early days, was that the ideas he gathered from his western life and from his studies about human nature were found insufficient to help him in his quest for truth. The perception of truth and reality, he realizes, is directly proportional to one’s outlook and wisdom, to the culture in which one is brought up. The Western attitude is generally for a fragmented reality which does not help man to reach anywhere near the truth he is seeking, and he is fated mostly to

8

Chapter One

grope in darkness, as he is not able to find a way out of the maze in which he finds himself trapped. This is very much the case of almost all the central characters in Durrell’s novels. The novelist’s aim is like that of Radhakrishnan, who said: I take it by a desire to lift Eastern thought from its shattered remoteness and indicate its enduring values as a living force in shaping the soul of the modern man.22

The Quintet is to be seen as a novel that is packed with the “enduring values” which Radhakrishnan indicates here. It contains the “living force” of Indian wisdom though it is served in the form of fiction. These enduring values are given prominent place in Durrell’s novels mostly in the form of aphorisms; they appear in condensed form from characters that are steeped in wisdom. His main concern as a writer is for the future of this planet. One of his remarks that appeared in “The Kneller Tape” and published in The World of Lawrence Durrell is worth quoting here: You are literally educating and shaping the physical responses of the younglings who are going to take over from you and walk on your face; this is the continuity of literature which I was trying to hint at in my writers from Arnauti onwards.23

The words quoted here highlight Durrell’s sense of responsibility as a writer. He not only reminds his readers about the precariousness of the present human situation in the world, but also tries to educate and shape the consciousness of the “younglings”. At the same time, he is also conscious of the need of maintaining the “continuity of literature”. Alan Wallace, a great Buddhist practitioner, points out in Buddhism and Science that “modern science has left us humanity in the dark as to the nature and potentials of consciousness, subjective experience and its relation to the objective world”.24 In the last century there was a leap in scientific knowledge, a greater progress in industrial life, and along with it the technology in warfare underwent a rapid change. Killing became rampant. The only thing difficult to be fulfilled, which was beyond the reach of man, was peace and happiness. The serious nature of this human situation was realized by most of the twentieth century novelists, and it compelled them to turn elsewhere to seek a way out. The result was that studies in Oriental wisdom became an interesting and attractive preoccupation for most of the Western thinkers. The richness of Indian insight quite baffled many of them. Heinrich Zimmer, the great Indologist and historian of South Asian art, observes, “We of the Occident are about to arrive at a crossroads that was reached by the thinkers of India some

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seven hundred years before Christ”.25 This kind of philosophical revelation prompted most of the western writers to search what exactly is so attractive in Indian metaphysics. The irony is that their attraction towards the Oriental insight not only influenced them but also precipitated their dislike of the West. The discovery of Eastern wisdom also made them realize that the West had been shaped by an ego-dominated culture which had no interest in human happiness. This is a very strong element that brought Durrell close to India. “The world is crying to be restored”, felt Durrell as a very young man (BB 151). His observation in Monsieur that “Of the two forces in play in the world the black is winning, and may win completely” (Monsieur 219), therefore, is not a pessimistic view. Human history proves it. Our history teaches us why we have undergone so much suffering in life in the nature of religion and war, making this planet an unpleasant place to inhabit. Yet, we are not ready to make amendments. Hence, there is no wonder why Durrell used his novels as a medium to propagate the precious spiritual messages coming down to him from India. The readers, like the Prince in the Quintet, may wonder why Durrell is trying to influence them with “this Indian mumbo-jumbo” (Sebastian 31). As if to clear this doubt, Durrell, like his character, Affad, tries to convince us that the root cause of all human maladies is the absence of proper insight. As western culture was shaped by man’s blind faith in the church, he seems to point out that religion cannot escape from admitting its utter failures. This is what most of the great writers point out. In The Occidental Mythology, Joseph Campbell gives an accurate account of the brutal slaughter that was carried out in the name of God: the massacre that followed was up to that day without parallel in European history: the Papal legates report a slaughter of nearly twenty thousand – seven thousand in the Church of Mary alone.26

We need not go into the reasons for the massacre that is stated by Campbell. What is to be seriously observed in the statement is that such events continue to take place in this world. What Campbell says about the event in the church has an echo to what the narrator describes in the Quintet about the wretched situation of war in Europe during the Second World War. He is drawing readers’ attention to the cruelties in about four hundred murder camps that are recorded in history: The tall chimneys of the crematoria fumed softly on the blue icy air. Burning bodies stank like old motor tyres, he reflected, and blood hissed like rain on dead leaves (Constance 247).

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Chapter One

Similar concerns about the cruel war could be seen described at different places in the novel. While writing about the “dynamics of human inflicted suffering” and its magnitude, William S. Waldron, the eminent teacher of Hinduism and Buddhism, quotes Albert Camus in the book, Buddhism and Science: “within fifty years seventy million human beings were killed”.27 The most dangerous aspect of this vast killing is that human consciousness in the West has been getting shaped towards an indifference to terrible violence. We must remember that human consciousness is the subject matter for most of the novelists, particularly for Lawrence Durrell. The vital question here is how long all serious writers can remain silent without reacting to this inhuman nature in man; and who can remain as a writer without seeking a solution for it honestly. We must also admit that, to the best of his ability, Durrell, as a novelist, has done well to portray this dangerous situation in the world. For him the stage is human consciousness and heroism is in seeking liberation. Thus, this rationalized world in which Durrell was brought up becomes pathologically disgusting and repulsive to him. The situation is so precarious that he writes in Quinx, “Every two seconds a mental defective is born” (Quinx 53). As if to justify this truth, E. W. F. Tomlin in his book, Psyche, Culture and the New Science: The Role of PN, states that “more than half the hospital beds in Britain, as we write, are occupied by those suffering from mental illness.”28 This may be an exaggeration, but such a situation has prompted Durrell to depict incurable mental patients and helpless medical practitioners in his novels. The novel, Sebastian, is a rich example of this. We can easily understand from these traumatic events in history that it is very difficult for a novelist today to leave much space in his novels for the depiction of characters displaying love and happiness, as his creative attention gets drawn towards the need of highlighting the dark side of man, like that of war and madness. The Avignon Quintet is a reflection of this fact. Durrell told Peter Adam that “History is the endless repetition of the wrong way of living, and it will start again tomorrow.”29 The search for a way to reverse this situation, to reverse “this endless before and after”30 led writers like Durrell to take the path shown by the rishis in India. Rishis, the sages of India, have been showing us the path of wisdom leading to inner peace and harmony for the last several centuries. “From day fever and night sadness keep, / bless, hold ….” writes Durrell like a rishi in “Water Music.” 31 A rishi in ancient India was a sage of insight. In short, Durrell’s characters in his fiction crave for an inner tranquillity which is the essence of the wisdom that he finds in Indian metaphysics.

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Therefore, only with a clear knowledge of these entire facts, with these dim pictures, can one enter Durrell’s novels, particularly his Quintet. The first novel in the Quintet, Monsieur, touches upon this dark picture of the universe, a universe that is ruled by Evil (Monsieur 137). In this novel, Akkad supports the adamant stand the Gnostics take against the Evil God, their refusal to accept the sovereignty of the Lord of Evil, who, according to them, is very firmly seated on the throne. Akkad says: Whoever it was that used to heed us and care for us, who had concern for our fate and the world’s, has been replaced by another who glories in our servitude to matter, and to the basest part of our natures (166).

Durrell’s attempt in the Quintet is to combine the Gnostic refusal to accept the “servitude to matter” with the Hindu philosophies of salvation in order to hope for a reality that will look more realistic and friendly to man. According to Radhakrishnan, “For the Gnostic the chief object of man was to set free his spiritual nature from its material imprisonment, and this can be accomplished by gnosis or sacramental rites.”32 The only way to free our spiritual nature, as suggested in Indian metaphysics, is through the practice of Yoga, and there are no other sacramental rites to be performed by a Hindu. Indian metaphysics is ritual-free, dogma-free, sin-free, and ego-free. What Durrell likes in it is its precious “take-it-or-leave-it principle.”33 Unlike the man in the West, a Hindu is absolutely free to frame his own consciousness. This must be a terrible attraction for those in the West who feel strangulated with dogmas, with some senseless dogmas imposed on them from outside. The reasons for Durrell’s “pleasant tilt to the East” (Monsieur 199) are clear. He had no other choice. He had to take whatever metaphysical ideas were coming to him, the ideas which can suggest better ways to contain our “inner estrangement and alienation from the so called real world” (136). In his quest for a “metaphysical frame to contain it” (136), he found that only Indian philosophy carried some insight, and he was looking for insight and not intellect. This quest was not accidental. The need of the hour, he realized, was a philosophical framework that could guide the inner journey of man. He tries to justify this urge for a suitable metaphysical framework in his A Key to Modern British Poetry. In fact, Durrell was on a begging spree, he was out on the philosophical street begging for a metaphysical solution that could provide him with peace and harmony. He knew his limitations. In his interview with Eugene Lyons and Harry T. Antrim, he tells them, “Well I’m not an original philosopher, I’m just a burglar. I burgle ideas. I’m like a peddler with a tin tray.”34

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Chapter One

What fell in his empty tray during his stay as a peddler in Greece was Indian metaphysics. The superb quality he observed in Indian philosophy was that it gets renewed and refined as the days pass, as and when new insightful scholars or Gurus make more and more observations about life and reality. Anyone can add any fresh insightful ideas to the existing philosophy. It is dynamic, holistic, and all-inclusive. Durrell’s earnestness in his keen quest for a new metaphysics, for a viable philosophy, that is capable of representing a reality based on truth, is quite clear: “We need purer and purer definitions to keep us from being coarsened by values which the world imposes on us and we must try our best to refuse it” (Monsieur 167). He knows that the nature of the present reality is unbearable and inescapable. The truth is that we feel totally strangled by the imposition of several kinds of duties and narrow values on us, values that inflict on us a sense of group thinking. It is done in the name of religion, patriotism, culture, family, etc., and it forces man to live a life of mental torture, in which the missing elements are joy and bliss. Therefore, the Indian definition of life as a reservoir of joy, happiness, and bliss, appear to Durrell as a unique philosophy, as an attitude to life that is just opposite to all the narrow dogmas and values which “the world imposes on us”. The meaninglessness of these imposed values naturally generates space for the birth of new thinkers and writers who are capable of not only rejecting them totally, but also of suggesting new ways of living in peace and happiness. Durrell’s impatience with the prevailing atmosphere of reality can be seen in his statements like “the universe has got cancer, it is evil” (143). About these negative values which split reality into good and evil, Radhakrishnan observes, “I regret to say that the way we are now going about with our sharp distinctions of good and evil is the sure road to disaster.”35 Therefore, Durrell’s obsession with the East is not a mania, it is not like his islomania; it comes from a reality which keeps on prompting almost all right thinking men in the world to seek some sensible peace-giving ideologies. Isabelle KellerPrivat is of the opinion that one may also argue that it is a mania in the Durrellian sense, not in the Freudian sense, as when he defines his “islomania” as a way of seeing the world, being in the world at an angle, this may become imperative when one wishes to reach a certain form of wisdom. If we look at Durrell’s fiction broadly, there are three key areas in his stories where the ideas from Indian metaphysics have been found greatly influential. One area is which supports his robust view that there is no “stable ego” in life. It is a very strong Oriental attitude that can help us in shaping our personality. The second, as we know, Durrell, like D. H.

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Lawrence, is known for his crusade against the traditional attitude to sexual love. The Hindu way of looking at sex must have come to him as a timely boon, because this is the core subject in his novels. The third, and the most important one for him, is the wisdom with which the East accepts death. Life for an Indian is not a preparation to enter another world. In fact, Indian metaphysics is all about the art of making this given life heavenly and blissful and then accepting death as one accepts birth. In all these areas Durrell finds that Indian mysticism and philosophy have made tremendous contributions. The non-rational attitude of an Indian to his life in this world and the tremendous quality of perseverance in him, coupled with the principle of non-interference, form a fine contrast to the western attitudes to life. “The rishis who discovered the law of non-violence, were greater geniuses than Newton.”36, says Radhakrishnan. Equally great is the insightful way in which the problem of the ego is tackled in The Bhagavad Gita. It gave Durrell immense confidence in developing his concept of human consciousness. The Gita tells you how to rediscover your Self. So it is interesting to see how it helped Durrell in writing his famous novel, The Alexandria Quartet, the structure of which is based on the discovery of one’s Self. According to Huxley: The philosophy of the Upanishads reappears, developed and enriched, in the Bhagavad-Gita and was finally systematized in the ninth century of our era, by Shankara.37

Therefore, Durrell’s interest in Bhagavad Gita needs a fresh look. The next area in life, as already noted, that influenced Durrell towards the East is sex. When he found that the Eastern approach to sexual love is more sensible, what we should actually accept, or what he should depict in his novels, he did not have to think twice. Thus, we can find that his attitude to sex gets immensely influenced by Indian or Buddhist Tantrism; it is a fact which he makes very explicit in his Quintet. His treatment of sex, as we shall see in this book, is not isolated from his idea of the self, or the idea of non-dualism. The third area is his treatment of death, and it is based on gnostic as well as Indian attitudes. The source of Durrell’s ideas on death cannot be pinned down to a particular Indian philosophy, as the entire philosophies in India are aimed at one’s wilful submission or acceptance of death. Durrell, as a writer, has a clear philosophical approach to death. In Fletcher Markle’s “Teaching Your Characters”, the title given for the text of an interview, Durrell observes:

14

Chapter One Men need to die or need to risk death in order to live….It’s necessary that you make them graze death. They suddenly breathe and say, O Christ, life is wonderful! 38

What he does in Sebastian, in fact, is making his readers graze death. Affad, the key character in the Quintet, is cast in the role of a Yogi, and his heroic deed in the novel is not only to demonstrate the acceptance of death and to identify the treasure for which man has been making his futile quest for thousands of years, but he must also enlighten people about what the grail is really about. In a way, his heroic task is to accomplish what his creator wanted to achieve as a writer in the third stage of his writing career. If Durrell’s theme in The Black Book is English death, in the Quintet it is acceptance of death. In his interview to Stephen Gray, Durrell clarifies: “When I talk about ‘the English death’ I am talking about the urban death, which is now on us all over the world.”39 Therefore, he found a need to display in his novels the real art of dying, to create in his readers a fearless attitude to death. In conclusion, we can say that the concept of death in Durrell involves the rich ideas that are found in the Vedanta. It is a topic which we can find Huxley also discussing in detail in his The Perennial Philosophy. This subject will come up in detail in the fourth chapter. It is only for the convenience of a critical analysis in this book that these three broad areas in Durrell’s novels are separately identified. They converge into a new synchronicity and it gives Durrell a vast spectrum of reality, a reality which is non-dualist, non-traditional, metaphysical, and highly Vedantic. Another noticeable feature emerging from Indian metaphysics, from all these broad areas we cited, is that we get a new concept of human personality, the idea of human personality as a bundle of parts or skandhas. Projecting this reality into fiction could be one of the most difficult challenges that Durrell must have faced while writing his Quintet. In the interview to Graf and Gauthier, the translation of which appears in Conversations, the interviewers asked him to clarify the reference he makes to Tibetan Buddhism in his novels, for the sake of western readers. Durrell answers: You know, the components of our European personality throughout the history of psychology up to Freud are located for simplicity’s sake between the conscious and the unconscious. For the Hindus, for the Vedantists, these elements are classified into the five ‘baskets’, the famous ramifications. All the Aristotelian distinctions, for example, perception, comprehension, etc., are grouped in a single, completely nebulous element, because individual personality doesn’t exist: it’s an invention, and the farther one progresses in yoga, the more one realizes it’s an invention.40

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Durrell found this Buddhist concept very useful for a novelist, for one who wants to be true to reality. The result is that these ideas now lay embedded in his characters, in his novels, in areas where he wanted to highlight the indeterminate nature of human personality. These Buddhist ideas are part of Indian metaphysics, because Buddhism is an off-shoot of Hinduism. “Raising questions like the principle of indeterminacy affects the whole basis of human personality—and you come out in Hindu metaphysics”41, explains Durrell while discussing the “terrific problem” of human personality with Kenneth Young. If viewed in a proper sense, we can see that human consciousness is the subject matter of any story, in any good novel. So, Durrell also gives focus to the mindscape of his characters; he delineates in his works how their consciousness gets shaped in a world which is very hostile to their life and happiness. This curiosity to probe the psyche of his character prompted him to go very deep into the field of psychology. Freud is given a prominent role in Durrell’s Quartet, particularly in the creation of that impenetrable character, Justine. However, he cautions during his interview with Joan Goulianos that “Freud exploded the interior stable ego. I only deal with the philosophical by-products of these things.”42 The western mode of psychoanalysis, he realizes, helps only in the treatment of mental patients, a fact which he indicates through a few events in his Quintet. However, Durrell also shows in Sebastian that even the psychoanalytic treatment is a failure. “The Western concept of consciousness implies that without the ego and the cerebrum, consciousness does not exist”, says Charles Breaux in Journey into Consciousness: The Chakras, Tantra and Jungian Psychology.43 Interestingly, Sebastian can be seen as a novel in which the Western and Eastern approaches to psychic problems are contrasted: the Western through the treatment in sanatoriums, and the Eastern through yoga. Contrary to the Freudian methods, the Indian approach to all psychological problems is on easing out our suppressed emotions in us, or shedding them; thus demonstrating how man can tune his consciousness towards the attainment of enlightenment. In other words, as Kellar-Privat points out, Freud’s analysis can help, at best, the mentally ill while Indian metaphysics enables a universal awareness, an intimate knowledge of the self and of the world. Indian metaphysics tells us the ways and means of attaining enlightenment by carrying an empty and weightless self. Its aim is always comprehension and cooperation, and not suppression and alienation. Durrell shows in Sebastian how incurable cases, like that of Mnemidis’s, create problems in our society. He finds the Western approach to human consciousness that is based on religion and science not at all realistic or

16

Chapter One

effective. He frankly reveals most of his creative intentions, as a writer, to the interviewers who ask him questions about his ideas. For example, he has always admitted that in the Quartet he wanted to use Einstein’s theory of relativity. He also made it abundantly clear that his Quintet celebrates the Tibetan idea of number five, the “five baskets of elements or attributes.”44 The Tibetan idea helped him in dealing with the problems related to human consciousness. As religion and science are only complicating man’s inner world, Durrell seeks an ideology that can cure the psychic problems of man and he finds the East showing him the ways. This point has to be clearly understood: that the East gives a better knowledge of the working of human consciousness. His literary relationship with the writers engaged in Indian studies and their interaction about the intuitive nature of Indian wisdom must have quickened his interest in Indian studies. A look at the published letters of some of these writers, like in The Durrell-Miller Letters, can reveal how much the word, India, provoked most of them into an in-depth discussion of their “easterly courses”. The most surprising element that swayed Durrell is that Indian metaphysics at last came up for a serious intellectual scrutiny among some of the great scientists living in the twentieth century. He thus realizes that the rational response to Indian spiritualism cannot just be ignored by any serious writer. Eastern metaphysics, as already remarked, is mainly about the self, the conscious self, or about the discovery of the true self. According to Zimmer, “the effort of Indian philosophy has been for millenniums, to know the adamantine Self and make the knowledge effective in human life”.45 The Quartet, depicting the growth of Darley’s self, in all respects, is a text describing the difficult but very adamant transformation that takes place in the “adamantine Self” of the protagonist, Darley. His confusion caused by his western outlook serves as a contrast to the subsequent process of inner transformation taking place in him. How the East becomes a structural part of the Quartet will be dealt with at length in the next chapter of this book. Unlike the Quintet, in which the use of Indian insight is made explicit and more significantly highlighted, Eastern ideas appear in the Quartet only in the form of aphorisms, in the form of occasional philosophical mutterings coming from Pursewarden or Balthazar, or from the characters with some Oriental background in the novel. His Holiness Dalai Lama observes that Buddhism is “for training the mind, for overcoming problems, primarily of the mind, especially negative forces in our emotions.”46 How Darley trains his mind to get rid of his negative emotions, and how far he uses the Buddhist ways to do it are facts which require more critical evaluation. Some aspects of Indian

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philosophy, like the metaphysical idea of tat tvam asi, also came handy for Durrell in building the structure of The Alexandria Quartet. This metaphysical idea will come up for a deeper scrutiny in this book. In one place in the Quartet, Mountolive’s father is introduced as a scholar who had studied the lore of Indian wisdom. The description of the days he spent in India reminds us of the days when Durrell’s father lived and worked in India. Mountolive’s father makes a “friendly withdrawal into the world of Eastern scholarship on which his heart had been set for many years. It was perplexing” (AQ 467). But we know that it was actually Durrell’s heart that “had been set for many years” on Indian scholarship. Durrell’s attraction towards the East is not only born out of his literary curiosity to go deep into the intricacies of human consciousness, but it is also the result of his ardent desire to show a way out for man’s peace and harmony in this world. It also comes from his commitment to truth and reality. Cecily Mackworth writes in her article, “Lawrence Durrell and the New Romanticism”, that Durrell’s characters are “vehicles for the discovery of truth”. According to her: He is using them to demonstrate his ideas about man’s relationship with cosmos in the same way the scientists have been using cyphers to make the same demonstration”.47

This commitment to truth and reality, Durrell realizes, is at the very core of Indian metaphysics. Radhakrishnan observes, “The Hindu thinkers have tried to grapple with the ultimate problems in a spirit of loyalty to truth and feeling for reality.”48 Durrell has no interest in current social problems, because he wants his characters to grapple with the ultimate problems in life. Whenever the course of events in Durrell’s novels deviates from righteousness, the readers can easily notice a change in his narrative style. The rhythm of language suddenly acquires the beauty of a horrified fascination, depending on the gravity of the situation, or on the cruelty of the scene. One such example is the scene of slaughtering a camel in the Quartet: a couple of men come with axes and cut it up there and then in the open street, alive. They hack through the white flesh–the poor creature looking ever more pained, more aristocratic, more puzzled as its legs are hacked off. Finally there is the head still alive, the eyes open, looking round. Not a scream of protest, not a struggle. The animal submits like a palm tree (AQ 56).

18

Chapter One

The words, “submits like a palm tree”, speak volumes. Durrell thus depicts man’s fascination for cruelty in his novels whenever the occasion permits him. He knows that the concept of non-violence is at the core of Indian spiritualism. He depicts violence in his novels in order to pin point the actual sin being committed by man, or to highlight the inescapable necessity to reshape human consciousness towards love and sympathy. The cruel scenes in Durrell’s novels are expected to evoke a natural disgust in the readers about the course man has taken; they also gradually develop into a disgust towards the Western culture. Through the depiction of the reality in which cruel slaughters of animals or of other living beings, including innocent men, are taking place in this world, the novelist exposes the truth that man is mercilessly training his psyche to be indifferent to massacres on a massive scale. It is this readiness to kill one’s fellow beings that gradually develops into the form of proud commitments to world wars. The skilful narration of such cruel scenes, displaying the brutality of the reality in which we live, enables the readers to justify Durrell’s acceptance of the “Easterly course”. We can easily find that the metaphors and symbols he uses in his novels also change according to the magnitude of the crime. The arrogant nature of man, like that of Captain Ahab’s in Moby Dick, is exposed in the Quartet through several such scenes of cruelty to nature. They are there to serve as a contrast to the submissive nature of the people in the East. This kind of reality helps the novelist to develop the idea of passivity in man, a quality that is consciously reflected in his later novels. The irony is that, Durrell feels, the present language is very resourceful and yielding when man’s destructive side is to be portrayed, when his wild egoism and sterile adventures are to be narrated. But it refuses to cooperate when the inner poise of man, his noblest nature, is to be highlighted. He admits that in his novels, the language is “lacking in sheer word-magic, in propulsion, to achieve this other world of artistic fulfilment” (792). Durrell had already acquired the skill to write, to write like the leading literary writers, like James Joyce or D. H. Lawrence. What he required now was complete confidence in what he was writing, to possess purity and honesty in what is depicted as true and transcendent in his novels. To achieve it, he knew that India was calling him. As Ian S. MacNiven points out, “India had shown him the way – even before he knew what he was looking for; and Europe had given him the voice.”49 As we have observed, his childhood in India and later on his friendship with almost every Indologist living in Europe during his writing career there gave him the much needed motivation to dive deep into the human

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consciousness and capture the inner poise in language that was appropriate. Though Indian metaphysics places stress on intuitive insight, it is not altogether devoid of rational knowledge. Instead, it insists that one’s acquired insight be accompanied by rational knowledge. Capra says, “If there is an intuitive element in science, there is also a rational element in Eastern mysticism.”50 Indian metaphysical studies are based on the experiences of our own inner life and the real goal of Indian spiritual ideas is to enrich our present life on this planet; and there is no promise of a life hereafter in them. That is why Buddhism demands that all its principles must be subjected to scientific criticism. According to Wallace: Buddhism, like science, presents itself as a body of systematic knowledge about the natural world, and it posits a wide array of testable hypothesis and theories concerning the nature of the mind and its relation to the physical environment.51

Durrell understood that the collective interest in mysticism in India was not born out of a desire to seek a God outside one’s self, in the external world, but to discover the God within oneself. In other words, the ultimate metaphysical stress in the East is on the individual and his well-being. There is no doctrine in the East which restricts man’s freedom. Instead, the Oriental metaphysical ideas and practices not only help man rediscover his self, but they also help him realize his cosmic place in this universe. Durrell argues in the Key: For does not the Bhagavad-Gita and the Book of the Simple Way enjoin the reader to ‘free himself of the opposites’! Each of us however will have to follow up this aspect of things for himself (Key 64).

After all, this is what happens in Durrell’s Quartet; it is a novel in which the protagonist tries to “free himself from the opposites”. The Quartet is the sum total of Darley’s confused life in Alexandria, his strained relationships with his friends living there, particularly with his so called lovers. But it is also about his perpetual struggle to find his own place in that world, to rediscover his self by freeing himself from his contradictions. The technique of the rediscovery of the self is an important aspect of Indian metaphysics. In fact, the Quartet is a work which illustrates not only the inner turmoil of Darley, who is caught in the vortex of relative realities, but it also is a novel revealing the art of the rediscovery of the self. It highlights first Darley’s mental miseries caused by subordinating his self to the strong will of the place, Alexandria. But soon he realizes that he must assert himself in order to free his self from

20

Chapter One

the false realities to which he had succumbed himself earlier. In short, if looked at it from an Oriental angle, all of Darley’s miseries are caused by his failure to learn the art of detaching his self from his bondages or his attachments in which he was unconsciously trapped in Alexandria, be it a sentimental kiss or a watch key. Therefore, the Quartet can be read as a novel which has taken much from the East for its structure, whereas the Quintet is totally influenced by Oriental metaphysics for both its theme and structure. So, Durrell, like some other Western writers, saw in Indian metaphysics a perfect union between reason and intuition. Therefore, he makes a proper blending of these two highly valuable qualities in man, and successfully embodies them in his novels, particularly in the scenes where the relationship between Constance and Affad is portrayed in the Quintet. The practice of passing spiritual knowledge to others, to one’s fellow beings, is a fine quality that Durrell borrows from Indian mythology. The word Upanishad means sitting close to or sitting near a Guru and listening to his mystic talk about the relationship between man and his universe (the root word sad means sit down, ni means down, and upa means near). We can see in the Quintet how Constance collects drops and drops of wisdom that comes trickling down from Affad in that great scene of their Tantric sexual yoga. Affad is the quintessence of human experience; he personifies intuitive wisdom in its concentrated form. Highlighting this aspect to Stephen Gray, Durrell laments, “We start from dogma. It is the wrong way to start. The dogma must grow out of the experience”.52 Accordingly, Durrell gives us two great novels, the Quartet and the Quintet, in order to show on one side what harm dogmas can do to mankind, and on the other side, to show what one can achieve through one’s wisdom. In this respect, his statement to Jean-Maurice de Montremy regarding the quality of his works to form a “complete whole” is important.53 How the Quartet makes the metaphysical “interpenetration” into the Quintet requires a careful study and it will also be quite an indispensable experience for the readers to understand how the novelist achieves it. The number four of the Quartet merges into the number five of the Quintet. It is not, therefore, four plus five, but only five as four has gone into the five. Without the four, in other words, five is not possible. Also, there cannot be a meaningful understanding of the five without passing through the four, the Quartet. We have noted that Durrell was tremendously influenced by The Bhagavad Gita, a fact he reveals in his Key54. The truth is that the message emerging from the Gita pervades his works. While recollecting his earlier association with Indian metaphysics, Stephen Schwartz in Jack Sarfatti’s Destiny Matrix writes, “The Bhagavad Gita …. At that time I did not

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know that it was the Numero Uno of the many Hindu scriptures.”55 The Gita is not a religious text like The Bible, but a storehouse of insightful wisdom. It is not a God-centred text but a scripture suggesting useful methods with which one can transcend one’s ego. A picture of a chariot with five horses, being driven by a charioteer, can be seen in almost all the printed copies of The Gita. In fact, the five horses stand for our five senses, the charioteer for the ego, and Lord Krishna stands for our “subtler discriminative intellect”. “Finally”, Swami Chinmayananda, a great Indian spiritual Guru, writes: When the stunned and confused ego–Arjuna–totally surrenders to Krishna, the Lord, with a smile, reassures the jeeva of its final victory, and declares the entire message of spiritual redemption, the Gita”.56

Jeeva or jiva means a living being. All that we need to understand here is that the word Gita means spiritual redemption and that this redemption can be achieved through the absolute surrender of one’s ego. This fact enables us to realize how close the Quartet is to the Gita. The critical views coming up in the following chapter, in which Durrell’s crusade against ego is taken up, will touch upon this aspect of the Indian spiritual text, The Bhagavad Gita, and see how it has influenced his character, Darley. About the picture of the chariot with five horses that is mentioned in The Gita, which can be seen in any published text, Zimmer explains in Philosophies of India: The Self (atman) is the owner of the chariot; the body (sarira) is the chariot; intuitive discernment and awareness (buddhi) is the charioteer; the thinking (manas) is the bridle; the sense-forces (indriya) are the horses ….” 57

How Indian metaphysics discovers the interior world, inner universe of man, and explores the mystery of the self with the help of various symbols is evident from the metaphor of the horses and the warrior cited here. The inner quest is thus symbolically presented in The Gita. Through the metaphor of the horses and the chariot in The Gita one can learn much about the art of taming the human ego, and similarly we know that Durrell’s basic theme in his novels is the same, the conquest of the ego. He probably found in this divine scripture the much needed metaphysical source he was seeking as a novelist. Therefore, it is only apt here to observe more clearly how Chinmayananda, the great Indian sage, explains it:

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Chapter One The ego (Arjuna) in its dejection sits back in the body (chariot), throwing down all instruments of ego-centric activities (Gandiva), and the senseorgans (the white-horses) are held back, well under control, by the pulled reins (the mind). Then the charioteer (the Pure Intellect) would lend the ego a divine strength, and guide it to the ultimate victory over the forces of Adharma with the help of the dynamism of Dharma, even though the former may seem much stronger in force than the simple looking dynamism in the latter”.58

Adharma is the opposite of Dharma, and Dharma, according to Webster’s Dictionary, means “the basic principles of cosmic or individual existence: divine law”. As the Lord repeatedly guides Arjuna to fight and win the battle, The Gita is sometimes taken as a “war-mongering scripture”59. In fact, The Gita is to be understood as a text giving us a suitable metaphor for the working of our consciousness. We, as the students of Durrell, know how Darley fights to conquer his ego in the long drawn-out psychic battle in the Alexandria Quartet, or how Constance receives knowledge about the self from Affad who has already won the battle against his ego. Affad dives deep into the events in her past life, interrogates Constance in the light of her old and rigid dogmas, which stand at the root of most of the human sufferings in this world, and convinces her what they could gain intellectually and spiritually if they are willing to choose a happy life. But for a happy life one should know how to control ones ego and its desires. Durrell, thus, focuses on human consciousness in his novels in order to show the ways of seeking happiness. However, happiness in life requires happy sexual relationships too. That is how ego and sexual relationships get priority as the two important subjects in Durrell’s novels. The character of Affad in the Quintet is created in such a way that his adventures in life become useful to others, useful in receiving great insight in the subject of sex, and he also serves as a fine example of a man with a transcended ego. Constance learns from him that she must immediately direct her attention to train her thoughts towards attaining proper intuitive wisdom. One of the greatest scholars who earnestly studied the inner strength of Indian metaphysics is Zimmer. He says, “… the whole edifice of Indian civilization is imbued with spiritual meaning”.60 Durrell, therefore, has taken substantial ideas from Vedanta to give shape to the content and form of his literary works. In an interview with Braudeau he discusses his stand regarding Veda, how it enables him to view his own life and death61. He reveals how, like a Hindu, he looks at the function of his body and soul. If we read The Bhagavad Gita from the point of view of human psychology, we can learn how a hostile situation can be made profitable to

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us in our life, or how an adverse situation can educate us morally and psychologically, and it will also show us how all kinds of experiences in life can be of help to our inner growth. What happens in the Bhagavad Gita is this: the lack of righteousness in war troubles a soldier named Arjuna (say X) as he moves into the battlefield, and Lord Krishna (Y) gives him the necessary psychological guidance to achieve victory. Arjuna wants to know how one should approach the inevitable war and subsequently be cured of one’s dilemma caused by one’s delicate conscience. In other words, this great spiritual text teaches us that, if the war out there is due to our wrong way of living, the best way is to face it, to take it as an experience, to learn from it and to grow from it. In other words, we should take war in a positive sense. To understand this, let us try to believe that war is an inevitable reality created by some invisible hand to create an occasion for man to undergo an inner interrogation. It then leads him to his spiritual awareness; it gives him an occasion to acquire more intuitive wisdom. Briefly put, war becomes an experience that can foster wisdom. So, war is to be taken as a metaphor for a hostile experience, for any adverse situation or obstacles that stand in the way of our happiness. This is the way Durrell takes it: “So the powers that arranged things for us felt they must concretize it, in order to lodge death in the actual present” (AQ 797). We can thus see how he uses the psychological aspect of the Gita to an optimum level in his Quartet. He says, “My dear chap, to see the ethics of man at his norm you must see a battlefield” (796). These words in The Quartet have the robust resonance of The Gita. In order to understand the symbolism in The Gita, let us say: X (Arjuna) is the man of action and Y (Krishna) is the Lord of reflection, though both are, in fact, one representing the two aspects of man. Placing himself in the position of a man of reflection, because he is a writer, Darley in the Quartet says, “The man of action and the man of reflection are really the same man, operating on two different fields” (796). The two different fields, obviously, are the physical and the spiritual, or the intellectual and the intuitive; intellectual because fighting requires cunning. Darley, like Durrell, tries to analyse the root cause of war before realizing his duty as a writer, his duty to grow out of it as a writer. He writes: Shall I tell you my notion about it … the war? What I have come to believe? I believe the desire for war was first lodged in the instincts as a biological shock-mechanism to precipitate a spiritual crisis which couldn’t be done by any other how in limited people (796-797).

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Chapter One

There is a very strong echo of The Gita in these words. We can go on and on explaining the psychological aspect of The Gita, but what is advisable is to read this great insightful scripture and directly gather the rich wisdom it contains. Durrell seems to have studied it well and that is why he takes this divine text as a guiding force in his search for the truth. He takes The Gita as a spiritual base to support his arguments in his A Key to Modern British Poetry, because he is confident of its positive qualities. In short, Durrell looks at the positive side of war, after studying what it can contribute to the living. He says, “the presence of death out there as a normal feature of life–only in full acceleration so to speak–has given me an inkling of Life Everlasting” (797). Along with his search for a metaphysical solution, what tempted Durrell to turn to the East, as already noted, was the disgusting war-ridden culture in which he was brought up. But the East now turns him inside out and he realizes the inevitability of war; as war will be there as long as man remains an ignorant creature: “All this had to be brought about so that poor Johnny Keats could grow into a man” (796); and also a man like Darley could grow into a writer: “It has made a man of me, as the saying goes. More, a writer! My soul is quite clear.” (796) The psychic and spiritual growth it gives to man is spontaneous, rapid, and penetrative, provided we know how to learn from it. Durrell explains its magnitude: I can only say that no half-dozen French mistresses, no travels around the world, no adventures in the peacetime world we knew could have grown me up so thoroughly in half the time (797).

Therefore, the writer in Durrell assumes the role of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita in order to educate his readers, so that war never becomes a historical repetition as what is happening in the West. By exhibiting “death in the actual present”, let this be repeated, war is able to give “an inkling of life Everlasting”. This deep realization of the experience of war comes only in the last novel of the Quartet, Clea, and then we find Durrell taking it up again in the Quintet, before the spiritual study of death comes up in the novel. Be it war or sex, Durrell finds in the Indian approach to it a positive element. Every experience outside the self becomes a rich material for an inner scrutiny; and all these subsequently lead to the inner growth of the self. Here Isabelle’s comment is that this blurring of frontiers between actions and thoughts in Durrell is of paramount importance: man is a WHOLE (physical and spiritual), one entity, the principle of joining and unity developed in Yoga. Like the act of subjecting sex for reflection in Tantra, Durrell notices that war is used in The Gita for our inner reflection. Therefore, the message lying embedded

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in the Quartet, “indulge but refine”, has the Vedantic resonance in it. There will be occasions in this book to see this fact more elaborately. Now it is plain that the experiencing self is given primary importance in Durrell’s works. Unlike the western approach, which is objectivistic, the basic concern for him is to rationally examine and explain the constitution of the self and its relationship with the cosmos. In this regard, for Durrell, as an artist and as a novelist, oriental wisdom serves as a literary device, because reality gets revealed by itself, and there is no need to create any imaginary or artificial reality in fiction. A natural form of stream of consciousness is operative at the narrative level of his novels. The only difference between the stream-of-consciousness technique used by writers like Virginia Woolf and Durrell is that his stream has a definite course; its flow has a definite spiritual destination; it flows finally into the ocean of cosmic reality. At the same time, unlike what we find in the conventional stream-of-consciousness novels, the narrator in his novels intrudes whenever it is found essential, or the poet in Durrell takes over in the course of his narration whenever a landscape tempts him. This oriental stream is always an illuminating stream, an enlightening stream; its goal is refining the self. As the uniqueness and independence of each individual consciousness is recognized in Indian philosophy the psychic flow does not get lost in any dogmatic stream. Because of its reflective nature, Durrell’s stream of consciousness gives birth to a new awareness, to a new meaning, and thus to a new spiritual experience. As the new emerging awareness makes one aware of the possibility of the existence of similar such awareness in others, it inspires the experienced individual to merge his self with the collective awareness, that is the cosmic awareness, the cosmic Self. All these activities never take place in isolation, by cutting oneself off from the rational world. Therefore, ultimately, the realization is that the new awareness one gains is about the real meaning of life, about the reality of love and death. In short, what one learns through one’s reflexive consciousness is the problem of freedom and choices, the individual limitations, and finally the art of transcending these limitations. That is why Indian metaphysics is seen as an existential philosophy. According to its principles, an individual must discover his essence. After allowing himself to go through various experiences in this mundane world and then by subjecting his self to constant reflections, without any intervention from any outside agency, the man in the East realizes that the only way to earn peace and harmony in life, in this world, is to surrender the self. Zimmer points out:

26

Chapter One The chief aim of Indian thought is to unveil and integrate into consciousness what has been thus resisted and hidden by the forces of life – not to explore and describe the visible world.62

This is the reason why the training of the self, the disciplining of the mind gets importance in Indian metaphysics, which is called Yoga. It is one of the valuable features of Indian metaphysics, and it is also the reason why a Yogi is given the status of a modern hero in Durrell’s novel, about which more critical attention will be given in this book. Lawrence Durrell is at his best when he deals with the subject of love and sex. His attitude to sex turned more and more insightful in his last novels. Finally, in his life as a novelist, he comes to the mystic realization that sexual act is a form of yoga. He knows that there is great wisdom lying hidden in sex; it has something great in it that is beyond the act of reproduction and we must realize this fact fully. In other words, sex is a ladder for him to climb upward and achieve pure consciousness; or sex for him is both physical and metaphysical. He finds that sex, psyche and culture are interrelated, and that they can mutually influence and enrich or ruin one another, if we fail to learn its mystical nature. He follows Henry Miller in the bold depiction of sex, but, unlike Miller, he avoids making it appear excessively obscene. His first real novel, The Black Book, provoked F. R. Leavis to accuse him of “throwing mud on literature”.63 Read Way Dasenbrock says, “For a time to write a serious book meant to write a ‘dirty book’, and of course, Durrell’s first serious book, The Black Book, was another such ‘dirty book’.”64 Mulk Raj Anand has a very good answer to this kind of accusation about Durrell. Anand’s comment appears at the end of this book where a critical account of his friendship with Durrell is given in the form of an interview the present author had with him in 1993. In Indian metaphysics, sex is seen neither as dirt nor a sin, but it is considered as a ladder taking one towards bliss. Durrell gives great importance to this attitude, because he believes that the “focal point of life is sex”, as he describes it in The Black Book. In Quinx, his final novel, he writes, “Sex – the human animal’s larder …. Yes. Or the fatal powerhouse. We could do so much with it if we learned the code” (Quinx 200). Those who miss the “code” in Durrell’s novels can only discern “dirt”. The code he talks about comes from his Tantric knowledge of sex, an insight he borrowed from India. The act of reflection following a sexual experience is what Durrell found quite interesting in Indian metaphysics, particularly in Tantrism. One full chapter is devoted in this book for the discussion of Durrell’s sexual “code”, because it has the central place in his novels. In an interview given to Kenneth Young he told him: “Well I

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believe that human beings best reveal themselves in their relations to one another through the point faible, the sexual relation”.65 The relationships among the characters in the Quartet, as we know, are revealed through their sexual relationships, or through their sexual aberrations. It is in the Quintet that Durrell deals with sex as a spiritual ladder, where its intellectual and metaphysical aspects are scientifically discussed. Constance, therefore, in the Quintet is a metaphor, standing for sex and womanhood. She stands for the West and the East, and finally she emerges as an instrument of the novelist to convey all the mysteries of sex to her fellow beings. Moreover, we know that making sex integral to the structure of fiction is one of the vital qualities of Metafiction, enabling the novelist to create a metafictional reality. Technically speaking, a perfect knowledge of the principles of Tantrism has become imperative for a full understanding of Durrell’s attitude to sex. He gathers great penetrating insight from the physical and spiritual ideas contained in Tantrism. The presentation of Tantric practices in his novels enables him to display the power of sex and the way in which it enhances and enriches human consciousness and human personality. There may be confusion about the differences in Indian and Buddhist Tantrism. But it is unwarranted, and the readers must see them as one and the same. During the Muslim invasion of India in the twelfth century, beliefs and practices like Tantrism were taken to Tibet, but, basically, no fundamental changes took place in their principles or practices, though the adjective “Tibetan” got attached to Tantra and Buddhism since then. The readers must have observed Durrell’s clever use of “Bon Juan” in his novel as a parody to “Don Juan”: “Don Juan, eh? No, Bon Juan the new hero.” (Quinx167) Bon was the name of a religion that existed in Tibet and the Indian yogis who migrated to Tibet during the Muslim invasion of India had to face stiff résistance from these demon-like Bons, says Breaux. He writes, the “yogis tamed the terrifying demons of the old Bon religion with their magic powers” and “these demons became guardians of the Buddhist teachings.”66 Hence, Durrell’s Bon Juan is to be understood as the guardian of sex and womanhood; he is just the opposite of Don Juan. According to Denis de Rougemont, Don Juan is a man in “quest of the one woman whom desire in its self-deception is never able to find”67. A true Vedantic, on the other hand, can see all women in one woman. While discussing the principles and practices of Tantrism in this book, the mythical words like Shiva and Shakti, like the words Bon Juan, may cause some difficulties for Western readers. The students in India face similar problems while dealing with the names in Greek and Christian mythology. To quote Breaux again:

28

Chapter One The sexual imagery of Shiva and Shakti as lovers point towards their interdependence … two complementary aspects of a single unity; one cannot exist without the other.68

It will become more explicit when Durrell’s female character, Constance, comes up for metaphysical scrutiny in this book later on. Shiva is the name for the phallic principle, whereas Shakti is the female principle; one is the sun and the other the earth. Breaux, who works in the field of holistic health, has done a comparative study of Tantrism and the psychology of Jung. He believes that there “are many ways that Tantric practices and Jungian psychology coincide and enhance each other”.69 Durrell in his Key explains how Jung differs from Freud who could “not for a moment drop his strict inherence to causation” (Key 63). About Jung’s “revaluation of the Freudian apparatus” and his contribution to the value of symbols, Durrell says, “The point I want to make is that the symbolic apparatus of the artist received a new charge, a new accretion of power from all this knowledge” (63). Therefore, the impact of the Tantric-Jungian-Durrell link is that the symbolic apparatus of Tantrism helps Durrell as a writer, via Jung’s psychology, in giving a richer meaning to his idea of sex and womanhood. Durrell writes about Jung: His symbols were developing a multiple effect. Up to now they had been more or less fixed within the limits of their dictionary meaning.” (63)

It is in this particular context that we should see the symbols of Shiva and Shakti used in Tantrism: the two principles of male and female. They are just like the terms anima and animus or Yin and Yang. With the help of these symbols a Tantric realizes the divine power within him. Breaux writes, “Though couched in a mythological language, Tantra’s insights into the nature of the cosmos have indeed a striking resemblance to modern physics”.70 The confidence with which he has used the Tantric principles in his novels shows that Durrell has made an in-depth study of Tantrism, about its scientific and psychological rationale, before applying it in his novels. Like the use of Tantrism, two other important Indian or Buddhist principles and practices that Durrell made integral to the structure or to the theme of his novels are yoga and the idea of skandhas. They are, therefore, made a part of the discourse presented in this book. Yet, as a mild form of introduction to these Indian terms, a brief look at them here may benefit the readers. According to Radhakrishnan, “Yoga is a path, a praxis, and training by which the individual man, bleeding from the split caused by

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intelligence, becomes whole.”71 Yoga, thus, comes to the rescue of a man who is “bleeding from the split caused by intelligence”. This, surely, is a very intelligent expression, if we can understand the word “split”. What Radhakrishnan means here is dualism, the Cartesian split. It, therefore, invites our attention further towards a split-less reality. The “path” indicated in yoga is a path from intelligence to intuition; it is the path one can get from the study of Vedanta, the path towards Nirvana. This path is also from the particular to the universal, from the particular to the whole. In terms of Indian metaphysics, it is a path from self to the Self. The word “praxis”, according to Webster’s dictionary, means “exercise or practise of an art, science, or skill”. Yoga is a practice that is meant for the good of both body and mind, and its scientific rationale is already an accepted fact. Then the most important word in the definition given by Radhakrishnan is “training” which will be critically examined in the following chapters, when Durrell’s attitudes to the ego or when his interest in yoga comes up for a metaphysical scrutiny in the light of his novels. But, we must be clear that what Radhakrishnan means by the word “training” is the training of one’s mind: “one trains oneself and repeatedly practises certain states or behaviours, while restraining oneself from repeating other unwanted states or behaviours”, Desmarais explains.72 Michele Marie Desmarais, an ardent Buddhist and a famous Yoga teacher, enlightens us further in his book that it is “a system or method through which the mind and senses can be disciplined or controlled”.73 It is what helps the individual to become whole. Those who have read Durrell’s novels can immediately grasp the significance of all these ideas, because what is central to his novels is man’s journey towards the ultimate Self. The way of, the training of, or the conscious yoking of one’s soul to the cosmic soul is what we achieve through yoga, and yoga is the key to the Quintet. A very important characteristic to be noted in Durrell’s skilful use of Indian metaphysics, as a novelist, is in his handling of the Buddhist idea of skandha. The meaning of this word is “heap” or “aggregates”. The Buddhists believe that man, as such, has no permanent individual existence, as his physical and mental existence depends on five skandhas or five elements. Therefore, they think that the general feeling of “I” is an error, and it is the root cause of all sufferings. In other words, if we can understand that the “self”, about which we are so proud, is only a temporary collection of these five aggregates, and if we can be conscious of its impermanent nature, much suffering in life can be avoided. How beautifully this concept helps Durrell in the delineation of his characters is clearly evident in his novels, if we watch the way they try to perceive the reality in which they live. The general belief, an irrational belief, that there is a stable ego leads

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Chapter One

to the absurd assumption that there is also a stable and permanent reality. In order to give an effective meaning to this mistaken idea, Huxley quotes from some Buddhist text in his Perennial Philosophy: As an unintelligent man seeks for the abode of music in the body of the lute, so does he look for a soul within the skandhas (the material and psychic aggregates, of which the individual mind-body is composed.74

Demolishing the general attitude that there is a stable ego is the staunchest challenge that Durrell had taken up as a writer, and he was committed to it. It will not be an exaggeration if we try to see that the five novels in the Quintet represent the five human skandhas. As the Buddhist believes that only through the five skandhas can the self be ever discerned, so is the novel, the Quintet. It gives a complete sense to the reader only when all the parts, the five different novels, cohere to make a single whole. Though one single explanation is difficult to be found in all the available texts on skandhas, there are no two opinions in them on its fundamental principles or on the basic arguments about its nature. The five aggregates are: form, feelings (sensation), recognition (perception), compositional factors (mental formations), and consciousness. Each one can be discussed in detail, and the rationale behind it can be examined, but it is not within the scope of this text. Just as an example, the first one, form, can be taken here and split further to understand the five elements which constitute it: Earth (flesh and bone), air (breath), water (fluid in the body), fire (body heat), and space (empty areas). The interesting component here is that the importance of the number, five, in our cosmic reality cannot just be ignored: that we have five senses is surely a fine example. This could be another reason why Durrell decided to have a quintet as the third and final stage of his writing novels. Therefore, if each novel in the Quintet is closely examined, a sure corresponding relationship with each of the skandhas can be observed. However, it is not an easy task to analyse each one here, as each novel will have to be taken up independently and evaluated. But, to justify the argument here, the central novel, the third in the series in the Quintet, Constance, can be just picked up and compared with the third element in the skandhas: recognition or perception. It is in this novel the perception of true sexual union, or the idea of sexual union as yoga, is achieved. It is also in this novel that Constance recognizes her womanhood, her Shakti. Similarly, the fifth skandha, consciousness, is the essence of the novel, Quinx. It is in this last novel that “reality prime” comes to the aid of the characters, as they are finally able to recognize both the real cave and the real grail, the lotus of insight. The insight into true life resides in knowing and following the

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correct way, the right method, in bringing all these five “spare parts” into a coherent whole, into a member, into a human being, and in learning how to create the force-field in order to “Be ye members of one another”(Quinx 15). Huxley finds that “Hume and the Buddhists give a sufficiently realistic description of selfness in action.”75 But Huxley wonders “how or why the bundles ever became bundles.”76 We can only say that they are part of mystery. Keller-Privat says she liked this “passage very much” and wanted to know whether the present writer would agree with her that it explains why the five novels, although carrying the weight of a perceptible progress, could also be read in a random order. She feels that there is no imposed structural linearity that the very architecture advocates for interconnectedness, just as the five skandhas that permanently interrelate with no hierarchical relationship. She is right and Durrell leaves his fictional door wide open so that as many interpretations as possible are received. As already stated, the best way to reach Durrell and his metaphysics is to read his A Key to Modern British Poetry, though there are his poems, novels and interviews in which his metaphysical ideas can be found integrated into the text. In the Key his thoughts as a writer are made very explicit and he tries to argue and convince his listeners/readers about the reasons for the present literary tilt in the West towards the East. The essence of his argument, if it is minutely studied, is that now a new situation in literature has arrived where “the ego has become defused”: For until now art in the West was based upon the ego, upon the personality. Yet the ego has become defused, broken down by philosophic and scientific enquiry; what integration is possible for the poet in order to recompose the ego, to give it value and shape (Key 162).

How “to recompose the ego” and “give it value and shape” are central to Durrell’s literary pursuits. At the same time, he finds that Eastern metaphysics is not only about the art of demolishing the ego, but it also speaks about a nature of reality in which one can live a calm life with one’s defused ego. He is also able to see, as revealed in the Key, a clear relationship existing between the Indian and the scientific approaches to such a reality. As Capra says, modern science, particularly the quantum theory and the theory of indeterminacy point to such a situation. He writes in The Tao of Physics: The picture of an interconnected cosmic web which emerges from modern atomic physics has been used extensively in the East to convey the mystical experience of nature.” 77

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Durrell realizes that it is this new reality, based on such mystical experience, that an artist should be able to depict, though the language available was created to suit the reality based on opposites. He explains: This is at bottom a dialectical problem – how to convey a state for which words are inadequate? How to name a reality which is no longer itself once you qualify itself with a name? How to state something which is beyond opposites in a language which is based upon opposites? (Key 157)

This new reality, a kind of meta-Cartesian reality, or meta-reality, is what Durrell finally depicts in his Quintet. The idea of meta-reality, as already stated, will be taken up in detail for examination in the fifth chapter of this book. Durrell feels that to try to solve the confusion created by a distorted reality is a herculean task for man. Not only that, when we try to perceive actual truth, even the concept of heroism will have to be changed. In the place of heroic features like aggressiveness, the spirit to conquer, and the urge to possess, qualities like serene passivity or the readiness to submit will become the characteristics of a hero. Instead of the arrogant utterances signifying heroism, the poet will have to choose the quality of silence in man. “The idea of passivity, of letting-be, which we are rediscovering from the religious treatises of the East are still the sources of much confusion”, says Durrell (161). Therefore, the training of one’s mind, which was pointed out in the last paragraph, and the sense of passivity, “of letting-be”, became the ingredients with which Durrell decided to cast his key characters in his Quintet. One can see how much Durrell struggles in his Key to convince his readers that man must possess a submissive nature, if happiness is ever to be enjoyed. We should remember the gap in the time he had taken to write the Key and the Quintet, and also the quality of oriental insight Durrell must have possibly gathered during this interim period from various books or other sources. He is totally convinced that a disciplined mind, a passive mind alone can merge with the ultimate reality, or cosmic passivity. The passivity in nature, its immense capacity for tolerance and acceptability, which the East discovered long ago, is what provoked the poet in Durrell. It stands as a contrast to man’s arrogance and narcissistic indulgences. “I quote from Bertrand Russell’s ABC of Relativity”, writes Durrell in his Key to support his contention: ‘All the laws of dynamics have been put together into one principle, called The Principle of Least Action. This states that, in passing from one state to another, a body chooses a route involving less action than any slightly different route – a law of cosmic laziness’ (161).

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Therefore, readers can now easily understand why Durrell prefers a Yogi to don the robe of a modern hero in his Quintet. Turning to the East could be taken as a metaphor, a metaphor for one’s attempt to transcend one’s personality from a life of “craving and selfinterest, of ego-centric thinking, feeling, wishing and acting”, as Huxley states in his Perennial Philosophy.78 The theme of Durrell’s writing, apart from it being a search for the self, is also a constant interrogation of life and death, Eros and Thanatos. The metaphysical views on life and death in the West emerge from its social and religious environment. Like D. H. Lawrence, Durrell found it difficult to accept the ideologies which moulded his society and to live without reacting to it as a writer was difficult for him. He felt it was unethical, because a true writer cannot make any compromise with the truth. This is precisely the reason why Durrell, like D. H. Lawrence, looked for other spiritual alternatives. Therefore, Durrell’s oriental curiosity was not entirely born out of his sense of longing for the country of his birth. India as a possible passage towards a spiritual shelter stood in the minds of almost all the European writers right from the end of the nineteenth century. As pointed out at the beginning of this chapter, the physical and mental scars created by the incessant wars further sharpened their metaphysical curiosity towards the East. No philosophy is needed, they felt, to understand that sex, the very source of life, cannot be a cause for sin, and when the East told them that sex was the real source of bliss they found it insightful. Lawrence Durrell, therefore, found it necessary to incorporate this intuitive wisdom into literature. He explains this in A Key to Modern British Poetry, which is a detailed account of all the slow transitions that were going on in the attitudes of the great thinkers and writers during his lifetime. In fact, Key touches several philosophical and psychological developments in history, many events that had happened even before he was born. Durrell was thus prompted by the social and intellectual circumstances of his day to study the essence of Indian metaphysics. He did not stop at that; his main endeavour as a writer was to create a literary aesthetics which could reflect the insight he gathered from the study of Oriental wisdom. He was also confident that the East alone could offer some hope for the suffering mankind. He felt that “in my guess there is a slender ray of hope, but the time is running out fast, and it’s praying for rain, you know”, he told his interviewers, Lyons and Antrim.79 Much discussion among the scholars and the critics has already taken place to evaluate Durrell as a writer and to find him his real place in literature. He is critically viewed in the history of English literature as a modernist writer, as a postmodernist and an experimentalist, as a realist,

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Chapter One

etc. Durrell himself claimed that his major work, The Alexandria Quartet, is a kind of investigation into modern love. However, all these critical discussions and evaluations, perhaps, have not done real justice to him. Very few were able to go into the deeper layers of his fiction where his rich insight lay buried. Unable to fully understand these complex thoughts in his literary works, it is quite likely that he will be classified as a clever literary trickster by some critics. Lack of awareness of Durrell’s use of Indian metaphysics in his oeuvre could be one of the reasons why his Avignon Quintet fails to satisfy the scholars and critics, and also why it has not received the attention which his Quartet has been getting. To a question about the “literary, historical, and philosophical allusions” in his novels, Durrell reminds Corinne Alexandre-Garner that his books are actually meant for “learned people”. 80 Therefore, one has to approach the Quintet after ascertaining one’s philosophical level, as the novel was written possibly for select readers, “for learned people”. If he had tried to please his readers who became his fans after reading his Quartet, he would have been compelled to make compromises on both the structure and content of the Quintet, which he would have never liked. Though the Quintet was written after the Quartet, both works cannot be compared with the same literary yardsticks. Durrell admitted to Braudeau that he could not answer whether the Quartet or the Quintet was more important to him; because they were written at different stages of his life.81 What he probably means is that they were meant to reflect different ideas and thoughts that came to him at different periods of his life. However, we cannot forget that his plan of writing fiction was mapped as early as in the thirties. Each set of novels corresponds to different places and different people he knew, as well as to different stages of consciousness in his life. A full discussion on the literary and philosophical aspects of these great novels will come up in the following chapters. The important point to be stressed here is that the literary evaluation of Lawrence Durrell goes on without understanding all the aspects of his greatness, particularly his depth in Indian metaphysics that lies embedded in his novels, both structurally and thematically. One may classify his works as modern, postmodern, metaphysical, or historiographic metaphysic, or even metarealistic, but the fact remains that they can also be read as metaoccidental, meta-western, or meta-Sin, particularly if we examine his last novels thoroughly. We can also use the prefix “pre” before Durrell’s work to show that his going beyond anything, beyond the present, also is an exercise of going back, or restoring the lost: “I am afraid I am a preatonement, pre-redemption, and pre-original-sin man”, he told Kenneth Young.82 This book is, therefore, intended to help the students of Durrell

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to understand the Indian side of him, so that his novels can be read in the light of the intuitive wisdom, the Oriental wisdom, lying buried in them. Thus, reading Durrell’s works can become not only a useful exercise but also a necessary exercise in life: intellectually, intuitively, and aesthetically. Durrell is very confident about his works. He is sure that they are consistent and that they will be remembered as concrete literary creations: one Occidental and one Oriental. In Durrell the West and the East meet in a beautiful embrace. There is no doubt that he is the true “liaison officer” between the two.

CHAPTER TWO RE-READING THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET IN THE LIGHT OF J. KRISHNAMURTI

“Our life is a series of compromises, a never-ending struggle between the ego and his environment” —Sigmund Freud

By now it must be evident that the focus of Lawrence Durrell as a novelist, like that of D. H. Lawrence, is on the destruction of the ego. For him the ego is the mastermind behind all perceived realities, or he finds that it is at the root of all distorted realities. Jiddu Krishnamurti echoes the same idea from a different platform. He is an eminent Indian spiritualist who devoted his entire life to spread the message that “the world problem is bound up with the problem of the individual”, as Henry Miller rightly points out1. Krishnamurti is a great spiritual master who does not belong to any particular school of thought. But what he says about the consciousness has very close relationships with most of the principles found in Buddhist philosophy, with Buddhist attitudes dealing with the problem of the individual consciousness. For Krishnamurti, his life is the basis on which he builds and shapes his thoughts. His own life is his laboratory. His spiritual talks attracted the attention of most of the literary writers in the West. They also caught the interests of some eminent scientists in the twentieth century, like David Bohm. He is a “biological freak”, says Mary Lutyens in her book, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti. She adds: one of the remarkable things about K was the equal ease with which he talked seriously to a swami, a Buddhist monk, a Western scientist, an industrial millionaire, a prime minister or a queen.2

What is strange in the case of this Indian spiritual Guru, J. Krishnamurti, is that he could spread his message by living in the West, while being a direct witness to all the historical developments in Europe during the full first half of the twentieth century. There is a strong similarity between the role of Durrell’s key character, Affad, in the Quintet and that of J.

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Krishnamurti in his life: both observe the Western and the Eastern world from afar. So a critical study of Durrell’s novels in the light of J. Krishnamurti’s ideas on human consciousness will surely enable readers to enter easily into the labyrinths of Durrell’s oriental insight. For the convenience of the readers J. Krishnamurti will appear hereafter in this book as J. K. When J. K started making his spiritual contacts with people living all over the world Lawrence Durrell was only a boy. It was a period which attracted many Western thinkers to the East, and we know that in Europe Darwin had already undermined Christian faith. J. K not only remained unattached to any orthodox religion or sect, but he also refused to be anybody’s guru. Yet, very eminent writers, thinkers, scientists, and political personalities liked to make personal and spiritual contact with him. Some of them were Thomas Mann, Aldous Huxley, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Joseph Campbell, David Bohm, and Henry Miller. Robert S. Ellwood, a member of the Theosophical Society in America, states: It was after hearing Krishnamurti’s lecture in Paris in 1928 on rejecting all dependence that Campbell stopped attending mass; he remained free of all formal religious attachments for the rest of his life. 3

Joseph Campbell’s definition of modern heroism will be taken up in the fourth chapter of this book for analysing the role of the hero in Durrell’s Quintet. It will be then interesting to observe how far J. K helped Campbell in shaping his oriental insight, and it will also enable the readers to understand how diligently all these ideas, in turn, influenced Durrell as a novelist. Miller regards J. K as a world teacher, and he praises him in his book, The Books in My Life. Miller gives valid reasons in support of his arguments and considers that J. K’s spiritual views are very significant today. Bernard Shaw feels that J. K is a “religious figure of the greatest distinction”. He says J. K is “the most beautiful human being he ever saw”4. This chapter, “Rereading The Alexandria Quartet in the Light of J. Krishnamurti”, will highlight the similarities in the intuitive wisdom of both J. K and Durrell, and it will also examine how they use their wisdom for solving man’s perennial problems. In the course of this discussion special references are made to Durrell’s novels, wherever necessary, to find out how these ideas get reflected in his fiction, particularly in his Quartet. However, no attempt is made in this book to establish that Durrell directly borrowed his views from J. K. “A shy, badly-frightened, nice-looking Hindu boy”, J. K, was discovered by Charles Leadbeater, an associate of Annie Besant, in 1909

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Chapter Two

at Adayar beach in Chennai in India.5 Leadbeater was there at the request of Mrs Annie Besant, the great British theosophist. J. K admitted later on in his life that “he would have certainly died had Leadbeater not ‘discovered’ him”.6 Important events in J. K’s life, like his brief association with the Theosophical Society, his disassociation with the International Order of the Star, and his decision to make Ojai in America the headquarters of his spiritual activities are detailed in his published biographies. Therefore, only J. K’s views that are relevant for the study of Durrell, for a critical evaluation of his novels are given attention here. As Alan Gullette, a close associate of J. K in Ojai and who writes in his thesis on his anti-Guru spiritual stand, observes: But most importantly, an essential part of Krishnamurti's thought is that one must think for oneself, enquire on one's own, observe oneself: there is no path, no method, no practice, no guru”.7

This is precisely how Durrell also thinks. He endows his central characters in his novels with these attitudes: “You have to be faithful to your angle of vision”, says Darley (AQ 745). It is this quality which Darley in the Quartet slowly learns and it is precisely what Affad tries to teach Constance and others in the Quintet. These two thinkers, J. K and Durrell, seem to believe what Dr. Radhakrishnan said in the “Preface” to his book, Eastern Religion and Western Thought: the “supreme task of our generation is to give a soul to growing world-consciousness”.8 Therefore, a comparative study of J. K and Durrell is sure to help readers in their efforts to understand most of the complexities in Durrell’s novels created by his skilful use of eastern metaphysics. Not much information on the relationship between J. K and Durrell can be found in the published works on Durrell, though some can be found on Miller’s close friendship with J. K in the published letters between Miller and Durrell. In one of his letters to Durrell, Miller writes, “Have just been reading Krishnamurti – Ten Talks. Will try to get you a copy – think it will interest you. Expect to visit him soon – he is about 150 miles away”9. More information about this intellectual circle comes from Andy Hoffman who gives a clear picture of Miller’s enthusiasm for J. K’s ideas; and, as we know, Durrell and Miller had mutually shared everything that was interesting for them on earth. Hoffman writes: Henry Miller first learned of Krishnamurti from friends in Paris in the early 30s. By this time Krishnamurti had left his leadership position of The Order of the Star of the East, an organization founded in 1911 by Theosophists.…“When you look for an authority to lead you to spirituality,” he said in his renowned parting speech, “you are bound

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automatically to build an organization around that authority. By the very creation of that organization, which, you think, will help this authority to lead you to spirituality, you are held in a cage.” Already deeply suspicious of group-think, Miller found such teaching against institutionalization especially inspiring. Miller mentions Krishnamurti but once in “Colossus” and only in passing. He does, however, write an essay devoted to Krishnamurti in The Books in My Life.10

The words quoted above, like “organization”, “caged”, “institutionalization”, and “authority”, play a great role in any philosophical discussion on J. K and Durrell, because they are very closely related to the discourse on the human ego. Carlo Suares, a French writer, painter and Kabbalah author, was born in Alexandria, and he became later a very close friend of Durrell. His friendship with J. K lasted for about forty years. In fact, there is a book named J. Krishnamurti by Suares. He also translated J. K’s talks into French. A reference to this circle given in Destiny Matrix, by Jack Sarfratti, is surely very contextual here: Bob took us to see the eighty five year old Carlo Suares and his wife Nadine, Suares’s circle included Krishnamurti, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Aldous Huxley and Lawrence Durrell. Durrell bases the character of Balthazar in “Alexandria Quartet” on Suares. Suares lectured us on the Cabala in several meetings. I could not follow him well but Fred Wolf seemed to recover from his angst and got deeply involved with Suares …. Suares had met Bohm through Krishnamurti.11

Sarfatti, thus, gives us a clear picture of the inter-disciplinary nature of the circle of these thinkers. They must have definitely had free interaction on subjects like literature, Gnosticism, Indian metaphysics, and science, because they were people belonging to these different areas. The fact that Durrell was in the circle in which J. K was very active is beyond any doubt now. Bohm played an important role in directly interrogating J. K’s ideas and it led to great intellectual and spiritual exchanges between them. We get much about J. K’s views on the ego from Bohm’s conversations with him. Bohm was a great American theoretical physicist who contributed greatly to the field of quantum theory, philosophy of mind, and neuropsychology. With his disclosure about the intimate friendship among Suaras, J. K, and Durrell, Saffratti is unwittingly filling a gap that is visible in Durrell’s published biographies. The literary circle of Miller, Durrell and Nin are already well familiar to Durrell scholars, as it is exhaustively discussed by several writers in various articles and books. We have just seen Jack Sarfatti’s statement that the character of Balthazar

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is based on Carlo Suares, a fact which Michael Haag has also revealed in his famous book: Alexandria: City as Memory. In an email to the present writer Haag explained: Suares himself said he was the model for Balthazar. Robert Liddell said Gaston Zananiri was the model. In fact both men were which can be traced by carefully comparing Durrell's letters to the writings of Suares and Zananiri and also to interviews I did with Zananiri. And of course Balthazar has elements of Cavafy to him. It is a complex business and you do need to read my book to follow it in detail. But I have no doubt that Suares was a major source for the identity of Balthazar, especially the Balthazar of the cabal.12

Thus, Haag is sure about the origin of the character, Balthazar. Similarly, if it is stated here that Durrell bases the character of Affad as the alter ego of J.K, it can certainly be seen as a truthful observation. At the same time, most of the philosophical remarks made in the Quartet also have the resonance of J. K’s “Talks”. Some of such observations made by characters like Pursewarden, Balthazar, and Darley in The Quartet will hereafter appear in this chapter to show the close ideological relationship between Durrell and J. K. J K and Durrell equally believe that for a happy life the “recomposing” of one’s ego is essential. In a letter to J K, Lady Emily Lutyens, who was one among the Theosophists to receive J. K when he landed in London with Annie Besant, wrote, “You are advocating the complete destruction of the ego in order to achieve something”.13 We know that the problem of the ego has been occupying the attention of most writers, philosophers, psychologists and even scientists for quite a long time now. Zimmer wonders: What is the secret of this ego, this “I”, with whom we have been on such intimate terms all these worn-out years, and who is yet a stranger, full of curious quirks, odd whims, and puzzling impulses of aggression and relapse? 14

This is what Durrell’s central characters also wonder. J. K too is aware of this “puzzling” nature of the ego. So he, like Affad in Durrell’s novel, carries out studies on his own self in order to understand the mystery of this “I” and claims that he has wonderful ways to control it, if not totally conquer it. J’ K’s confidence in understanding the “secret of this ego” is quite evident in his lectures and conversations. Similarly, after stating that the “real obstacle is oneself”, Durrell explains in his Quartet, while dealing with the complex problems faced by Darley, that the “work-blocks

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are caused by the swelling-up of the ego on one or all of these fronts (AQ 737). Darley could not have written his novels, nor could Arnauti have for that matter, if his characters were not facing any inner problems. Durrell elucidates this fact later on in the same novel and gives reasons why man has such psychic crises: “Innumerable are the egos of man; in him are angels and devils, heaven and hell, the whole kingdoms of the animal creation, the vegetable and mineral kingdoms” (812). These phenomena of the psyche enable the novelist to work on a wider canvas and to place his characters and events burdened as they are with psychic dilemmas. The only difference between J. K and Durrell regarding the subject of the human ego is in the means with which they communicate it. While J K conveys his ideas to the people through his “Talks”, Durrell does it through his fictional characters. In a way, we can say that the way the characters struggle to “recompose” their ego forms the structure of most of Durrell’s stories. But some of his stories can also be seen as the depiction of the manner in which the egos get decomposed. Decomposing takes place as a result of their wrong way of life, or as a result of the wrong culture in which they live. In an interview with Montremy, Durrell told him that at the root of the Quartet and the Quintet is the “notion of the impossible ego” 15. The impossibility in penetrating each other is at the root of the story in the Quartet. In Balthazar Darley realizes that “we live in the shallows of one another’s personalities and cannot see into the depths beneath” (AQ 305). Therefore, how the ego creates confusion in one’s life is at the centre of Durrell’s stories, which happens to be the main theme of J. K too in his conversations. This aspect in The Quartet, the ego as the hero, requires deeper analysis, and J. K’s psychological approach to it is found very helpful. The difficulty in completely knowing each other causes serious problems in human life and this subject of perpetual misunderstanding is excellently handled in his novels by Durrell, particularly in The Quartet. J. K and Durrell discover lack of proper insight as reasons for such a situation in life. As a result of it, confusions and misunderstanding multiply. Therefore, we see Darley, like Durrell, becoming quite enthusiastic in the pursuit of wisdom. The readiness to receive insight is a vital quality in Darley. Whenever he is confused, mainly due to his complex relationships with his Alexandrian girls, as he is caught in the vortex of several perplexing love relationships, it is with the help of the insightful aphorisms coming from Balthazar or Pursewarden that he is mostly able to peep into his own self. Durrell tries to give an impression that certain characters, like Pursewarden, in his novels are not just fictional characters, but some insightful living persons. Most of these enlightening

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and insightful statements coming from them can be found scattered in J. K’s talks. Several such observations made by Durrell in The Quartet and J. K in his Talks will be cited in this chapter to prove this fact. In the first chapter of The Ending of Time, in a conversation with Dr. David Bohm, J. K tries to convince Bohm how the human brain gets “condensed or narrowed down in the mind, … gradually narrowed down to “me, to the ‘I’”.16 This is exactly the cause of Darley’s predicament in the novel, Justine. In fact, he gets badly “narrowed down” to his “I”. This is what Balthazar’s interlinear discovers. The truth is that Balthazar is not really very much concerned about Darley’s friendship with Justine or Nessim in Alexandria. Instead, his prime concern is to free Darley’s self from his inner confusions generated by his coloured memory of Alexandria. He tries to help Darley to look within himself. He wants only to reveal the actual truth. As Alexandria remains rooted in Darley’s memory, and as it also gets anchored in him, he becomes a slave of his past. In a way, Darley’s inner revolution begins with Balthazar’s interlinear: “after this kind of information in the Interlinear, the memory of those days haunts me afresh, torments me with guilt which I might never have been aware of before!” (AQ 300) Keller-Privet appreciates the discovery of this fact and says that it could also be connected with the unceasing quest for freedom in Durrell’s play, Sapho. The memory of his past always torments Darley, and the actual role for him in the novel is to show how he liberates his self from this memory, from his sense of guilt. But in this task he almost fails, though he keeps continuing the exercise of “recomposing” his ego: I no longer wish to coerce anyone, to make promises, to think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants…. Does not everything* depend on our interpretation of the silence around us? (195).

This is how Justine ends, and the word “everything*” given at the end of the novel implies a given blank page, the last page in the novel. Here again, Keller-Privat likes to intervene. She says that we could comment here on the effect such a narrative strategy has on the reader. For, although, Durrell cannot preach like J. K, Privat says, he manages “to disrupt our serene reading of his novel by upsetting conventions. The reader is thrown upon himself twice (see note at the end of Justine).” The novel, Keller observes, acts as a mirror to the reader’s deciphering process and leaves him facing his own ego: his intellectual abilities, sensitive apprehension of the work of art, and psychological self-projection into the characters.

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Darley’s undertaking at the end of the novel, Justine, is the key to his character. There is guilt in the tone of his statement, and he makes a resolution as a result of his guilt: “It will be up to Clea to interpret my silence according to her own needs and desires”, says Darley (195). He has resolved to rein in his needs and desires. We can see a clear shift in him from the outer to the inner. He does not want to blame the world, Alexandria, or his friends. He realizes that the fault is in the coercion he made, in the promises he gave, or the way he thought of life: as “compacts, resolutions, covenants”. The growth in Darley must be taken as inward, through the realization of his self, which is the first stage that J. K advocates for attaining a proper self. When Darley begins to feel a sense of alienation from the city and the people he loved, he begins to look inward. Roy Bhaskar, an Indian philosopher settled in London, says: In fact your ego is almost a definition of alienation. You are not your ego. Dis-identifying yourself from the false and heteronomous aspects of your personality is dis-identifying from the masks and disguises you present to the world to keep your ego, your sense of separateness from the rest of creation, intact.17

This emphasis on the inward growth of man is what Indian metaphysics is all about. Darley, for the first time, admits that it is not Alexandria, nor his memory of the city, but it is his “I” which should be corrected. Durrell carries this theme of psychological revolution into his Quintet by just changing his characters and situations. To Graf and Gauthier, in an interview, Durrell admits this fact.18 Durrell seems to expect his readers to keep a track of the psychic development of his characters right from his early novels. They must closely watch how they grow by learning from their experiences, or how they ruin themselves by not learning. If we try to view the events differently, beacause the names of the characters are different, we will miss the chain. Durrell indicates that there are broadly three types of characters in his novels: one who can never reach fulfilment like Joshua Scobie or Lord Galen, then those who can attain it if they honestly try like Darley or Constance, and those who accomplish it in their life like Affad. The words, “trying to become fulfilled”, imply that Darley could not achieve real psychic fulfilment in the Quartet. But it also implies that, to some extent, Durrell could achieve this in the Quintet through the character of Affad. In his fifth conversation with Bohm in April, 1980, J. K tells Bohm that the centre of the mind is “to be blasted”, if one has to enter the Kingdom of Happiness: “Because I see that the centre is the cause of all mischief, all the neurotic conclusions, all the illusions, all the endeavour,

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all the effort, all the misery, everything is from the core”.19 When Darley undertakes not to “think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants”, he too realizes that the problem is within him, at the centre of his self. How close the statements of J. K in his conversations and Darley in the Quartet is pretty clear. Blasting the centre of Darley’s ego, we know, is the developing theme in the Quartet, and, as already noted in the first chapter of this book, it is precisely what The Bhagavad Gita advocates. Durrell does this “blasting” in an aesthetic way, by weaving a beautiful plot around it, making it an enjoyable story. But to see the real “blasted” centre, the enlightened state of a transcended Self, or to realize the blissful nature of this cosmic Self, the readers must visit the Quintet, Durrell’s “Indian novel”. Almost all philosophers and thinkers are unanimous that the ego is at the core of all human problems. For example, Radhakrishnan says, To be shut up in one’s ego, to rest in the apparent self and mistake it for the real, is the root of all unrest to which man is exposed by reason of his mentality.20

Therefore, to release the caged ego in order to facilitate the inner growth of man is the spiritual motto of both J. K and Durrell. The ego has generally several things to worry about. Durrell reveals this fact to Goulianos in their interview: If you waste your time trying to legislate for others or going absolutely mad about Vietnam or whether there’ll be another next week coming along, then you agitate simply the shallower layers of your own psyche and mine and you don’t grow.21

Probably, when Durrell uses the word “Vietnam”, he must be thinking of Darley’s Alexandria, and how badly that character wasted his precious days by legislating for his friends in his dear city. To relieve his key character, Darley, from such legislating habit and give him an environment to grow inwardly is the task that Durrell undertakes in the Quartet. In the same interview, he told Goulianos, “I saw the Quartet …as a romance in which the various characters were acting out the growth of the main character Darley”.22 Thus, we can say that even the character, Justine, serves as a comparison or contrast to Darley, to highlight the psychic knot that Alexandria created in him. It is through the knot in her that he is able to realize his own inner knot. Thus, she, in a way, helps Darley in achieving the rediscovery of his self. Even while we follow the “check” in Justine in the Quartet, our attention turns towards Darley, to the impact the “check” creates on him. Such remarkable writing strategies show that

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Durrell is always conscious of his social and literary responsibilities, and that he keeps this sense of duty in his mind while giving shape to his characters and situations. Along with the growth of Darley he expects a simultaneous growth in the reader as well. J. K feels that man is full of prejudices, and his mind always gets conditioned. He is of the opinion that even Gurus are not free from conditioning. If we read the Quartet in the light of this statement, that no one is free from conditioning, we can easily get a clearer picture of its story. How the human mind silently gets conditioned and what such a conditioned state does to one’s life is what the character of Darley mainly teaches us. He also slowly reveals what human personality really is like and finally displays the type of reality which the human psyche creates around itself. Durrell is so conscious of the nature of man that he takes care to portray the impact of a negatively conditioned psyche as a contrast to an ideal one. He explained to Julian Mitchell and Gene Andrewski in an interview in 1959, before his Quintet was completed: The theme of art is the theme of life itself….An artist is only someone unrolling and digging out and excavating the areas normally accessible to normal people everywhere, and exhibiting them as a sort of scarecrow to show people what they can be done with themselves”.23

The onus, therefore, in Durrell’s novels is on the individual, on the reader. The fact is that the typically conditioned minds of Durrell’s characters help the novelist in developing the events in his novels. The characters struggle to free themselves from several intricate traps caused by numerous social forces acting on them, or they can be seen in the story precipitating their psychic problems with their senseless indulgences in things without properly thinking of the consequences. All these help the novelist in creating several events. In other words, the novelist shows that their actions in life are not based on intuition, but only on passions. Justine, Melissa, Narouz, and almost everyone in the Quartet are conditioned in their lives in one way or another. In this novel, we can see that mostly it is passion that shapes the thought of the characters. Stating that he was not religious or philosophic, Durrell told Huw Wheldon: I wanted really to raise the question of what sort of bridge there was between the world of the human passions, the sort of shadow world in which we live, and, let us say, the world of the Gods, which is the potential world we all carry in us.24

There is a touch of Shankaracharya’s illusionism in this statement. The Quartet can be, thus, seen as a work illustrating that the growth of the

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protagonist is directly linked to his psychic ability to control the impact of passion in his thoughts and memory. Durrell slowly establishes in the story a direct relationship among passion, memory, the conditioned self, and the ego. J. K goes very deep into the reasons for this conditioned mind of man, into the reasons which are both personal and social, reasons which contribute to man’s sociological and psychological conditioning. The irony is that one is usually not aware that one is carrying a conditioned self within one, wherever one goes. During most of his “Talks” and interviews, J. K explains to his listeners how the silent and slow process of conditioning takes place in an individual. He says that thinking is the movement of memory, and memory is experience. While discussing this, we can also remember Darley’s experience, because we also know that the story in the Quartet moves only through his memory. J. K explains further that experience is what knowledge stores up in the brain. In order to escape from thought and memory one must be able to free the mind from time: “We, as the self, exist in time. Without time there could be no ‘me’”, suggests David Bohm25. This is precisely where Durrell and J. K come closer. He asserts to Hubert Juin in an interview that he wants to see his work free from the influence of time.26 He also wants to dominate time so that the psyche becomes independent. Both of them, J. K and Durrell, not only understand the relationship between memory, thought, time, and experience, but they also insist on the importance of attaining absolute freedom from all these. They realize that an escape from these “thorny jungles” of the psyche is inevitable for man, if he wants to liberate his ego. There is no need to remind the students of Durrell that it is very true in the case of most of Durrell’s characters, particularly in the case of Darley. In A Key to British Poetry, Durrell, like Darley in the Quartet, asks: How to begin living then? . . . the answer to which lies not in art or science but in ourselves , . . . . Thinking limits the function of the thing to the power of the system within which it operates (Key 6).

Thus, we see that thought, memory, experience, time, love, death, insight, and truth are the serious subject matters for Durrell and J. K, and without understanding how they interact and influence our ego, it will be difficult to grasp the psychological revolution that is going on in the life of Durrell’s characters, which is the core subject matter of his novels. In the Quartet, Darley admits that “I know that the key I am searching is in myself” (AQ 216), echoing J. K’s assertion that “Truth is within yourself”.27 Hence, these given facts make it absolutely clear that there is no short cut to understand the complex mysticism in Durrell’s novels. He

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deals in his novels with these ideas because he knows, like J. K, that the realization of the ultimate awareness can come only when the ego is ready to surrender. It is essential for the attainment of one’s cosmic awareness, or to attain what he calls his “heraldic universe”. In Indian terminology this ultimate stage of psychic realization is called ananda or bliss, a fact which will often be repeated in this book in order to impress upon readers that the ultimate goal of Indian metaphysics is bliss. It is bliss that Durrell too aims at as a novelist. As he knows well about the impact of conditioning on the ego, J. K repeats in his talks that the “wrong conditioning” of the mind is the cause of all maladies. During his fourth conversation with David Bohm, he asks “Is it the basic conditioning of man … this tremendous egotistic attitude and action which won’t yield to anything?”28 One must patiently listen to his talk and understand how he develops his argument. From the subject of conditioning of the mind he moves on to argue how some patterns get shaped as a result of certain conditioning. According to him, it is the conditioning of the mind that gradually leads to the creation of patterns which end up as tradition, convention, religious rituals, etc. The ego gets its gratification by conforming to some such patterns. That is probably why he tells Suares that he wants to “decondition the totality of human consciousness”.29 In the case of Durrell, we can see it very evidently in the Quartet how the conditioned minds create patterns, patterns in the society in which his characters live. We (mis)take them as an extension of historical events in the place, or what Durrell calls the spirit of place. He explains to Bolivar Le Franc in an interview that in the Quartet he was more interested to portray his characters as extensions of the place in which they lived. 30 It is always a mutual operation: the conditioning leads to the creation of patterns and the patterns give shape to the psyche. It is another way of saying that the psyche is rooted in culture or culture is rooted in the psyche, a fact often repeated by Durrell in his novels. The Alexandrian culture imposes its peculiar pattern on the life of its inhabitants and conditions their minds in such a way that they fail to see reality beyond the world of Alexandria: “Where does one hunt for the key to such a pattern?” laments Darley. To be more precise here, Darley must be quoted at length: I walk beside the child I say on these deserted beaches like a criminal, going over and over these fragments of the white city’s life with regrets too deep to alter the tone of voice in which I talk to her. Where does one hunt for the key to such a pattern? (AQ 300)

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It is for this kind of insatiable quest of an artist’s hunt for the truth, for the “hunt for the key to such a pattern”, that the Indian metaphysics becomes useful to a writer. The phrase, “search for the key to such a pattern”, also means the search for the self that can discover the key. In short, what is to be understood is how Durrell discovers this lost key in Indian metaphysics. But before going into the details of this aspect of Durrell, into the metaphysical aspect of Darley’s search for the key “to such a pattern”, we must observe his statement very closely: the words “regrets too deep”, his sense of being “a criminal”, his memory of the “fragments of the white city’s life”, and his words such as “hunt”, “key”, etc. What troubles Darley is his memory, the memory shaped by the pattern of the city, which is pressing hard on his life from which his self is unable to seek freedom. This is what makes it imperative for him to hunt for the key. He admits that the total clasp of the city on him is so strong that he is not even able to change his “voice” while talking to the innocent child. It takes a long time for Darley to gain the required oriental realization that “the key I am trying to turn is in myself” (217). This marks a turning point in Darley. To repeat the truth once again, it is the excellent narration of the events in the novel that has made the reading of the Quartet more exciting. These events reflect Darley’s inner struggle to discover the “key to such a pattern”, his struggles to get released from the mighty Alexandrian pattern. Darley thus becomes a mirror reflecting his inner and outer world. Durrell told Wheldon: The proportions about the interior side of man and the proportions about the universe he lives in are now so fantastic and so confused and so complicated that it does now seem to me worth the attention of a novelist to have a look at them.31

At the same time, the task of mirroring the inner and outer world of Darley makes the narration in the Quartet quite complicated. If Darley has to get the key to truth, he must deconstruct his private pattern and discover the general pattern, the cosmic pattern. Darley at one stage admits: “Our common actions in reality are simply the sack cloth covering which hides the cloth-of-gold – the meaning of the pattern” (AQ 20). Unable to grasp the true reality, he remains “suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory” (20). Pursewarden’s (“the intruder from the East”) and Balthazar’s insightful interpretations of life and reality finally assist him in seeking an inner transformation. Darley understands that unless he frees himself from memory which is experience, from his consciousness that is shaped by time, he cannot correct his angle of vision:

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“Still we sat on that shadowy balcony, prisoners of memory”; thus he realizes the impact of his miserable experience, his state of being as a prisoner of memory (695). In other words, he realizes that he is the prisoner of a pattern which has taken a firm root in his consciousness as memory. As he begins to find out where exactly he went wrong in his life, Darley realizes that his mistake originates from his habit of seeking fulfilment from elsewhere, from objects outside his self. Thus he decides, “I no longer wish to coerce anyone” (195). In Bhaskar’s words, the error in our life is in seeking “lasting fulfilment from something or someone other than ourselves”.32 Further down in this chapter, we will try to find out what suggestions or techniques J. K has to offer for freeing oneself from one’s memory, and how far they resemble Darley’s attempts to free him from his memory of his dear Alexandria. The emphasis now shifts on to the need of correcting one’s vision in order to earn a proper insight, which is a very essential part in one’s psychic revolution or evolution for attaining enlightenment, which J.K also stresses in his talks. In the Quintet Durrell seems to be clearer in his story about his ideas on how conditioned attitudes create boundaries, how they lead to conflict and war, and how they finally end up in great human disasters. This could be one of the reasons why in the Quintet the novelist has taken the Second World War as the background of his story. He does it so in order to show where the negative conditioning of man in society finally ends up. J. K asks Bohm during their fourth conversation, “Man has lived for two million years, what has he achieved? More wars, more destruction!”33 This kind of observation about reality is what brings J. K close to the character, Affad, in the Quintet. J. K enlightens us with the right way of achieving peace and harmony in our lives, and, similarly, in the novel Affad dedicates his entire life to achieve the same goals. Unlike Darley’s experience in the Quartet, memory does not trouble him, and even if it does, he has the insight to cast it off and free his self. But we also learn from him that to achieve liberation from a world that is conditioned by narrow religion and culture seems to be very difficult, unless man has the will to look sternly within himself. Mathieu Ricard in Buddhism and Science says, “Piercing this solid “me” engenders a multitude of mental events that wreak havoc on our inner peace”.34 Ricard is a Buddhist monk and the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. We know that the whole plots and counter plots in the Quartet get unravelled when Darley begins to pierce his solid self, when he begins to “wake up”. In the “Kneller Tape” Durrell states:

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In short, the act of piercing into one’s solid self immediately leads to the act of waking up. These acts, the piercing and waking up, are the basic bricks on which Durrell builds his key characters. But these acts also require the act of looking back and looking forward. Thus a novel like the Quartet enjoys a wide canvas. However, while metaphysically analysing these human acts, Durrell finds a great disparity between the West and the East. Therefore, he cleverly uses the literary device of contrast to focus on the vast differences in the psychic patterns that can be observed in the West and the East. The last part of the Quintet, his “Indian novel” or “Tibetan novel”, where more importance is given to the study of yoga, serves as a contrast to what he shows at the beginning of Constance, where the terrible state of the human life ravaged by war is portrayed. This calls for more examination. Balthazar asks in the Quartet, “Ah, my dear, after all the work of the philosophers on his soul and the doctors on his body, what can we say we really know about man” (AQ 79). In the same vein J. K talks about the precarious and helpless nature of man, the nature of man’s psyche, in his fifth Conversation with Bohm: My brain has lived for a million years. It has been a Buddhist, it has been a Hindu, a Christian, it has been a Muslim, it has been all kinds of things, but the core of it is the same.36

Yet another statement of the same nature can be seen in The Quartet, where Darley quotes one of Balthazar’s pregnant aphorisms: “None of the great religions has done more than exclude, throw out a long range of prohibitions.…. Indulge but refine” (AQ 85). All these views, whether coming from J. K or Durrell’s characters, point towards the same reality, about the impenetrability of man’s inner world and the fact that he remains perpetually dissatisfied with the world in which he lives. He is always in some group, in some pattern, which promises happiness in life, but finally his life ends up in confusion. What is also evident from these statements is that religion totally failed in coming to the help of man. It is in this light that J. K faces the human problems without seeking any agency. He wants to free his self by remaining independent. It is a Buddhist approach. One should not, he says, expect any organization to come to one’s rescue or should not expect anyone to come forward to salvage one from the psychological crises.

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Moreover, as he says, man “has built a wall around myself, a wall, which is myself”, 37 making it difficult for any outside agency to penetrate into his psyche and help him. Therefore, the only way is to gain confidence in oneself to solve all problems in life. We know that neither Arnauti nor Darley could do anything to break the psychic wall built around Justine by herself. Whether it is due to the distorted appearance of the reality outside, or because of the futility of one’s attempts to study and understand it, the truth is that the bygone events stick in one’s memory creating more and more syndromes. J. K, like Darley, realizes that “Everything around me is organized and making me more and more and more helpless. That is what is happening”38. It is because of this fact that Darley finally recognizes the absurdity of the life he lived. The situations in his life make him confess that his life was merely a “story of a few inanimate objects which precipitated drama around them” (AQ 195). The mention of “inanimate objects” provoked Keller-Privat to state the following: At this point Durrell is already hinting at the relativity of all perception and reconstruction of the past. These inanimate objects tell no story and have no relationship. They are linked and organized, endowed with specific meaning and symbolism that depends solely on the viewpoint of the storyteller. As such they are clues to the partial reconstruction of the past that Darley accomplishes. The drama is not theirs, but “ours”. The sentence quoted above is similar to the description of Alexandria at the very beginning of the novel: “precipitates in us conflicts which were hers and which we mistook for our own’ (AQ17). It seems that Darley makes the same mistakes several times by projecting his inner feelings and motives on inanimate objects.

The fact is that everyone experiences everything everywhere in a pattern, threaded into some form of a system, forcing the ego to perceive everything as the true reality. The inherent habit of one’s terrible “ache for the other”, as J. K puts it, makes one’s life more and more miserable, and for finding every kind of psychic solution one follows the habit of depending on others. Our involvement in the affairs of other people, and the strong relationship we build with other people, give us little time to look within ourselves: “We were both dying to get away from each other, in order to examine our own feelings” (AQ 45), says Darley, as he finds the knots in him are twisted too awfully to be easily disentangled. What derives from all these thorny experiences of man is that we must learn to detach ourselves from all forms of attachments, as advised in the Gita, if we want to set our vision right. “Well, I have come here to heal myself”, Darley admits after realizing that the conflicts which were that of the city, Alexandria, he

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“mistook for our own” (17).The only way to heal, he realizes, is to tear off the pattern from his memory. In other words, the real problem for man is the difficulty in perceiving actual reality or the truth, which, in another sense, is the problem of the realization of his own self. To put it straight, the realization of truth takes man automatically to the realization of the self, which is, in a way, the story of the Quartet. The reality that is in the form of the perceived past in Durrell’s novels is normally presented by unravelling it slowly through the memory of the protagonist. But after a certain stage in his life, the protagonist discovers the unreality of his entire experience. He learns that the “I” and the “me” created by thought are not to be realized any more as separate selves; instead, they are to be seen as parts of the whole. Durrell tries to explain the problems created by duality in A Key to Modern British Poetry. He states that “Man is simply a box labelled personality” (Key 5). He goes on to explain in his lecture how poets like T. S. Eliot in the twentieth century tried their best to confront this problem by attempting to defuse the ego. He also quotes Georg Groddeck in the Key: We understand man better when we see the whole in each parts, and we get nearer to a conception of the universe when we look upon him as part of a whole (84).

This view is constantly stressed by J. K in his private and public talks, because he knows that this realization is essential for man to transcend his ego. He is of the view that “thought can function only in duality, in opposition, and therefore, all mental reaction is a divisive process, a separative process.”39 This, the duality created by thought, is a confusion that Darley confronts in the Quartet, and he finds very difficult to overcome it. So, these facts point out that J. K, Groddeck, and Durrell have the same approach to the problem of the “I”. Stating that the particular is the most dangerous, J. K states at the end of his conversation with Bohm at Blockwood Park on 27 September 1980: If the mind can go from the particular to the general, and from general … to the absolute, to the universal, … to move still deeper, and there perhaps is the purity of what is compassion, love and intelligence.40

The discourse on the particular and the general becomes easier if readers are able to understand fully what J. K and Durrell say about conditioning of the mind. One interesting contrast given to Affad, the Guru in the Quintet, is character of von Esslin. In the chapter named “Nazi” in Constance,

the the the the

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readers get a close view of Esslin’s sexual contact with a woman. It is to be seen in the novel as an instance to show how badly conditioned the mind of this military officer is. The narrator says, “He overwhelmed her as his army would soon overwhelm her country and people, raping it, wading in its blood” (Constance 38). Contrasted to this episode is the sexual union of Affad and Constance in another chapter in the same novel: “they lay exhausted in all that blood and steam like stricken martyrs to human bliss” (266). Let us now compare this ecstatic state of Affad with that of Esslin: “At last the climax came and in his muddled exhaustion he fell asleep on her breast to dream of his big, playful tanks nosing about like sheep dogs …” (38). In both cases the sexual act ends in exhaustion, but one feels “like Petronius” (266), and the other is lying in “muddled exhaustion”, dreaming of his battle field. What Durrell highlights at the beginning of the novel, Constance, is the enormous urge ingrained in the army officer, Esslin, to kill and destroy. The army has conditioned Esslin in such a way that his instinct to kill is as strong as Affad’s desire to create peace and harmony in life, to be the cause for bliss. Esslin is to be seen as a metaphor for war and Affad for bliss. In these two cases the female body stands for the territory. In the first case, the male ego wants to wade, shed blood, and conquer. In the case of the second, the ego wants to surrender and be one with the territory. The blood is a metaphor for torture and death in the case of Esslin, and for Affad, it stands for regeneration and a serene state of life. The example of Esslin and Affad is taken here in order to show the two extreme ways of conditioning taking place in our society: one to kill and destroy and the other to restore peace and happiness in life. As J. K points out in his fourth conversation with Bohm, for man “the pattern—the pursuit of pattern is traditional.”41 Keller-Privat’s observation while reading the manuscript of this book is: This is an extremely interesting comparison. Perhaps you could get into the details of text and study the role of the passage from comparison to metaphor turning Esslin into an army, the servant’s body into a territory. with each other and with universe; the lexical field is both similar (blood) and treated in a radically different way. Blood becomes the principle of regeneration instead of death and torture, so that the individual’s fate implicitly modifies the value and symbolism of the elements. Does that mean that man’s action, his attention to others and the universe can change fundamentally our world?

In fact, Privat’s observations, as we can see, are very insightful. We know that Esslin’s psyche is conditioned or patterned by his traditional army. Lawrence Markert rightly observes that “For each writer

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the destructive direction of civilization has to be understood in terms of the individual”42. Esslin thinks of “his big, playful tanks” while lying on the breasts of a woman. At the same time, the reader can see how Affad is conditioned for his Oriental adventure: it took “long years of solitude and philosophic speculation which had gone to form the person that he now was” (Sebastian 38). Affad and J. K have so much in common that Henry Miller’s description of J. K can equally be applied to Affad: If he has a mission it is to strip men of their illusions and delusions, to knock away the false support of ideals, beliefs, fetishes, every kind of crutch, and thus render back to man full majesty, the full potency, of his humanity.43

Durrell tries to accomplish this, to “strip men of their illusions and delusions”, through his characters. As noted earlier, he borrowed from Suares the idea of Gnosticism, and, in the same way, he must have found the approach of J.K to human predicaments quite suitable in dealing with the complex nature of the self. It can be presumed that some of Durrell’s friends thus became good raw materials for the creation of wonderful characters like Balthazar, Darley and Affad. The philosophical and psychological stress which Durrell and J. K give is on insight and not intelligence. They believe that intelligence is associated with memory, thought, experience, and with the creation of time. All these lead to the formation of distorted realities. Therefore, J. K as a mystic and Durrell as a writer seek to arrive at the truth, at some “ground”, which can give them pure insight. The last novel written by Durrell, Quinx, is a work devoted to highlight the fact that the real grail, the historically mistaken spiritual cup is, in fact, nothing but man’s insight, which alone can bring him peace and happiness in life. This is, probably, why Durrell reminds us that Quinx, the last novel in the Quintet, must be carefully read. He explained to Montalbetti why we should reread all the four volumes in the light of the fifth volume44. As in the Quartet, the same characters appear and reappear under different names. After reaching the last novel, Quinx, the novelist expects the readers to go back to the first and read all the four previous volumes again. In other words, it is Quinx which finally gives the insight the readers are seeking from Durrell’s novels. One’s search for the hidden truth, Durrell believes, must be directed towards the purification of one’s own inner self. It is an act which begins in the Quartet, but is fully achieved only in the Quintet, in the last novel, Quinx. However, an understanding of the views of these great thinkers on the role of time and its place in thought is essential before one can gather

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some idea on the importance of the self. About general human nature, man’s psychological nature, Bhaskar writes: you use your mind to create time, history for yourself in which you can bathe in nostalgia for the past and swim in glorious anticipation of the future.45

This is a wonderful statement about our past and future. What Darley actually does in the Quartet is nothing but bathing in his nostalgia; the nostalgia for his dear Alexandria and for the memory of all those people with whom he was associated. The nostalgia for his dear old Alexandria is really the nostalgia for his lived reality. The philosophical approach that all these great Oriental thinkers have on this cantankerous subject of reality, about this nostalgia for one’s lived reality, and the need to transcend them, seems to be common. For example, Capra writes: The Eastern sages …emphasize not only that they go beyond ordinary three-dimensional space in meditation, but also–and even more forcefully– that the ordinary awareness of time is transcended. Instead of a linear succession of events, they experience–so they say–an infinite, timeless, and yet dynamic present.46

We divide time into past, present, and future, and we want what the past gave us to be repeated in future, for which the present is always tortured. The nature of this “want” which creates a false reality is to be overcome if happiness is ever to be achieved. The obsession with this “want” is what tortured Darley, and then he struggles to gain a “dynamic present”. A proper realization of time, an understanding of the “dynamic present”, can help us to see reality and truth without much psychological confusion or doubts, but we must also note that the understanding of this metaphysical notion of time is based on one’s cosmic awareness. The cosmic awareness, in turn, requires the demolishing of the ego. Conversely, the demolishing of the ego demands the destruction of time. This mutual destruction of time and ego is a psychological necessity to reach the ultimate reality. So, both J. K and Durrell believe that if our crusade against the ego must succeed, we must learn how to destroy time, the greatest enemy of the human psyche. “Time is the psychological enemy of man”, says J. K.47 On the other hand, as early as in 1936, before he started writing his major novels, Durrell in a letter to Miller had declared: “I AM SLOWLY BUT VERY CAREFULLY AND WITHOUT ANY CONSCIOUS THOUGHT DESTROYING TIME”.48 Similarly, we see that Darley’s confidence as an artist begins with the realization that “I had now come face to face with the nature of time that ailment of the

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psyche” (AQ 120). Thus, it becomes vital for Durrell readers to know how time becomes the enemy or ailment of the psyche. Durrell asks: How to harness time in the cultivation of a style of heart …. Not to force time, as the weak do, for that spells self-injury and dismay, but to harness its rhythms and put them to our own use (383).

What emerges from all these intelligent views is the truth that a perfect knowledge of the difference between clock-time and psychological time is very essential, if one wants to achieve non-duality and self-reliance. We must learn how we can wipe our past out. But it is not an easy process in life. J. K admits this difficulty in his tenth conversation, that “my existence, my way of thinking, my life, everything, is from the past. And if you say, wipe that out, what have I left?”49 The perpetual human craze for pleasure, according to him, is the creation of memory: Pleasure is always the past; there is no pleasure at the moment it is happening. That comes in later, when it is remembered. So the remembrance is the past.50

How one’s present gets corrupted by one’s past is evident from this statement. It is the memory of the experienced pleasure, the desire to have it repeated, that torments Darley in the Quartet. Therefore, the liberation of the self is, in a way, linked to the liberation of the mind from the clutches of time. It is, in fact, the only way of attaining peace and harmony in life. To be more accurate, happiness lies in the art of living without letting the past intrude into the present, in living “between the ticks of the clock” (AQ 659), as Darley says. J. K is of the firm belief that if the mind is freed from time, it will be easy for anyone to gain insight. He also says that as “I” exists in time, being and becoming are also in the field of time. Hence, one must deny or resist all forms of divisions thrust upon the mind by thought, which is also the movement of time. Durrell is emphatic: “No, because time doesn’t exist—that is what is good about Buddhism”, that is how he convinces Graf and Gauthier in their interview.51 So, J. K’s suggestion is that we should try to seek a “choice-less awareness” in order to confront our time and our ego which can never exist without time. It is the only way to attain enlightenment, he believes. Therefore, we are ultimately required to accept that time is the villain in our life and that it is at the root of all our confusions: what we are now doing is “introducing time as a means of becoming”, says J. K.52 The moment we bring in the notion of time, we are also simultaneously in a feeling or sense of becoming; it then begins to create endless problems.

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That is why J. K asserts that “thought itself is time”, all “knowledge is time”. So, in order to gain insight, it is essential to have an “absolute cleansing of the mind from the accumulation of time”53, he argues. We are, however, cautioned by him not to confuse real time with psychological time, because when he links time with thought, memory, experience and truth, he thinks only of psychological time and not physical time. When Darley says “what is really a search for my proper self” (AQ 370), it involves the re-examination of all those complex events in his life in relation to Time, which he is slowly trying to understand. At the same time, only if we, as the readers, can perceive the relationship among self, time, and truth, as J. K explains it, Darley’s search for his self, which covers the entire story in the Quartet, can be truly understood and enjoyed. Because, as Darley says: . . . buried in all this there lies the germ and substance of a truth – time’s usufruct – which, if I can accommodate it, will carry me a little further for my proper self (370).

What bothers both J. K and Durrell is not only the problems of the self, but also the difficulties in accomplishing one’s “proper self”, for which both recommend the “absolute cleansing of time”. There is another element stepping in now—reality. The “cleansing” of the mind and time also involves the right perception of reality with proper insight, and along with it the realization of truth. Balthazar writes: ‘To intercalate realities’ is the only way to be faithful to Time, for at every moment in Time the possibilities are endless in their multiplicity. Life consists in the act of choice. The perpetual reservation of judgement and the perpetual choosing (370).

In short, these discussions on memory, thought, experience, and pattern take us to the understanding of time, and all these further lead us to the understanding of a new reality, or to the understanding of the absurdity of our experienced reality. The riddle in which Darley finds himself in The Quartet is that he can find his “proper self” only if he is able to move from his fragmentary self to the whole. It also demands that he should be able to achieve a psychic state that is whole, before he can look at reality with a sense of the “ending of time” (the title given to J. K – David Bohm conversation is Ending of Time). To put it very plainly, Darley can move to his proper self only after the eradication of his present self, that is only after “blasting” his existing self, because as J. K says the “centre is the cause of all mischief”54. But what arrests Darley from his entire spiritual revolution and psychic

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adventure is the memory of Alexandria, his constant recollection of it, and his subjective interpretation of Alexandria, which flows in his adulterated consciousness like a perpetual stream. Finally he finds that everything turns the state of his mind to a perplexing condition. In other words, to borrow J. K’s words again, thinking “is the movement of memory”55, which is at the root of Darley’s confusion. We, as readers, should also understand the transition in Darley’s realization, or how he starts observing with his “new eyes”: “Perhaps then the destruction of my private Alexandria was necessary”, Darley realizes thus during his psychological changes (AQ 370). Here we must note the significance of the word “private” and try to see the manner in which the changes take place in Darley’s conscious self. It also poses the question of the “observer and the observed” here, as J. K pronounces. The observer, here Darley, was not only carrying his own private Alexandria within him, but was also trying to give his own private interpretation to his bygone life in Alexandria, which in turn led to the creation of new memories in him; and finally, as his thought began to play on them, the reality he perceived became totally inaccurate. That was the error, he realizes now. Then the insightful Balthazar comes with his Interlinear to assist him in correcting this distorted reality. His friend’s advice is that his private reality has blocked him from seeing truth. Realizing this error, Darley now slowly begins to study his “unique position”, because he learns that “every interpretation of reality is based upon a unique position” (210). If he has to move from his private self with his private reality to his proper self, he has to drop everything now, his thought, his memory, which is, in fact, his private experience. As we have observed, all these are tangled in time. On that remote island with his “new eyes”, with his new “vantage point”, he begins “rereading, reworking reality in the light of all I now know” (370). The word “now” is important here to understand the slow changes in Darley, because he has started loosening his grip over his “private Alexandria”, which, he understood, is an essential prerequisite for gaining insight: “I am surprised to find that my feelings themselves have changed, have grown, have deepened even”, realizes Darley (370). These are, of course, the signs of Darley’s maturity, signs of the growth of his self towards awareness, towards the attainment of proper insight: “The struggle is always for greater consciousness”, says Darley (764). All these facts point out that Durrell, while creating the character of Darley, had definite ideas in his mind. As he confessed to Montalbetti, he wanted Darley to represent the man in the West, in Europe.56 He also wanted to prove through this character that personality is after all a collection of attributes. Finally, as

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Darley is struggling to discover his self, he realizes that what he has conceived himself as the “I” so far is only an illusory “I”, and there is only the Self, the ultimate “I”. Ricard states: In this way we can reach a state of consciousness called ‘clean consciousness’ in which the mind is perfectly lucid, without being the plaything of any thought.57

Mathieu Ricard is talking about the Buddhist way of attaining pure consciousness. But we must also remember that as far as the idea of self, personality, and pure consciousness is concerned, Durrell is a Buddhist. At the same time, he reminds us that he is a Buddhist only in the poetic sense58. What attracts him to Buddhism is its approach to the idea of the self and the individual. He, as an artist, finds that the idea of personality as a bundle of attributes enables him to create a reality in which he is nearer to truth. Durrell’s search for a new metaphysical approach to realty is born out of his desire for creating characters who can grasp the ultimate reality. Darley, as a writer, realizes this useful fact only in the final volume of the Quartet, when he is at the final lap of his metaphysical journey. Radhakrishnan believes that any “ethical theory must be grounded in metaphysics, in a philosophical conception of the relation between human conduct and ultimate reality”.59 His emphasis is that human conduct must not only be ethical but it must also be able to help man in seeking the ultimate reality. Whether Darley grows and arrives at such a stage in his life in Clea, in the last novel in the Quartet, is for the readers to judge. When Goulianos asked Durrell, is The Alexandria Quartet “a story of the narrator’s growth, a puberty story, a growing up story?” Durrell emphatically answered “Yes”.60 So the repetition of Darley’s confession that he has “been changing in a curious way”, and his admission of the fact that “what we found enigmatic about the man was due to a fault in ourselves” are the most positive steps in his journey towards the discovery of his self. Therefore, as already noted, readers can now realize that Darley’s psychological journey is, in all respects, a metaphysical journey. The “particular” mind of Darley is now ready to yield itself to a “universal” mind. In other words, he is now slowly moving towards his Heraldic Universe, to inhabit there forever: “It is there to be lived out and not thought” (AQ 772), reminds Darley to his Brother Ass. “Whoever makes this enigmatic leap into the heraldic reality” realizes that “without it the enigma will remain” (772), he asserts in the Quartet. He also reminds us that otherwise “You may travel round the world and colonize the ends of the earth with your lines and yet never hear the singing yourself” (773). The word “ground” used by J. K to reveal the

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stage of consciousness that one finally reaches can be, in truth, taken as Durrell’s “heraldic universe”. This stage of consciousness for Bhaskar is called a “ground-state”: “The primary mis-identification which is experienced is the identification of our selves with our egos rather than our transcendentally real ground-states”.61 In short, man’s spiritual attempt should always be to free his mind, to identify his real self, to reach his “ground” where he is able to attain enlightenment. “And if I can drop all that, my mind is the ground. Then from there I move. From there I create society”, J. K tells Bohm.62 When we analyse all these exercises, they may appear as a very easy job, but the truth is that the grip of reality that we construct is so strong on the self that it is quite difficult for one to free oneself from all kinds of attachments. The truth, therefore, is that unless we free ourselves from attachments, we cannot gain insight. What has one “to do, or not to do, to have this instant insight, which is not of time, which is not of memory, which has no cause, which is not based on reward or punishment?” asks J. K.63 We can thus see that it is this difficult question of J. K that is tormenting the character, Darley. J’ K’s ideas echo in the philosophical and psychological debate that we find in the beautiful story that Durrell created in his Quartet. So, it turns out clearer now to what extent Darley is caught up in the tangle of time, how much the memory of Alexandria troubles him, how much his private Alexandria torments him, and also how much he finally longs to reach his heraldic reality. Durrell’s superb handling of all these psychological problems in his story along with his excellent narrative skill and his deft use of Einstein’s relativity theory make The Alexandria Quartet a unique novel. However, though he assimilates several ideas into the structure of the novel, the central idea is the growth of consciousness and the fact how human destiny depends on this growth. We must agree with Durrell that the Quartet in essence is about human destiny. As he told Juin, the problem of relativity and causality are interrelated64. When he moves from his Quartet to the Quintet, the novel becomes completely a metaphysical discourse, mainly because in the Quintet the central theme is the acceptance of death. In the Quartet, on the other hand, he was playing with the idea of destiny. For a happy and serene acceptance of death a non-dual state of life is required. While dealing with causality and duality, the idea of relativity is helpful to the writer to show how the relative knowledge gets transcended. In the Quintet, Durrell’s key character, Affad, arrives on the stage after having transcended both subjective and relative consciousness. Darley comes back in the Quintet in a new garb, as a gnostic and a yogi, who has a deep knowledge of Indian metaphysics, in Patanjali, to demonstrate a

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non-dual state of consciousness. Affad seems to be the answer to the question which J. K asks: “what happens when the ‘I’, which is time ends? …. Yes. Time as the ‘me’, the ego, and when that completely comes to an end, what can begin?” 65 Therefore, it is advisable that the Quartet and the Quintet are read as metaphysical novels that are presented in two parts, if the psychological wisdom they contain is to be ever realized. Though Durrell and J. K have similar views as far as the quest for the proper self is concerned, Durrell, as a writer, seems to be in a better position to communicate his metaphysical ideas to the world. J. K takes only his personal experience and we are not very clear about the extent of his reading. Durrell once confessed to his interviewers, Mitchell and Andrewski, “Where I see a good effect I study it, and try to reproduce it. So that I am the biggest thief imaginable”.66 This aspect of Durrell as a writer, his habit of grabbing ideas from any available source, will be seen again while examining the relationship between Constance and Affad in the next chapter. They are very important characters in the Quintet. We will see to what extent he depended on Indian philosophy in building up the ideas on which the relationship of these characters is based. Though Durrell is compared with J. K, we cannot forget that Durrell is a novelist, and that his preference is always for anything which can enrich his artistic creation, anything that supports his views on human life. At the beginning of this chapter we noted that J. K is against group thinking, which is a Buddhist attitude. Though most of the ideas in his “Talks” can be found in the Buddhist principles and practices, he does not follow Buddhism openly, in spite of it being a religion without any dogmas. On the other hand, Durrell accepts almost all the principles he found in Buddhism. But he warns his readers that he should not be mistaken to be a religious writer. He told Montalbetti that without uttering the word, religion, he took the best out of it as an artist to present truth.67 To what extent the Quintet is of the Eastern “yeast” will be more examined in this book in the coming chapters. Durrell has liberally used the Buddhist principles in The Avignon Quintet, both thematically and structurally, in order to help his central characters achieve the insight they were looking for. In other words, he has meticulously made the best use of all that he found in the East in giving shape to the structure of his novels, or for delineating his characters on the metaphysical line. One beautiful aspect of his writing technique is that he first makes his characters very enigmatic, using his belief that each self is most unpredictable: the character “seems to change shape so quickly at every turn of the road”, says Durrell. In the same sentence, he admits that “one is forced to revise the idea about him almost as soon as it is formulated” (AQ

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744). His characters are enigmatic, and also reluctant to reveal their inner selves. This may result in the readers unconsciously establishing a very close affinity with them, because everyone has this enigmatic self within him. In short, everyone carries an “other” within him, or always carries a parallel “me” with him. No one wants to reveal this true “me”, so what Darley says is an undisputed truth: “Each of us, like the moon, had a dark side” (297). The true self is always elusive. The true self also implies, for both Durrell and J. K, the primitive self. Under the civilized mask every one carries his primitive self, or his savage self. Durrell handles this idea very exquisitely, with superb skill, in his novels, be it in depicting the adventure of Narouz in the carnival scene, or in some of the sexual encounters which are beautifully narrated in the Quartet. Durrell’s intention is clear. He wants to show that in spite of man’s existence for more than two million years on earth, he still carries in him his most basic and barbaric nature. “Man remains primitive, vulgar, cruel, brutal, violent and all the rest of it”, says J. K.68 One of the possible reasons why Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet received sudden worldwide popularity is because he, as an artist, very skilfully handled the theme of this dark side of man: “primitive, vulgar, cruel, brutal, violent and all the rest of it”, or to put it in Durrell’s words, he depicts all “the perversions which are, I suppose, the psyche’s ailment” (AQ 344). At the beginning of his great novel, Quartet, Durrell reminds the readers that Alexandria is a city “inverted upon itself. The Orient cannot rejoice in the sweet anarchy of the body.”(18) This inverted nature of man lay embedded in most of the readers as well, and it is the depiction of this surrealistic quality that makes the reading of the novel all the more enjoyable. At the end of the Quartet, after reading the novel with patient attention, the reader may ask “Why” man makes such a mess of his life. The obvious answer emerging from the text is that it is because he lives without achieving proper insight. At the same time, what we honestly try not to remember in the story are certain events. These events are realistic, but absolutely against the spirit of human nature: for example, the scenes like Melissa selling her body, Justine going in search of her missing child, the shocking sight of child prostitution, Narouz taking out a human head from his bag and rolling it out into the river, the sight of someone butchering a camel and its streaming blood, Scobie’s spurious liquor, etc., etc.. The list is endless. In a way, these scenes are “symbolizing the western consciousness”, making one’s heart contract with pity (280). As Durrell himself has beautifully dealt with the subject of man’s psychic aberrations in his Quartet through various events in his story, or by highlighting the possible reasons for such miserable state of human life, the task of a

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scholar attempting a survey of his novel to see its cultural aspects is made easy–he has only to quote from the text to support his arguments. In a way, The Quartet seems to be a tragic story, not in the sense that the hero dies physically. It is tragic in the sense that one cannot find any character in the novel living a normal life. “Was it consciousness of tragedy, irremediable, contained – not in the external world which we all blame – but in ourselves, in the human conditions…?” asks Durrell (305). He also states his helplessness as an artist: Aware of every discord, of every calamity in the nature of man himself, he can do nothing to warn his friends, to point, to cry out in time and to try to save them. It would be useless. For they are the deliberate factors of their own unhappiness. All the artist can say as an imperative is: “Reflect and Weep” (305).

Yes, the imperative is “reflect and weep” or “indulge and refine”; choose to stay as West or refine in the “Easterly” way, Durrell seems to advice. The Quartet is also intended to serve as a contrast to the Quintet. It is intended to give a warning to the readers that to find out the cause of unhappiness in life one should never look elsewhere, or never blame any outside agency, as J. K always tells us. The cause is rooted in oneself. In his Quintet Durrell takes a positive approach, he doesn’t ask his readers to “Reflect and weep”, but, instead, shows them the ways to save themselves from the “factors of their unhappiness”. The stress in the Quintet is absolutely on enlightenment. Therefore, the insight emerging from the Quintet is clear: just set your vision right; that is all. This is what Durrell told Stephen Gray, “The message is always the same one: live!”69 At the end of Sebastian he makes it emphatic that “we can’t continue with this worn-out materialism of ours, it leads us nowhere” (Sebastian 175). In the same page, he asks “Why should man be the only animal who knows better but always fares worse?” However, before posing this question he also reveals a truth: And while we are eroding the Indian vision, drowning it in our technology, India is eroding ours, drowning Europe in all the vast meekness of pure insight! (175). Mulk Raj Anand does not agree with this, that India is eroding Europe in

Indian insight. But, Europe has certainly drowned India and the world in “our technology”. Thus, we can sum up this discussion by saying that Durrell’s Quartet illustrates the dark side of human life in which this “worn-out materialism” is in full sway. On the other hand, the Quintet shows us, how

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with a deeper insight, by learning the art of “submission”, we can make our life blissful. “Submission”, Durrell reminds us, is better than living with irresistible temptations for “intervention”. J. K too has said that the “flash of insight wipes away the darkness”.70 In a way, we can come to the conclusion that the difference between the Quartet and the Quintet is the difference between West and East, but reading the former novel, which should certainly be the readers’ preference, is more enjoyable. Here Keller-Privat has a question: “Does man prefer to ‘reflect and weep’ than to act? Or is it due to the more theoretical approach to the Quintet?” The obvious counter question is “Is there a choice for man?” Yes, the Quintet shows that. One must also understand the continuity that Durrell maintains as a novelist. There is a thread running from The Black Book to the Quintet, and the link is made quite strong by the middle novel, the Quartet. The thread is in the form of a message that human consciousness has been shaped by dualistic attitudes and its struggle now is to seek release from it, to attain non-dualism. This aspect of Durrell’s work is what makes it metaphysical. In fact, the real link between the Quartet and the Quintet is Durrell’s double-decker novels, Tunc and Nunquam, renamed as The Revolt of Aphrodite. We know that the response to these two novels from the reading public was quite negative. Durrell had to argue that there was a real purpose in writing these novels. To a question asked by Frank, whether the author could see any continuity in Tunc, Durrell’s answer is: . . . only to the extent that he was the same author … the same theme may be, but shuffled around like a pack of cards and now playing poker instead of rummy.71

When he says the game is the same, what he probably means is that the subject matter of his novels is man. What he also means is the terrific control which the outside organizations have today on the human psyche, resulting in the total lack of freedom in the game being played by man. The game here is his life. The firm controls man and the pattern it creates are such that any escape for him from its central control is almost impossible. He is caged in the Spenglerian culture. This theme is the continuity of Durrell’s writing. This moribund culture leads man today to a dangerous situation, forcing writers like Durrell to portray such reality as the background of the stories in his novels, the background of a world ruled by Monsieur. About the unfortunate reality today that technology seems to be “overmastering us”, Durrell told his interviewers, Lyons and Antrim, in 1970:

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You mustn’t read this as though I’m writing about an individual life crippled by General Motors or by the Catholic Church or by Communism. I try and use culture in a much more general, Spenglerian sense.72

Durrell’s intention in writing these two novels was probably to illustrate the type of situation that will emerge when human will is given full freedom. It will be a situation where man’s inner growth becomes difficult. In order to understand the actual relationship between Durrell’s novels, the readers should move back from the Quintet to the Revolt, then back to the Quartet, and finally to The Black Book. That is why Durrell told Frank that “In writing this book I regard it as an incitement to people to grow rather than anything else and in that sense it’s optimistic”.73 He was thinking of Tunc when he made this statement. The subject of love in Durrell’s Quartet can also be read in the light of J. K’s attitude to love. To question number 22 in First and Last Freedom: Questions and Answers, J. K replies, “… as love is the unknown we must come to it by discarding the known …. We must approach it negatively”.74 It is precisely what Durrell says in his poem “Through many negatives to what I am.”75 The readers, after reading the Quartet, are compelled to realize that the love relationships depicted in it must be discarded. Pursewarden says, “We seek to supplement the emptiness of our individuality through love, and for a brief moment enjoy the illusion of completeness” (AQ 377). To understand the description of “unknown” love, the “prototype of love”, we must visit the Quintet, where we can realize the archetypal love which Constance and Affad “have tumbled into by luck” (Constance 299).The “sweetness of this transient form of death in life” (279”) is a contrast to the love depicted in the Quartet, in which love is “all done by mirrors” (303). “Because we do not know how to love one, our love of humanity is fictitious”, says J. K, and he adds that “love alone can transform the present madness and insanity in the world”.76 It is now almost an accepted fact that Durrell is a master in the treatment of love, and his message is that “love alone can transform the present madness and insanity in the world”, as J. K says. Both the Quartet and the Quintet are fine examples of this. Students can learn a lot about love and sex from the spiritual master, J. K, whose spiritual attitude is similar to that of Durrell. They realize that love is not an isolated act. It is a vital field one goes through in the process of one’s individuation. But, as Darley observes, the “gruesome multiplicity” and the “doublebladed” nature of truth create confusion in one’s life, making it difficult for one to attain pure innocence in love and life. That is why J.K reminds us that “knowledge has only crippled me from seeing truth”77. The mind must be free of knowledge, free from the knowledge of “me”. He also

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reminds us that the meaning of Vedanta is the end of knowledge. In other words, the end of the knowledge of “me” is related to the end of time, and thus to the end of the ego, which is the sum total of the discourse in Indian metaphysics. In Constance, Affad, “the true yogi”, tries his best to convince Constance that “We live encroached on by future and past” (Constance 291), implying that her accumulated knowledge which is rooted in time does not allow her to gain insight. The oft-quoted phrases of J. K on truth and insight are: “observer is observed”, “truth is a pathless land”, and “choice less awareness”. Reading Durrell’s novels in the light of these insightful statements can be of great advantage to the readers. Durrell, who was “Born there at the gateway to Tibet”78, had the temptation to master everything that was Tibetan or Indian. He was also worried about the evolution of life in the west, and, as he says, about the “future held in store for me in this bereft world” (Monsieur 19). Therefore, it is no wonder that in J. K, the “renowned non-Guru”, who was admired for his superior spiritual experience by intellectuals like Bernard Shaw, Aldous Huxley and Henry Miller, Durrell must have discovered enough raw materials for his literary works, particularly enough metaphysical ideas for dealing with human consciousness. He looked at his senior writers and thinkers with great respect. Durrell very proudly admitted to Montalbetti that he was very happy to respect all the senior writers as his “father surrogates”.79 He also considered most of them as his friends with whom he could share his secrets. He, like J. K, was against group thinking, and like Emerson, believed in self-reliance. If The Alexandria Quartet gives us the picture of psychological revolution against a hostile reality, The Avignon Quintet tries to show how peace and happiness can be achieved by self-realization, by rejecting the conditions which create all kinds of distorted realities. To seek proper insight, to attain pure consciousness, and to enjoy the “pre-Adamic bliss” are the untiring efforts of both J. K and Lawrence Durrell. While speaking about his lifestyle as a writer, Durrell told his interviewers, Graf and Gauthier, that he lived “on philosophers and poets”80. J.K was certainly one among the philosophers who gave him good spiritual ideas and techniques for approaching the problem of the ego. As already noted, Durrell was on the lookout for ideas. This is how he confessed to Graf and Gauthier, about his joy of searching, as a pilgrim who was in search of India: “I discovered the ancient Greek philosophers (Pythagoras and company are really Indians!)”.81 He calls this discovery a “philosophic relief”. J. K was readily available to him everywhere, in England, France, and even in the Greek islands.

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It is unfortunate that there are no first hand records available for us to know the nature and places of the meetings between Durrell and J. K. That they met and exchanged ideas is beyond doubt. J. K was not in the habit of keeping a list of the names of the people who had met him. Both J. Krishnamurti and Lawrence Durrell were atheists and pacifists. Durrell knows that what we need is insight, a philosophy which can guide man to achieve proper insight. It is philosophy, therefore, mainly Indian philosophy, that lies heavily buried in the pages of Durrell’s novels. This is what rereading of the Alexandria Quartet in the light of J. Krishnamurti reveals.

CHAPTER THREE SEXUALITY AND INTERIOR LIBERATION

“Women want to create the future. If they are deprived of that right it’s as if you deprived an artist of self-expression”. —Lawrence Durrell

In his interview, given to the BBC in 1990, Lawrence Durrell claimed that his knowledge of the East was an added advantage which D. H. Lawrence had not possessed. He added that he carried with him the “intellectual baggage” he had collected in Europe to find his “way back to India”1. It looks like a tall claim, but, what he has meant, probably, is that in the treatment of sex and sexual relationships in his novels he has gone far ahead of Lawrence. Probably, Durrell was not aware of the oriental link Lawrence had made through his Buddhist friends in Sri Lanka. We have already discussed how Durrell found his “way back to India”. In the case of Lawrence, it may be recalled that Mellors in Lady Chatterley’s Lover claims that he learned certain “tricks” from India (LCL 57). We are also aware that Constance occupies the central place in Durrell’s quincunxial novel, The Avignon Quintet, both structurally and thematically, and it is no coincidence that the name of the key female character in both Lawrence’s and Durrell’s novels, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Constance, is Constance. Durrell was never shy of admitting that he borrowed much from Lawrence. He admitted in an interview to Montalbetti that his Constance is an “echo” of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.2 What links these two novels is the role of sexuality and the general attitude to sex maintained by these writers. Therefore, an in-depth study of the role of sex in Constance is essential, if we are to understand the full metaphysical implications in Durrell’s novels. Such a deep study will also enable us to get a full idea of his general attitude to love and sex and help us to apprehend the liberating role he gives to sex. In fact, the main sexual episode in Constance can be taken as the key to Durrell’s metaphysical ideas. At the same time, as the key to Durrell is his attitude to sex, it is impossible to study this novelist by isolating the subject of sex from his approach to the problem of the ego. Also for a

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complete appreciation or understanding of the sexual episode in Durrell’s novel, Constance, it is imperative to have a look at what Lawrence is doing with his Connie in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Durrell, as we have observed, has confessed that “The role of sexuality in these books recalls the attitudes of D. H. Lawrence”, stressing that “even” the name is the same in both the novels. Therefore, it implies that we must have a thorough comparative study of both Connie and Constance to see why Durrell preferred to give the same name to his character. The most important element in these two novels is that their main focus is on the concept of womanhood, though what we get at the surface level is mostly man’s wrong attitude to sex. However, while examining the role of Constance in Constance, we cannot forget that Durrell was recreating Lawrence’s Connie after about fifty years, when the social attitude in the world had already undergone changes. In spite of the time gap, the vital similarity in them is that they have both sought ideas on woman and sex from the East, from India, particularly from Tantrism. Their effort as novelists is to impart some metaphysical sense to the readers in their general outlook towards woman and sex. Therefore, the attempt in this chapter is to study the use of Tantrism in both Lawrence and Durrell in order to see how it enriched the portrayal of man-woman relationships in their novels. We will also see that Tantrism gives them the much desirable insight into this most primitive act, the sexual act. Durrell confesses that his lovers prefer to choose the “tantric fashion” (Sebastian 153). His creative effort is to illustrate what happens to a woman who has had this wonderful experience of sex. But to see what this experience really is, to know how it enriches the relationships and helps the inner changes in man, we must go back to Lawrence. Therefore, it is felt essential to examine the role of Connie in Lawrence’s novel before taking up Durrell’s Constance. The creative aim for both, Lawrence and Durrell, is to find harmony, spiritual harmony, in the midst of utter chaos and confusion in human love relationships. D. H. Lawrence, like some of his contemporary writers and thinkers, was quite fascinated by the way the Indian philosophers looked at life. His visit to Sri Lanka and the contacts he established with some of the Buddhist scholars there were part of his effort to learn the Eastern philosophy directly. Unfortunately, he did not live long enough to streamline the ideas he had gathered from the East into any artistic or philosophic pattern, as Huxley was able to do. If “he had had ten more years, we would have seen an artist of incomparable stature and importance to Europe”, Durrell told Kenneth Young.3 Lawrence’s visit to

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Sri Lanka and his close contacts with his Buddhist friends are interesting episodes in his life that can be found in his biographies. A close critical scrutiny of his Lady Chatterley’s Lover can show that Lawrence wrote this controversial novel after being thoroughly confident that the Indian attitude to sex was found far superior to the attitude he had found prevailing in the West. Anand in his book, Conversations in Bloomsbury, recalls what he once said about Lawrence to Catherine Carswell: “In the man-woman union, the Tantra seeks to lift the relationship above the egos of the couple. Of course, Lawrence is questing in his own way.”4 Thus it is very appropriate to study the sexual relationship between Connie and Mellors before Constance is taken up for her role in Durrell’s novel. All that a common reader can gather about India or Tantra from Lady Chatterley’s Lover is only at the surface level, from certain casual remarks made in the novel, such as that Mellors “may have picked up certain tricks out there” in India (LCL 57); his face sometimes is “motionless in physical abstraction, almost like the face of Buddha” (186); and Connie discovers “three books on India” in Mellors’ bare little room (187). The truth is that this entire novel can be interpreted in the light of Indian metaphysics, and it would pave the way for a better understanding of Durrell’s Constance, because the treatment of sex in both novels is based on the Tantric testament of love. Lawrence writes in Fantasia of the Unconscious that in “sex we have our basic, most elemental being, most elemental contact”5, which is precisely what we find in Tantrism. Tantra is not an organized or a well formulated doctrine. Unfortunately, it has either been wrongly used or misused by people throughout the world. As there are a great number of books available on this topic, a search for a clear definition of Tantra is likely to result in confusion. Therefore, the critical evaluation of the novels of Lawrence and Durrell in this chapter, based on the principles of Tantra, is done in such a way that it will gradually enable the readers to get a fair idea about this esoteric practice. Yet, a working definition offered by David Gordon White in his “Introduction” to the book he edited, Tantra in Practice, is quoted here to give the readers an easy understanding of this practice: Tantra is that Asian body of beliefs and practices which, working from the principle that the universe we experience is nothing other than the concrete manifestation of the divine energy of the godhead that creates and maintains that universe, seeks to ritually appropriate and channel that energy, within the human microcosm, in creative and emancipatory ways.6

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Of course, this may not be an easy definition for readers, but it explains the basic nature of Tantrism and its aim. We will go into the details of this practice as and when the treatment of sex in the novels of Lawrence and Durrell come up for detailed analysis. The fact remains that the basic principles of Tantra, or its attitude to life, have undoubtedly impressed many thinkers in the world. The obvious reason is that it gives great importance to both body and mind, and according to its interpretation, man’s psychic journey takes place through his flesh. Zimmer, the great Indologist, has pointed out that “The Tantra appropriated the solemn formulations of Vedantic philosophy and the marvellous psychological experience of yoga practised for thousands of years”.7 As the subject matter of any story about man and woman should touch the ultimate manwoman relationship, Lawrence and Durrell, as true artists, must have realized that making their lovers follow the Tantric way of life would enable them to portray true human sexual relationships. It helps the artist do justice to actual biological and psychic relationships. Durrell reminds Robert McDonald during their interview that love-making is not as silly as playing tennis or “eating chocolates”. Though it is a physical activity, he warns, it is a game that is to be played at a higher plane. It is a psychic act rather than a physical one, says Durrell.8 Whether a male or a female; one should be conscious of the “mix” and must make sure that the “game” always ends in a great “effective mix”. All that Tantra demands of us is to make “love as love should be made”, and that needs a close study. Altogether, it becomes plain now that Durrell treats love and sex in his fiction at a contemplative level. According to Alan Watts, Tantric love is a “contemplative love between mutually dedicated partners.”9 In both, Tantra and the novels under discussion here, the body is the main focus. We can see that Lawrence and Durrell give great importance to the worship of the body, though Durrell moves a step forward and makes it a subject of scientific discussion in his novel. Some of his characters are good psycho-analysts. Such a discussion enables them to scientifically test an old belief, to show the rational side of an old sexual practice. T. N. Mishra, who is an authority on Tantrism, observes that Tantra is “based on the cardinal belief that the truth is to be realized in and through the body of man”.10 It is difficult for any sincere novelist, particularly the novelists like Lawrence and Durrell, to write about love without stressing that the human body is the real source of joy. Therefore, it is only understandable that they looked towards the East where the human body is worshipped as a vehicle for attaining psychic bliss in life. A true follower of Tantra believes that “the highest of all values is love, and the fountain is the body. The worship

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must start with the body of man. In the mortal frame resides the immortal”, explains Mishra11. In Chatterley’s Lover, Lawrence pleads, “Give me the body, I believe the life of the body is greater reality than the life of the mind: when the body is really wakened to life” (LCL 207). Lust has no place in Tantra. Sexual union is seen by a Tantrist as a form of yoga and he knows that it is man’s path to psychic liberation. It is a form of sublime experience through which lasting awareness is sought. This kind of yoga is seen as a disciplined human practice meant for attaining transcendence. The aim of sexual yoga is to seek supreme reality or Brahman, the ultimate truth. Therefore, every sincere follower of this “par excellence a technique”12, as Rougemont qualifies it, thinks of sublimating his sexual desires, as Mellors does in Lawrence’s novel or as Affad does in Durrell’s Quintet. A critical examination of Lawrence’s Connie first will enable us to understand Durrell’s Constance as an extension of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Durrell admitted to Stephen Gray that Lawrence “was a great signaller of that; in fact I borrowed liberally from him in tones of voice”.13 He was talking about how marvellously Lawrence depicted “the crushing of spirit” that is generally found in English life. If we look at Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the perspectives of Indian metaphysics, the novel can be divided into three sections: sat, chit, and ananda. Sat means body, chit means awareness, and ananda means bliss. All three put together is satchitanda, existence-consciousness-bliss. Thematically, sat or body dominates the first part of Lawrence’s novel. As one moves from the initial pages of the novel, the attention shifts from Clifford’s crippled body to Connie’s “restless body”, and then back again to Clifford’s body for a short while. Probably, Lawrence wants to show how Clifford lives with his mind, and how he is trying to rule the world with his industrial knowledge. On the other hand, in the Quintet, Durrell first takes the readers to the world devastated by the Second World War, and then shows them the passage to the Tantric world, where the focus is mainly on human bliss. Here again, like Lawrence, the idea is to take the readers away from the “moribund” culture, which is steeped in war, towards a culture rooted in insight, or to guide them away from the culture ruled by the human intellect. Both writers, Lawrence and Durrell, identify woman with nature and her desires are shown honestly as deriving from life-affirming attitudes. Therefore, Connie in Clifford’s world and Constance in the wartorn world are shown as suffocating physically and mentally, till Mellors and Affad come to their rescue. The most frequently used word in the first part of Lady Chatterley’s Lover is “nothing’ or “nothingness”: “Connie’s soul: it was all nothingness, wonderful display of nothingness” (LCL 42).

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In one page alone he uses this word about nine times (42), and the readers can notice that in the third part of this novel not only does this word disappear, but it is also replaced with words approximating the concept of “bliss”, or with words signifying inner joy or happiness. This stress on the joyful aspect of human life is what makes Indian metaphysics great. It is a philosophy nurtured to help man lead his brief life on this planet towards joy or ananda. John Woodroffe, the founding father of Tantric studies, says: But in the Tantra. . . the manner of approach is that, not of Nay, but that of Yea. That is to say, the world attitude is affirmative as in the Veda. . . .It is an essential principle of the Tantric idea that man must rise through and by means of nature, not by rejection of nature.14

Therefore, the movement of Lawrence’s novel from mere nothingness to affirmation has a Tantric undertone in it. In a way, we see Lawrence lifting Connie from Clifford’s industrial lap and tenderly placing her onto the lap of nature. Mellors, readers cannot forget, was already identified with nature in his novel by Lawrence, before Connie learns from him about sex and life. Trapped in the world of Clifford, who represents “the grand sumtotal of nothingness” (LCL 46), Connie feels restless, “restlessness … thrilled inside her body, in her womb, somewhere … a mad restlessness” (14). Durrell’s Constance, on the other hand, never starved sexually. What really happens to her is that her new sexual contact with Affad enables her to realize her female strength, and she regrets the physical “transaction” she previously had with other men. As this topic will come up for more consideration in this book, while dealing with the character of Affad, let us examine now how she moves from the stage of sat to chit and from there to ananda. Lawrence very carefully and skilfully, in a poetical style, narrates in his novel how Connie moves from her miserable “restlessness” and “nothingness” towards a life resting on the lap of nature: “The wood was her one refuge” (15). He first sets the ground in the story to make her body, which is bursting with female energy, in search of a mate, a male body, a body capable of giving her sexual resurrection. Having experienced “humiliation and abomination” (54) with all the other male bodies she had come into contact with, she prefers to wait. Every object in the world for Connie appears to be waiting, even the trees: “they too are waiting: obstinately, stoically waiting, and giving off a potency of silence” (55). This waiting is a Tantric quality. One has to wait for the right partner before seeking sexual union in Tantric fashion. In Durrell’s novel, it is Affad who has been waiting for the right opportunity, to meet the right

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woman, for his Tantric adventure. Lawrence, with his powerful narration, makes his female character, Connie, realize that her physical impulses are identical to the cosmic impulses. Identifying a parallelism between the micro impulses and the macro impulses in lovers is what takes Tantrism to a metaphysical level. Mishra says: There is a perfect parallelism between the physical processes of the universe and the biological processes in the body of man: with this idea, the Tantrists try to locate the sun, moon, stars, mountains, islands, and rivers of the external world within the human body.15

The flowers on her way in the wood fascinate Connie, “rustling and fluttering and shivering” (LCL 72). Connie is also optimistic: “when the crocus cometh forth I too will emerge and see the sun” (72). In Tantra, the sun stands for the male energy and the earth for female energy. Lawrence asserts in Fantasia of the Unconscious that “woman is really polarized downwards, towards the centre of the earth… And man is polarized upwards, towards sun”.16 Thus the novelist gives a cosmic and symbolic touch to the sexual unions taking place in his novel. Connie finally discovers the right man, whose first physical presence, says Lawrence, “hit her in the middle of her body”, and it “touched her womb”, giving her a “visionary experience” (LCL 55). This novel, unfortunately, was banned without giving due considerations to the value and spiritual significance of the words which Lawrence very carefully uses to highlight Connie’s sexual impulses. He depicts her positive responses in her at the first sight of her man by using rich symbols. The novelist sprinkles the page with images like birds, flowers, and (the warmth of) the sun, and Connie’s joy is exhibited there at its ecstatic point. Her impulsive readiness to be ravished is set as a contrast to her past, when words were “always coming between her and life … they did the ravishing” (79). The first sight of Mellors is also significant in another respect: “The man was washing himself … subtle as a weasel playing with water … revealing itself in contours that one might touch a body” (55). Durrell also uses the imagery of water in the scene in which Affad experiences his first sexual encounter with Constance. Affad listens to the running water in the bathroom where the water tap was on: “persistent sound of the overflow running in her bathroom. He listened to it for a long moment, trying to decide what it might signify.” (Constance 264). Julius Evola in his book, The Metaphysics of Sex, writes about the symbolic importance of water. According to him, it stands for purity, liberation of regression, restoration and regeneration, washing away of sins, fertility, moon, and the divine female archetype. He also states, “The waters have represented the

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undifferentiated substance of all life, that is, life in the state prior to any form and therefore free from all the limitations of individual existence”.17 Mellors’ body is identified with water and the weasel in order to show man’s physical affinity with nature, and to make him feel free from his limitations. From this scene onwards the novelist deliberately uses a few animal symbols to identify man’s sexual energy. We shall see later on how in Durrell’s Constance the narrator takes the symbols directly from Tantric scriptures. In a letter to Earnest Collings, Lawrence wrote: I conceive a man’s body as a kind of flame, like a candle flame, forever upright and flowing: … I am not so much concerned with the things around – which is really mind – but with the mystery of the flame for ever flowing … And the being itself”.18

Lawrence is, therefore, interested in the “mystery of the flame”, whereas Durrell, we shall see, is keen to know what this mystery can produce on consciousness. In short, Durrell is curious to reflect the inner liberation that man can achieve through sex. Connie soon realizes that the man whom she had met in the woods was someone exceptional, he “always was connected with horses … I believe he went back to India” (LCL 78). Mellors here echoes Milarepa, the great Tibetan Saint, who depicts horse as a metaphor in one of his poems: “He gallops on the great plains of bliss”.19 Incidentally, we can find Durrell too quoting Milarepa in his The Tree of Idleness and Other Poems, which can be found reproduced in The Collected Poems. The quote is: “The notion of emptiness engenders compassion”.20 One thing is absolutely evident here. Lawrence uses several symbols in his novel in order to retain the importance of the body, to show its kinship with nature, and to remind readers that unless one is blood conscious one cannot attain happiness and bliss in life. The moment Connie comes into contact with Mellors, the entire reality for Connie seems to be undergoing changes. This is what we find in Tantrism. The Tantric idea is to get the male and female, the two static and the dynamic principles, into a non-dual and abstract form. Justine Pomeroy says: Consciousness expands between love partners to the point where there is the possibility of directly experiencing the true nature of each other as a proud identification with the primal god and goddess. It is at this point that the sense of separateness vanishes and a true ecstatic merging or union is possible.21

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This could be the real reason, this true ecstatic merging of man and woman in sex that made Durrell, a true Tantric follower, treat love as a form of yoga in his Quintet. Therefore, the physical union between Connie and Mellors in Chatterley’s Lover and that of Constance and Affad in Constance have a common relationship; their main focus is on the human body. The only difference is that Durrell’s Constance wants to use her body, as in Tantrism, to attain inner liberation. She is conscious of the changes in her. In Connie too the liberation takes place, but the experiencing self is not aware of that. There is no conscious reflection after the sexual act in the case of the lovers in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. On the other hand, the reflection in Constance is at the philosophical, scientific, and mystical levels. Mellors, we know, is not much interested in the person than in the body: “He took no notice of Constance or of Lady Chatterley; he just stroked her loins and breasts”, and as he did so, “she could almost feel it in her own body, the huge heave of the sap in the massive trees, upwards, up, up, to the bud-tips” (LCL 104). Lawrence describes the scene in a quite natural way, where the chemical changes take place in the human body before, during, and after the sexual union, because he must have understood as a writer that there is nothing carnal in the sexual act, as the Tantrics believe, and he must have also studied the way a Tantric man and woman are shown mutually worshipping their bodies. Lifting his phallus, Mellors tells Connie, “Ay, he’s got a will of his own …. Take, take him then, He’s thine” (197). Connie’s reluctance to tear herself away from Mellors’ body is frequently stressed in the novel: “his very stickiness upon her was dear to her, and in a sense holy” (119). Realizing the importance the Tantric practices that give to the body, Capra in Tao of Physics writes: Contrary to most Western religions, sensuous pleasure has never been suppressed in Hinduism, because the body has always been considered to be an integral part of the human being and not separated from the spirit.22

Therefore, there is absolutely nothing obscene in these novels, and Durrell, like Lawrence, is against the taboos imposed on sex in Western society. He states, in the “The Kneller Tape”: “Sex? Yes, it is hard to use the word in English because of its sexual connotation, which has swamped all others in our puritanical dictionaries.”23 In fact, it should be observed that the novelist is only depicting sexual union as a natural stream of purification going on in the body and mind. As Radhakrishnan points out, “The body is a necessity for the soul: ‘Thou in me and I in thee’”.24 We can see in Lawrence’s novel how Connie’s physical passion slowly and silently transforms itself into a new awareness, or, in Tantric terms,

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Connie now moves from sat to chit, from sheer being to becoming: “I had no warm, flamy life till he gave it to me”, she says (LCL 235). She had been living in a world which believed that “if civilization is any good, it has to help us forget our bodies” (62). Therefore, she is surprised at the new experience that is rich in gratification. The new experience along with “the spring of his seed in her … had lifted a great cloud from her and given her peace” (100), enabling her to undergo a spiritual transformation: There awoke in her new strange trills rippling inside her. Rippling, rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flame, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite, exquisite and melting her molten inside (115).

In Fantasia of the Unconscious, Lawrence explains the spiritual effect of a successful sexual experience: “What now, that the upper centres are finally active in positivity? Now it is a different story. Now there is new vision in the eyes, new hearing in the ears, new voice in the throat and speech on the lips”.25 This statement has the resonance of the Tantric way of analysing the spiritual impact of a perfect maithuna, or sexual union, between two consenting partners. Connie in her life thus reaches the third stage of satchidananda, the stage of ananda or bliss. Without touching the word Tantra, Lawrence writes in Fantasia: There is a threefold result. First the flash of pure sensation and real electricity. Then there is the birth of an entirely new state of blood in each partner. And then there is the liberation … And in this renewal lies the great magic of sex.26

This “threefold result” revealed by Lawrence in Fantasia is what is unerringly highlighted in Tantra as satchitananda – sat, chit, and ananda (Being, Awareness, Bliss). Therefore, the principles of Tantra and the principles with which the two novelists treat sexual love in their novels are almost the same. The end is sexuality and interior liberation. As observed earlier, Connie does not seek liberation consciously, liberation just occurs in her, as part of the “threefold result”, whereas, Constance understands the importance of this spiritual experience and spreads this message through Blanford and thus to the whole society. There is absolutely no doubt that Durrell’s creative effort as a novelist is mainly to carry Lawrence’s sexual revolution to its logical end, “to carry on the thread” as he says, so that the social attitude to woman and sex could be further reoriented. Durrell told John Hawkes:

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Chapter Three After all Lawrence wrote the first Freudian novel in Sons and Lovers. Through Freud, I suppose, the gossip of Vienna soaked through, and he got a rough working knowledge. He had a very mysteriously distorted knowledge of psychoanalysis, but it served for the first novel (Lady Chatterley’s Lover). Its subtitle was “tenderness”, by the way, which is not a bad thing –Constance, you see. I meant it was a chime for my Constance, too, to carry on the thread. Because he was on the right side, don’t you think? 27

Thus, Durrell was confident that Lawrence was on the right side, and his primary duty as a novelist was “to carry on the thread”. Though he used his Alexandria Quartet to carry out all kinds of investigations into manwoman love relationships, into what he calls “modern love”, it is in the most fascinating scene in the novel, Constance, where he depicts the sexual encounter between Affad and Constance, that Durrell’s ideas on sex are clearly formulated (Constance 265-304). This scene looks like any other romantic episode between a man and a woman. But this sexual encounter gathers greater significance, and its paramount importance seems to reverberate in his subsequent novels. In a way, it becomes the main subject matter for his next novels, because the insight emerging from this sexual relationship helps him to develop the metaphysics he was aiming at in the Quintet. If Lawrence’s Constance had been passing through the sterile world of Clifford before she met Mellors, Durrell’s Constance had undergone severe hardships as a doctor in the Red Cross, in the war fields during the Second World War. She emerges from a hostile world, a world that is terribly against female nature, both biologically and psychologically. It is not a mere coincidence that both the novelists decided to make the destructive war the background for their stories, from which the protagonists emerge and seek emancipation. War is the result of faulty insight, they want to assert, the result of a distorted reality which was moulded by a “moribund culture”. Here Isabelle Keller-Privat has something substantial to add: I really love your entire demonstration; it is so enriching and thoughtprovoking! I was wondering here if you couldn’t draw a parallel with the antithetic figure of Livia. She is a female character who thoroughly embraces a world at war and makes self-destructive choices. Yet she is also in love with Blanford at a point, also practices Yoga, and progresses willingly towards a self-imposed death of the body which is the pure reflection of the death she has imposed on her soul. Paradoxically, she is called Livia….I think the scenes in the Avignon museum and that in the chapel are particularly telling; there is also the brothel scene in Paris which is the exact opposite of the Affad-Constance love scene. And of course the

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famous scene where Constance faces Livia’s body. I can look up the page ref if you have difficulties finding them, just tell me.

(I must thank Privat for detecting a serious omission in my work, but it is deliberate. I am of the belief that Livia is a character like Affad and she needs to be approached with very intelligent considerations. It is also to be remembered that Livia comes before Constance in the Quintet. Therefore, Privat’s penetrative observation should be noted by aspiring Durrell scholars.) Thus, in the chapter, “Tu Duc Revisited” in Constance, Durrell draws the readers’ attention to the unprecedented human misery caused by the war, by the “brutishness of human behaviour”: “some four hundred murder camps … Burning bodies sank like old motor tyres … and blood hissed like rain on dead leaves” (Constance 247). When Affad meets Constance, she “looked like a French peasant from the occupied zone, dirty, listless and tired. He had not expected her in such a state of fatigue.” (260) The readers can easily discern in this scene which is just before the sexual encounter between Affad and Constance how, Durrell, like Lawrence, gives stress on the body: “Caresses! That is what she had been missing all the time, she realized, that is what her body hungered for” (261). From the description of the burning of the bodies in the murder camps, the narrator’s attention now shifts to the burning sexual desire in Constance, as Affad steps into the scene. Durrell, with a conscious comparison or contrast, maintains his focus on the behaviour of the body on the battle field and the body on a sexual bed, or the blood oozing out on the field and the blood leaking between the female thighs. Through this mighty contrast, which is very carefully and deliberately knit in the story to highlight the two dissimilar realities in which one is the outcome of a culture rooted in violence and the other from a desire for a free sexual embrace, the author tries to contrast the real reality or the cosmic reality with that of distorted reality. The visual focus from the sight of the blood flowing in the war field shifts to the menstrual blood trickling through Constance’s half-opened legs. History has been so much steeped in acts of violence and killing that the bleeding in the war field seems less shocking to the readers than the sight of menstrual blood, because they are socially and psychologically trained to think of sex as something to be hidden and shunned, something not even to be talked about in society. It is shameful. So, we can see how both, Lawrence and Durrell, play on the idea of shame in order to turn the readers’ consciousness inside out. They expose what religion has taught man. In order to highlight this paradox, Durrell, like Lawrence, has found the Tantric attitude to sex very useful and meaningful. A Tantric can discern a touch of divinity in menstrual blood

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and any kind of destructive activity that mars the divine game of creation is what is shameful to him. Unlike Lawrence, Durrell does not hide his keen interest in Tantrism in the course of his narration. This plain attitude to reality, probably, made Durrell comment that the English readers do not like his metaphysical ideas. He wonders what exactly these readers expect from the writers, as he asked Cecile Wajsbrot in an interview28. However, he admits that his last novels are really difficult to be easily read. Therefore, “Bleed! Thank you, Constance, Bleed!” (Constance 265), is a spontaneous response from Affad to Constance at the sight of her trickling menstrual blood. We must remember that Affad is the most important character in Durrell’s Quintet, and after this episode he moves to the centre of the stage in the novel; and also from this moment onwards it will be Affad, either dead or alive, who will draw the readers’ attention. In other words, this scene, depicting the physical relationship between Constance and Affad in Constance, is not merely one exhibiting a sensational sexual episode, but it is meant to serve as a spiritual platform for Durrell to launch his protagonist further into the domain of his metaphysical adventure. We learn from this scene how Durrell, like Lawrence, has relied on the Tantric principles to reveal the importance of sex in man’s life. It is already noted that Lawrence does not make the use of Tantrism explicit in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, except by stating that Mellors had learned some tricks from India before he met Connie. But, a deeper study of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, if carried out properly, can discover how skilfully Lawrence used this oriental approach to sex. He uses it symbolically to reveal the inner changes taking place in Connie after her physical association with Mellors. For example, in the scene where Mellors covers the body of Connie with flowers, he places them on seven selected spots on her body, making them signify the seven chakras identified by the Tantrics in a human body. “There is forget-me-nots in the right place!” tells Mellors (197). The belief in Tantra is that during a sexual union the changes in the body pass through seven vital centres, finally reaching the psychic centre. In other words, the Tantric idea is to indicate the chemical reactions in the body and show their progressive journey towards one’s psyche leading to creative awareness. Durrell, on the other hand, takes this change for granted, knowing that it must have already happened during the coitus. Therefore, he does not spend time illustrating the physical reactions in Constance; instead he states the ultimate effect on the female, and then goes for an open scientific discussion of it, in order to facilitate an intelligent analysis. This is one reason why it was stated at the beginning of this chapter that Lawrence’s novel must be understood before reading Durrell’s Constance. Constance,

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says, “But this Egyptian lover of mine is employing a strategy completely at variance with your established ideas of how the couple couples” (Constance 283). Much has been written about the rationale behind “this strategy”, the sexual strategy used in Tantrism, by eminent writers in India and in the West. In order to stress this fact, Hugh B. Urban quotes Zimmer in his book, Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion: “Tantra first entered the West, not through spiritual proselytizers, but through scholars and intellectuals, who saw in Tantra an alternative world to that of the modern West”.29 After learning from the anti-established ideas of coupling in Tantrism, Constance as a doctor now realizes that sex is to be seen not merely as an act of reproduction or as an act of sensual pleasure, but it has to be understood as a source which can greatly increase a woman’s awareness, and that it offers the necessary insight enlightening one on the very idea of womanhood. The narrator says: But the trick was done; she possessed the secret of her own soul now, and her generous kisses and smiling eyes told him that there was nothing to regret for either of them henceforward. The imp was out of the bottle (Constance 274).

The word “trick” quoted above reminds the readers of the same “trick” which Mellors had learned during his visit to India: “But I had hardly expected our game-keeper to be up to so many tricks”, says the narrator in Chatterley’s Lover (LCL 237). We have already noted Mellors’ visit to India and its significant impact on Connie. The impact of India on Constance is on a higher level. She realizes after her first experience that sex, apart from it being a physical act, is also a psychic act, a metaphysical act. The “reversed affect technique” of sex illustrated in Constance is what is known in Tantrism as viparitha maithuna30. Here the “affect” is reversed and the focus is on woman. Before analysing Tantrism further to see its poetic adaptation in the novel, a look at what happens between Constance and Affad in that crucial episode in the novel will make the analysis easy. All the events in Constance, as well as in the entire Quintet for that matter, are very carefully and intelligently created by the novelist without ever losing sight of his metaphysical objectives. He is aware that he is attempting to give shape to a new reality, “metareality” (Livia 9). Constance, as already noted, had to undergo an excruciating experience in Provence during the war. Coming from the war-torn world of sterility and destruction, she looked very unkempt and exhausted: “It touched him to the heart – her disorder and grubbiness” (Constance 263). Affad came to receive her, but

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all that she wanted was to wash and relax. As there was no sign of her for some time, Affad enters her room only to find her sleeping on a wide table with the blood flowing down her thighs. Such sleep, narrates the author, “no opiate could have procured for her, and … she relaxed as if for eternity” (264). Then the long sexual bout begins which leads her to the subsequent realization of a new experience. Affad fills the bath tub with water, … carefully hanging up his own wrap, and stepped into it to lie at ease, deeply thoughtful, watching the filament of dark blood wash off his skin and hang in the warm water before dissolving. I feel like Petronius (266).

This kind of sexual experience which Constance has, thus “tumbled into by luck”, can be found described in Indian Tantric books, where it’s physical and metaphysical significances are discussed. Menstrual blood is always seen as impure and devilish, according to several superstitious beliefs. But in Tantrism coitus with a lady in her period “is considered invigorating and healthy”, says Benjamin Walker, the Indian-born writer on religion and philosophy.31 As Constance, who is also a doctor, has the habit of assimilating in her every kind of possible experience and knowledge that she can grab, she becomes keen to know the secrets of this new experience. Thus, she learns from Affad that this technique of mating is of Indian origin and that it has also “its own scientific rationale” (Constance 288). She later on learns much more about it, that “we exist in five-skanda form, aggregates, parcels, lots, congeries. They cohere to form a human being when you come together and create an old force-field” (Quinx 15). The key to sex, she understands, is in grasping this “forcefield” and “simultaneity”. So, sex in Constance can be seen linked with Durrell’s metaphysical ideas about man as a whole, man’s personality as a whole. He says in “The Kneller Tape”: The sexual act becomes identified with all knowledge, all knowing; and the act (life-saving, life-giving) seems a sort of biological contraption whose object is not only the race’s survival, but also the awakening of the psychic forces latent in the human being.32

This can be seen as a precise Tantric explanation of sexual yoga. Durrell’s description of sexual act quoted here gives readers a chance to rethink about the idea of personality, ego, and even about the false realities which man weaves around him. We have observed that it is not easy to find any single and easy definition for the word Tantrism. It reflects a special manifestation of Indian feeling, art, and religion. According to Zimmer:

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The Tantras appropriated the solemn formulations of Vedantic philosophy and the marvellous psychological experience of yoga practiced for thousands of years; they provide the framework comprehending both the lofty ideas of God and the wealth of magical rites that promise mastery over everyday existence and life itself–rites that control the circumscribed, multifaceted, capricious and unfathomable world around us, and that grant access to distant realms and sphere unknown.33

Tantrism seeks to get insight by means of the things which were usually expelled from the human consciousness. Its object is to ignite and sublimate the human body. The key concept of Tantric philosophy is Shakti, which is believed to be the essence of the world. It assumes that woman is Shakti. Woman, according to a Tantric, is the apparent form of the cosmic power (Shakti) which, “in play, unfolds itself to the world of appearances; her maternal womb (yoni) gives birth to the world of maya that hold us enthralled”.34 Sex in Tantrism has a high symbolic role. The Tantric believes that the sexual union is a form of blissful act which helps man to transcend his dualistic existence. It enables him to transcend this maya world, and reach an undifferentiated consciousness. He also believes that creation is the result of eternal lust. Therefore, according to a Tantric, the human couple is only imitating the divine creative act of the original couple, Shiva and Shakti. This should explain why the narrator says in Constance that the lovers have, by luck, stumbled into “the original love-affair”, “the prototype” (Constance 299). The love affair originated from Shiva and Shakti, the Hindus believe. About Shiva and Shakti, this is how John Woodroffe explains in his book, The Serpent Power: Sakti, which comes from the root Sak, ‘to have power’, ‘to be able’, means power. … Whilst, therefore, both Siva and Sakti are consciousness, the former is the changeless static aspect of Consciousness, and Sakti is the kinetic, active aspect of the same Consciousness.35

These two concepts of the two aspects of consciousness are externalized and worshipped in India as God and Goddess. Capra says: … in Hinduism the physical and sensuous side of human nature, which has always been associated with the female, is a fully integrated part of the Divine. Hindu goddesses are not shown as holy virgins, but in sensual embraces of stunning beauty.36

Constance gets some of these ideas about the concept of Shakti from Affad who, she says, “showed me this schema of which I had a profound need.

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At last I can rest my intellect upon something which seems solid” (Constance 288). Durrell knows that no one can learn or follow any particular schema in the act of sex; it is something which happens in one’s life instinctively or biologically or naturally. Therefore, his creative intention of emulating this ancient practice found in India must only be to create a form of awareness among his readers, because what one generally has experienced as real or ultimate in sex need not be the true ultimate; one might have experienced only the sensational side of sex, without knowing that there is its metaphysical side too, the blissful side. Erica Jong, the famous novelist and feminist, has done a very deep study of the subject, sex. She is also an ardent admirer of Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell. In her book about Henry Miller, The Devil at Large, she writes: A new paradigm of the sexes is needed, one that sees women and men holistically rather than as battling armies. Such paradigms exist, but they have been deliberately buried for centuries, first by Judo-Christian brainwashing and now by Muslim brain-washing.37

Durrell must have definitely understood the power of myth that lies embodied in the Indian belief. He must have also realized that the much sought after “new paradigm for the sexes” lay “buried” in Tantric myth of Shiva and Shakti. Julius Evola, the famous Italian philosopher and esotericist, says, “Myth is the means with which the traditional world expressed the ultimate significance of being.”38 To cut the argument short, Durrell’s message is that sex is not a sinful act; and that our spiritual quest can move only through the experience of sex. For Lawrence too sex is never a sinful act, and as Colin Wilson says, “there is no such confusion in Lawrence; even his opponents have to admit that there is a powerful interior logic in the development of his sexual mysticism.” 39 If the root of every experience of man can be found in his unconscious, the key to everything about his sex also can be found there. An important aspect of the Tantric sexual practice is that it takes place only between consenting partners, and though there is a secret nature in this practice, its intellectual aspect cannot be overlooked. Zimmer enlightens us on this: “The Tantric texts insist on the secret character of their contents, and are not to be made known to unbelievers who are uninitiated into the innermost circles of adept.”40 Here Keller-Privat would like to know what a tantric has to say about death. She asks whether he has a similar approach of a Gnostic. A true Tantric is an enlightened being who does not see death as a separate event in life. Every sexual act for him is a kind of mutual death into each other between the partners to embrace

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bliss, whereas, a Gnostic takes death as a mark of refusal to budge to the Usurper. Sex and reflection in Tantrism, as is the case in Durrell’s novels, go side by side. The secret conversations between the partners in love are mainly meant to break one’s ignorance about sex and life. Without highlighting its Tantric nature and spiritual significance, Richard Pine observes, “The Avignon Quintet thus returns us to the organic connection between sexual and intellectual intercourse”.41 He is right when he says that “the central metaphor of the Quintet is Constance herself” and also that “she is capable of exploring the gap between the sexual and intellectual intercourse”.42 But to say that “in the Quintet nothing happens because it is seen through the memory of the long telescope of narrated vision”43 amounts to a statement that can undermine a great work of art like the Quintet. The Quintet is a metaphysical work in which great moral and philosophical actions take place. The action is in the mindscape, to use Pine’s own expression. But it is true that the intuitive wisdom lying buried in the novel can be grasped only through the “long telescope” of narration. George Steiner, the famous philosopher and literary critic, is closer to the truth when he says: Durrell must explore the ambiguities and covertness of sensual lust precisely because he believes that it is only in the fiery or desperate contact of the flesh that the readers can gain access to the truth of life.44

To this statement of Steiner, Keller-Privat responds: Yes, and this is why this “fiery or desperate contact” is renewed throughout his oeuvre: think of Darley peeping into the prostitute’s booth or Mountolive in the house of child prostitutes in the Quartet, Blanford in the Paris brothel, the love scene among the carcasses of the abattoirs, etc., in the Quintet.

On the whole, the message is clear: the relations between sex and the psyche, the psyche and culture, and culture and reality, are greatly interrelated in Durrell’s novels. He thus illustrates through his stories that one can realize one’s cosmic place only through a holistic approach to life. About the subject of love and sex in Durrell’s novels, it is difficult to convince those readers who have read his Quartet, but not the Quintet; similarly it is difficult to convince those who have read the Quintet, but not the Quartet. The reason is that these two novels complement and contrast each other. In the Quartet, the lovers move and act only at their physical level. Sex in this novel complicates the inner life of the characters, as is the case in real life. How it complicated Justine’s life,

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Durrell’s readers are well aware. For Melissa her flesh is a means of livelihood. In the case of Clea, she looks at sex from a rational angle. Moreover, there is no male character capable of giving women a Tantric penetration in the Quartet. Even if there is one, there is no Constance there, only Justines: “All our women are Justines, you know, in a different way.” (AQ 81) Rougemont in his Love in the Western World writes that “There are four kinds of love—passion-love, sympathy-love, sensual love and vanity-love”.45 Durrell displays all these varieties in his Quartet, but not the true love or the archetypal love, which we find in the Quintet. So the Quartet depicts the type of sex we practise today and the Quintet projects a love relationship that is ideal or metaphysical, while it also retains all the pleasures we seek in sex, or through sex. Keller-Privat does not agree to the contention that in the Quartet lovers move and act only at the physical level. Let us for a while agree with her but the love in the Quartet is different from the love in the Quintet. More of it will come up in the last chapter of this book. However, this is what Privat observes: I disagree here. Think of Justine’s dialogues with Darley, and with Balthazar, her unfulfilled desire for Pursewarden, her obscure relationship with Da Capo whom she refuses to incriminate despite the rape. It seems that in the Quartet, too, the characters’ essence is shaped out through their love relationships. Think as well of the triangular relationships (ArnautiDarley-Justine; Darley-Melissa-Nessim; Darley-Justine-Nessim; DarleyClea-Amaril, etc.) which are enlightened by the quote from Freud at the beginning of the Quartet: “regarding every sexual act as a process ...4 people are involved”. It seems to me that the difference lies rather in the perspective: a Freudian, European, ego-based perspective in the Quartet, an Eastern (Indian & Chinese), ego-free perspective progressively developing out of the death of the European culture in the Quintet.

History shows that almost all kinds of human syndromes originate from sex. Therefore, in the Quintet, Durrell gives a superior role to the lovers and through them the novelist reveals reality. They appear in the novel as philosophers: “She had finally convinced him of lovers as philosophers and of the need for a joint approach to time through the atom of their love” (Quinx 176). The beauty is that, unlike those in the Quartet, the lovers in the Quintet are able to ride “in sweet symbiosis”. The hero is “Bon Juan” here, unlike the hero in the Quartet, who is a Don Juan in all respects. Denis de Rougemont in Love in the Western World gives an interesting definition of Don Juan:

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Don Juan is at one and the same time sheer spontaneity of instinct and sheer mind aflutter over the sea of possibility. He is constant inconstancy, and also the constant quest of the one woman whom desire in its untiring self-deception is never able to find. He is the insolent avidity of a youth renewed at every fresh encounter, and he is also the hidden weakness of an inability to possess, because devoid of enough being ever to have.46

“The hidden weakness of an inability to possess”, we know, is the general weakness of Darley in the Quartet. Also his “constant inconstancy” is evident from his relationships with Melissa and Justine; though finally he thinks of accepting Clea. He seems to have ultimately accepted Clea because the inner changes in him now enable him to discover Melissa and Justine in Clea, or all women in Clea. He seems to be transcending from being a mere wandering libido. The child to be born in the Quintet, if any, will be “clear-eyed and vigorous and unshocked in its beginnings”, says the narrator (Quinx 176). He feels so because the child to be born, if ever, will not be any more from a Don Juan, and he seems to be sure about it. In the Quartet the lovers, who seek only the physical pleasure, just disappear from the scene after playing their roles, whereas the emphasis in the Quintet is on their “vanished presence”: “It makes one realize that all love passes into obsolescence in the very act” (177). The irony is that when one reads an event describing the act of love or sex in Durrell’s novels, immediately the reader’s memory is likely to shift to the other side of that event, probably its perverted side or its blissful side, which Durrell surely must have placed somewhere in the same novel or in some other novel written by him. For example, when we read the scene in the Quintet in which the lovers ride in their sweet symbiosis, riding into “the rhythms of plant life” (177), another scene elsewhere in a novel written by him earlier, Nunquam, comes into the mind of the present writer. In this novel, Durrell quotes an advertisement found in all Tube stations in England: “Have you taken your Ejax today? If not, what will the wifey say?” (Nunq 118) The lovers in Nunquam need a stimulant taken externally to rouse their passion. This event in the novel exposes the hollowness of the present day love, which has become a form of masturbation. For Durrell, sex is not independent of the psyche, nor is the psyche independent of culture, and culture is the sum total of all. Tomlin in his book, Psyche, Culture, and the New Science: The Role of PN, quotes John Stuart Mill in order to sum up his argument about the deteriorating nature of the present day culture, which, we know, is precisely what Durrell also highlights in his novels like The Revolt: “Why is it true, as John Stuart Mill felt obliged to admit,

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that ‘Socrates dissatisfied is better than pig satisfied’”.47 Mill then substituted “man” for “Socrates”, says Tomlin. Before concluding the discussion on Durrell’s acceptance of Tantrism, which supports fully his metaphysical views on sex, a look at the reasons that prompted him to use such an esoteric practise may be helpful. Otherwise, there is every chance that the sincere intentions of the writer will be misunderstood or misinterpreted by his readers. That his views on sex are directly related to his attitude to the ego is a matter we have already observed and explained. But, linked to this truth is Durrell’s total aversion to the general attitudes to sex and woman that he found prevailing in the West, an attitude that defies any sensible reasoning. His conversation with Wheldon which took place in 1960 enlightens us on this fact.48 He was also against sending “moral messages” through art. He feels that some artists do the job of the priests by preaching morality through art. This way of using art for the sake of morality can only make you “end up with your art becoming a series of morality plays”, feels Durrell.49 At this point, it will be helpful if readers can remember what was discussed in the last chapter, that the creation of such a reality based on group thinking can only lead to dangerous patterns in our society, patterns that will give shape to narrow outlooks, narrow thoughts, narrow memories, and it will finally arrest the growth of the self. What Durrell needs is interior liberation. He finds this idea treated abundantly in Tantra. To understand Durrell’s views in a better way, we should listen carefully to what he has to say about religion, though it may be against the tradition in our society. He told Wheldon: “I am probably saying something which is not in our Christian canon, but I see Original Innocence rather than Original Sin as the foundation of the human character.”50 In fact, What Durrell observes in Tantric practices is the joy of life which originates from the original innocence in man. We know that Durrell had a definite strategy for placing his ideas in his novels. He never wanted to write several novels with several unrelated themes. Therefore, one has to follow him from his first novel to the last to see how he unravels the subject of womanhood, and also to realize how he tries to create an attitude towards woman that has no ego in it, or how he attempts to attain an attitude to sex that is both physical and metaphysical. In other words, we can say that Durrell touches upon almost every shades of female nature in his novels in order to reveal what is ideal for a blissful life. He told Kenneth Young, “But in the last volume [Clea] I am trying to develop the idea that the sexual act is our ‘knowing’ machine. It is the point d’appui of the psyche.”51 It is through his sexual experience with Melissa and Justine that Darley is able to see all the great qualities of a

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woman in Clea. It means sex, the knowing machine, taught him to see real reality. This is where Tantrism comes to his aid, though it was too late in his life to understand real womanhood and readjust his love relationship. Tantrism preaches and teaches that sex is our “knowing” machine, and that we can have a blissful journey through flesh. Tantra, Durrell knows, accelerates the process of awareness in one. In fact, the sutras for enlightenment are latent in everyone. The problem is that the culture we live in is mostly not congenial to make this “knowing machine” operative, or give free play to the sutras latent in us. His answer to Stephen Gray, when he was asked why he had not written an introduction to Kama Sutra, was: “Well, there is a Kama Sutra buried under every one of us, but writing an introduction to the Kama Sutra would be like writing one for the New Testament”.52 Equating the Kama Sutra to the New Testament may not be liked by many, but his frank observation speaks volumes: what the teaching in the Bible does to the psyche is here contrasted to the psychic nutrition that the Kama Sutra can provide to man. Therefore, we can say that the anti-egoistic stand of Tantrism is what really attracted Durrell. He realizes that the fusion of male and female bodies is also the spiritual fusion of the souls—both dying into one. He tells Anna Lillios in an interview with her that Tantric lovemaking is entirely a different experience. It is anti-egoistic and the “celestial amnesia” it brings to the lovers is beyond words. What happens normally is that two egos make love by keeping their two selves intact. In Tantric lovemaking the egos melt, fuse, and create a feeling of one. Durrell finds such lovemaking sincere and strong, he tells Lillios.53 Durrell illustrates in his Quartet what happens when one makes love with his ego, and in the Quintet he exhibits through his characters the liberation one can attain through a sexual yoga—sexuality and inner liberation. He knows that his readers are not going to learn and practise the esoteric sutras in order to go to bed with their partners, but he knows that the anti-egoistic principles in Tantrism may counter the prevailing egoistic attitudes to woman. One has to understand the contextual use of the Tantric practice in Durrell’s novels, as one tries to understand the use of Gnosticism in his work, while reading Constance and the subsequent novels in the Quintet. In Indian mythology Shakti appears in different manifestations and with different names–the most popular form being Parvathi, who is the daughter of the Himalayas and the consort of Lord Shiva. “As the Cosmic Dancer, Shiva is the god of creation and destruction who sustains through his dance the endless rhythm of the universe”, writes Capra.54 Parvathi’s animal symbol is the lion, the symbol of animal power. It is not a mere coincidence that Constance is identified in the novel with the symbol of

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the lioness–“stretched behind him like a lioness.” (Constance 267). Durrell also likens Affad to the immortal and the archetypal yogi, Shiva: “with his sign of the yogi” (298). The discovery of the use of this animal symbol in the novel enabled the present writer to investigate and discover the hidden use of the concept of Shiva-Shakti in Constance.55 The novelist uses the myth of Shiva-Shakti in the novel with a definite purpose. Durrell’s focus here is both on the question of womanhood and sex, on the actual gender status a woman now enjoys in our society. She has received freedom and equality in almost every sphere of social activity. But, the general impression is that man has a superior role in sex and that woman has only a mere passive role. Anand gives us a better assessment of this situation. In the interview with him, which is published in this book, he says: The British particularly had a kind of attitude of untouchability against woman. Woman was, in the Victorian sense, the mother of children, object of lust. She was as in Thomas Hardy the raped woman. But when D. H. Lawrence broke through the whole totalitarian attitude of the British, especially of the Victorian era, he was really emancipating woman qua rejected woman.56

It was noted earlier that Durrell carries the same attitude of Lawrence and that he wants to proceed from where Lawrence had left. The metaphor of the lioness in the novel, therefore, shows that Durrell’s creative goal is not only confined to his determination to alter man’s attitude to sex, as Lawrence does in his novels, but he also wants to redefine womanhood. He wants to re-empower woman. Woman, he observed, had already been empowered in India. That is what Indian metaphysics shows, particularly the Tantric texts. Therefore, the symbol, the lioness, becomes very significant in the novel. The symbol of the lioness plays a similarly significant role to that of the horse in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Lawrence wanted Connie to understand male power, whereas, Durrell wants Constance to realize her own female strength. This is a vital difference between Lawrence and Durrell. Therefore, the depiction of Constance as Shakti in the novel is to be seen as a very sincere attempt by the novelist to restore woman’s original power. At this point, we have to try to understand Durrell’s intentions in his Revolt of Aphrodite. While talking about the Revolt, he expressed his deep concern about the future of mankind to Robert MacDonald who interviewed him.57He knows there is absolutely no hope if the present culture is not going to be changed. It is against both love and womanhood.

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Durrell’s emphasis that woman is the “basic brick” and that in her rests “any future” for mankind are to be seen in the form of a remarkable reminder coming from the Quintet and it is also a very strong message to his readers of both sexes. Constance thus realizes that woman was already originally empowered. Woman was seen as the Goddess of power in the East. She had possessed a strong place in family and in society. What Constance now actually realizes is that Affad, as a man, has stopped dominating her after he had realized this great truth about womanhood, about her superior role. As a kind of an indirect clarification to those who may still have doubts about the role of Constance, Durrell convinces Graf and Gauthier in their interview by explaining to them the “sad position of women” today58. Most of what he tells them to highlight the sad situation of women echoes the words in Constance, the words very carefully used by the novelist to narrate Constance’s sad position before her rich sexual experience. He seems to warn his readers that there will be no future if they do not take care of women in their society. In Constance, the narrator reminds the readers that woman “was the principle of all fertility even though she might be disguised in the trappings of Mrs. Jones” (Constance 273). Therefore, we cannot ignore Durrell’s concern for the future of woman, his concern as a novelist for the future of mankind. Thus, Connie and Constance emerge from their “sad position”, regain “faith in the whole business”, leave great hope for women who have “lost faith in the whole business”, and also give men hope for a bright future. Constance says that Affad now “simply abandons himself, lets me have what belongs to me” (Constance 285”). The words, “what belongs to me” generate new confidence in Constance; they give her a chance for introspection to review the real position of woman in the West, and finally enable her to realize what her new state in society could be as a re-empowered woman. Therefore, with the metaphor that he borrows from Tantra, Durrell tries to redefine womanhood as a source of spiritual energy, of cosmic energy. Sex becomes a source of awakening. This concept enables Lawrence Durrell to treat the act of sexual union as a form of yoga in the Quintet. He lifts sexual act to a spiritual level and calls it a “future-manufacturing yoga” (169). Alan Watts says that sexual yoga needs to be freed from a misunderstanding attached to all other kinds of yoga.59 Sexual yoga, or maithuna, represents the consummation of contemplative love between mutually dedicated partners. Unknowingly, they become for a moment an embodiment of the everlasting divine principle. What really happens in sex, according to Tantric faith, is that Lord Siva arouses the reproductive urge in Prakriti, in nature, or in Shakti, that is woman. This exercise is

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called viparitha maithuna, or “inverted coitus”, in Tantrism because of the active role given to woman. Viparitha means opposite, and maithuna means coitus. Durrell finds it a superb idea, because, as already stated, it leads to the discovery of the original womanhood, an empowered womanhood. The narrator says that Constance, the doctor, gets some understanding of the role of female …. The female was the principle of renewal and repair in the cosmic sense; it was she who made things happen, made things grow (Constance 273).

Constance now understands that this cosmic–eye–view of sex and womanhood is what is lacking in her profession. The embrace of maithuna or sexual yoga, the Tantrists understand, involves the transmutation of sexual energy which it rouses, and it is believed that the energy symbolically moves upwards from one’s loins to the head. The Tantric texts explain that as long as the sexual energy remains inactive in man he remains outward oriented, creating a subjectobject duality; he remains phenomenally bound. Mishra’s book, Impact of Tantra on Religion and Art, explains all these ideas excellently. Through maithuna man can achieve an undifferentiated existence. The important point here in Tantrism is that it is not the consciousness of man that is to be altered or improved but the vital currents that should be stirred in order that consciousness suddenly expands and becomes calm and insightful. Affad and Constance have a similar experience in Sebastian which is beautifully described by Durrell: And yet, for all the tension, at the heart of their exchanges was a calm sensuality of understanding such as only those lucky enough to feel married in the Tantric fashion experience. They were squarely each to each with no fictions of lust needed to ignite them. Embraces were woven like a tissue (Sebastian 153).

Here Durrell is talking of a calm sensuality, and in the sexual act itself, he says, “no fictions of lust are necessary to ignite and sustain the act”. This Oriental insight into sex helps him to evolve a strategy in which sex, psyche, love and culture can be interrelated in the novel and a new reality can be presented. Readers can easily notice in Durrell’s novels a clear difference between lust and love. The emphasis is on the spontaneity of love and its contemplative nature. In the words of the great interpreter of Asian philosophies to the Western audience, Alan Watts: Contemplative love–like contemplative meditation–is only quite secondary a matter of technique. For it has no specific aim, there is nothing particular

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that has to be made to happen. It is simply that a man and a woman are together exploring their spontaneous feeling without any preconceived idea of what it ought to be, since the sphere of contemplation is not what should be but what is.60

Durrell, as a writer, seems to be quite motivated by the act of contemplation in sexual union. The role the novelist assigns to man in sex in the Quintet needs a fresh look. Durrell in Constance, while making an attempt to redefine womanhood by basing it on the Tantric principles, tries to restrict the role of man in sexual union. Woman, we know, has been undermined by the brutal male supremacy. The novelist discovers that in Tantrism only the non-acting, the originating function is attributed to the male, to Shiva, who just initiates motion and simply awakes Shakti; only the woman acts truly, moves, and generates energy. With “her own wanton cry of delight” Constance realizes: It was as if she had simply not known what the animal was … she recognized his male weakness …. This realization made her suddenly conscious of her own strength, as if she could now use a whole set of muscles which up to now had lingered on in disuse. She glimpsed the tantric left-hand path …. He had given her the full maturity of her gift, her medical skill. (Constance 274).

The new awareness which Constance gains from Affad, through his “tantric left-hand path”, gives maturity to her medical knowledge, says the novelist. Thus he tries to provide a scientific rationale to this esoteric practice. Finally, it is the doctor who is able to feel that she has made a wonderful discovery from the practice of "tantric left-hand path”. Constance now looks back, like Connie in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, to the poor quality of sexual relationships she had experienced in the past. In the light of her fresh experience she realizes that her bygone sexual experience with Sam was only a “transaction” and not a full commitment. Making Constance look back to her past is a clever way of exposing the differences between the occidental and oriental attitudes to sex. Lawrence also does it in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. After experiencing the rich sexual union with Mellors, Connie looks back and realizes, “What a pity most men are so doggy, a bit shameful, like Clifford …. It needs sheer sensuality even to purify and quicken the mind (LCL 219). For the first time, Constance feels optimistic about love because Affad’s attention is not to her sub-personal organs and limbs, but to her total personality. She now observes the actual difference between the West and the East: “I live in the contingent, he in the eternal”, says Constance (Constance 291). She

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was intelligent, but she now feels enlightened too, realizing that sexual union is a beautiful way of sublimating her desires; it is physical, spiritual, and it also teaches one the art of sublimating one’s life. Durrell writes in Quinx that his character, Constance, “had learned that the priapic conjunction is a force-harness which builds the field in which the future, as exemplified by the human child, can secure a foothold in reality” (Quinx 14-15). Lawrence’s Connie is just happy to live with the memory of her experience with Mellors: just to be “passive, consenting thing, like a slave, a physical slave” (LCL 218). Constance, on the other hand, after leaning her active role, takes her entire experience for a “psychological evaluation” with her friends who are great psychologists. Schwarz, her colleague, admits: Here was the talk about gentleness in love-making, harmony in desire, unity in building the network of powerful love-sympathies which reward the lovers with the dual orgasm (Constance 287).

This, in fact, is the net result of experiencing the Tantric sex, the result of gentle love-making. Constance confesses to Schwarz that before Affad’s arrival she had been “bleating in the wilderness of my positivism” (290).This psychological discussion, to a great extent, enables Durrell to confirm the claims of the Tantrists that Tantra is the discipline of sublimation, sublimating man and woman into cosmic principles. The new passion Constance has experienced comes not from a person but from an attitude which Shwarz can immediately understand as oriental: “It smells of Vedanta!” he says (290). However, the greatest confession Constance makes is: My soul, my heart is of a recent manufacture, sixteenth–or seventeenth–the world where sense, sensibility, sentiment were formulated as modes of enquiry and expression, where romantic love first threw up its narcissism, its Don Juans (290).

Here is another important aspect of Durrell as a novelist. His constant crusade, we know, is against the human ego, which he feels is at the root of all distorted reality, particularly at the root of sexual reality. Therefore, his realization that Tantric maithuna demands the prior disappearance or dissolution of the ego is found very suitable for his artistic purpose of creating true love relationships. It is unlike the love treated in his Quartet, where love is mere mirror worship. Love in the Quintet liberates the lover from the clutches of his/her ego. Love is not a clash of egos here. Affad reminds Constance that he has come with his “pre-self” like a lotus bud

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(280). This dissolution of the ego is so important in Tantric maithuna that it is always written as Shiva-Shakti and not Shiva and Shakti. The amazing truth is that in Indian mythology Shiva is always shown as a corpse in the absence of Shakti. In one of the books, supposed to be written by Sri. Shankara, we can find the following lines: Shiva united with Shakti, becomes able to manifest, If otherwise, this God knows not even how to pulsate.61

The meaning here is that Shiva (man) gets a feel of his life only when he is united with Shakti (woman). Rougemont’s book, Love in the Western World, is a beautiful work which can be taken as a basic document for understanding Durrell’s approach to love and sex, particularly to understand his treatment of sex in the Quintet. Durrell’s indebtedness to Rougemont is reflected in his remark in his Caesar’s Vast Ghost: “As I write these lines I think of the recent death of that smiling philosopher of love, Denis de Rougemont” (CVG 162). We have already seen that love in the Quintet is not romantic, but philosophical. While highlighting the importance of maithuna, Rougemont admits that it is “par excellence a technique”.62 He writes: “At all events, the object is supremely of great happiness … joy of the annihilation of the self”.63 Thus, it becomes absolutely clear that Durrell’s depiction of sex in his novels is both physical and metaphysical, and it is aimed at the “joy of the annihilation of the self”. Therefore, the treatment of psyche in his novels cannot be studied by isolating his treatment of sex, and both contribute to Durrell’s idea of the acceptance of death. His honest attempt is to remove all taboos attached to sex and then to show that sex is a cosmic act, the most basic act in the universe. After this Tantric relationship in Constance between Constance and Affad, the novelist takes advantage of every chance he gets in his Quintet to highlight the spiritual excellence of this splendid man-woman relationship. His attention is focussed on the calm and serene nature of the characters involved in the practice of this yoga. The impact of yoga seen in the novel will come up for a closer review while dealing with the adventures of the contemplative hero, Affad, in the next chapter of this book. Only the changes this experience brings in Constance is being considered here. She says in Quinx, “I can’t flirt anymore …. I could not love again in the old way” (Quinx 151). Durrell draws a clear distinction in the novel between the old way and the new way of her love experience, the Occidental and the Oriental, and its quality is sarcastically classified by him as prose and poetry (Constance 291). This “old way”, the love

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without “its sudden flaming”, is described by Rougemont in a more enlightening way: Unless the course of love is being hindered there is no ‘romance’; and it is romance we revel in, that is to say, the self-consciousness, the intensity, variations and delays of passion, together with its climax rising to disaster, not its sudden flaming.64

We have seen how beautifully D. H. Lawrence has described the “sudden flaming” that takes place in sexual union in Lady Chatterley’s Lover: “I had no warm, flamy life till he gave it me”, says Connie (LCL 235). But, in the entire Quartet, there is only one such episode and that is when Nessim takes Melissa for a sexual ride. In the Constance, on the other hand, we see such insightful flame repeated again and again through several sexual yogas. The observation made by Rougemont which is quoted above reminds us of the love scenes depicted in Durrell’s Quartet, in which we can find only romance, and no “flaming”. As the events in Constance take a slow turn, we can see Blanford confessing to Constance: You have learned the most important thing a woman can learn from a man – not from me but from Affad: the art of surrender which assumes everything. How grateful I am to him! (Quinx 156)

In fact, the bulk of Durrell’s work, including his poetry and drama, insists on the need to surrender one’s ego. What Darley too tries to achieve in the Quartet is the annihilation of his false self through the art of surrendering, surrendering himself in order to realize the true reality of his Alexandrian friends and the place which they inhabited. But, in The Quartet, there is only the process of annihilation, not the total annihilation of the self. The matured characters in Durrell’s novels, those psychologically matured, realize, like a true Tantric yogi that “Life … is always bliss-side up if only we know how to take it” (Mon 263). Though the Quintet reveals the “oriental codes of sex” (Quinx 20), Durrell cautions the Western readers that “destiny is destiny, and ours must work itself out in a Western way, carrying us all with it. Perhaps we could persuade the will to stop clutching” (Quinx 41). The sum total of Durrell’s work could be seen as the novelist’s clarion call to man to “persuade the will to stop clutching”. Thus, the psychological evaluation of Constance’s love experience in the novel results in the realization that one must stop clutching one’s will. This is evident from the way Shwarz, Constance’s colleague, admits: “We deal all day with guilt and violence and insensitivity – any solution will be marvellous to hear of” (Constance 286). This desperate admission from

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him has the resonance of Lawrence in it. Lawrence, like Schwarz, believes that insensitivity is at the root of European culture from which springs guilt and violence. Lawrence and Durrell are well aware of this. The similarity in their approach to the subject of love and culture is so strong that one cannot discuss Durrell without remembering Lawrence. That is the reason why it was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter that Durrell took Lawrence’s Connie and made her the central female character in his novel for certain obvious reasons. Durrell wanted to continue Lawrence’s crusade against the hollow reality in which everything seemed ridiculous: “The only reality was nothingness, and over it a hypocrisy of words”, Connie realized before meeting Mellors (LCL 42). Durrell is very conscious of Lawrence’s great contribution as a writer and he is also aware of what he could add to that. What Lawrence does in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Durrell understands, is to purge Connie’s boredom in life by creating an atmosphere in which she could shed her sense of “nothingness”. Similarly, Durrell tries to create stories in which he also could purge the “terrors” in which he finds his readers. He wanted his works to be seen as “perfectioning equipment”, he told MacDonald in an interview.65Therefore, the proper way to measure the greatness of a novel, according to Durrell, is to see whether it is of “any use to anyone”. In the case of Durrell’s novels, no one can say after reading them that they are of no use to anyone. Every woman is a Constance or Connie, he knows; and all these women represent universal womanhood. What he tries as a novelist is to highlight the psychic torture experienced by a Justine who gets no man like Mellors or Affad, and then contrast her experience with that of the Tantric bliss experienced by a Constance who is lucky enough to tumble upon an Affad. So, if anyone can learn from a Constance’s experience, as Blanford does in the Quintet, Durrell as a writer would obviously be happy. He gets the satisfaction of an excellent job done well. What Lawrence’s Connie learns at the end of Lady Chatterley’s Lover is also important from the point of view of a woman: “She would have thought a woman would have died of shame. Instead of which, the shame died”, says the narrator (LCL 219). Durrell knows that with Lawrence’s incessant crusade against shame, it has already died. By working a little further on the same theme, he thought, he would be able to depict something substantial, mainly the spiritual side of sex. He tells Gilles Farcet that if we can learn to understand sexuality in its true sense, we will realize that it will lead us to perfect interior liberation.66 On the same page in which the conversation continues, Durrell quotes Miller’s reply to an interviewer in which Miller emphatically defends his works, saying that they are not obscene but a passage to “interior liberation”. In the same

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way, what Durrell aims at in his novels is liberation, interior liberation, liberation through sex. He wants to deal with something much more serious than what Lawrence has done, killing shame; he wants the sperm consciousness to be generated in his readers and he also wants them to understand woman’s cosmic place in this universe, although he knows that the ills of gender difference in our society are almost incurable. Lawrence’s Connie grows into a woman who knows no shame, thus regaining her true place in nature, regaining her animal grace: “she had come to the real bedrock of her nature, naked and unashamed …. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being” (LCL 219). The central female characters of these two great novelists get a feeling of confidence in their sense of being a woman; they move from the particular to the general, from being to becoming, from the sense of an individual to the realization of a cosmic woman. For a Tantric, every rich sensual experience purifies his or her mind: “It needs sheer sensuality even to purify and quicken the mind”, says Lawrence (219). As already noted, this ananda or bliss, which one gets through sexual experience, is the last stage of Sat-chit-ananda. In fact, ananda is inherent in man; it is a cosmic feature about which Durrell frequently reminds us with a metaphysical slogan: “life is bliss-side up”. We have lost this sense of a gifted living human being, gifted with bliss, as a result of our distorted and deteriorating culture. It is an irony that in the place of this celestial bliss, our society has created a taboo around sex, without realizing that sex is a cosmic game. In the Indian context, this game is what is called leela, play. This game is ever present in nature, in every animal; and even the sun and the earth join in this cosmic game, as the Tantric believes. Lawrence wanted this truth to be realized by his readers: “Even the flowers are fucked into being between the sun and the earth”, he insists (268). He believes that chastity is never lost through the act of sex; on the contrary, one becomes chaste through sex, as is in the case of Connie: “Now is the time to be chaste, it is so good to be chaste, like a river of cool in my soul”, Connie admits on the last page of Lady Chatterley’s Lover (268). Thus, these novelists demolish sin and shame, and install bliss in human soul. Lawrence Durrell believes that in the West also there is a philosophy which encourages joy and happiness in life. What he has in mind is Epicurean philosophy. Though it is very different in its spiritual approach, when it is compared to Tantrism, it has many factors that are similar to Tantric ideology. Durrell tries to convince Fletcher Markle why he prefers Epicureanism to some other philosophies.67 He was talking about his “love or super friendship” with the girls in his life. Though he likes the freedom

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this philosophy encourages, he could not accept it completely. The truth is that comparing Epicureanism with Tantrism will only tarnish the metaphysical greatness of the Tantric practice. Durrell’s reference to Epicureanism is to be seen only as his love for a philosophy that allows freedom in life, particularly in sex. It also marks his aversion to Puritanism. Epicureanism is a philosophy of pleasure, not of love. Tantrism, on the other hand, is a philosophy of love, which treats love as a form of yoga. Its fundamental aim is inner transformation, or inner transcendence. It helps us to move from our microscopic self to the macroscopic Self. Thus, Lawrence and Durrell are equally enthusiastic in their novels to see how psychic tranquillity can be achieved through sex, and to illustrate how the sense of shame can be replaced with a sense of chastity or purity in the mind, which leads to the attainment of absolute bliss. What Lawrence wants to instil is “phallic consciousness”, whereas what Lawrence Durrell wants is to generate “sperm consciousness” in man and woman. Durrell’s Constance, unlike Connie, already enjoyed sexual freedom in her society, and she does not have to fight for gender equality or for free expression. Pointing out the differences between Connie and Constance, James R. Nichols writes: Connie is dominated by Mellors and his masculinity … Connie needs one man with the power to allow and enable her self-realization … Durrell’s Constance, on the other hand, has a history. She is neither alone nor desperate, and her path is not so much toward a new frontier as toward a rediscovery of a lost world.68

Nichols, however, could not be specific about the nature of the “rediscovery of a lost world”. Lawrence’s novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, we know, was once seen as pornographic and obscene by the critics. Finally, the law courts had to redeem his novel from such criticism, from the ban that was imposed on it. Durrell had no such difficulty as far as his major novels are concerned, though he also carried on the crusade against the senseless attitude to sex that he found in his society. He exposes in his novels, particularly in his Quartet, almost all kinds of serious sexual aberrations he found still afflicting his society. He brought Constance’s new sexual experience, her “unique love” experience, into the discussion room of the modern psychologists, because an old belief or practice must be scientifically tested before expecting his readers to accept it in their practical life: “It is oriental or Indian in origin, I suppose, but it has its own scientific rationale”, believes Constance (Constance 288). After a lengthy scientific

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discussion about her new sexual experience, Constance and her colleague, Schwarz, feel convinced that there is the possibility of inner liberation through such experiences. After all, these doctors are finding it difficult to cure the psychic problems of their patients with the available clinical methods. Now Constance not only realizes her own place in this cosmic world but she also wonders at her old folly and ignorance as a scientist: she wonders at her old “world of attachments without resonance, adventures without depth, and embraces without insight!” (292).The present attitude to sex is sure to confer “sterility or genetic disorder”, she realizes. The arrival of “Toy” in the war field has also created terrific fear, it is “aimed at the bone marrow of the earth we live on”, laments Durrell (300). His greatest fear, however, is that now “woman is compromised; in her we are destroying our nurse and the muse, the earth” (301). Altogether, the novel, Constance, aims at the preservation of womanhood, the original womanhood in all its divinity and sanctity. The intellectual and scientific discussion carried out after Constance’s personal love affair in the Quintet thus acquires great meaning. It creates an atmosphere of the classroom or a laboratory where readers join to gain new knowledge about life. The discussion moves around the need to discover a better strategy for living happily on this planet. The literary history shows how, unable to fathom the insight with which Lawrence enlightens his readers, critics’ attention in Lady Chatterley’s Lover narrows down to Connie’s sexual organs. Their focus once was on searching and detecting what is obscene in a story. It is quite likely that the sexual experience of Connie or of Constance gets interpreted as a kind of mere vaginal intercourse, or simply as a sex act at the clitoris level. Such discussions can only limit the spiritual or blissful side of sexual union to a mere physical exercise, without realizing the spiritual power of sex that is displayed by writers like Lawrence or Durrell in their novels. Durrell created the lovers in the Quintet as philosophers with an aim to direct the attention of his readers to the sexual act from a philosophical and holistic point of view: “sperm with no spiritual axis cannot feed woman’s ideas or her feelings”, remarks Durrell (302). Even in his first novel, The Black Book, when Durrell was just twenty five years old, he wrote, “Let us start a new theory of connubial copulation” (BB 36). He is always inviting his readers to the discussion room. It shows his anxiety at the deteriorating man-woman sexual relationships, which probably took him to the serious study of Tantrism. Almost every serious writer who was his contemporary, Durrell must have noticed, had something good to say about the subject of love and sex. Therefore, his endeavour as a writer was to depict a healthy sexual relationship, which leads to the birth of healthy

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and happy children, and thus seek the restoration of the lost womanhood. A happy and successful sexual yoga, Durrell feels, should result in the birth of a “strong child with rich brain content and powerful sexuality” (Constance 302). It can be achieved only if woman is given her rightful place, or only if she regains her pivotal role in the sexual relationship. In Sebastian Durrell says, “Women were once unique events in the life of man; now woman is a mere commodity like hay” (Sebastian 2). This practice, treating woman as a mere commodity, is revealed by D. H. Lawrence also in Chatterley’s Lover in a memorable way by first exposing the crippled condition of Clifford, his intellectual domination, and then showing the state of Connie’s parched life. Durrell, right from his first novel to his last, consistently tells us that unhappiness in life could be avoided to a great extent if our attitude to sex could be rectified: “If we could apply as much exactitude to sexual habits as, say, a machine turner to his toys, much unhappiness in love could be avoided” (Tunc 25). Though sex is a personal matter, a private matter, Durrell, as a writer, knows its overall impact on society: “When the quality of the sperm deteriorates a whole culture can be put at risk–which is what is happening in the Hegelian West” (Constance 288). Therefore, the subject of sex calls for a wider perspective on the part of writers as well as readers. As Isabelle has rightly pointed out, the representation of the sexual act is to be read as the climatic harmony of distinct yet complementary forces – the physical and the spiritual, the temporal and the eternal, the factual and the symbolical – leading us to cross intertextual, philosophical and religious borderlands.69

In other words, writers like Durrell demand a wider perspective for the topic of sex. Though many a comparative study has been carried out on these two great novelists, Lawrence and Durrell, particularly on their attitude to sex, an exhaustive study about their common interest in Tantrism has not appeared so far, except for a few casual references made here and there about it. Markert observes, “The conclusion of a comparative study such as this one results in another interesting aspect, the realization that Durrell helps us in understanding Lawrence.”70 But the study on these writers here reveals that Lawrence also helps us in understanding Durrell. That is why much space has been given to Connie’s role in Lawrence’s novel before moving on to examine Durrell’s Constance. These two novelists have undoubtedly realized that this taboo-ridden planet has become an unpleasant place for man to live and seek happiness. Sutcliffe’s “Green Notebook” in the Quintet highlights, in a nutshell, this paradoxical human

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situation. His advice to “turn away” can be taken as the quintessential message emerging from the Quintet. “This is the world, the real world, munching itself to death. Your world and mine”, says Sutcliffe. “But turn away from it”, he tells us, “and you will find an immediate reassurance in the other one” (Monsieur 259). The “other one” which he mentions in his notebook is surely Oriental, or Indian to be precise. We must note that the colour of his notebook is green. Lamenting the present situation of man, Sutcliffe nostalgically recollects “the old civilizations where puberty was treated with tact and custom sheltered sex, aware of its preciousness” (261). The “other one”, where “custom sheltered sex”, the one that was “aware of its preciousness”, is India, though life today in India is surely worse than in any other part of the world. India is being globalized, and the general feeling is that there is no safe shelter in India for women. Lust seems to have conquered the land of Tantric love. The print and the visual media recently named Delhi as the “rape capital”, where a young woman travelling in a bus at about nine in the evening was gang-raped by four drunken men and then slaughtered and thrown out on the road side (December 2012). In that slaughter-group was a sixteen year old boy. It is saddening to add here that such incidents are on the increase in India, where woman was once worshipped as a Goddess. This reminds the present writer what Sri Aurobindo had to say once: “We are hypercivilized beings who physically have not gone beyond the stage of savages.”71 Therefore, we have to remember that when Durrell, who could transcend all kinds of religious and ideological boundaries, uses the word, “India”, he uses it as a metaphor, and not as a physical state with its own boundaries. India for him is the mythical India, the philosophical India, the spiritual India, and the perennial India.

CHAPTER FOUR AFFAD: A CULTURAL HERO AND CONTEMPLATIVE SCIENTIST

“As soon as a friend dies, you realize the degree to which you’ve ignored death” —Lawrence Durrell

The hero in Durrell’s Quintet, if there is any, is surely Affad. The events in the novel explicitly reveal that the novelist has cast him in the avatar of a Perennial Philosopher. The easiest way for a student to know what a perennial philosopher stands for is to read Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy. Huxley states that the “Perennial Philosophers are primarily concerned with liberation and enlightenment.”1 He also states, in the same page, that the subject matter of this philosophy is the nature of eternal, spiritual, reality. If Durrell’s Quintet is broadly viewed, it is precisely the philosophy of liberation and enlightenment that one can find in it. Affad’s role as a hero in the novel is to show the ways of seeking liberation and also to guide his fellow beings in living a true and proper life, to show them what a liberated life will be like. A real understanding of the Quintet, therefore, requires an accurate understanding of Affad’s role as a hero and the nature of his adventure in the novel. But we also have to understand that the role of a modern hero is quite different from that of the conventional one: “The hero is the man of self-achieved submission. But submission to what? That precisely is the riddle”, says Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist.2 In a way, Durrell’s Quintet can be seen as the result of his literary effort to highlight this “riddle” in fiction. His creative effort as a novelist, to repeat once again, is mostly to discover how man can attain permanent peace and mental happiness in his life. Affad’s heroic adventure in the novel, therefore, should be seen in this light. He, as a hero, is not for conquering anything outside his self, or for getting any personal achievement, but to show what a liberated self can achieve or attain in a distorted and hostile world. This kind of liberation in India is

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known as mukti or moksha. The main focus of this chapter, therefore, is on the role of Affad as a cultural hero and on his contributions to humanity as a contemplative scientist. The best way to analyze Affad’s role as cultural and spiritual hero in the novel is to examine his actions in the light of Joseph Campbell’s famous book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. We can get from this text almost every aspect that we should know about the role of a modern hero; it is a book which clearly defines modern heroism. It also explains why the modern hero differs from the conventional one, and in this book Campbell elucidates the impact of these differences on society. The words, like “adventure” and “boon”, used in his book are very significant to the study of the role of a hero, because they help us understand the role of a hero at a deeper level, at the spiritual level. Similarly, as already cited, Aldous Huxley’s work, The Perennial Philosophy, is very helpful for a student interested in Durrell, because Affad’s heroism in every sense is cast in the novel in the role of a perennial philosopher. Therefore, the study of the character, Affad, in this chapter is mainly based on Huxley and Campbell. Like Durrell, both these writers can be seen making a philosophical search for a pattern of life that can liberate man from the misleading reality created by our material life. In fact, the philosophical search which these two writers, Campbell and Huxley, make is mostly based on Indian metaphysics; they cite liberally from Vedanta and other Indian philosophical texts to support their arguments in establishing the characteristics of the modern hero. Studying the character of Affad in the light of these two books, The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Campbell and The Perennial Philosophy by Huxley, has been found very enlightening. In ancient India, as noted in the previous chapter, sex was never seen as sin, but was perceived as a source for the liberation of the self, liberation from one’s ego. If we can understand how Affad looks at life, it will enable us to know the significance of the novel, the Quintet, in a new light, in altogether a new reality. In his interview to Wajsbrot, Durrell confidently said, “The Quintet accordingly offers a solution: the East as a way out for the West.”3 The Quintet, therefore, is to be seen as a metaphysical novel that calls for a new literary classification. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell explains the importance of myth in man’s life and then defines the role of the cultural hero. He says that the “whole ubiquitous myth of the hero’s passage is that it shall serve as a general pattern for men and women.”4 We have already discussed how Durrell, as a novelist, focuses on the external forces that influence the human ego. It is one of the reasons why the character, Darley, was closely examined in the second chapter of the present book,

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and there it was seen that he earnestly wanted to discover the key to the patterns, to the cosmic paradigm, which will enable him to live a life based on truth. In the same chapter, we examined how the social and psychic patterns in a place like Alexandria determine the events in the life of its people, with the result that we are even tempted to believe that the city is the real character in the novel, imposing its will on the people living there. In Constance, Durrell tries to evolve a spiritual pattern through sexual relationships by looking at the man-woman relationship from the Tantric point of view. In fact, all these discussions lead to the fact that the Quintet is a novel dealing with Eros and Thanatos. It tells us about the art of loving and dying. The roles of Constance and Affad depicted in the novel are to be analyzed in this context. They represent a unique union which, if imitated, can give readers a stress-free life. The calm composure with which Affad is able to face his death is likely to amaze readers, as death is what we fear most. Durrell’s attraction for the theme of death is quite fascinating. He explains to James P. Carley in an interview how he became interested in the subject of death.5 He says that it just happened when he was trying to investigate why he was not a Christian. It is, therefore, accidental. We know that the subject of love can thrill readers, whereas the very mention of death can create shudders. The reason why the Quintet looks like a strange novel is because the central theme of this novel is the acceptance of death, the theme of demonstrating how one should die. In this sophisticated novel Durrell tried to assimilate all his philosophical thoughts, probably because he wanted to give shape to a modern hero who can illustrate how one can achieve new insight about life and death. In other words, he must be able to set a spiritual pattern for others to follow. Probably, Durrell realized the need to create a character like Affad, because, as Denis de Rougemont says, “happy love has no history in European Literature”.6 The novel, thus, effectively points out that a modern hero should be a person who knows the science of love and that he must also be the one who understands the relationship between love and death, between Eros and Thanatos. In short, a hero should be able to show that death is embedded in love. Affad is a genius and a mystic. He has deep knowledge of all civilizations and cultures, and it prompted him to search intensively into the causes of all kinds of aberrations in human relationships. “Now, after such a long period of misadventure, he realized in what sense Western Man has got his priorities wrong”, Affad wonders in the Quintet (Constance 136). He also found that Europe is a place where “serious thinking about passion has come to a standstill” (52). Therefore, with long

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years of painful studies and thoughtful speculations, he gathered enough courage to take up the spiritual role of a modern man: “He felt rise in him, like nausea, the long years of solitude and philosophical preparation which has gone to form the person that he was”, the narrator thus enlightens the readers about the background of this character in the novel (Sebastian 38). At last, Affad becomes a Yogi in the real sense of the word, and he learns the ways of transcending chronological time in life. In order to understand exactly how Affad was able to transcend his ego in his life, we should go back to the experience of Darley in the Quartet and see how he tries to transcend time, memory, pattern, etc. Affad enters the novel with Darley’s experience under his belt; he enters the stage as a man with a demolished ego. The novelist very carefully and with great attention narrates the cultural and spiritual quest which Affad had to undertake. He notes that step by step he had been led backwards in chronological time, negation by negation, until he had come up against the hard integument of Greek thought—a strange original manifestation of the human spirit. It had assimilated and modified and perhaps even betrayed these successive waves of esoteric knowledge which, like tropical fruit, were the harvest of Indian thought! (Sebastian 42- 43)

At the beginning of this book we noted how Durrell rediscovered India from Greece. So the description of the way Affad harvested Indian thought shows the autobiographical nature of the novel. By giving a clear picture of Affad’s philosophical past, how he assimilated in himself valuable philosophical knowledge, the novelist expects his readers to possess a rudimentary idea of the type of “esoteric knowledge” that he had gathered during his stay in Greece. In a way, Durrell’s Key to Modern British Poetry can serve as a key to his novels and to the areas of studies he had undertaken early in his life. With this kind of accumulated wisdom and awareness in Affad, the novelist writes, “the whole tide of his disenchantment with the human race and their way of living rose in him and overflowed into a measureless pessimism” (41). Affad’s adventure, therefore, begins from his act of tracing the “hard integument of Greek thought” and from the realization of its connection with Indian thought. With his search for “esoteric knowledge” the novelist perhaps indirectly wants to tempt his readers to seek and understand different philosophical ideas in the world, such as Gnosticism and Hinduism, with which they also can gain better insight in life. Durrell shows how all these ideas can merge into a suitable philosophy which is capable of providing a fruitful reality that can reflect a new human outlook, a perennial outlook, an attitude which can offer peace and

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harmony in life. Thus, Affad’s heroism becomes all-inclusive. The field of his heroic activities, therefore, is metaphysical rather than physical. His heroic activity begins with his cautious withdrawal from the world outside, from the world of “ridiculous Wagnerian holocaust” (Constance 6). Campbell notes: “In a word: the first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside”.7 In fact, the process of “retreating from the world scene of secondary effects” had started in Durrell’s Quartet, in which Darley realizes the need to withdraw into his own self. By the time the readers reach the end of the Quartet, Clea, they can discover that Darley has almost withdrawn from the world of secondary effects, from the world of his dear Alexandria. In the Quintet, Affad’s withdrawal is complete. In fact, nothing can now stick in him as memory, and there is no Alexandria to torment him. One important aspect of this retreat is that it is not a passive withdrawal, but, as Huxley says, the hero just makes “an active resignation.”8 The activities of the hero, therefore, should not be misunderstood as passive or inactive, but it is to be realized as an active resignation from the outside world. It is a spiritual activity in which the hero is involved in giving shape to a new awareness in him, which, later on, he tries to generate in others also. That is how a new reality emerges in the Quintet, about which more discussion is required. Roy Bhaskar writes: In sum, the dialectic of inaction encompasses access, made possible by systematic retreat, attention or awareness, and thus includes becoming aware of your own awareness in your field of awareness, and therefore witnessing.”9

When the narrator in the novel describes the hero’s retreat from the material world, he also gets an opportunity to expose the world outside, the material world, thus revealing the false reality outside. After interrogating the life within himself, and by trying to know the cause of all aberrations in human relationships, Affad slowly arrives at the central trauma, which Akkad has explained in Monsieur: “Man had set astray the natural periodicity of sexuality and so forfeited his partnership with the animal kingdom” (Monsieur 120). Therefore, the description of the hero’s retreat not only enables the novelist to expose man’s aberrations in life, but also gives him an occasion to portray what man has lost in the course of his evolution. At the same time, he is also able to examine what could be done to restore the lost values in life. That is how Darley’s retreat from his Alexandria enabled the novelist to unfold the distorted life in Alexandria, the city of aberrations. The loss of natural rhythm, the loss of

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the natural periodicity, and the loss of animal grace are matters of serious concern for Durrell. The depiction of this truth recurs in Durrell’s novels. In Balthazar, he wrote, “the greatest of all natural laws, periodicity is lost in the human race” (AQ 298). Therefore, the first heroic task of Affad includes his attempt to restore the animal grace to the human race, though man may never learn to regain or restore this lost grace. Thus, the initial thrust of Affad’s adventure turns towards the need to impart true sexual knowledge to man, which was lost in the course of human evolution. We know that Affad’s role in this regard begins in Constance, where he appears as Constance’s lover, though he cannot be considered as a lover in the conventional sense. While evaluating the role of his lovers, Durrell says in Quinx, “it was obvious that in common with most of us they were hunting a spontaneity which had once been innate, given, and to which the key had been mislaid” (Quinx 34). We noticed in the last chapter that the lovers in the Quintet are not like those in the Quartet. They are philosophers in a way, because their main role is to recover the lost key in love. As already noted, the emphasis throughout the Quintet is on generating a useful religion and philosophy, to rediscover the key to happiness in human life, by focusing on a healthy sexual relationship. Though this honest search for the lost key, which is part of his heroism, is a search for the lost truth, for the lost treasure, the novelist does not suggest any new philosophical formula for achieving this. In other words, he just tries to rediscover the ancient philosophy that was lost to us, in which he knows that sufficient insight is already there for man to seek happiness. Affad seems to realize that what man now needs is involution rather than further evolution. He also realized that the loss was caused by man’s dualistic way of perceiving reality. Therefore, Affad’s new approach to love and life creates a new reality, which is quite different from the prevailing one. In other words, through his new heroic activities he slowly tries to re-establish the lost reality. Affad’s role is that of a pathfinder. The reality he rediscovers is non-dualistic, and it transcends the dualistic attitudes in life. The key to understand Durrell’s metaphysics is to understand the meaning of non-dualism. The Quintet, thus, becomes a meta-realistic novel, while it retains all the qualities of metafiction. Though analyzing this reality is the subject of discussion in the next chapter, we can have a look at it in the light of nondualism: “So the idea of meta-Reality is designed to capture a level of truth which cannot be conceptualized in normal realistic, that is dualistic terms”, says Roy Bhaskar.10 Two important aspects of this reality must be noted here: one is that the emphasis of this reality is on truth, on absolute

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truth. The second one is that it highlights the fact that only in a nondualistic reality can truth be discovered or experienced. Therefore, the perilous journey of Affad in the Quintet is not for any attainment but for “retainment”, as Campbell puts it. He says, “the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men.”11 Here is the importance of Affad as a cultural hero. Durrell’s stress on periodicity in sex and the hunt which his characters make for a “spontaneity which had once been innate” have an indirect reference to the lost paradise, to the fall of man, and to the loss of man’s pre-Adamic bliss. That could be the reason why in the treatment of sex he is interested in depicting the attitudes he discovered in Tantra; he realizes that man could achieve psychic liberation through sex. The topic of sex is again repeated here, in this chapter, only to demonstrate Affad’s role as a hero. It is meaningless to discuss the role of the modern hero without touching upon ego and sex. A comparative reading of Durrell’s novels and Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces reveals that Durrell has curiously assimilated in his novels what Joseph Campbell had discovered through his keen study of Indian philosophy and mythology. Durrell, like Campbell, understands that the need of the hour for man is to regain his spiritual loss. Campbell states, “if only a portion of that lost totality could be dredged up into the light of the day, we should experience a marvelous expansion of our powers, a vivid renewal of life”.12 This loss has occurred to man mainly because of the complex interplay of the psyche, sex, and culture; because his ego has been given a free play, the free role of the villain. The only weapon with which one can confront this villain is insight. The loss, particularly in sex, is so enormous and the heroic task of recovering the lost insight is so cumbersome that Affad asks, “how much thought, how much science would it need to control its ravages?” (Sebastan168). What is ironically implied in this statement is that neither intellectual thought nor modern science would be able to control the damage already done by our villain to the self. Therefore, the only remedy for man is to make the villain, his ego, surrender. This is the crucial role assigned to the hero, Affad. He has to conquer his ego with the weapon of insight and live as a model for others. As Campbell says, the problem of mankind today is just the opposite to that of men living in stable periods of the past. “Then all meaning was in the group, none in self–expressive individual; today … all is in the individual”.13 Therefore, the “hero-deed” today is not what it was in the days of Galileo, says Campbell. We have been familiar with the meaning of the word hero as a person who goes through several physical

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adventures, confronts his enemies, and finally wins great material glory or gets the possession of the beautiful lady he loves, after the villain is eliminated. Contrary to this traditional attitude about a hero, the villain to be confronted in order to become a hero today is his own ego. One becomes a hero mainly because, among several thousands, only one person can be found who is thus capable of conquering his ego. He acquires the qualities needed to become such a hero by going through painful and patient experiences. He trains his ego to learn the art of surrendering, which in Indian metaphysics is called yoga. Affad masters the art of surrendering his ego both in love and death. Therefore, unlike the characteristics and tendencies seen in the heroes of the past to dominate, the willingness to surrender his self is the prerequisite for a modern hero. In fact, the difference between the old and the modern herodeed is pretty vast. Campbell explains this neatly: Where then there was darkness, now there is light, but also where light was, there now is darkness. The modern hero-deed must be that of questing, to bring to light the lost Atlantis of the coordinated soul.14

To a great extent, Affad has succeeded in restoring “the lost Atlantis” to Constance and through her to the rest of mankind in the novel. It is this aspect of The Avignon Quintet which makes it a metaphysical novel, a unique novel. We get an idea about the nature and the greatness of Affad’s heroic adventure mainly from his conversation with characters like Constance, Schwarz, and the Prince. “My main concern was to preserve you in the world”, Affad tells Constance when she has just returned from the wartorn world. (Constance 295). At this stage, Affad makes only a partial disclosure of his philosophical and religious background. Constance, therefore, complains, “you talk as if you had some privileged information” (304). We have seen that the first physical and spiritual adventure of the hero, Affad, in the novel is his sexual encounter with Constance. It comes as a boon to her. The sexual experience she gains, we noted in the last chapter, is not only physical and spiritual, but it is also intellectual and mysterious. What is pertinent here is to remember that Constance takes it as a piece of “privileged information” because she is not able to fathom its mysterious origin, the mythical origin, its archetypal nature. Therefore, after that initial sexual bout, Constance tries to extract from Affad more and more secrets about this new experience that he happened to give to her. It is here Affad’s heroism initially gets noted. It is also gradually revealed in the novel that it was with a sense of the divine need, with the need to preserve woman that Affad had entrusted Smirgel to take care of

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Constance in the midst of the Second World War in France (295). As a hero he realizes that it is his responsibility to preserve what is vital to man and to the universe. This is one way to understand the reason why Affad is cast in the role of the archetypal Yogi, Shiva. According to the Hindu faith, Shiva is the lord of creation, preservation and destruction. A close study of the character of Affad can reveal that his heroic role includes all these three divine aspects: Creation, Preservation, and Destruction. Pointing to his thread Affad says, “It’s the sign of a yogi, of his frugality and mental chastity” (298). The Yogi is Shiva, the archetypal hero in Hindu mythology. At the same time, about the act of love with Constance Affad says, “it is in fact the prototype, the original love affair which we’ve tumbled into by luck, or perhaps a design we are not wise to” (299). The original love is the love between Shiva and Shakti. Instead of saying that Affad discovers the lost insight, the lost truth or the Holy Grail, the lost rhythm, we can say that he rediscovers the greatness of Indian metaphysics. From all these given references and symbols associated with Affad in the novel, it becomes abundantly clear that the heroic adventure of Affad is in line with the role of Shiva in Indian mythology. It is based on the Indian codes of male and female. The evocation of this myth enables readers to enter into a new consciousness: “woman is life, the hero its knower and master”, as Campbell says.15 In other words, what makes Affad a hero initially is his role as an archetypal lover, who imparts knowledge about the importance of woman and sex to Constance, and through her to other people. Constance now realizes that there was a time when female was treated as “the principle of all fertility” (Constance 273). To quote Campbell again, The triumph may be represented as the hero’s sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world…intrinsically it is the expression of consciousness and therewith of being…The boon that he brings restores the world.16

Affad has been preparing for this heroism for a long period, to restore woman’s original place in this world, to grow into the role of a boonbringer. The Affad-Constance episode, which was extensively discussed in the last chapter, gets repeated here not only for the sake of justifying Affad’s role as a hero, but also to understand how Durrell makes his shift in his novels from the subject of ego to the subject of sex, and finally to his most important theme, death. The sexual episodes in Durrell’s novels make a great difference at the conscious level of the players involved in them. A comparison of the

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character of Affad with that of Darley in the Quartet will show the actual difference. Darley cannot escape from the bitter or pleasant memory of every sexual love he experienced in his life. We know what havoc those memories play in his consciousness, forcing him finally to cancel them so as to reach his true self. Darley, like the monk in the Zen story, “River”, is finally compelled to drop those past events from his memory. Darley and Affad can be compared to the two monks in the Zen Koan, “River”. The story is simple: two monks reach a small river bank where a beautiful woman is waiting there unable to cross. The small stream got flooded in a sudden rain. One monk offers to help the lady by lifting her and carrying her to the other bank, to which the tender woman agrees. After dropping her at the other side of the river he continues his journey, forgetting what had really happened. But his restless companion reminds him: Surely, it is against the rules, what you did back there …. Touching a woman is simply not allowed…. How could you have done that? … And to have such close contact with her! … This is a violation of all monastic protocol….

To this he replies: “Look, I set that girl down back at the crossing. Are you still carrying her?”17 Affad does not carry Constance in his mind, in spite of his most successful sexual experiences with her. On the other hand, Darley not only carries Melissa, Justine, and Clea in his memory, but also makes his mind a seat of perpetual torment. Bhaskar says that the “process of liberation or emancipation consists in shedding of the secondary level”.18 Affad could drop Constance from his memory, and he has no more of that tangle of thought, memory, time, pattern, etc., which we observed in Darley. As far as Affad is concerned, he knows that the sexual act is a process in life which enables him to climb towards the higher levels of his consciousness. It is a form of liberation, or Nirvana, helping man to move from his dualistic nature to the non-dualistic state in life. It also enriches one’s insight. Therefore, Affad, the cultural hero, illustrates how one can surrender one’s self through the act of sex and then learn to remain free from attachments. He has learned the art of dropping which the Zen story tells us. At the same time, his oriental wisdom teaches him: Alchemically speaking, nothing can be achieved without the woman, without you; you are the turning-fork of the male intuition. You strike the spark, we light the fire in the hearth and stick you with a child (Constance 270).

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What surfaces from all these discussions is very clear: Affad’s first adventure, as a hero, is to demonstrate that true sexual union is a kind of yoga. It is followed by an exemplary illustration of its impact on the growth of his consciousness. His next act of heroism is in demonstrating the art of accepting death, to show how one can fade away in the most profitable way. The heroic life of Affad, therefore, serves as an example of the “concentrated evolution” of man. Aurobindo, the great Indian philosopher, says that “Evolution does not consist in becoming more saintly or intelligent, but in becoming more conscious”.19 In other words, the character of Affad illustrates that the adventure of a modern hero is, in fact, the inner quest that takes place at the level of his consciousness or that real heroism lies in our ability to shape a pure consciousness. In the final analysis, it is neither Darley nor Affad who is the hero, but their consciousness, our consciousness. The boon that Constance gets from Affad is gradually passed on to Blanford, who admits that “I have learned so much from you” (Constance 5). Campbell says, “The boon brought from the transcendent deep becomes quickly rationalized into nonentity, and the need becomes great for another hero to refresh the world.”20 The other hero who refreshes the world in the Quintet is Blanford and the readers are aware that the link between Affad and Blanford is Constance. Huxley quotes Hui Neng in his book, The Perennial Philosophy: “when there is enlightenment, ordinary beings at once turn into Buddhas”, and Huxley substantiates Neng’s words by adding: “Thus enlightened, the avatar can reveal the way of enlightenment to others and help them actually to become what they already potentially are”.21 Thus, when Affad leaves the world, Blanford takes over the adventure from him to enlighten this world further. Constance has by now learned greatly from Affad and she, therefore, wonders how, before the arrival of Affad, “she was bleating in the wilderness of my logical positivism?” (Constance 290). In fact, Durrell’s several ideas, like his attitude to the ego, his attitude to sex as a source of liberation, his hunt for the lost key, and even his idea of a heraldic universe are to be reckoned in this part of the novel, because it is from such a metaphysical base that Affad is making his heroic leap. Durrell places Affad’s heroism in the midst of a collection of ego-centered characters, living in an ego-centered culture, so that his actions get contrasted to them and his deeds look glorious. But, in Durrell’s case, we cannot pick a character from one novel and make comparisons or arrive at a judgment about him. We have to consider his characters as a whole, from all his novels, and also have to consider their roles separately to see the impact they make on themselves and on others in the society in which

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they live. How he enlightens Fletcher Markle on the topic of death is very interesting.22 What worries Durrell is the lack of a proper mechanism, a metaphysical mechanism, which can guide man about life and death. What is available to man in the form of religion is only a mechanism which perpetuates fear and causes frustration in life. The Quintet certainly demonstrates how Affad crosses all frontiers in order to become completely himself, and the narration in the novel is centered on the philosophical path he traverses, the distance he covers in his life nobly and heroically. “You are the bondsman of the ego, but in mine I begin with …. the pre-self, my dear Constance”, he reminds Constance, implying that his inner world is beyond the apprehension of any ordinary mortal (Constance 280). In fact, the key sexual episode in Constance lies vertically at the center of the Quintet. The heroic action of absolute surrender of the ego is demonstrated here along with its consequent results on the psyche. Therefore, the creation of the character of Affad is to be seen as the outcome of an evolutionary process in Durrell’s writing career. The “I”-dominated-Darley from the Quartet reappears here now in the Quintet as the “not-I” Affad. To quote Huxley again, “The biography of a saint is valuable only in so far as it throws light upon the means by which… the “I” was purged away so as to make room for the divine “not- I”.23 This is what Constance learns, how she can purge her “I” away. She is transformed in the novel from the state of “I” to a serene state of “non-I”. This is a great contribution from the hero. Thus, she finds that her love relationship with Affad, the Yogi, could release her from the world of “attachments without resonance, adventures without depth, and embraces without insight” (Constance 292). There is yet another deeper realization experienced by her, which, surely, no reader can afford to miss. The new sexual experience with Affad, which she calls “Oriental or Indian in origin”, which also taught her how “to devour him woman– fashion” (278), requires to be analyzed once more. In Caesar’s Vast Ghost, while writing about a woman familiar to him, Durrell observes that “She is not a person, but an experience” (CVG 193). These words, in toto, are applicable to Constance too. The character of Constance is to be seen as an experience, and her name stands only as a reference to that experience. She is a metaphor now. “She can now indulge”, writes the novelist, "her always dream of being an unpaid prostitute of pure benevolence, a public benefactor” (Constance 301). But, there is yet another wonderful insight that she gets from Affad:

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… perhaps she had even been cured of that obstinate old dream of all women, to become indispensable to someone’s happiness—the running sore of self-esteem, the old dysentery of human narcissism (292).

It is a statement that must be very pleasing to feminists. All these changes in Constance are the result of the spontaneous sexual adventure thrust on her by Affad, the hero. Therefore, the episode cited above attains greater meaning and importance in the novel when we look at it in the light of Affad as a boon-bringer, a cultural hero. Constance “suddenly, dramatically assumed herself, her full femininity”, says the narrator (273). Briefly put, if the discussion in the last chapter was around what Constance gained from Affad from their Tantric sexual episode, here the focus is on how this event makes Affad a cultural hero, a boon-bringer. The subject under consideration here, the hero restoring woman to her original place and taking that event as a heroic action, can be seen from the other end of the telescope, to use one of Durrell’s pet phrases. By calling this act of restoration an act of heroism, the magnitude of the situation to which woman had fallen gets exposed. We can see that the same theme is treated by John Fowles in his The French Lieutenant’s Woman, but in a different way. There, it is not any hero who restores Sarah, the central character, but she herself emerges at the end of the story successfully, winning the battle against male domination almost independently. When we look at her initial miseries in the novel, no one can say that her journey through sex was successful, but in the eyes of society she came out successfully after fighting against what she had experienced: the brutal male “possession and territory”.24 Her battle, every literary student must have noticed, is an extension of the battle which was started by Hardy’s Tess or even earlier by Jane Austen’s Elizabeth. When we compare with them, Durrell’s Constance is different in several ways. What she learns is not by fighting against man, but by cooperating with a man, Affad, who is passively active, who does not dominate. Durrell tries to remove the age-old confrontation in sex. Instead of it, Affad teaches woman how to dominate herself in sex, and thus to remain forever powerful. Like John Donne’s lovers, the lovers in Durrell’s Quintet die in sex, into each other. They are in an Oriental world, and the lover teaches the beloved to become one by stripping their separate egos. To a question asked by Goulianos in an interview, “Isn’t there a passivity in Oriental philosophies?” Durrell answers: “It’s actively passive. It’s the willpower of desirelessness. It’s a technique of not interfering but influencing. It’s not serious ascetism either.”25 We observed in the first chapter how greatly Durrell was influenced by D. T. Zuzuki. It was also cited there that each and every serious philosophical remark made by Suzuki lay underscored

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by Durrell in his personal copy of the book. Further, while analyzing his essay, “East and West” in which he enlightens us by explaining the noble quality of passivity in the East, we noted Suzuki’s words “silent eloquence or eloquent silence.”26 He is remembered here again only to emphasize that this quality of “silent eloquence or eloquent silence” is the basic nature of the hero, Affad, in the novel. It is the hero’s weapon. Therefore, the heroic activities of Affad have to be seen in the context of the miserable domain from which a woman is retrieved. Most of the novelists dealing with the emancipation of women, like Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, or John Fowles, retrieve their female characters from some desperate situations; the female characters may be sometimes the victims of the Victorian ethos. Just as an example, we can consider here the picture that Fowles highlights in his novel, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. About the pitiable situation of women in her society, Sarah in the novel says: “My only happiness is when I sleep. When I wake, the nightmare begins.”27 In fact, it is advisable that the students interested in the history of European women read chapter thirty five of Fowles’ novel, The French Lieutenant’s woman, to understand the pathetic situation of women in Europe at the beginning of the last century.28 He writes that in a world where religion teaches you that a woman is sacred, “you could buy a thirteen-year-old girl for a few pounds—a few shillings, if you wanted her for only an hour or two.29 It should be in this light that we see Constance as an “unpaid prostitute of pure benevolence, a public benefactor” (Constance 301). The word “prostitute”, Durrell knows, is so steeply ingrained in the European psyche that it becomes easy to convey even the noble idea of “benevolence” through this word. He loves to dip his brush in culture whenever he paints the picture of the ego and sex. The most significant awareness that the readers can gain from Constance’s new experience is the fact that man and woman must accept their equal roles on this planet, that there cannot be any gender discrimination or domination. Her experience tells Constance that for a happy existence the lovers must have mutual understanding: “alone the man could do nothing; alone the woman could not resolve her earthly needs” (268). Finally, the heroic slogan emerging from the new experiences of the lovers in the novel is “To surrender, to yield, to abdicate and receive” (269), which replaces the old Victorian slogan: “to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield”. This change made in the concept of heroism is to be seen as a great contribution made by Durrell as a novelist. He has replaced the old Victorian slogan of a hero with a modern one. Affad is thus cast as a modern Ulysses. The slogan “not to yield” is replaced with “to yield” and “conquering” is no more taken as the aim of

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heroic adventure; instead, the merit of heroism lay in surrendering; simply surrender your ego and seek victory is the new message. The contrast between a conventional hero and the modern one is evident from the polarity of these two slogans. The Oriental ego, Affad’s ego, is for yielding and surrendering; but the occidental one, like that of Ulysses’ is adamant on the slogan, “not to yield”. In the last page of Campbell’s book which is taken as a reference in this chapter, he says, “Man is that alien presence with whom the ego is to be crucified and resurrected, and in whose image society is to be reformed”.30 All these great thinkers agree on one point that all social and spiritual reforms should begin with the purification of each self. Roy Bhaskar too speaks of man’s psychic confusion in the “Introduction” to his book on meta-Realism: “We misidentify our self as egos; we mis-identify consciousness with mind.” 31 Affad’s role, therefore, is the role of a redeemer. He redeems Constance not only from the miserable world of the war, but he also restores her to her real womanhood. Thus, the redeemer is our hero now, and not the conqueror. Affad’s sexual yoga with Constance teaches her that the sexual act is a kind of death in life. Therefore, the boon that Affad brings as a cultural hero, in another sense, is the knowledge of the “sweetness of this transient form of death in life” (Constance 279). In other words, the boon he brings in the form of the new experience in the love relationship is, in Indian terms, satchitananda, a metaphysical expression that already caught our attention while discussing the sexual union between Mellors and Connie. Probably, the novelist wants to show that this new insight reaching Constance in the form of a boon is the actual lost treasure for which man has been hunting for centuries. Therefore, she is no more afflicted with the search syndrome in her life. People, like Lord Galen in Durrell’s novel, carry out their eternal search for the hidden treasure only to be finally disappointed, as the treasure for them remains perpetually hidden. We watch the lovers along with others in the Quintet at last entering the cave. It is not a physical cave as it appears to be, where reality is supposed to be lying lost and hidden, but it is their psychic cave where the treasure lies buried, the treasure of that wonderful human bliss. Durrell’s Quintet, therefore, is a work which transcends all pleasure principles; it is the story depicting the “retainment” of human bliss, the story of the discovery of perennial happiness. “Lie in peace”, said Constance, “it is well earned” (280). At the end of the story, after wading through the war-torn pages of the Quintet in the company of an exhausted female doctor, the readers must be happy to see how delightful that woman is now, who is now in possession of the boon she received from her lover. Huxley says, “the

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Brahman, who is one with Atman, is not only Being and Knowledge, but also Bliss, and after love and peace”.32 The Indian word or name used to denote this condensed form of wisdom about life, let it be repeated once again, is Sat-chit-ananda: being, knowledge, and bliss. Affad’s next adventure begins after his successful sexual episode with Constance. It is mainly through the dialogues in the novel that readers get some idea about Affad’s intentions in his life and are able to judge his activities. His conversation with the Prince gives them a chance to get a deeper understanding of him as a cultural hero, a hero who is engaged in mysterious adventures. When the Prince taunts him and reproaches him for his love adventure with Constance, he replies in the negative. The Prince accuses him by saying, “You have failed on both sides, Eros and Thanatos”. Affad rejects this accusation by confidently responding in one solid word, “Fiddlesticks! “ (Sebastian 4). This conversation in the novel not only exhibits how ignorant the Prince is about certain serious matters regarding life, like love and death, but it also highlights Affad as a much bolder and determined hero. Affad looks very confident of his self; he really knows what he does. He tells the Prince that “the business was much graver. It was in the most literal sense a matter of life and death and sacrifice.” (2) Sebastian is the fourth novel in the Quintet, and it comes after the novel Constance in which the great importance and the mysterious nature of the sexual relationship between Constance and Affad are depicted by the author. In fact, the subject matter of the Quintet is what Affad says: “life and death and sacrifice”. Sebastian enhances the readers’ consciousness more by making them understand the significance of Affad’s second adventure, his peaceful surrender to death. Therefore, the ignorance which the Prince displays serves as a contrast to Affad’s intuitive wisdom and heroism, and it helps the novelist in intensifying the nature of his forthcoming adventure. Affad’s adventures are taken up one by one for critical evaluation here, as if he completes one task assigned to him and then moves on to the next. This western attitude of compartmentalizing is what a metafictional novelist like Durrell wants to do away with. The truth is that Affad’s adventure also includes breaking all boundaries in life. As there is no boundary between Eros and Thanatos, there is no boundary between Affad’s first adventure with Constance and his next adventure of accepting death. According to Ken Wilber, “Eros is ontological hunger”, and “it is never satisfied because it finds only substitutes”.33 He also states that the boundary between subject and object, self and other…isn’t real in its first place. At the same time, the simple force of reality, the “pull” of the

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ultimate whole, acts moment to moment to tear down that boundary. And that force is Thanatos.34

Affad, in fact, enlightens Constance on the difference between the substitutes and the real in life. That is why she becomes very thrilled about her new experience. The only way to quench one’s ontological hunger, Affad has learned as a yogi, is to surrender, and to submit oneself to the process of entropy. How he prepares for his inevitable death is the most interesting part in Sebastian. The patient process implicit in the heroic act of submitting oneself willfully to death is, in fact, what one has to learn in life. Man should learn to live without any attachments, and practice “the denial of selfness in thought, feeling and action, towards desirelessness and nonattachments”, according to Huxley’s prescription.35 In other words, Affad disciplines himself to learn how to cut the “cord” and go through the “agony of loneliness” in the midst of his busy life. If readers can patiently follow Affad’s new adventure and see how he slowly gives up everything dear to him in this world, including Constance, which is part of the process of his spiritual heroism, they will not only be immensely surprised but will also feel enlightened, because the entire novel, Sebastian, is a text written to illustrate the art of dying. As already observed, it is a text on Thanatos as Constance is a novel on Eros. The narrator says that “at times his celibacy had become a fearful burden … it was agony not to have a girl in one’s arms” (Sebastian 45). As one is terribly attached to the memory of pleasure, forgetting and foregoing all attachments will be found a difficult experience. Therefore, the process of detaching oneself becomes an experience of agony. Thus, Affad finally accepts the truth that “Entropy is the new sigil” (21). The real success of his adventure as the cultural hero, therefore, lies in this well-earned spiritual insight with which he is able to tear away all kinds of boundaries between Eros and Thanatos. Durrell thus enlightens his readers through Affad’s heroism about the hard realities of life. He cautions, “instead of fretting about changing the world, why not realize and accept it as it is, admitting its order is divine, that reality, of which we are part, realizes itself thus” (Sebastian 17). Mulk Raj Anand says that it is an attitude which Durrell had borrowed from Shankara36. A true yogi knows the time of his death, Durrell believes. A Yogi is a person who practices yoga, and yoga is any “conscious attempt on the part of an individual to lift his present available personality to a higher, perfect ideal”.37 Affad’s spiritual efforts should be judged and appreciated in this light. To some extent, Durrell has succeeded in making Affad an enigmatic character like that of Hamlet. But, unlike Hamlet, he is not a tragic hero.

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Even Constance could not understand the meaning of his adventure, “understand the extent of his religious dilemma” (Sebastian 41). She thought he “belonged to a collection of death-worshippers projecting their infantile death-wish out of ruined Egypt” (65). But, we, as readers, are already aware of how Affad “realized the enormous attraction of death” (47). It is at this point in the novel that Durrell tries to blend his ideas of Gnosticism with his Indian attitude to life, based on the principle of nonattachment. He had great temptation to believe in Gnosticism. The Spenglarian culture which he loathed inspired him to think that this world is not controlled by a God who loves humanity. Therefore, accepting the supremacy of an Evil God is not a bad idea, he thought. His concern for the future of man is evident in his statements.38This doubtful position leads him to Hinduism. That Affad is a blend of both Gnosticism and Hinduism is evident in the way his roles are cast as a hero. Though he is a member of the Gnostic circle, he makes it abundantly clear in the novel that he prefers to die through perfect love. That is the side of his East, Hinduism. When the Gnostic inquisitors inform Affad, “your election had been decided upon by ballot” (Sebastian 39), he feels elated, “as if the adventure for which he had longed for so long had begun” (40). The words, “had longed”, imply his preparedness in life as a yogi. From here on in the novel, the attention of the reader is oriented towards Affad’s mental readiness to die and to his overall preparations to willfully accept his death call. His sense of the acceptance of death reminds us of Durrell’s disclosure to T.S Eliot that the third stage of his writing was on the acceptance of death39. We can see the narrator scanning Affad’s spiritual state as he passes through his final stages of liberation: Extraordinary emotions assailed him now, discharging themselves in his heart so that he felt at one and the same time proud, sorrowful and in an irritant way vividly elated (40).

Now he tries to overcome not only all forces of attachment but also all the illusory burdens in life. Wilber says, “Thanatos is the power of sunyata, the power and push to transcend illusory boundaries.”40 In his earlier novels too, Durrell had tried to highlight the importance of the consciousness of death in a person. In The Revolt of Aphrodite he says, most of our troubles come from the feeling of human transitoriness, of the precarious nature of our hold upon life. But if you knew, for example that on the 3rd March next year you were going to die, it would change your attitude to people and things. It would make for resignation, compassion, and concentration for the precious instant (Nunq, 90).

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What he stated here, in Nunq, is fully incorporated in the character of Affad: “resignation, compassion, and concentration”. Here Keller-Privat’s remark is that Besides novels, his poetry also conjures up death as the instant of freedom. See “Seferis” ending with “even to die is somehow to invent”, or the last § of “A Farewell”, “The Outer Limits”: “candid as death/a full foreknowledge of the breathing game”. All of these were published in Vega, his last collection of poems (Faber, 1973) and are reproduced in The Collected Poems.

Therefore, the theme of death is a serious subject for Durrell. Affad tries to cultivate, to borrow the words of Huxley again, “a holy indifference towards a cheerful acceptance of affliction.”41 To be precise, the need to accept everything in life with a “holy indifference” is one of the key messages emerging from the novel, The Avignon Quintet. Sebastian thus becomes a novel displaying the retreat of a Yogi from his life, after realizing that he has made his life fruitful. How Affad breaks away from all material bondages in life and patiently waits for the moment of his death becomes the focus of the narration in the novel. Bhaskar says: Self-realization involves not only empowerment, but as a necessary condition, freedom from all heteronomies and constraints. This will involve breaking from the bondage of not only systems of thought, ideology, received opinion, organized religions, codes of conduct, but all forms of authority and tyranny.42

In short, the character of Affad becomes a metaphor, like that of Constance, a symbol which reflects the art of breaking away from all bondages in life, the art of retrieving from a life lived fruitfully. Durrell is convinced that in the very art of living lies the art of dying too and for mastering these arts one must submit one’s self to the ultimate Self, which is the essence of Indian existential philosophy. Therefore, the fourth novel in the Quintet, Sebastian, serves as a text illustrating Affad’s mental response to the inevitability of death. The narrator describes, “Now he went slowly round his possessions saying goodbye to them one by one, just as a rehearsal, to see how much he was attached to them and how much it would hurt to leave them” (Sebastian 44).

In short, the agony of detachment serves as a source of insight. It enlightens one on the futility and the illusory nature of attachments. The

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complete focus of the narration in Sebastian is, therefore, to explain how Affad responded to his life when he realized that his cord, his attachment to the world, “was cut in the most profound sense” (44). Not only were his attachments in material forms cut, but his attachments to his lovers also had been cut. He realizes “How they ached, the names!” (45). So, Affad finally understands the folly of all attachments, and the whole of his life now appears before him as a mere illusion. Durrell has devoted a major portion of the Quintet to illustrate the process of Affad’s liberation in order to point out the art of shedding everything valuable in one’s life. This exercise of dropping or shedding is the marrow of the metaphysical theme in both the Quartet and the Quintet. In the former novel, the Quartet, Darley tries to drop the memory of Alexandria in order to discover his self. In the Quintet Affad sheds everything in his life to accept death. Bhaskar writes, “So to become a liberated being or to be a member of an emancipated world all we have to do is shedding everything which is inconsistent with one’s true nature”.43 The act of shedding is to be understood in terms of the changes that undergo in our outlook; the transition is from our sense of duality to non-duality. The greatness of this kind of experience in life is that it enables one to distinguish between true and false realities. The lived reality now seems to be a kind of illusion, or Maya, or as Shakespeare says, “We are such stuff/ As dreams are made on”.44 Reality is a topic to be taken up in the next chapter. In Indian philosophical terms this metaphysical journey of the hero from the state of duality to non- duality is to embrace Brahman, the unchanging reality beyond the material reality. This in the Upanishad is known as tat tvam asi, “thou art that”. Its meaning is that what one seeks is one’s own eternal nature. In his Creative Mythology, Joseph Campbell writes: One recognizes immediately relationship of this Schopenhauerean concept of the will to the Indian idea of the Brahman, which is identical with the self (atman) of the beings (thou art that, tat tuam asi). The will as Brahman transcends the object –subject relationship and is therefore non – dual (nirdvanta). Duality (dvanta), on the other hand, is an illusion of the sphere of space and time (maya); both our fear of death (mara) and our yearning for the pleasure of this world (kama) derive from, and attach us to this manifold delusion, from which release (moksha) is achieved only when the fear of death and desire for enjoyment are extinguished in the knowledge (Sanskrit, bodhi; Greek, gnosis) of non- duality (nir – dvanta : tat tuam asi).45

To be precise, this “life-voyager”, Affad, moves with a clear vision. His fear of death and desire for enjoyment are extinguished in the knowledge

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of non-duality. The protagonist’s awareness of the movement from duality to non-duality is at the center of Durrell’s Quintet. Affad is propelled by his own inner motivations towards his eternal self, and he is never driven by any kind of narrow loyalty or patriotism or physical love. This movement also gives birth to a new reality and a new mode of narration. Here Keller-Privat intervenes to say: Something strikes me at this point: how brilliantly illuminating Affad’s moves are (his point of view, his words and also the silence that surrounds him) compared to the abstract and sometimes difficult philosophical tenets when expressed by specialists. Perhaps a close literary study of a passage centered around Affad would show that Durrell, like Affad, shows rather than tells, hints and points without ever being didactic, and thus imparts to his reader a perception of the world and of himself that is far more enlightening than any philosophical discourse could ever be.

The narrator probably expects his readers not to forget the adventures of war that he had narrated before bringing Affad into the center of the stage in his novel. He gave us a massive view of the war and its ramifications in our society; gave a view of the type of death the war produces. Therefore, the adventure of Affad is to be seen as a contrast to the insanity that prevailed in Europe, to the adventure that is destructive. We have just observed how ardently Affad prepares to receive his death. There is a method in his appearance and disappearance. But, Durrell describes how, during the days of war, people “appeared and disappeared with such startling suddenness” (Constance 68). The “authority to murder” had been conferred on officers, and their “task was to turn the whole of Europe into one smoking knacker’s yard” (46). Apart from the murders, suicide deaths like “by carbon monoxide poisoning” (67), and other strange forms of death were not uncommon. The dark view of the world in which the human ego was let loose serves as a background from which our modern hero, our savior, emerges. It was a world where “the task of pillage, rape and extermination” was very carefully embodied in the official directives (45). The proliferation of this insanity is the outcome of our culture, our organized efforts to nurture insular attitudes in society: the idea of nation, flag, race, religion, etc. Therefore, the burden of our modern hero, we must remember, is to surpass all these. As such, the contrasts between different forms of death gain a greater magnitude in Durrell’s novel, the Quintet: the contrast is between self-annihilation and natural death, between insanity and sanity, between knowledge and wisdom, and between wisdom and insight.

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Though The Avignon Quintet embraces different existential philosophies which Durrell had borrowed from various schools of thought, the dominating ideology used by him is Buddhism. This is because he finds that the key to true reality lies in human consciousness. It is widely accepted today that Buddhism is not a religion in the old sense, but is a form of science. It is a form of contemplative science which helps man to overcome his sufferings caused mainly by the wrong perception of his self. Buddhist ideologies came from Hinduism. It was already noted earlier in this book that Durrell borrows ideas from both these religions in order to enrich his wisdom as a writer, to use those ideas as a therapy, as a cure to the “faulty insight” of the West. As Capra says, “the results of modern physics have opened up two different paths for scientists to pursue. They may lead us to put it in extreme terms--to the Buddha or to the Bomb.”46 Interestingly, the essence of all the intellectual discussion in the Quintet is about this existential dilemma–whether to opt for the Bomb or for Buddha. Durrell seriously reminds the readers about the precarious situation in which man lives today: “the Toy is aimed at our bone marrow and the bone marrow of the earth we live on” (Constance 300). The developments in technology and the craze for material comforts have burdened man. Therefore, Durrell finds that the present knowledge in the field of psychology is not enough to deal with the enormous nature of the problems confronting man. This fact is discussed at length by Constance and Schwarz: “What good is a poor psychologist when the whole world has gone out of its mind”, asks Constance (157). Constance and Schwarz in the Quintet fail to solve the psychic problems of their patients, in spite of their great knowledge in science and psychology, despite their tremendous experience as doctors. It is from Affad that Constance gets certain concrete ideas about human consciousness. She learns from him that the “basic illness is the ego which, when it swells engenders stress, dislocating reality” (133). It is this realization which inspires them to place the new insight, which Affad had passed on to Constance, for a scientific interrogation. Hence, paradoxically, Affad becomes the real doctor in the novel. He is a Buddhist scientist who, with his intelligence and intuitive insight, takes Constance to his laboratory and shows her the real female strength in her. It is there that she receives great intuitive wisdom about matters related to sex, psyche and love. Thus Constance finds that Affad’s sense of tolerance and his all-inclusive approach, or holistic approach to human life has made him a perfect man, a “Cosmic Man”, a “Cosmocrat”. According to Hyman Sarfatti: “The Spiritual Master or Cosmic Man has only one desire, to teach and raise others to his own level”.47 In fact, the

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difference between the knowledge which Constance had carried with her before her sexual relationship with Affad and the wisdom which she receives from him later on is the difference between mistaken cognition and valid cognition. Briefly repeated, the Quintet, a novel that is packed with oriental insight, thus becomes a text on the art of living and dying, or loving and dying, and it also serves as a text on the study of human consciousness. It can be taken as an anthology on human consciousness which enlightens readers with an awareness with which they can transcend their ego and achieve a smooth transition from this world. It illustrates how man can transcend the fragmented views of reality caused by the Cartesian division of his soul and achieve a holistic and purified state of mind. The mind is the cause of bondage and liberation. “If the mind is not subdued there is samsara (the cycle of existence) and if the mind is subdued there is nirvana (liberation)”, says his Holiness, Dalai Lama.48 Man today is trapped in ruinous and very explosive passions, which is what all the events representing the disastrous war in the novel show, and from these war situations in the Quintet emerges the need for a balanced metaphysical approach in life. Durrell feels that there is a crisis in human consciousness and there is no attempt on the part of man to realize the organic wholeness of life, and to live in peace and harmony. As Sarfartti observes, “the greatest struggle to me in the universe was I to myself” and the entire “God-intoxicated philosophies” make the struggle worse.49 Affad could understand this. He is cast as the reincarnation of the archetypal hero, Lord Shiva: “Shiva is one of the oldest Gods who can assume many forms”, says Capra.50 We know from the novel that Affad has many roles and many names, and each “name was like the unfolding of a mummywrapping, in a way unbandaging his youth with all its fragility” (Sebastian 38). However, in the novel the author does not entrust all the moral responsibilities to the character, Affad. He must pass them over to others. The words of Plotinus, “the most perfect cannot remain in itself but must pass over”51, are very true in the case of this character. We have noted that what Affad passes on to Constance, and further to Blanford, is the crucial wisdom, the actual hidden treasure. He knows perfectly well what he should do and with whom he should share his wisdom. The desperation with which Schwarz receives the new wisdom from Constance is a proof of this: “any solution should be marvelous to hear of”, because “we deal all day with guilt and violence and uncertainty” (Constance 286). Thus, the love experience of Constance with Affad, the contemplative scientist, is received by these doctors as a new experiment, as a scientific

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experiment, which can help the lovers to achieve clear and pure consciousness. Piet Hut in his essay, “Life as a Laboratory”, says, The original inspiration that I drew from Buddhism rested on the fact that I recognized an experimental approach to the structure of reality that seemed to be akin to the experimental approach in science.52

In a way, Durrell’s characters can be called clinical characters, because they subject their lives to various experiments or offer their experiences in life to others for scrutiny, as it happens in a laboratory. They also allow others to carry out critical evaluations on their experiences. That is how Affad’s passively active contributions as a boon-bringer and his experimental life as a contemplative scientist come for general scrutiny in the novel, and then turn helpful as a metaphysical guide to enrich the reader’s inner self. By aiming at perfection in love he achieves perfection in death. Affad’s ability to revert from one self to another, as the occasion demands, is quite amazing. During his love bouts with Constance he reveals his Indian side. As Lord Shiva, the archetypal Yogi, Affad speaks to his consort, Constance; and as a “Gnostic Manichee” he speaks to his Egyptian counterparts. He asks Constance: “Must I reveal everything?” He also tells her that he had already “known greater beauties and met more massive intellects” (Constance 294) before he came into contact with Constance. She also wonders why it is very difficult for her to understand the “secret field or realm which constitutes the moral geography” of this mystic, Affad (Sebastian 1-2). As already noted, he is quick in changing his roles; for example, he changes into an ardent Gnostic when he receives his death warrant. Radhakrihnan observes: Gnosticism was a deliberate attempt to fuse Greek (Platonic) and Hindu elements. It is a name for the whole system of syncretic religious thought . . . Many of the chief features of Gnosticism are those common to the Upanishads and the mystic traditions of Greece.53

Durrell must have known this historical fact about Gnosticism before he ventured to create a character that can represent this “system of syncretic thought”. To some readers the relationship between Gnosticism and Hinduism is likely to create confusion as the same character carries these two different religious elements in him. It is his keen interest in the Gnostic faith that gave Durrell the raw materials to create one of his great characters, Balthazar, in the Quartet. In Sebastian, initially we see Affad as a Yogi, and then, after a while, he is seen “himself reverting to his Alexandrian, his Egyptian self” (Sebastian

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38). Though Gnosticism convinced Durrell that the world is surely not ruled by a God because there is more evil than good, he could not accept its theory which says that man should refuse the supremacy of the Usurper through voluntary death. He found the Indian approach to the inevitability of death much saner. He told Carley in an interview: I think if one examines in detail Hindu philosophy and Chinese philosophy, for example, one can see how the refusal can be operated without actually taking it so far as to die. It’s a good deal saner way of dealing with this problem of dissent than the Gnostic way which is extreme.54

Therefore, we must be careful while judging the role of Affad, his heroic adventure with death, because it is difficult to accept his Gnostic death as heroism. At the same time, his readiness to accept death without fear and the way he prepares to die is really heroic. In other words, how he takes his death is totally in line with the Indian way of accepting death, though he gets killed in the Gnostic way. Privat observes: I am wondering here if you should not mention the actual death scene and the prevailing ambiguity that surrounds it. I’m thinking here of Mnemidis who can be interpreted both ways: as the killer sent by the sect, or as a madman who aimed for Constance and killed Affad instead. It seems to me that this ambiguity reverberates on Affad’s death: thus he could be seen as a Yogi preparing for a death which comes almost naturally for even if it is murder it might not be the one intended by the Gnostics. What’s your opinion? I think Mnemidis would be interesting to study here because in the text he is both clearly animated by a sense of purpose and clinically mad.

The point is, as far as Affad is concerned, what matters is only death, or the preparations for accepting death. Who kills, or why he is killed is only secondary here. How it comes about is a point of discussion only for those who take death as something to be confronted. There is a difference between confronting and accepting. Therefore, Mnemdis is only one of the several sources through which death acts. Hence, what matters is preparation for death, acceptance of death, and the joyful moment of death. Durrell wrote to Miller that in the Quintet he was “trying for a fruitful synesthesia”.55 The truth is that, unlike the Quartet, the Quintet is a very sophisticated novel, making it difficult for a common reader to enjoy it; and, as we already noted, only the readers with a certain level of knowledge in philosophy or having great experience in life can read and appreciate it.

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In fact, Affad attains his spiritual height, his tall heroic state, through the practice of yoga. Though Constance had learned a little about yoga from Max before she met Affad, she learns about all its insightful nature only from Affad. She says: . . . later Affad had redeemed this whole field of knowledge by admitting something that neither Max nor Schwarz could have admitted – namely that the heart of all these dissimilar sciences was the same heart (Sebastian 28). Max, whose role in the story is comparatively small, tells Constance that some psychic cases, which the doctors could not treat, were sent to his yoga studio. Constance was, thus, initiated by Max into the mysteries of this craft in which the emphasis is always on insight. She then takes more interest in yoga and learns that it is not simply a physical exercise, but a very useful exercise for our body and mind. Thereafter in the story, the narrator’s interest includes bringing the attention of the reader to this spiritual exercise. Durrell explains the benefits of yoga to almost every interviewer who asks him questions about this subject. He talks about its rich impact on the human body and mind. In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda quotes Dr. Jung: “Quite apart from the charm of the new and the fascination of the halfunderstood, there is a good cause for Yoga to have many adherents. It offers the possibility of controllable experience and thus satisfies the scientific need for ‘facts’; and, besides this, by reason of its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its doctrine and method, which include every phase of life, it promises of un-dreamed possibilities.”56

Durrell also finds a useful link between yoga and the exercise of demolishing ego, or he believes that the practice of yoga can be used as an exercise for healing psychic disorders. In the midst of his heroic actions in the story, Affad does a bit of retrospection; he tries to trace the root of the wisdom he earned on the subject of yoga. This tracing can be taken as part of his heroism, because it enables his fellow beings to gain some historical facts, and realize that somewhere down in the human evolution some great insights were lost. In the novel, Constance thus realizes that Affad has become a “hinge between the Orient and the Occident” (Sebastian 43), and that the root of his wisdom reaches even the Manichean days. Therefore, Affad’s heroism thus gains a greater magnitude. This contemplative scientist is doing a greater job: he stands between the West and the East. He is trying to fulfill

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a dream, his author’s dream, to lay a bridge between the East and the West. To the interviewers, Graf and Gauthier, Durrell explained his “Tibetan treatment” in the Quintet. He strains to convince them that human personality is only an illusion. He repeats his faith in Buddhism and his acceptance of its belief that personality is only a collection of five attributes, five skandhas.57 All these indicate that Durrell must have been aware of the difficulties which his Quintet was going to impose on his readers. To assimilate East and West and to stand as a hinge between them is not an easy task for a novelist. He knows that whatever Affad thinks and does in the story, the readers will have to follow and understand them, if the novel is to be fully understood and appreciated. He reminds Markle that he is a writer engaged in writing serious matters, and that he is a “spare parts man”.58 Readers may have to look for the other parts in other characters or in the other novels written by the author to get a comprehensive idea about a particular character. Durrell’s keen interest in the Quintet to show that yoga is a harmless practice producing rich spiritual and psychological harvest is made quite visible in the novel. Affad can never become a modern hero without the sufficient experience in yoga. As pointed out earlier, he also combines Gnosticism with Indian mysticism. In fact, this is what makes the Quintet highly esoteric. “Gnosticism is not pure Hellenism as some say; it is rather pure Orientalism in a Hellenic mask”, says Radhakrishnan in Eastern Religion and Western Thought.59 The real intention of the novelist in combining these two practices must be to stress that yoga in every sense is a better science, and it helps man in having a calm and composed mind: “There is nothing in it that contradicts the Western science at any point”, says the narrator in Sebastian (Sebastian 31). The craft of yoga also helps the reader to think globally. Zimmer says, “Yoga treats specifically of the dynamics of the process of the disentanglement, and outlines practical techniques for the gaining of release”.60 The Quintet, in this sense, is historiographical metafiction. According to Linda Hutcheon, Historiographic metafiction appears willing to draw upon any signifying practices it can find operative in a society. It wants to challenge those discourses and yet to milk them for all they are worth61.

The importance given to yoga in the novel, therefore, is not only for destabilizing certain received notions about the self, but it is there to help stabilize the inner world of the characters. So, yoga is to be taken as an essential craft borrowed from Indian metaphysic to discipline one’s mind. Affad, like Durrell, knows that it is an inevitable exercise for attaining

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Nirvana. Thus this exercise becomes part of Affad’s heroic exercise. In The Buddha and His Message, Nagendranath Ganguly explains that “Nirvana does not signify annihilation of soul, but of passion, pride and delusion; it is the goal and summum bonum to which our thoughts should converge”.62 It is in this way how Yoga occupies a pivotal position in Durrell’s Quintet, because the vital task assigned to his protagonist is to drop all his psychic errors and move towards a peaceful existence, and then to fade away happily. Yoga also helps a discriminating ego to grow into a non-dualistic state. The reality perceived by the discriminating mind, ultimately, undergoes changes. Therefore, heroism in the novel is related to reality too. As Affad is cast as a cultural hero in the novel, he takes under his purview, like his creator, any insight that can enlighten mankind and he, therefore, cannot ignore the spiritual importance of yoga. Durrell’s love for this “fine art”, for this “thrilling Yoga”, can be seen in some of his pictures taken in difficult yoga poses. His love for yoga also lies scattered in the letters he had written to his friends. It is something which he came to know of right from his childhood. When he became a writer he realized its potentials, its manifest importance. In Caesar’s Vast Ghost, he writes nostalgically, I remembered from my childhood in India something of the same attitude towards the sadhu or holy man who had taken to the jungle in search of a verifiable truth, with the desire to rediscover submission as a fine art and help it become a corporate philosophy (CVG 23).

Ian S. MacNiven has beautifully described Larry’s “ache of love for the Roof of the World”63 in Lawrence Durrell: A Biography. He writes in the same page that “Distant Tibet hit him like a blow to the chest, a challenge”. However, Durrell, as a child, was not aware that Buddhism is really a form of science. The acceptance of Buddhism by many western scientists must have later on instilled enough confidence in him to promote it in literature, to make its positive aspects easily available to readers. Since this practice has become universally accepted, it does not appear much esoteric now. There are several texts available today to substantiate this argument. Piet Hut, in Buddhism and Science, says, I realized the Buddhist emphasis on its views of reality as something utterly concrete and accessible, something that could be experimental and realized here and now, by anybody….64.

Max in the Quintet says, “Ah been in India a while now and ah’ve learned a new science” (Sebastian 24), echoing Mellors in Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, who “went back to India … up to the north-west

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frontier.” (LCL 78) In a letter to Henry Miller Durrell wrote that “I have much to look back on with delight and thanks to the ‘chemin’ created by the yoga and the Zen pathway, much to look forward as well”.65 Dr. H. K. Kesavan says that “In scientific terminology, the Yoga philosophy belongs predominantly to the category of experimentation where the principal scientific apparatus used is the seeker’s own psycho-physical apparatus”.66 His Holiness, Dalai Lama wants that only useful and realistic practices in Yoga should be followed by men. Anton Zeilinger quotes him in his essay, “Encounters Between Buddhist and Quantum Epistemologies”: “that should we in Western science ever find anything that contradicts Buddhist teachings, then that teaching must be changed”.67 Durrell also makes it very explicit in his novel that Yoga is “simply a spine culture” and it “relinquishes its resistance to entropy, and the basic realization which meditation brings is n-dimensional” (Sebastian 32). The amazing quality in Buddhism, according to Hut, is that it enables us “to hold something lightly”, and he sums up his views thus: “in short, the whole approach of Buddhism appealed to me more because of it similarity to science”.68 All these views corroborate the importance Yoga is given in Durrell’s Quintet. One curious quality in Affad, the cultural hero and the contemplative scientist, is that he is a man of action, but only of passive action, and he always speaks very carefully. He is a man of limited words. Only when he realizes that the occasion and the person are very apt for passing on his hard-earned wisdom he is willing to share his insight. We have already noted that Affad’s wisdom is the result of his “long years of solitude and philosophic speculation which had gone to form the person now he was” (Sebastian 38). Perseverance is one of Affad’s main qualities. Ricard observes that “In the case of contemplative science, direct proof is afforded by the transformation that occurs in a person who undertakes spiritual training with sufficient perseverance”.69 “Perseverance” is an essential quality for a Yogi. In order to carry out his spiritual task intelligently, Affad, like the Dalai Lama, assimilates in him all the latest ideas that are available in the world. With this all-inclusive attitude and approach to human life, he understands that “Einstein’s non-discrete field, Groddeck’s ‘it’, and Pursewarden’s ‘heraldic universe’ were all one and the same concepts and would easily answer to the formulations of Patanjali” (Sebastian 28). Thupten Jinpa writes in Buddhism and Science that Gendun Chophel sees the modern scientific understanding of matter as dynamic energy, possibly a reference to Einstein’s e=mc2, to provide powerful empirical confirmation of the fundamental Buddhist insight on the ever fluctuating, impermanent nature of things.70

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Durrell also makes a confusing reference to Einstein’s famous equation in Constance, where ‘e’, it seems, stands for phallic energy (Constance 323). This is another example which reveals Durrell’s clever habit of confusing his readers. Few readers can understand what he means by quoting Einstein’s famous scientific equation in the novel. The fact that science is not interested in human happiness is generally accepted today, because science could provide only comforts and not peace. Science has also proved that it is interested only in its own intellectual pursuit. Buddhism, on the other hand, is an inner science, “completely interested in human happiness”. Therefore, by giving total focus on the complementarities of Buddhism and science in his Quintet, Durrell is searching for a synthesis that can increase human happiness. The characters in Durrell’s novel, barring those who participate in violence and war, are either engaged in learning or in examining the working of human consciousness. The adventures of Affad, which are inner, are sure to make a drastic impact on the consciousness of readers. The lasting mental serenity which Affad achieves as a result of his adventures, and as a result of his liberated self, is expected to create in the minds of readers a desire to achieve a similar soothing state in them, and they must be longing to possess such a pure and lucid consciousness. They had already witnessed Affad’s sexual adventure and now when they witness his heroic adventure caused by the “enormous attraction of death”, they may see the reading of the novel as a contemplative exercise, with a metaphysical thrill of achieving an awareness of their cosmic self. The pure consciousness that helps Affad to surpass all hurdles in his life is what any reader would like to attain in his life. Affad’s adventure becomes successful because the people around him like Constance and Blanford could realize its value and try to incorporate it in their lives. Similarly, a novel can become successful only when readers accept the wisdom contained in it and assimilate it in their lives. It is the philosophical nature of the Quintet that keeps it from ordinary readers. In the Quintet, the literary device of contrast, as we observed in the last chapter of this book, helps the novelist to heighten the heroism of Affad. The contrast cited there was between the bleeding in war and the menstrual flow that we find in Constance. In fact, the contrast given in the novel is on a wider scale. The baser passion in the form of racism and nationalism is contrasted to the higher passions of Affad for universal love. This contrast also enables the writer to expose the difference between suffering and happiness. Division in the human soul caused by the wrong perception of the self is contrasted to the organic wholeness which Affad achieves in his life. The collective death in war is contrasted to Affad’s

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gnostic death; “the big trick which enables one to die with profit”, as Akkad puts it (Monsieur 11). Fear and anxiety which occupy the first half of the novel is contrasted to the calm serenity and the freedom which Affad and Constance share after their union. Hatred is replaced with love, and terror gives way to compassion. Insanity is very strongly contrasted to the sanity that overpowers the characters later on. Durrell makes it abundantly clear in his novel that the psychic problems are created by the negative emotions operating in human souls. Therefore, the modern hero shows that he must gain great transforming experience. Only a manyleveled being like Affad, who reaches pure consciousness, can fulfill these complicated tasks. “Such men”, Joseph Campbell observes by quoting Ortega, aim at altering the course of things; they refuse to repeat gestures that custom, tradition, or biological instincts force them to make. These men we call heroes, because to be a hero means to be out of many, to be oneself.71

This is the great heroism of Affad: he is just one out of many. Under normal circumstances, Affad behaves like an ordinary man with ordinary emotions. Whenever the occasion demands, he becomes suddenly enlightened and uses his accumulated wisdom to respond positively. Huxley says, “Thus enlightened, the Avatar can reveal the way of enlightenment to others and help them actually to become what they potentially are”.72 In fact, Livia had read Huxley well and she had given a book of him to Blanford, which had set him dreaming of the “faraway peoples educated in harmlessness” (Constance 12). Affad has the real experience of living a harmless life and his qualities like desirelessness, non-attachment, holy indifference, and his “cheerful acceptance of affliction” make him a Perennial Philosopher. For greater emphasis, Huxley is once again quoted here: “Perennial Philosophers are primarily concerned with liberation and enlightenment”.73 Affad, who is a “cerebrotonic”, has no desire to dominate. He wants only to live and let live. As Bhaskar points out, “This accessing of our higher or essential selves makes it possible for us to act more spontaneously, rightly, creatively, compassionately, tolerantly than we normally do”.74 All these noble qualities in Affad single him out from other characters in the novel. Affad has also assimilated in him all the three graces which Huxley explains in his book: animal grace, human grace, and spiritual grace.75 A Perennial Philosopher, adds Huxley, does it in three ways - by teaching the true doctrine in a world blinded by voluntary ignorance; by inviting souls to a “carnal love” of his humanity, not indeed

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There cannot be a better way of explaining the role of Affad in the Quintet, though these words were not written by Huxley with the character of Affad in his mind. There is absolutely no doubt that Durrell has cast the character of Affad as “a channel of grace”. He is a man who could listen to his voice within him: Thus if one has accessed the voice within, which is at one with the envelope outside, then one is going to find an overwhelming sense of subjective peace, harmony and fulfillment, which one will seek to carry over, in loving acts designed to bring harmony in the outside world. This is the way from inner peace to outer peace”.77

The “channel of grace” thus earned by Affad is immediately translated into a channel of grace for others, for the outer world. This is a great Gandhian quality in Affad. What is visible through his character, or can be watched through the order of his priority in life, can be put in the words of Bhaskar again: unlock yourself and then you will be a maximally efficacious agent in unblocking the constraints on the realization of beings everywhere and so to the greater fulfillment of your dharma or potential in life.78

To what extent our hero in the Quintet has become an “efficacious agent” or a Dharmic agent is for the readers to measure. Why Affad is called a contemplative scientist in this book is absolutely clear now. He is a contemplative using his life for various spiritual experiments, like a true yogi. His intuitive wisdom gathered from all sources available to him enables him to liberate himself from the yoke of the ego and ignorance. To reflect this aspect of life in literature has been Durrell’s lifelong desire as an artist. It is with his liberated self that Affad looks at the human problems that he finds around him, but like Buddha he takes the task of finding solutions to the problems with a calm and composed mind. As already stated, he realizes that it is one’s mind that is important, and all that one can do is to take care of one’s own problems without looking for an outside agency or institution, something like what J. K, too, was advising his audience. Ricard in his essay, “On the Relevance of Contemplative Science”, asks, “What is the need for a contemplative science?” and he answers that it is required for “true inner well-being”. It is “behind every experience in life”.79 Knowing that science is not interested in this “inner well-being”, Affad asserts that

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“Science… In an ideal world should be love”. (Constance 160). His stress on the importance of love speaks volumes about his character. It is very difficult to trace the sources of the character, Affad. Durrell must have taken the essential qualities required for molding this character from many sources; from Campbell, from Huxley, from the Gita, from any source he could reach. But the one person he could not have missed is J. Krishnamurti. A look at the words which Claude Bragdon uses to highlight the greatness of Krishnamurti can reveal the similarities between Krishnamurti and Affad. He calls him an “avatar” who “radiated that order of psychic energy”. He is “a living paradox”, a “wonder”, and an “embodiment of a power” and “wisdom”. He is a “destroyer of agreeable illusions” and Bragdon praises Krishnamurti for his “spiritual stature”.80 It is difficult to sum up the qualities of Affad without the help of these words. It was pointed out in the second chapter of this book that Henry Miller and Huxley were greatly attracted by the spiritual qualities of Krishnamurti, and Durrell also must have been tremendously influenced by the magic qualities of this “world teacher”. The praise which Miller showers on Krishnamurti can be used to explain the role of Affad: If he has a mission it is to strip men of their illusions, to knock away the false supports of ideals, beliefs, fetishes, every kind of crutch, and thus render back to man the full majesty, the full potency, of his humanity.81

What we need is a society that gives freedom to the individual to choose his destiny; and as Huxley says, “a society is good to the extent that it renders contemplation possible for its members”.82 Affad proves through his role in the novel what the quality of contemplation can do to our society.

CHAPTER FIVE ILLUSION AND REALITY: THE EXISTENTIAL DILEMMA

“Art is not art unless it threatens your very existence. Could you repeat that, please, more slowly?” SOME NOTES FOR CLEA (by Pursewarden) (AQ 879).

So far the discussion has been around the main psychological differences of the central characters in the novels of Lawrence Durrell, the differences between those whose ego is the master and of those who are totally willing to surrender their ego. In both cases, it is reality which appears to be changing, or an impression is felt by the actors of the events that their experienced reality is under a metaphysical cloud. A character with his stable ego feels that the world is made for him; it is out there to assist him in gratifying his ego, whereas the one with a submissive ego realizes that his lived experience was only an illusion, or he feels that everything outside his self was merely the construct of his finite mind. Ultimately, a character like Darley feels that “It was life itself that was a fiction” (AQ 792). Lawrence Durrell’s observation, as it appeared in “The Kneller Tape”, is that “Human beings are really walking question marks, hows and whys and perhapses.”1 This is the kind of impression one gets from Durrell’s novels, because the perpetual search his characters make is for an answer to “hows and whys”, while the seeker is finally fated to satisfy himself with mere “perhapses’. Durrell’s novels can thus be read and enjoyed only by realizing these paradoxes in life, the paradoxes created by the characters when they go through their quest for realizing true reality. We are, after reading his novels, even forced to think like Macbeth, that after all “Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing”. In other words, Durrell deals with reality in his novels in such a way that we, as readers, are finally made aware that this finite world is only a Maya. True reality can be perceived only when we shed all our attachments to this phenomenal world. In short, one has to change from one’s dualistic attitude to a non-dualistic outlook, if all confusions created

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by material life are to be avoided. We have seen how Darley tried to achieve it in his life, how Affad succeeds in realizing it, and also how he makes it a reality in his real life. To cut the argument short, Durrell’s novels teach us that the more seriously we look at the world, the more our lives become complicated. That is why Darley decides to drop Alexandria from his memory and it is also why he resolves to train his self to be free from the memory of all complex relationships. Therefore, the sense of illusion created by the novelist in his stories requires a close analysis. Talking about Durrell’s views on life, Mulk Raj Anand says: It is coincidental with the idea of Shankara that in the Maya, in this illusionary world, we cannot do much to alleviate suffering. But Shankara thought that, with good karma, we can attain salvation in this world of illusion and attain immortality or transcendence or ananda. Durrell adopts this point of view, which makes him akin to Indian illusionism.2

Anand had read only the Quartet. If he had read the Quintet too, he would have definitely said something more about the philosophic basis on which the character of Affad is created and also about his attempt in the novel to “attain salvation in this world of illusion, to attain immortality or transcendence or ananda”. Darley, as pointed out, finally realizes the futility of trying to set order in his world, outside his life, as a way of seeking happiness in his self. Therefore, the illusory nature of this life, or the feeling that life is only a fiction, is maintained by him throughout in the Quartet, and we are finally inspired to ask why the novel ends with the words “Once upon a time”. But in the Quintet, though the theme of illusion is still maintained by the author, the novel shows how one can overcome this snare by learning to live with proper intuitive wisdom; and the novel thus becomes an illustration of how one can die in the proper sense, “with profit”. The main focus in this chapter is on Durrell’s treatment of illusion and reality in his novels, with a critical analysis about the way this subject helped him as an artist. The attempt here will be to see how he has used it to enrich the theme of his stories. It will also lead us to understand how the reality he constructs goes beyond the material reality, how it is to be perceived, and what exactly he means by the term “metarealism” (Livia 9). Before we undertake a full discussion on metarealism in the light of Durrell’s Quintet, a peep at the type of reality in the Quartet is needed to understand how it has contributed towards the birth of a new reality called metarealism. However, Durrell cautions us that to depict true reality is not an easy job for an artist. He told John Hawkes that “we are preaching from a privileged position and that writing

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isn’t sufficiently precise to actually encompass the reality with which we are trying to deal”.3 He, therefore, admits that it is a real test for any writer to experiment with reality. It affects the entire work, the theme, form, and even the characters as real individual beings. But there is also a clear advantage for a writer if he takes the idea of illusion as a literary device, because if he has to establish something as an illusion, he has to create first an event or a character as real, absolutely real or appearing as real. Only then can he demolish that reality and project it as illusion. A section of the Hindu philosophy accepts this fact as the situation in life. According to this assumption, nothing looks absurd or illusory in the first half of man’s life, till he has completely accomplished his physical needs, or till he completes his biological duties in this world. Only in the later part of his life does the world appear as Maya to him. Therefore, the act of creating reality and then demolishing it in a story has to be done realistically, without making it appear deliberate, by giving an impression to the readers that what is being demolished was once experienced as part of real life by the characters . This is the case with Darley. At the same time, the first half of Affad’s life comes to us only retrospectively in the novel. We know that Macbeth, at the end of his life, finds his life “a tale told by an idiot”, and we, as readers, share his views because the first part of his life, with his “overvaulting ambition”, was first given to us realistically by the dramatist. Macbeth recklessly rushed through his life, taking it too seriously, not knowing its illusory nature. Similarly we see Darley taking everything in Alexandria too seriously only to realize at the end of all the events in his life that “the destruction of my private Alexandria was necessary”, if he has to reset his self (AQ 370). In both these characters, Macbeth and Darley, the ego is at the centre, distorting reality. Darley, like Macbeth, is ambitious; he is overambitious, in a sense; he is too keen to sleep with a Justine who has no psychic “clutches” in her. Durrell, who borrowed the philosophy of illusionism from Indian metaphysics, knows that this sense of illusion comes only to those who have experienced life fully. First he builds up a reality by taking events from those human experiences which were lived without using proper wisdom or intuition, or from those indulgences in life without forethought, and then he recreates them as illusion by subjecting them to conscious reflection. Real reality or truth emerges when one sheds the veil of illusion, when all indulgences are refined through reflection. In other words, the realization of truth needs insight and not intelligence. The fact that no sense of sin is ever felt by his characters during the process of reflection is what makes the experience of reflection Oriental. According to the Hindu concept, as Durrell reminded Montalbetti in an interview,

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“ignorance and laziness” are behind the birth of sin. 4 As such, the sense of illusion is a retrospective realization, a positive realization in Durrell’s novels. This can be seen beautifully brought out in the novel, Siddhartha, by the famous novelist, Herman Hesse. If we closely watch the way Durrell develops the episodes in his story in order to give shape to a character like Darley, it will be seen that after a certain point in the story, after taking the events to a climatic stage, he psychologically demolishes almost every event he had painfully built, leaving behind a sense of meaninglessness and incompleteness in what the characters do. This is essential for the novelist because the real heroic action for him is the inner. He wants to set the stage for the inner reflection of his hero. But, as already noted, it is never shown in the form of any sense of sin, or of regret, or of seeking redemption leading to salvation. Every event appears as real, as true. We watch all the romantic scenes in Durrell’s novels with great interest because, like D. H. Lawrence, he is superb in portraying the sexual encounters of his characters, in treating both the serious and the ludicrous. By the time the readers start comparing such episodes in the novel with their own experiences in life, feeling proud of being the custodians of such sensual happiness, the author begins to expose the hollowness of all these sensations in life. This is the main difference between Lawrence and Durrell. Lawrence preserves the sanctity of touch, and retains its memory as a valuable experience. He does not make Mellors and Connie feel that their sexual union was ever a ludicrous act. Durrell’s clever use of illusionism in sexual reality is what makes him metaphysical, makes him an Indian visionary. For example, this is how, in the Quartet, he describes the sight of a sexual engagement: They lay there like the victims of some terrible accident, clumsily engaged …. But nevertheless I recognized that this had been fixed immutably, for all time – this eternally tragic and ludicrous position of engagement (AQ

152). This typical observation of Durrell has an echo of Zimmer in it: “For each goes on doing what already has always been done, continually imagining himself to be doing something different.”5 As this “ridiculous impasse” in human life, as Zimmer says, looks so funny that quoting his full description of it will only be very apt here: People must be completely blind to go on submitting to the spell of the same old allurements; enthralled by the deluding enticements that have seduced every being that ever lived; hailing with expectation, as a new and thrilling adventure, the same trite deceptions of desire as have been

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Zimmer’s words remind Darley’s response to his lived events, his realization later in his life that most of his actions were ludicrous. This must be a shock to the reader, to his ego, because very seldom does one think that one’s sexual experience is a primitive act. If at all he ever thinks so, he will not be able to satisfy his ego as all the charm and pleasure associated with this act will then immediately evaporate. If we look at this pleasure-inducing “engagement” as an “eternally tragic and ludicrous” event in life, the ego will have to make compromises with the illusory nature of it and it will have to reconcile itself to such a reality. Huxley’s remark, in this respect, is pertinent here: “self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion”.7 The sense of joy which the readers derive from the sight of a sexual encounter in the novel and the pleasure it evokes in them, when they compare that event with their own experiences, with their similar lived sexual “engagements” in the past, are soon demolished by Durrell when he subjects the event to his character’s metaphysical reflection. Thus, as in the case of Darley, a sense of illusion sets in in the reader who, otherwise, is in the habit of taking everything in his life with a feeling of narcissistic joy, and now he realizes that he has only been repeating an act that has been going on eternally. It is one such moment which makes Darley feel whether his life is real or whether it is only a fiction. “I am an expert in love – every man believes himself to be one”, says Darley (AQ 339). We should also remember that the same novelist, in another place in the story, describes the sight of another two lovers, Nessim and Melissa, when they appear as two intimate lovers, in a different strain: “It was like the first morning since the creation of the world” (165). But the difference here lies in the fact that the actors involved here are not conscious of the act, because it takes place quite naturally. A child is born out of this union, the child who later becomes Darley’s only companion on the island where his literary baby takes birth. We have already examined the confusions in Darley’s consciousness when Balthazar hands over his Interlinear to him: I have begun to copy it whole – the whole of it – slowly and painfully, not only to understand more clearly wherein it differs from my own version of reality, but also to glimpse it as a separate entity (340).

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The main surprise the Interlinear generates in Darley is that a reality familiar to him, an experienced reality, is now appearing here for a second person as different “versions”, or as a separate “entity”. It is already critically established that Durrell uses Einstein’s theory to prove that truth is relative and the idea of relativity enables the author to establish the unreality of Darley’s subjective reality. Darley thus begins to doubt the permanent nature of reality in an object or in a person, because he now understands that reality is something which the observer imposes on the object. Therefore, the emerging real reality is that the veracity of any reality can be doubted, and any other observer, like Balthazar, can demolish one’s perceived reality any time, in any fashion he likes. It is also likely that, like Balthazar; anyone can submit yet another interlinear to Darley to contradict the reality which appeared to him not only true, but also as very dear to him. As William S. Waldron points out, “‘others’ play an indispensable role in defining ‘us’”.8 But, such “interlinear”, or relative interpretation, provides one an opportunity to look within one’s self and ask whether the “me” who created the “my own version of reality” was not the real culprit by distorting the reality out there. The uncertainty in the truthfulness of “my own version of reality” prompted Durrell to accept Georg Groddeck’s wonderful idea of “It”. The “determined view of another eye upon events which I interpreted in my own way” creates an existential dilemma in Darley, and he is compelled to ask himself whether “I lived them or they lived me” (AQ 340). This also forces him to doubt the honesty in truth: “Truth has no heart” (340), he remembers Pursewarden telling him so. The paradoxical difficulty of man in accepting the illusory nature of what has already been felt true, therefore, is directly related to the difficulties the novelist experiences in the creation of his characters in a novel: “Who dares to capture the fleeting image of truth in all its gruesome multiplicity?”, asks Darley (764). The main stumbling block for Darley in achieving greater happiness in his life is that he always finds that reality never carries any close resemblance to truth. “Truth is double-bladed, you see”, he warns (797). Durrell probably finds that all these inherent paradoxes in the self were already resolved in a better way by the Hindu sages in ancient India. He writes in Caesar’s Vast Ghost that the Hindu “pivots reality and reorients it towards a new psychic epicentre, an opening on THE REAL NEWS, a bewitching ikon of all time” (CVG 201). We will slowly see how Durrell has evolved this new reality, which he noted in Livia as “metareality”. The structure of Durrell’s famous novel, The Alexandria Quartet, is a maze of complex relationships between truth and reality, reality and the self, and the self and the other. Caught in the vortex of this insoluble

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situation, Darley is forced to re-evaluate his personal experiences, and as he does so, he gains new awareness. As he continues to reassess his self, or when he tries to find justifications for his bygone actions, he finds both the place and his actions losing their original meaning. Innumerable examples are given in Durrell’s novels to stress this fact, the fact of the events dear to one’s life (ego?) losing their subjective significance and meaning. But the most curious paradox seen in his novels is when he deals with the subject of human love and sex. Almost all the memories of Darley’s ecstatic sensual moments get nullified when a philosophical comment made by Pursewarden or Balthazar provokes him into reflection. For example, Pursewarden says that “we seek to supplement the emptiness of our individuality through love, and for a brief moment enjoy the illusion of completeness. But it is only illusion” (377). It is imperative for us to pause here for a while and ask what Durrell exactly means by “illusion of completeness”. He also reminds us of “the emptiness of our individuality”. Actually, an individual considers his love as the most precious thing in his life because it gives him a sense of completeness in life. But Pursewarden’s comments make us realize that our sense of individuality, the sense of love, and the sense of completeness are only “an illusion”. “Love joins and then divides”, he says, but he also repeats “How else would we be growing?” (377). Thus, the truth that gets finally revealed in the novel is that though the growth of one’s consciousness is directly dependent on several factors in life, as we have seen in our discussions so far, the most fascinating one is the realization that this sense of illusion which creeps into our life helps us in the growth of our integrated consciousness, about which we may not be initially aware or conscious. For Durrell, as an artist and as a novelist, this sense of illusion is very important, because this enables him to introduce the metaphysics of reflective cancellation. Roy Bhaskar asks, “For unless an illusion or a contradiction actually existed, what would be the point of unmasking the illusion or correcting the contradiction?”9 The sense of illusion helps Durrell in establishing his adamant view that there is no stable ego and also helps him to prove that there is nothing like a personality. It helps him in his argument that there cannot be a stable character in fiction. “And if human personality is an illusion?” he asks and then argues that even biology tells us that “every single cell in our bodies is replaced every seven years by another” (AQ 729). Durrell told Kenneth Young in an interview, “But I wanted to go a step further, and by my representation of the play of human passions to suggest that the human personality as such is an illusion.”10 The man who once felt that the woman he loved was a “block of my life” (AQ 21) now regrets that “I hold in my arms something

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like a fountain of flesh” (729). His metaphysical doubts whether there is really a personality, a self, and the other, persist till the end of Durrell’s Quintet. The perpetual uncertainty about human personality depicted in his novels is likely to prompt his readers to think, probably it may make them wonder, whether they too are not mere “paper characters”. They may also wonder whether some of their actions in life have any real meaning. All these strange ideas about the constitution of the self and the psyche given in the novel are meant to create a sense of illusion about our lived reality. It can lure us to undertake our quest for the real: to ascertain whether “people are as much of an illusion” (306), or mere “habitpatterns” (768), or “great honeycomb of faces and gestures”: “Human beings are like pipe-organs, I thought. You pull out a stop marked ‘Lover’ or ‘Mother’ and the requisite emotions are unleashed—tears or sighs or endearments” (768). It will compel man at least to see what exactly he is (700). Darley is finally busy cancelling all those realities he (mis)conceived earlier, with his own eyes, without ever thinking how others must have conceived those realities. In short, Darley’s experience shows that the sense of illusion is the product of one’s reflection, and as T. R. V Murti remarks, “reflective cancellation points to a higher stage of consciousness”.11 All these, therefore, point out that the action for a Durrell character is at the conscious level. Thus, it becomes obvious that Durrell has very skilfully interwoven all these ideas into the structure of his Quartet in order to arrive at true reality: subjective reality first, then the intrusion of the Interlinear to create space for self-interrogation. The confusions created by the interlinear then demand self-reflection and reflection then leads to cancellations. Next the cancellation helps inward realization; this realization then gives rise to confusions about the nature of the self and the other, the entire process of all these actions further force him to reassess the meaning of life, and finally Darley is seen attempting to reach a state of pure consciousness; or to use Durrell’s own words, he tries to enter his Heraldic Universe. The words “attempting” and “tries” in the above sentence are to be particularly noted, because in Durrell’s novels only Affad succeeded in reaching a state of pure consciousness. The Alexandria Quartet, therefore, is a novel in which the writer uses the idea of illusion and reality superbly through the character of Darley, the protagonist. Let us remember here once again that Darley cancels from his memory all those subjective experiences in order to realize truth, to realize real reality, which also means to realize his true self. The fact is that the Quartet is full of mirrors, where the characters frequently seek their own reflections. All these reflections are proved false when the focus later on

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shifts to Darley’s inner reflections. The readers thus find themselves in a situation where all the reflections received from outer mirrors in the novel have to be cancelled, if truth is ever to be determined. They now understand that the real truth in the Quartet gets reflected only through Darley’s inner mirror in which all impressions get erased and renewed as his consciousness grows. Here reality gets turned into illusions and illusions demand the realization of a new reality. In short, Darley serves as a mirror, or the novel serves as a mirror, helping the reader to cancel all his illusions about life, helping him finally enter the “reality prime”. Murti, like Bhaskar, observes, “If we do not have the experiences of illusion or disillusionment, we cannot start our enquiry into the real.”12 This kind of approach to reality in life is an important idea in Indian metaphysics. We must negate what has been taken as real. What appears may never be real, the essence is the real. Also in order to realize the real, the true, one must withdraw or detach the self from the content. At this point, remembering Suzuki’s analysis of the differences between the East and the West, which was quoted at the beginning of the first chapter of the present book, will be helpful to readers. One wonderful characteristic of the idea of illusion used in the Quartet is that it helps the novelist in evolving a new narrative strategy. So far we have been mainly looking at the structure of the Quartet only in the light of Einstein’s relativity theory. We can also try to have a different interpretation of it, a view of the structure from the perspective of Indian metaphysics. Schopenhauer, we know, is a philosopher who was greatly influenced by Indian metaphysics. Joseph Campbell in his Creative Mythology points out how Schopenhauer’s concept of the will is related “to the Indian idea of brahman, which is identical with the self (atman) of all beings (“thou art that”, ta tvam asi)”.13 He describes Schopenhauer’s will as: “One’s own sheer will to live, which is simply one’s own share of the general will to live that is the ground of being of all nature, manifest as well in the physical laws…”.14 It is an idea germinating from the Indian concept of ta tvam asi, thou art that. Durrell gives us the first novel in the Quartet in the form of Darley’s direct experience in Alexandria, his subjective interpretation of Alexandria, his “private Alexandria”, as he calls it. Initially, he is unaware that his will to live in Alexandria is part of the general will. He is unaware of its illusory nature. All the events in his life appear as facts to him, real; they are the events which were really lived and experienced by him. His emotions, all pain and pleasures, were derived from these realities in which he was an honest participant. His journey to his Self really means his metaphysical journey from such a life to his ultimate realization of “thou” (Darley) “art” only “That”, only a part

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of that general will, the cosmic will. Cancelling his sweet memories was quite painful to him, and he also did not envisage that a situation would arrive in his life which would compel him to cancel the realities with which he wrote his first novel, his autobiographical work. But then we notice that Balthazar is intruding into his writer’s life with his own interpretation of the same reality. Balthazar’s interpretation of Alexandria, or his interlinear, is to be taken as a representation of the general will. Accepting Balthazar’s interlinear marks the beginning of the process of Darley’s surrendering his will to the general will. Darley is compelled to re-examine everything that enabled him to seek happiness and meaning in his life. In fact, the structure of the novel takes a fresh turn here. The re-examination of his earlier views means a reassessment of his self, which, in turn, should also mean a reassessment of the reality that he thought was real. This process helps the artist to bring back once again all places and people associated with the life of Darley into a new light. That is how the narration gets novelty. Finally, as Durrell told Peter Adam, man’s feeling that he lives in the present is an illusion, absolute illusion.15 The insight the Quartet thus gives us is that our cosmic realization requires the movement of consciousness from subjective to relative, then to objective, and finally to the self, as is the case of Stephen Dadalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In other words, the Quartet too illustrates the growth of an artist, or it reveals that the eternal truth of “Thou art That” can be applied by every artist who makes an attempt to capture real reality, the cosmic reality. The word “lighting” is a key word for Durrell. He enlightens Montalbetti in an interview how reality can be changed by changing the lighting.16 He also told him that an Agatha Christie story could be changed by changing the lighting. To another interviewer, Corinne AlexandreGarner, he repeated the same observation. He says that by changing the lighting even Tibetan reality can be brought into fiction.17 If we look at his work in this light, we can understand that Durrell is changing his “lighting” from Justine to Balthazar, from Balthazar to Mountolive, from Mountolive to Clea in order to show how Darley’s “sheer will” merges into a cosmic will: into thou art that, ta tvam asi. Or, in other words, the lighting is repeatedly changed in each novel of the Quartet by the artist in order to reach that true reality, the cosmic reality. Darley interrogates himself in order to capture the ultimate reality as a writer, to capture the reality perceived by his changed self, his cosmic self, or the Self. If we also can change our lighting here, we can see that Durrell, along with the idea of the relativity theory, tries to “bring in the Tibetan element of illusion” in his Quartet. By rewriting the same novel, the novelist is able

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to show how the lighting in Darley’s inner world undergoes changes as he moves from his self to “Self”. Thus, what really takes place in the Quartet is a metaphysical exercise in which Darley, the man, is re-seeking truth to understand his actual place in Alexandria, or among its people, which macroscopically means that he is seeking to know his place in this universe--his Cosmic place. He can do so only by altering his mistaken notion of time, place, and the self. He is now trying to attain, to borrow Bhaskar’s phrase, a kind of “supramental consciousness”: In this way as far as possible, we draw back the curtains of our thinking mind, and lift the veil of time, to let the presence of our ground-state consciousness into present awareness and activity.18

If interpreted in Indian terms, Darley is trying to seek Nirvana. According to Capra, “Nirvana is the equivalent of moksha in Hindu philosophy and, being a state of consciousness beyond all intellectual concepts, it defies further description”.19 Whether Darley discovered his true self, or whether he ever achieved Nirvana, is another question. He did certainly engage himself in the exercise of “dropping of errors”. What is pertinent here is to see how much of the philosophical confusion of illusion and reality, the rope or the snake syndrome, helped Durrell in working out both the structure and style of his Quartet. Here Eastern metaphysics, like the relativity theory, seems to have helped the novelist in depicting reality truthful. Therefore, Durrell in his novel is seen making the growth of Darley’s consciousness correspond, in a contrasting scale, to the degree of delusions created by his “discriminating mind”, as his subjective will continues to surrender to the cosmic will. Darley asks, “is not life itself a fairy-tale which we lose the power of apprehending as we grow?” (AQ 661) This approach to life redefines his attitude to love too: “I saw now that my own Justine had indeed been an illusionist’s creation, raised upon the faulty armature of misinterpreted words, actions, gestures”, and further he goes on to reason it out till he realizes that “the real culprit was my love which had invented an image on which to feed” (694). A sense of absurdity in everything related to life creeps into the mind of Darley as everyone around him now looks like mere “playing-card characters”. His “my own Justine” is now seen with his reflexive mind as “another woman, every woman, like a lay figure in a dressmaker’s shop, waiting for the poet to clothe her, breathe life into her” (694). It becomes further clear to Darley that the reality of a woman comes into light only when the lover or the poet “breathes life into her” (694). In other words, the reality is actually

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breathed into life by the observer, depending on his place, time, and the state of his consciousness. “How valuable a lesson this was, both to art and to life!” says Durrell: “I also saw that lover and loved, observer and observed, throw down a field about each other” (694). We have seen how deeply Krishnamurti has studied this aspect of reality which led him to his assertion that the observer is the observed. It is in the Quintet, as it was pointed out earlier, that Durrell’s protagonist acts and lives with his hard earned insight: “I at last managed to gain a foothold in that part of reality which was probably my own self” (Monsieur 120). It is this “foothold” that is missing in Darley, and he is fated to go through a kind of mental agony throughout his life. Once we get this foothold, a sense of realization comes in us that there is nothing like separate individuals in this universe, and our new sense of reality will give us a totally different picture of the self and the universe: “the assumption of separateness from the rest of the being is an absurd illusion”, says Bhaskar.20 There is a touch of Schopenhauer, or India, when Durrell says that the “People are not separate individuals as they think; they are variations on themes outside themselves” (Constance 378). However, he does not want to give an impression to the readers that he is manipulating reality in his stories. On the contrary, he tells us that life is always pointing in the right direction, it is always bliss-side up if only we know how to take it. Perhaps. Perhaps. But to take it you must begin by giving, and this is hard to learn (Monsieur 263).

Yes, to “begin by giving” is definitely “hard to learn”, the Quintet shows that. To enjoy a life with “bliss-side up” needs adjusting of our attitude to life, to our self, and to the way we interpret reality. Thus, finally, Durrell’s focus as a novelist turns more towards the idea that happiness rests in the art of “giving”, which is an inevitable prerequisite for attaining happiness in life, if mental tranquillity is ever to be achieved. This is where Durrell could be seen appearing as a metarealist. Before “metarealism” is taken up for a brief analysis, it is essential to quote here from the article named “Lawrence Durrell’s The Avignon Quintet: A Key to His Achievement in Postmodern Fiction”, written by Dianne Vipond. She writes, “Metafictional high jinks of this order transform prose into what Blanford calls ‘metarealism’.”21 Then she quotes Sutcliffe in the same page: “Reality is old-fashioned nowadays for the writer’s uses. We must count upon art to revive it and bring it up to date (Monsieur 9)”. She has also linked it up with Sutcliffe’s assertion in Quinx that novel should be a “metaphor for the human condition” (Quinx 136). Vipond points out:

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Durrell’s attitude to psyche, sex, love and death which came up for discussion in this book, in the previous chapters, is based on this “very different kind of realism” which Vipond writes about. It is her reference to “metarealism” which prompted the present writer to take up the work of Roy Bhasker to study what metarealism really means. An online discussion the present writer had with Vipond to understand her view on metarealism has thrown more enlightenment on this subject. It is quoted here with her kind permission: One of the things that fascinate me most about Durrell (and John Fowles) is his/their use of metafiction, i.e., fiction about fiction and the relationship between fiction and reality. Both writers were pioneers in the field (if we exclude Cervantes and Laurence Sterne), and I believe Durrell took it as far as it could go in the Quintet. When I came across the word metarealism at the bottom of page 9 of Livia, I thought it was particularly significant because Durrell seems to be describing the manner in which he is trying to express the inexpressible, i.e., the linguistic medium he is manipulating in an effort to penetrate to a spiritual realm beyond the materiality of human experience. I think for Durrell the real extends beyond the purely sensory, an inclusivity that is very difficult to explain rationally but nevertheless exists and perhaps may best be conceived spatially but eludes conceptualization and is more properly intuited—a kind of immediacy of knowledge—the heraldic universe, perhaps? Sorry for going on so metaphysically; this may be more confusing than clarifying. At risk of going on too long, I’ll leave the links between metafiction and metarealism to you. (Just as an aside, Durrell’s term “metarealism” is very useful in describing what I think Fowles is trying to get at in his novel Daniel Martin—differently than Durrell but related).23

Vipond is right when she says that Durrell uses metarealism as a linguistic medium to penetrate the “spiritual realm beyond the materiality of human experience”. This also supports the assumption that the creation of the character, Affad, is based on the desire of the novelist to reflect the realm beyond the materiality of human experience. We have noted that it is from the Hindus that Durrell learns the spiritual ways of transcending material

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reality, learns to reach the state of Brahman, which, in fact, is the metarealistic realm. Bhaskar claims that “To capture the sense in which non-duality sustains and underpins the world of duality I have coined the term ‘metareality’.”24 Purely out of curiosity, I asked Vipond again whether she could enlighten me how Bhaskar could claim to have coined this word when it was already there in Durrell’s Livia, though there is a slight difference in the style of spelling the word between Durrell and Bhaskar. Here is Vipond’s clarification: Clearly, Durrell used the term in 1978 in Livia, long before Bhaskar came up with it, but the prefix has been around since the Greeks and was very much in the air in the sixties when William Gass coined “metafiction”. My guess is that Bhaskar came up with it on his own without knowing that Durrell had used it almost thirty years earlier. It seems a very useful term with several possible definitions and one that I have used on several occasions in critical contexts, always with acknowledgment of its genesis in Durrell. Guess it’s your job to explain the similarities and differences between Bhaskar’s use of it and Durrell’s. Fun!”25

In a sense, going through Roy Bhaskar’s books on metarealism has been a great fun, rather a metaphysical fun; but they are surely useful in understanding Durrell. Bhaskar is not a literary writer or a critic. Therefore, we must look at his works purely from the philosophical side. In one of his books, meta-Reality, Roy spells the word meta-reality as “meta-Reality” and in another one, Reflections on Meta-Reality; he writes it as “Meta-Reality”. But they are, in every sense, what Durrell uses as “metarealism”. Roy, while explaining his theory of metarealism, points out the importance of individual enlightenment: “there can be no universal utopian secular society without individual Buddha-hood, in that sense, individual enlightenment.”26 This, obviously, must remind readers of Affad’s “individual Buddha-hood”. We have to understand that Bodhisattva is the principle on which the character of Affad is created in the Quintet and it is towards this end that Darley tries to make his inner journey in the Quartet. The idea of seeking enlightenment by alleviating the sufferings of others is the principle of Bodhisattva. Enough comparisons can be cited from both Durrell and Roy to show that Durrell’s use of Indian metaphysics can be understood in a better way after studying the philosophical interpretations of the word meta-Realism enunciated by Bhaskar. However, the definition of meta-Realism that Bhaskar gives is not anything new, though he has very sincerely explained it in his books in an easy and digestible form. His ideas can be found

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scattered in almost all the texts on Indian philosophy. Ultimately, what comes out after reading Bhaskar is that Indian metaphysics is metarealistic in all respects, as it is about the ways of reaching the realm beyond materialism. In short, we can say that non-dualism is metarealism. Therefore, it can be surmised that what the thinkers like Heinrich Zimmer, Krishnamurti, Joseph Campbell, Huxley, Capra, and several Indian philosophers, like Radhakrishnan, speak about Indian philosophy is, in a way, metarealistic. In other words, all the discussions we have had in this book move towards a metaphysical understanding of metarealism, a realism which Durrell aimed to achieve in the Quintet. Bhaskar begins his philosophical discussion on metarealism by saying that “the world of duality dominates and occludes its non-dual basis or ground”, and he continues: In our world it is duality, and its characteristic forms of reasoning and behaviour, instrumentalist, mediated, conditional, heteronomous, forced, attached, analytical (in the worst sense of dividing and breaking up), which rules.27

Most of the philosophical points quoted here from Bhaskar were discussed in the second chapter of this book, in the light of Krishnamurti’s metaphysical views. Bhaskar also echoes Suzuki. Bhaskar, by touching upon the dual nature of an individual’s mind, also indirectly touches upon the general nature of men in this universe, and then elucidates how one can become non-dual in one’s life. He argues in his books why man must first have a non-dual reality, which, we know, is an argument that is integral to Durrell’s novels. Durrell says in his Key: This question of the inherent duality in things, and acceptance of it as part of the human limitation, you will find both in relativity-view and later, when you come upon the term ‘ambivalence’ in Freud”, (Key 47).

He also says, like Roy, that “The characteristic of this age is duality and a non-moral view of things” (46). We have already observed, by taking relevant examples from the Quartet, how Darley makes his journey from his dualistic state to a non-dualistic state of his self. If Darley’s transcendence is interpreted in Roy’s terms, we can say that Darley is “shedding” his “heteronomy”, about which a reference was made in the present book when the importance of Koans among the Zen Buddhists was cited as an example: of “shedding” or “dropping.”28 In short, the act of dropping or shedding of all that is inconsistent with the true or basic self is what Eastern metaphysics is mainly about, and it is what Durrell probably

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means when he says “We are moving towards a new metaphysics–at any rate new for us” (Key 85). We know that the words “new for us” ironically indicate the prevailing attitude of the people in the West, particularly when he was writing his “Key”. As early as in the days of writing his Key to Modern British Poetry, Durrell had in his mind his sense of responsibility as a writer to create a reality which transcends the reality of duality: “So the modern artist is shouldering his responsibility as a creature entangled in opposites which it is his business to restore in the interests of the general pattern” (67). Readers cannot avoid noticing Durrell’s emphasis on words like “restore” and “discover” in his novels, with which he makes us realize that his endeavour as an artist is to re-establish or re-empower what was once innate in man. Similarly, Roy says, “To reclaim what we have lost, we only have to recognize ourselves for what we are.”29 Throughout his arguments in his books about “Meta-Realism”, Bhaskar’s emphasis, like that of Durrell, is on the self. Bhaskar’s definition of meta-Realism or Meta-Realism, as already hinted, is nothing but the Indian view of reality, but without the word metarealism attached to it. Durrell’s oriental insight, as noted earlier, is the result of his deep studies of various Buddhist and Hindu texts, and is also from the direct knowledge he acquired through his relationships with his Indian friends, or with his literary associations with those who were great Indologists. For example, in Key he praises Huxley’s book: In a recent anthology Aldous Huxley tries to show that non-attachment is the philosophic basis of all religions, and that all mystics agree about it. If you look at the book honestly and carefully, without certain prejudice, I think you will be forced to agree. ‘The Perennial Philosophy’ stretches like a bridge between Lao Tzu and St. John of the Cross, between Eliot and Rilke, between Auden and John Donne (Key 85).

In fact, Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy is a book on metarealism, without the word being used anywhere in the text by the author. So, there is nothing new in Roy’s arguments, which one cannot find in Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, or in similar books on Indian metaphysics. But, it is Roy Bhaskar who undertakes an analysis of Eastern metaphysics under the title Meta-realism for the first time. So, his efforts to make the perennial philosophy reappear as metarealism deserve great admiration. “But the nature of this one Reality”, writes Huxley: is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit.30

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In Durrell’s Quintet, the character with a loving nature and the one who lives with a pure heart, we know, is Affad. He fulfils, or makes sincere attempts in his life to fulfil, all those “certain conditions” mentioned by Huxley in his book. According to Huxley, the illustration of the doctrine of the self belongs to “autology rather than psychology.”31 It is psychology that we, as readers, find in the Quartet, whereas Durrell’s Quintet, we can say, is autological rather than psychological. The word Autology is “derived from the Greek ‘Autos’, meaning self, and ‘Logos’, meaning ‘Treatise’. Hence Autology is the science which treats of self, as biology is the science which treats of life”, explains E. R. Moras, the author of Autology. He further adds, “Therefore, Autology as a science has an incidental offspring as a Practise – a ‘practice’ which enables the “sick” ego (or you) to ‘manage’ back to its ‘well’ self.”32 Perennial Philosophy or metarealism, as such, should be seen as a science which enables the ego to “manage back” to the “well-self”, or to the eternal self. This is what Durrell also does; he tries to show in his novels the passage to one’s “well-self”. This self, in fact, is lying embedded in every self, which Huxley names the “divine Ground”. For Bhaskar, what Huxley calls “divine Ground” is the “ground-state” of an individual: “it is the most essential level that is the level upon which all the other levels depend”, says Bhaskar.33 He argues that it is the ground where the “implicit potential” of an individual resides. As it is also part of the universe, he says, it is a level present in everyone. As the “metaReality” is the reality which is beyond the reality of separateness, it involves the inter-connectivity of all such ground-states, a condition in which all become one with the “cosmic envelope”, argues Bhaskar. Using words like “ground-state”, “co-presence”, “connectivity”, “cosmic envelope”, etc., Bhaskar builds up his fine argument to explain what MetaReality does: “the philosophy of Meta-Reality has already taken in the direction of vastly expanding the ontology of our world”, says Bhaskar.34 Interestingly, the realization to attain one’s ground-state (divine-Ground), according to Huxley, is: The last end of man, the ultimate reason for human existence, is unitive knowledge of the divine Ground–the knowledge that can come only to those prepared to ‘die to self’.35

This process of dying, Thou merging/dying into That, – “That art Thou” -is what we find discussed in the first chapter of Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy. It is the hub of Indian philosophy. We can see it debated in

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almost all the books on Indian philosophy, by writers like Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, and Capra. The problem is in the inadequacy of the available language to convey this reality, which is a problem experienced by every writer trying to express this reality, because it is beyond the physical realities. Huxley asserts: That is why, in all these formulations, we find an element of paradox. The nature of Truth-the-Fact cannot be described by means of verbal symbols that do not adequately correspond to it. At best it can only be hinted at.36

How close Durrell is to Huxley’s emphasis on “Truth-the-Fact” and to his remarks about the problem of language in expressing it is evident from Durrell’s words: “I have made a discovery but I can’t tell you what it is because the language in which to express it has not been invented” (Quinx 178). However, Durrell has tried to introduce a narrative style in the Quintet in order to match the expression of the “Truth-the-Fact”, a kind of metarealistic narrative, a metanarrative. Confidently he says that “In slower prose one can let packets of silence drift about like mist” (178). In spite of the difficulties imposed by language, the Sut-Blan dialogue in the Quintet is a device attempted by the author for penetrating into the “divine-ground” and for revealing the actual reality, the non-dual reality. The novelist says, If ever one has the luck to arrive at an inferential consciousness the steps of the reasoning process that preceded it are no longer necessary; one can let them go! Kick away the ladder, so to speak (177).

The language has had its full sway in fiction, in a novel like the Quartet. It deals with the so called dualistic realism, the type of realism which later on gets rejected as mere illusion. Dualism, or separatism, is languagefriendly. Language “is the main source of the sense of separatism”, says Huxley.37 Therefore, the conventional language remains always dualistic or anti-metarealistic, unless a writer knows how to tame it. Here again, we can recollect what Suzuki had enlightened us on this. Another feature of metarealism which Bhaskar has touched upon in his book is the inevitable necessity of creating a society, a “universal utopian secular society”38, in which every individual is an enlightened one. He says, “The moment we change ourselves, because we are part of society, we are also changing society”.39 In fact, this is the goal enshrined in Eastern metaphysics. Radhakrishnan observes: “If, on the other hand, we overcome the narrowness of our ego, open out to others, overflow and

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communicate love and joy, we foster our growth.”40 These words of Radhakrishnan which form a kind of clarion call to “open out to others” in order to “foster our growth” can be taken as the goal that Durrell aimed at in his novels. In the Quartet, Darley tries to overcome “the narrowness of” his ego. Affad in the Quintet illustrates how to “open out to others, overflow and communicate love and joy”. Therefore, Durrell makes a metaphysical environment in which his protagonist can foster his growth. Radhakrishnan wants the development of harmony to take place not only within the self but also with the environment.41 He also reminds us that such “universal redemption is the aim of Buddha.”42 This “universal redemption” is what Affad mainly aims at in the Quintet. He expects that the boon he passes on will slowly pass through Constance, then through Blanford, then through all those associated with them and it will reach the entire society, the entire world. Hence, it is with the aim of achieving a universal redemption that the character of Affad is created. The entire novel, almost every episode in the Quintet, points towards the need of achieving a universe in which man can live happily. Even the human miseries in the form of war depicted in the novel should serve as a contrast to the human happiness that is lost. Durrell repeatedly lays stress on his belief that “Bliss is innate”: “If we could only shut up and give nature a chance to talk we would certainly learn that Happiness, nay, Bliss is innate”, says the author in Quinx (153). He is so insistent on this aspect of happiness in life that he wants the novel to be used as a medium to utter a plea for bliss: “Meanwhile the texts should show high contrivance as well as utter a plea for bliss as being the object of art”, he asserts through his character in the novel (16). The difficulty for Durrell, if any, is in reflecting the Oriental wisdom in fiction, in moulding a character with the idea of “the purity in being”, in making it the subject matter of fiction without compromising the literary qualities of the novel. To make the inner poise of man, his inward rapture, which is the basic quality he assigns to his hero, is not an easy task, mainly because such calm poise of mind is beyond the grip of language. The literary history shows that the popularity of fiction is mainly derived from its tremendous power to feed narcissistic pleasure to readers who are generally acquainted with materialistic realism only. For a reader who could enter the realm of metarealism, everything, even the art of fiction, will appear merely a kind of illusion. Therefore, the writer’s attempt is to open the door to readers, to show that the real realism is this and not that. But who can reach such a metarealistic state in life is the moot question. The situation today is so precarious that Durrell says “Lucky indeed is he to have come so far alive” (CVG X1). To depict a story today in the old

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heroic style in this world, he knows, is absurd. “The poet must now be prepared to specialize in the unforeseeable, to cooperate with the inevitable, to tinker with it, to tamper with Total Time”, writes Durrell in Caesar’s Vast Ghost. (200-01). If ever such a Utopian society is possible, a peaceful society, Bhaskar calls it a “eudemonistic” society: “that is a society in which, to quote Marx’s version of it, ‘the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all’.”43 Of course, Marx means material development, whereas Bhaskar, like Durrell, thinks of a bliss-oriented metarealistic society. It is the goal enshrined in Mahayana Buddhism. "Eu-" is a Greek prefix meaning "good." So eudaemonistic could be taken to refer to being of good spirit, hence, bringing happiness. In the Quintet the role given to Affad, we have observed repeatedly, is to be of good spirit and bring happiness to all. The word eudemonism is also spelt as eudaemonism. Durrell in his Quintet depicts a new reality through the life of his protagonist. We may call his novels postmodernist, or metafictional, or any suitable literary term we like, but they have in them all the qualities of the elements that are discernible in metarealism. At this point, as KellerPrivat observed, we cannot forget that Durrell was always very diffident of any kind of critical labelling! As his novels abandon realism, they may also be called surfiction. But his aim as a novelist is not just to go beyond convention, beyond the accepted realism of the modernists; instead, he just tries to be honest as a writer. He does not want to write anti-fictions for the sake of anti-fictions, but fictions for the sake of life; he wants to present meaningful life, life which can give happiness. That is why he says that the novel should “utter a plea for bliss as being the object of art”. He is categorical in this attitude throughout his work, in accepting the concept of bliss as the end of art. Therefore, the repeated emphasis given in this book on satchitananda (sat, chit, ananda), being-awareness-bliss, must be seen in this context. Durrell’s call for making fiction “utter a plea for bliss” could be thus traced to the Indian concept of satchitananda. He selects events and characters for his novels in such a way that when the true self is discovered by the protagonist he attains a kind of enlightenment, which can be called the divine-Ground, or Ground-state, or Heraldic Universe, or whatever one likes; provided, the state of bliss thus attained is properly apprehended. Or, to put it in a nut shell, metarealism can be seen as another word for the reality of Satchitanada, sat-chit-ananda. That the concept of sat-chit-ananda or being-consciousness-bliss has three stages was analysed while discussing them in the experience of Lawrence’s Connie in chapter three. It is a reality, we also noted that Darley was aiming at, or a spiritual state that Affad could reach in his life

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and thus become a boon-bringer. But, these are the same three stages in Durrell’s artistic career too. He explains this to Braudeau: The three gnostic stages in Greek are called agon, struggle, the subtitle I gave to The Black Book my first book; pathos, acceptance of experience, the hurly-burly and ripening of experience, the stage of the Quartet; the anagnorisis, the present, the reconciliation of opposites, the acceptance of reality44.

These three Gnostic stages in Greek mean almost the same as the Indian concept of satchitananda. In other words, these three stages of experience are the fundamental stages in life, and they are precisely the stages for the growth of an artist too. In the first stage, as Durrell states in The Black Book, everything in life is “filtered, limited, through the wretched instruments of the self” (BB 41). “Everything is plausible here” in life at this stage (40). We have seen the second stage in detail because Darley represents this stage with his “hurly-burly and ripening of experience”. It is the stage of reflection and awareness. The third stage, “the acceptance of reality” is what the Quintet stands for. The “reconciliation of opposites” is successfully achieved through the character of Affad. The entire work of Durrell, therefore, can be rewardingly viewed through the telescope of Indian metaphysics—sat, chit, ananda. The novel today has received great critical reception with new and fascinating labels like modernism, postmodernism, metafiction, or similar such names. The motivation to seek new literary terms for classifying the nature of a novel mainly comes from the confusion created by our right or wrong attitude to reality. The artists resort to several different ways or forms of expression, but the truth is same. Durrell reveals to Peter Adam what once T. S. Eliot told him, that writers must find out as many forms as are possible, though there is only “one thing to say.”45 They must try different ways of expressions, he advised. Durrell was always for new forms. He is not a linear novelist, nor is he interested in rounded characters. He confessed to Kenneth Young that the form based on the self-mutilating Christian-European model does not give him any attraction as a writer.46 We have already observed that Durrell is always for a cosmological view of life. Therefore, he wanted a form and language which are suitable to his views and ideas, suitable to his perception of reality. This is what he stated in “The Kneller Tape”: After Proust, the novelist becomes a ruminant when he isn’t a plain photographer; I wondered if we couldn’t get out of the cyclic memory-

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groove and recapture the act prime by applying more modern cosmological ideas.47

The search for new ways of writing “more cosmological ideas” goes on without much success because, in spite of the changes made in the fictional communication, the truth seems to be out of the reach of a novelist. In fact, the notorious “I” of the observer is the cause of all unrealities. We must bear in mind that Durrell’s craze for new forms is born out of his desire to “recapture the act prime”, or the “reality prime”. No doubt, metafiction is a very useful literary strategy in fictional communication. It helps the students of literature get closer to life. It opens up new ways of understanding that branch of literature called fiction, and helps the students in their attempt to study a text intelligently. Metafiction discovers several hidden doors in literature, enabling a student to realize an unadulterated reality and it gives great freedom to both the novelists who make innovations, and the scholars who try to interpret it. The various techniques of using metafiction provide a better representation of human consciousness as well—about self, subject-object relationship, self-reflexivity, truth, the role and limitation of language, and about all such valuable subjects related to art and literature. But the most important aspect of this genre is that almost all literary border lines get blurred when this technique is used. The emphasis in fiction is now shifting towards the fact that there is no sense in making permanent judgement on the self, or even on God. Everything is open to any number of interpretations and the stress is on the questions rather than on the answers. However, what is relevant here is the fact that much of what we discuss in the name of metafiction can be traced back to Sri Sankara’s philosophy of illusionism, which is also akin to metarealism. In a way, we can accept that metafiction is Sankara minus Nirvana, and metarealism is metafiction plus Nirvana. Zimmer is a great admirer of Sankara. He writes in his book, Philosophies of India: The shining sankara, to whom we owe Advaita Vedanta—at least in the form in which it has stood for the past thousand years, and in which it prevails today as the typical and best known philosophy of India—was not only a supreme scholastic thinker but a remarkable poet as well.48

Sankara’s idea of illusionism is what Durrell employs in the Quartet; it enables Darley to deconstruct his “private Alexandria”. Also, Sankara’s idea of Salvationism or Nirvana is what is presented in the form of the character, Affad. To quote Zimmer again: “With Sankara, the grandeur of the supreme human experience becomes intellectualized and reveals its

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inhuman sterility.”49 It is not without meaning that Durrell likes his Quintet to be known as an “intellectual autobiography”. The Quintet comes after the successful completion of his Quartet and The Revolt in which all kinds of “inhuman sterility” were depicted by the novelist. Stating that the Quintet “accordingly offers a solution” and that The Avignon Quintet “is an intellectual autobiography”, Durrell presents the major events in his life in a condensed form to Wajsbrot.50 While classifying the Quintet as an “intellectual autobiography” he must have been recollecting most of his personal experiences, like the experiences of reading great literary and philosophical books and the ideas he developed through his learning. The easiest way to understand this is to remember the intellectual biography of the character, Affad. What he recollects in Sebastian about the intellectual journey he covered in his life can be compared to what Durrell explains to Wajsbrot. The common experience is mainly what they gathered during their stay in Greece. “Greece was the sieve”, Affad recollects. (Sebastian 43) The main difference between metafiction and metarealism is that the latter aims at a cosmological view of life, whereas the former is still at the material level, the dualistic stage, dvaita level. But, we must also accept that metafiction is only one or two steps short of metarealism; it is struggling hard to arrive at the advaita level, the non-dualistic state of consciousness. To be more precise, metareality exposes the illusionism of material reality and the mistaken notion of “I” as a separate individual. It is Schopenhauerean and Sankarean. By proving that the personality is mere illusion, it assists man to seek Nirvana in his life, to experience “Thou art That”. It is in this way that Indian metaphysics mainly contributes to Durrell’s literary ventures. From all these, we can surmise that the gem he gathered during his aquatic life in the Mediteranean was surely Sankara, his precious Advaita Vedanta. We can see that Durrell’s entire fiction proves this fact. Sankara’s philosophy needs to be made a little more explicit here, particularly its relationship with the subject of reality in fiction. Let us presume that most of the students of literature are aware of Patricia Waugh’s chapter title, “What is fiction, Why are They Saying Such Awful Things about It?” in her book, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self. The same type of question seems to be the essence of the philosophy of the great Hindu philosopher, Sri Shankaracharya. The only difference is that he might, instead, ask “What is reality, why are they talking such awful things about it?” A peep at Sankara’s illusionism, which influenced many thinkers in the West, particularly Huxley and Lawrence Durrell, will enable readers to understand that all these brand new literary theories,

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based on reality and self, were already there in the ancient Indian philosophies. Huxley quotes Sankara in his Perennial Philosophy: Talk as much philosophy as you please, worship as many gods as you like, observe all ceremonies, sing devoted praises to any number of divine beings – liberation never comes, even at the end of a hundred aeons, without the realization of the Oneness of Self.51

Do whatever you like, or say whatever you like, Sankara seems to say, you cannot perceive real reality so long as you are not able to reach your true self, that is, your divine self. This absolute truth is what we have been discussing as metarealism, claiming that Durrell has tried to illustrate it through his novels. Sankara’s theory of illusionism, or Maya, has been misunderstood by some. He believes that only the Creator or the Cosmic power is real and all the created things/beings are mysterious, beyond the absolute judgement of the observers. Repeatedly reminding us that Shankara is not an illusionist, Radhakrishnan says, “When the Hindu thinkers ask us to free ourselves from maya, they are asking us to shake off our bondage to the unreal values which are dominating us.”52 In fact, the craze among the scholars for using the prefix, “meta”, indicates the utter confusion the perceived reality creates in us; it creates the rope and the snake syndrome about reality, as Durrell’s friend Raja Rao puts it. Durrell says in “The Kneller Tape” that “Poetry, prayer, music, prophesy—all were part of cosmological whole. We’ve divided them into subjects with no central object.”53 Therefore, the prefix, “meta”, is a handy word for us to move beyond the known without being sure of the “known” and the “where”. But, this literary escapism from the present without knowing the actual can go on only to a certain point. That point is what Sankara gives us; that ultimate point is when we become aware of the reality of illusion or Maya. To be precise, Lawrence Durrell, as he was hesitant to follow the existing literary tradition, wanted to explore the ideas of illusion and reality in his novels, because he was in search of truth, and finally he reached the door of the sages of the East. This has enabled him to write metafictional novels metarealistically with a metanarrative style. In the course of the discourse in this book only a few characters from Durrell’s novels, mainly the central characters, could be referred to, because they are the ones who represent his metaphysical ideas. These key players are seen as shining stars in the stories, because all the other characters are meant either to assist them, like what Pursewarden and Balthazar do to Darley by helping him to live through their ideas; or some, like Scobie or von Esslin, are there as a clear contrast to the key players.

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Without the secondary characters like Scobie, Lord Galen, or Narouz, Durrell’s novels would look very dull. The secondary characters exhibit the free play of their egos. Therefore, such characters are presented in the novel to illustrate the life of the common people in this world, who live without realizing their true self in a metaphysical sense. However, some readers love Durrell’s novels for the sheer joy of reading the humorous events his innocent characters create. At the same time, he seems to be disappointed with his English readers. He says, in an interview to Kenneth Young: The Germans have a highly developed metaphysical sense…. I think what some English readers find ‘enigmatic’ in my novels—in Pursewarden’s remarks, for example—the Germans find metaphysically exciting.54

Thus, it becomes plain now that the Quartet and the Quintet can be seen as novels in which Durrell’s views on illusion and reality are explicitly or implicitly conveyed, by reflecting them through his characters with dissimilar characteristics which operate at different opposing levels. He also observes man as a mere mechanical being walking on his two legs, and also as one imbued with intuitive insight with which he is capable of arriving at an “inferential consciousness”. In other words, Durrell highlights in his novels the differences in the perceived realities, between a world which gets filled with mere mechanical beings and the one in which man is seen possessing a refined soul, man with the divine grace. In short, he reflects the difference between the real and the meta-real. A small poem inserted by Durrell in the Quintet reveals how mechanical and absurd human life is; how illusory it looks. (Monsieur177) Readers must have a look at the poem as it is not fair to quote the full poem here. It reveals the idea of both illusion and reality; it shows the real nature and the fate of man, the two-legged animal on earth. The words “They do not seem as real as I do” (177) in the poem probably come from a person who does not think beyond his self. Durrell shows how, as a novelist, he is caught in a helpless situation: “Sometimes we could not help seeing the world as a sort of farmyard – with humanity quaking or honking rather than talking”, he writes in Quinx (Quinx 174-175). With this illusory picture of the world before him he is compelled to work as an artist and to deal with the subject of “Ontology – the study of being” (175). Moreover, he knows that man is not yet clear whether an answer to all the human predicaments “lie in art or science”. The irony is that man must “realize himself through a sort of religious experience yet stay a man”, says Durrell (175). Probably that is why he used the word, Quinx as the title of his last novel, realizing that the entire riddles in life is a form of Quinxology. While we are trying to

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capture reality, says Durrell, the “universe simply does the next thing; it has no programme, does not predict, knows not where it is going. A perpetual spontaneity rules!” (38) Therefore, the problems which Durrell faces are not only existential, but they are also the problems of writing a novel; “No more, please God, of those big-paunched invertebrate novels of yore, full of rose-water”. (38). Whether Durrell is thinking of his earlier novels as “rose-water”, or the reference he makes is to the history of the English novel as a whole, is a question which is difficult to be answered here, because the style and content in the Quintet are quite unlike that of his Quartet. Reality, he says, “is desperate for someone to believe in it” (174). Durrell’s last novel is thus filled with a lot of aphoristic statements about reality, or about the realities of unrealities. We can notice another question in the same page quoted above: “What then is the permanence which you designate as an ‘I’?” It is followed by yet another statement on human life, made from an illusory angle: “A discrete sequence of rather disjointed recollections which begin sometime in infancy and terminate with a jolt now, in the present” (174). As the Quintet comes to an end, or as he gets ready to wind up his work as a novelist, pure wisdom in condensed form fills the pages, mostly as riddles. Indian metaphysics is filled with similar unanswerable questions, rather riddles, but we get from the ancient rishis of India a technique with which the mind could be brought to steadiness and poise. This technique is called Yoga, which, we know, is abundantly used in the Quintet by Durrell: “yoga practice – the fidelity to insight and to oxygen!” (Quinx 191) Thus, once we can understand Durrell’s plan of writing his novels, understand the ideas he wanted to convey to his readers and the form he chose to convey those ideas, a clear picture about his contribution as a writer would automatically emerge from them. As he said in an interview to Montalbetti, he wants to stir the thoughts of his readers and make them realize how unstable they are as individuals.55 Therefore, he maintained great consistency in his subject; he developed his theme from Black Book to the Quintet in such a way that he could finally treat sex as a kind of yoga. MacNiven once reminded the present writer that Durrell always spells sex as Sex. Durrell wants his readers to have some retrospection about the traditional attitudes to sexuality in our society. The thrust of his artistic desire is plain; but his narrative techniques are quite difficult for a common reader to grasp. The reason is simple. As he moves towards his last novel he finds that his ideas require different techniques. He does not pose himself as a philosopher or a teacher, in spite of the wisdom, the intuitive wisdom that he has stuffed into his novels. “Me change the

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world? Good Lord, no. Only perhaps indirectly by persuading it to see itself and relax”, Durrell thus makes his stand absolutely clear in “The Kneller Tape.”56 These are some of the factors that guided this writer in the selection of the topics in this book; the need to highlight Durrell’s creative intentionality was strongly felt. Durrell is good at creating phrases, as Anand states in the interview the present author had with him. Durrell’s readers must be quite familiar with his pronouncements, like comparing his narrative strategy with Chinese boxes: a box within a box within a box, or to boxes with no lid, etc. But here is a typical comparison that he made: his novels are a “game of nesting tables”. If it is related to the discussion of the three stages of Durrell’s writing made earlier in this book, and to the fact of his final novel reaching the stage of metarealism, it would now be possible to get a broad idea of Durrell as a novelist. It is difficult to classify his Quartet as a metarealistic novel, or his Black Book as a metafictional novel. But when we take all his novels together as “one complete work”, they can be seen as metarealistic. In a letter to Henry Miller, Durrell wrote: I felt that if somebody didn’t do something the novel was going to be about as modern as Morris-dancing to flageolet & drum soon! If the bloody thing works however it will give a new flavour to fictional reality – with luck.57

Durrell wrote this to Miller when he was in the midst of composing his Quintet. The essence of the discourse here is the fact that to make a true critical evaluation of Durrell as writer, his entire novels are to be taken for consideration. Only then a clear picture of his creative intention would emerge. If the Quartet reveals the causes of human disenchantment, the Quintet shows the ways of retaining the lost enchantment. It tells us how to be coherent, clear and pure in our consciousness. All our miseries, his works point out, come from our wrong angle of vision, from our wrong judgements, from the wrong perception of reality or from our misconceived reality. These are some of the thoughts he “provokes” in the readers. Some of his remarks may be sharp and biting, but the sarcasm they carry speaks volumes about reality. For example, to Peter Adam he expressed his dismay at the pitiable state of the cathedrals which are now like the discarded computers.58 What he means is that if religion had succeeded, if these cathedrals had been really effective, there was no need for man to look elsewhere. Durrell’s early novels serve as mirrors reflecting how religion and politics have deformed our insight. His Quintet, on the other hand, emphasises the need to take the task of emancipation on oneself without

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seeking the help of any outside organizations or agencies. He prefers to use the word “rediscovery” and not discovery, because human life had been bliss-side up much before man deliberately took a different course. Therefore, his hero is on an adventure to revivify this world. This is a fact which received great attention in Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels. In Caesar’s Vast Ghost, Durrell writes: And of course the chief question to be faced is always the same one: are you interested in trying to secure happiness, well-being for yourself and those around you, or would you rather revel in distress? (CVG 77-78).

To practise coexistence and co-sharing as co-present beings for peace and happiness is the message from the Quintet, in fact, from all of Durrell’s novels and poems. Therefore, we can say that his metarealistic novel, the Quintet, is a “eudemonistic” novel. A revaluation of Durrell’s key novels in the light of the reality— metareality--he presents thus helps us have an impartial view of him as a writer, to see him as an uncrowned philosopher. We can also finally understand why he says the Quintet is a Buddhist novel, an Indian novel, though the background of its story is set in Avignon. He puts his pen down as a novelist after taking his readers to the foot of Himalayas. The Buddhist wisdom that is embedded in the novel, in the Quintet, is expected to enable his readers to see man as a “five-stranded” being: “But in fact for the Buddhist psychology it spelt the five skandas, bundles of apprehension, reservoirs of impulses”, as the narrator says in Sebastian (43). Durrell’s ardent attempt in his Quintet to highlight man’s “power of five” is very admirable, and also his firm faith that reality has “several dialects, and the most powerful are sexual ones” (Quinx 97). Darley’s personality and his experiences in the Quartet are relevant in the Quintet only to the extent that they serve as a contrast to the spiritual reality built up by Affad. Darley’s dilemma can be put in the words of Zimmer: “Man’s problem is, simply, that his permanent, ever-present actual freedom is not realized because of the turbulent, ignorant, distracted condition of his mind”.59 Darley is a victim of both time and space. On the other hand, the central characters in the Quintet gain a firm grip on life; they now know what human personality really is. Darley is like a man that Zimmer writes about: These involvements fetter him to an existence murky with desire and ignorance; and here he treasures his personality as though it were something substantial – clinging to the short spell of confused life.60

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Darley was too conscious of his personality, and he was judging the world of Alexandria with his egotistical self. But, in the case of Affad, he does his selfless role perfectly as a cultural hero, sets certain exemplary ways of life for others to follow, and then happily he surrenders to death. He is an Oriental Guru teaching others the art of dying; he teaches death through love and sex. He, like his creator, seeks peace and happiness for all. That is why I have suggested in my book that Durrell’s Quintet deserves to be called a “eudemonistic” or “eudaemonistic” novel.

APPENDIX AN INTERVIEW WITH MULK RAJ ANAND ABOUT LAWRENCE DURRELL

This interview with Dr. Mulk Raj Anand took place in 1993. When I contacted Anand with a request to interview him about his old friendship with Lawrence Durrell, he was not only willing to oblige me but was also found very enthusiastic. The idea of having an interview with Anand was suggested to me by Ian S. MacNiven, Durrell’s biographer, when he was engaged in writing Durrell’s biography, and he has acknowledged it in his biography, Lawrence Durrell: A Biography: that his contact with Anand was “via C. Ravindran Nambiar”. The interview had taken place a few months before the Lawrence Durrell conference in San Diego in 1994. So it was decided that I could send the text of the interview to MacNiven and based on it I could also prepare a paper for the conference at San Diego: “Friends of Lawrence Durrell”. Accordingly, a paper based on the views expressed by Anand about his friend, Lawrence Durrell, was presented at the conference. In his letter dated 22 November 1993, MacNiven wrote me: “If you can get him to put his reminiscence on tape, Deus Loci (certainly, or some other journal if you wish) would like to publish it.”1 Unfortunately, the text of the interview has remained unpublished so far and hoping that it would appear in some other journal in the U. S, I did not send it to any literary journal in India for publication. Therefore, I have taken the final decision now to place it as an Appendix here, with short comments on how the questions and answers in this interview are related to the discourse that is presented in my book: Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels. Apart from being a novelist, Anand was good writer of short stories and he is one of the best art critics that India has seen. He was the first to use words from Indian languages, particularly from Hindi and Punjabi, in English. He had his education in the universities of Punjab, Cambridge and London, finally receiving his PhD in 1929. His literary circles in Europe included T. S. Eliot, Herbert Read, Henry Miller, George Orwell, Lawrence Durrell, and Anais Nin, and his most important friendship was

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with E. M. Forster. It was Forster’s Preface to his first novel, Untouchable, that brought him into the limelight as a novelist. This novel highlights the humiliations of an innocent Indian boy, as a latrine sweeper, that take place in a single day. Anand’s coming back to India coincided with his meeting with Mahatma Gandhi. In fact, as Gandhi started giving shape to his social awareness, Anand had to make compromises with his intellectual life in Europe. Freedom, social uplift and decolonization became his subjects. Finally he became the pioneer of the Dalit literature in India, a literature about the downtrodden and the poor. However, for a while, Anand made frequent trips between his old literary London and the India of Mahatma Gandhi. In London he had earned experience as a BBC broadcaster and script writer for its film division. After settling permanently in India he moved into the forefront of several literary associations and he also worked in many Indian universities as a professor. He felt very lonely later in his life till he died at the age of 99 in 1998. He wrote his own obituary: this fellow cannot be denied a certain amount of virtuosity. But it was this very flair for turning his hand to philosophy, politics, writing, stage, film, dance choreography, cookery as well as poetry that was the most dangerous thing about him.2

Anand gives very frank and straightforward answers to my several questions about Durrell’s views on metaphysics. Most of Anand’s long answers reveal that he had known Durrell very intimately. At the same time, wherever he is not very sure about any of Durrell’s literary or philosophic pursuits, he admits his ignorance very honestly. The very tone of his answers reveals the intimate relationship he once had with Durrell and his circle of friends. The main problem this interviewer confronted while preparing the questionnaire was that Anand had admitted to me in his letter that he did not know Durrell beyond his Alexandria Quartet. We know that Durrell’s use of Indian metaphysics becomes more explicit in his Quintet, more than what we can find in his early writings. However, to some questions which touch upon Durrell’s metaphysical ideas on man and this universe, Anand is able to suggest the probable sources from where Durrell could have collected them. To be precise, the interview with Anand which is included in this book throws light on many aspects of Durrell’s life and work, in spite of the short duration of the friendship that existed between these two writers. In the letter written to me that is quoted here, MacNiven adds:

An Interview with Mulk Raj Anand about Lawrence Durrell The only Anand letter at So. Illinois Univ is one dated 12 May 1961, in which he asks Larry to ‘write a text to accompany Mrs. [Marilyn] Stratford’s photo of Lebanon’. I do not believe that there had been contact for a very long time, for Anand begins his letter, ‘My dear Larry . . . We were friends in the thirties’3.

Thus MacNiven’s letter served as a warning to me that, while preparing my questions, I should keep in mind the limited period of friendship between Durrell and Anand. The irony is that the brevity in their friendship remains obscure in the text of the interview, because Anand answers as if he had known Durrell for ages. I prefer to quote here the reply I received from Mulk Raj Anand to my request for an interview with him4: 23. 10. 1993 Dear Dr. Nambiar, Greetings! I am enthused by your mention of the memories of Lawrence Durrell. Our friendship from early thirties onwards, together with Henry Miller, forms the fact that we all shared certain uprush of passion to create novels which reach on to more than human relations. I don’t know how to communicate to you the atmosphere of those meetings, casual as they were from being in London and Paris and Greece. I don’t know if it is necessary for you to come to Bombay all the way for the interview. May be the best thing would be for you to send me a questionnaire and a cassette so that I can say my say in a desultory manner. I am working on a novel and find it difficult to do other things, like Memoirs without the help of friends, who take down dictation from me. It will be best for me to say my say on a cassette. And have you published your thesis on Durrell? Regards, Sincerely, Sd/Mulk Raj Anand

His offer to “say his say on a cassette” came to me as a boon, because Mumbai, where he lived, is quite far from Kerala. Therefore, I requested my brother residing in Mumbai to meet Anand and get the interview recorded. He obliged, but this arrangement denied me the opportunity to meet Anand, and also to ask him counter questions based on the answers coming from him. Translating Anand’s voice into a text was found quite difficult because his ageing voice made some words he uttered difficult to be deciphered. But he offered to

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correct the typed text as he knew our difficulties in catching his words from his running voice. But, his shivering fingers made things all the worse, as most of the words he had corrected appeared like waves, leaving me to guess what those words really could be, and their relationship in the sentences. He was around 94 at the time of this interview. But, his age and health did not affect the content of the subject in any way, which will be evident for the readers from the text given below. MacNiven had given me some idea about the nature of friendship that Durrell and Anand might have had in Europe. He wrote: Most of what I know of Larry’s friendship with him is in the Durrell Miller Letters; but apparently Larry had met Anand as early as 1934. Reginald S. Hutchings (minor poet and editor) wrote Larry, then living with Nancy and George Wilkinson in a cottage near Loxwood, Sussex, that he might motor down in Philip Marsh’s car to see him, and “possibly” bring Anand5.

I could not ask Anand much about these events mainly because none of those names mentioned by MacNiven were familiar to me. But I asked him about his friendship with Miller, Anais Nin, and his life in Greece and Paris, as guided by Ian: You might ask Anand about literary life in the environs of the Fitzroy Tavern (Nina Hamnett’s hang-out), although I do not know whether Anand belonged to that particular group. Ask him about Tambimuttu, and about John Lehmann who published him in Penguin New writing. And about his visit to Villa Seurat: was Larry there with Henry, did he meet Anais Nin, Fred Perles? 6

Much of what MacNiven wrote me is quoted here because I want to make it clear that the guiding force behind this interview with Anand was Ian S. MacNiven. In fact he himself wanted to meet Anand and he had tried once to do so. He wrote in a letter to me: “Susanne Henig, who knows him, had urged us to try to interview him when we were in India, but we were unable to get to Bombay (except for the seven hours that we spent in the plane on the tarmac).”7 I, as an interviewer, have mainly tried to extract from Anand about Durrell’s interest in India, by asking him questions related to his metaphysical ideas, though there are also a few questions in the questionnaire to unearth the personal life that Anand had enjoyed in Europe. The text of the interview, however, was basically meant for MacNiven for the biography he was writing.

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Nambiar: What comes to your mind at the very mention of your old friend, Lawrence Durrell? Anand: Friendship. It is difficult for people who do not know the English climate of culture to know that friendship is not an important ideal or way of life in that emerald island. But the search for friendship remains among some of the English intelligentsia, as in E. M. Forster, which brought him to India. It is obvious in his novel, A Passage to India, how much he valued the friendship of Masood. In the case of Lawrence Durrell also, as he was born in India, it seems possible the freedom of contact in our country, the lack of inhibition, may have affected him in the early years and may have made him warm to the idea of togetherness I felt in his person soon after we just met in a pub. As few people in England were warm to him, he felt he might not be able to make friends in his own country. So he lived abroad and made friends, and later on in the Mediterranean countries. [That the literary circles in Europe, particularly in Paris, were quite active in pubs is a fact. Durrell told an interviewer: In fact I write perfectly well in England, but I’m always being foxed because the pubs are shut. It’s just a petty symbol of the kind of limitless obstruction which is put in people’s way.8 (25).

In another interview, Goulianos asked him: “How do you see the British Empire and colonialism?” Durrell’s answer is: “I wasn’t talking about the British Empire. I don’t give a damn about the British Empire, but I happened to be born three generations Anglo-Indian.”9 We can easily observe that the tone of resentment against the British Empire is rampant in both Durrell and Anand] Nambiar: Do you think your meetings were only casual, or were they very intimate? Anand: Well, we three, myself, Henry Miller, and Durrell were meeting more than casually. We were interdining. We spent many days together in Paris. Also in Corfu, somehow on the continent people were less inhibited. Nambiar: When you met Durrell what was his main occupation? Anand: He was a would-be-writer. Nambiar: We see that Durrell always looked at India nostalgically. Did he show any particular attachments to Indians, like you, living in Europe? Anand: Well, his nostalgia was from his early days in his youth spent in our country. He did not say very much about that. But I think it may have been from the affection he got as a child from the Indians near his family. Later on Henry Miller’s interest in Indian thought may have made him aware of India at deeper levels and he remained partial to India.

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[When Alexandre-Garner asked Durrell whether India was far away for him, he refused to give a definite reply.10 He knew that if he had come to India, he would have been disappointed. India for him, as a writer, became a concept, a metaphor, standing for certain rich spiritual qualities. He knows that the present India may not be much different from any other part of this world as far as the style of living is concerned. The irony is that most of the Indians today learn about the greatness of their country from the books pouring in from the West, from the great German scholar, Max Muller, to the present writers. But, paradoxical it may seem, the books about India written in English are friendlier to Indians than the Sanskrit-laden ones. The craze for material pleasure among the Indians today has overtaken all the Vedantic life of the past. Capitalism, globalization, and the cash flowing in from those Indians working abroad have urbanized Indian life, affecting India and its people with all the global illnesses. In one of the letters received from MacNiven, dated 7 March 1993, while discussing the importance of Durrell’s reference to Angkor Wat, (Mon 257-59), MacNiven remarked: To some extent, Larry Durrell used the East the way Henry Miller used Tibet—a country Miller never visited. The East for Larry was probably more a spiritual kingdom than a physical place. I think that that is one reason why he never returned: he did not want his conception in any way interfered with by the realities of the Orient.11

So, Anand’s remark that “Henry Miller’s interest in Indian thought may have made him aware of India at deeper levels and that he remained partial to India” explains his close understanding of Larry’s sentiments. Durrell’s interest in India is certainly at “deeper” levels, as Anand points out. To Goulianos’ question, as pointed out in chapter four, Durrell answers: “Oriental philosophies…. It’s actively passive. It’s the willpower of desirelessness. It’s a technique of not interfering but influencing. It’s not ascetism either.”12 The truth is that the life in India today is closer to Durrell’s Revolt than to his Quintet. The word “desirelessness”, in fact, remains confined to Vedantic texts] Nambiar: Do you recollect anything about Nancy’s [his first wife’s] influence on him? Anand: From the very beginning when I first met him with Nancy, it seemed to me that he was estranged from her. May be that he reacted to her suburban family who sensed that he was a Bohemian. Nambiar: When he moved to Corfu, did you visit him any time? Do you remember anything about his stay in the Greek Island?

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Anand: We stayed together in Corfu for a fortnight. It was a wonderful get-together. We bathed in the sea. We rolled about in the sun. We wrote for a few hours. In our spare time we talked. In the evening we drank in the cafes. That kind of life is not known to many Indians, because we have not the same custom of get-togethers. Even in England it is not possible to have that kind of experience in a pub which opens in the evenings at 5. 30 – 6. 00 and closes at 10 pm. But in Greece, where one can go on talking till midnight the idea of get together in a café is a warm experience, free of inhibitions and gives one the opportunity to eat the whole world. [Unfortunately, the writers in India live an isolated life. Anand must have felt the absence of the custom of “get-togethers” among the writers in India when he returned to his country. Also the sort of enjoyments the pubs give was foreign to India, though these days such European culture has become part of the Indian life-style. Therefore, Anand had to experience utter loneliness as he grew older and older. There is certainly an element of disappointment and nostalgia in his tone, nostalgia for the literary friendships he had enjoyed in London, Paris and Corfu.] Nambiar: Were you close to the Durrell family? Did you meet his brother, Gerald Durrell? Anand: No. Nambiar: We know that Miller’s Tropic of Cancer influenced Durrell, particularly in the writing of his The Black Book. Do you know anything about Miller’s direct influence on him? Anand: In my opinion it was the influence of Henry Miller and his free expression that made Durrell the kind of writer he became. In many ways he is the younger brother of Miller, though Miller had the American tempo of emphasis on everything, that made him an arch rebel. Durrell, though also a rebel, was constrained by his inherited English restraint. I think Henry Miller remained the most important influence on Durrell’s life and probably the person who shaped his style of writing. [Durrell has always admitted this. He told Kenneth Young: Yes. See The Black Book for a strong influence of Miller’s tremendous, rampaging prose style. I have also been influenced by him in my life and not merely as an artist. His courageous refusal to do anything except what he feels he must have always been an example to me.13

He repeated this truth to John Hawkes, as late as 1986: Truth to tell, I would never have been able to write The Black Book had I not been in a public urinal in Corfu in 1935. (Laughter) I had forgotten that completely, but it’s true. He invented me in a certain manner.14]

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Nambiar: Did you also, in any way, help him in the thirties as he was very young then? Or would you please try to recollect his painful struggles to become a writer? Anand: We were both equally young, about the same age. So there is no question of my being able to help him. He could help himself. For instance, he himself emerged from his English background in his own way, though following D. H. Lawrence. Of course, we shared sentiments against his country and his countrymen, I from my anti-imperialism and he from his revolt against the conventions of British life. I resented the British intelligentsia making an image of India as their source of unChristian wisdom. They did notice that Christ preached non-hunting, but they were fighting bloody wars through centuries. [As cited in the first chapter of this book, intense hatred and violence existed in Europe in spite of a strong religion. It was also cited that it is what prompted many thinkers and writers in the West, including Durrell, to turn towards the East. Therefore, why Anand is not able to appreciate the West for accepting the un-Christian wisdom of the East is something difficult for one to understand. At the same time, his confession that the war-mongering culture in the West was under the control of religion is a paradox. We have to agree that the theory of demand and supply works everywhere in the world, and philosophy is no exception. When wisdom becomes un-Christian in one place, it is quite natural that better wisdom flows into that region to fill the vacuum; some useful insight comes in to make man happy or bliss-conscious in the place of slaughterconsciousness. In other words, man’s instinctive longing for peace and happiness prompts him to go in search of some sensible wisdom. We know that religion preaches “non-hunting”. But, in spite of this, if for centuries “they were fighting bloody wars”, it only means that religion has utterly failed. Anand who resents the British intelligentsia for using India as their un-Christian wisdom defends Christianity and its greatness while answering another question in this interview. On the other hand, we know that Durrell was consistent in the stand he had taken. He was a Gnostic and a Buddhist throughout his life, particularly in his writing. His work reveals the reasons for taking this robust religious stand, wherever in his writing an occasion demanded. As he stated to McDonald, if the Gnostic documents are seriously studied we could perhaps discover “other Jesus”15. It is the contradiction in the teaching and practice of religions that compels writers to take a truthful stand. This contradiction is what John Fowles exposes in his novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman. So, Durrell is not alone in taking a strong philosophical or religious view, as I have observed in a few places in my book. He frankly admits to Markle

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the fact that there are some good things in Christian religion.16 But he is not sure whether it can ultimately help man in any useful form, in making his life happy and pleasant on earth. Durrell’s loathing of Christianity, it is to be remembered, is also born out of his attitudes to the concept of personality. He does not believe in personality, and his crusade, we saw, is against the concept of a stable ego. So a belief that is rooted in ego and personality is surely something difficult for a writer like Durrell to accept, particularly if he believes in non-dualism. As cited in chapter one, this is how he convinced Stephen Gray: Think of the bloodstained record of our Christian civilization and then the sort of things that were going on in people’s nuts compared to, say, a system, and like Buddhism which is so simple, which hasn’t an organized dogmatic system, as never caused a war, that has no party system, and which you can do at home, as you wish. .. I have no religion, you understand, at all.17

Anand agrees that he and Durrell “shared sentiments against his country and his countrymen, I from my anti-imperialism and he from his revolt against the conventions of British life”. It is only understandable that when the conventions of life are moulded by a particular religion, the public resentment obviously turns against it for nurturing some unpleasant conventions. We should also note that Durrell repeatedly confesses that he “has no religion”.] Nambiar: I read somewhere that Tambimuttu (Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu) in Paris played a key role in publishing the early novels of Durrell and Anand. Do you remember anything about your triangular friendship? Anand: Tambimttu played no role in publishing the early novels of Durrell or myself. Tambimuttu appeared on the scene in England as a hobo much later. Durrell and I and Henry Miller had met him in Paris earlier. Tambimuttu’s work was mainly helping British writers to publish their poems, especially during war, because the poets were on the front and had no means by which they could publish their agony. So he was able to bring out poems of exile. I had already, after early reactions against my first novel, Untouchable, good relations with publishers. And Durrell also had no difficulty in publishing on his own, first in Paris and then in London. Tambimuttu played no part in our lives. Nambiar: You wrote in your Apology for Heroism that the Second World War scattered the writers and some disillusioned writers left social problems and “took to yoga and the occult.”18 This is what Durrell did. So,

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do you think he was a disillusioned writer or do you think that he tried to evade social problems? Anand: In the review of Coolie V. S. Pritchett rated my novel very high. Because he found in that fiction expression of imaginative truth about life which, he says, English writers had bypassed, especially the poor. Indeed, the British intelligentsia had very little contact with the working people. They were a class on their own. I remember when in the left movement against fascism they marched in the streets, how awkward they felt in joining hands with each other and especially with the working class people. The middle class people in the U K were mostly exclusive. Even in their relation with one another they lived in vacuum. I think they were seeking refuge in some cult which could avoid any social problems. Not being able to connect with people at lower levels, they were naturally looking for such solutions as they could find in their own sensibilities. Henry Miller, of course, was a person who, though very warm and in active relation with women, was inclined to the occult, because he was escaping from American material life. In the Air Conditioned Nightmare he attacked America from his advance towards the idealization of Buddhist existentialism. I would say Henry Miller is heir to Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman, making voyages towards the East, not especially to India. I think he had Tibet in mind. But whatever he was saying was from hearsay, from reading, and from understanding of transcendence through yoga. His writings remain a revolt against American materialism, or even European civilization. [Durrell honestly reveals his keen interest in Yoga in his Quintet, and, as we have observed, he takes it as an essential quality of modern heroism. Anand, instead of talking about Durrell’s interest in yoga, speaks about Miller’s interest in Buddhist existentialism; probably because he knew that anything Miller had done directly influenced Durrell too. In a way, Anand, like Raja Rao and R. K. Narayan, was helpless, because any theme in Indian fiction other than anti-imperialism and man’s poverty could not have been thought of by the writers during the thirties, forties and fifties in India. Such was the resentment in India against the British Empire. The British writers, as Anand states, had no such social, political or spiritual imprisonment to seek transcendentalism.] Nambiar: I look at both of you as great liberators of mankind. If you, to use Meenakshi Mukerjee’s words, used novels as a means to the “alleviation of the suffering of the fellow human beings”19, Durrell, I think, used novels to free man from his psychic wounds. For him sex is a psychic act and the whole culture is rooted in sex. Your comments?

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Anand: As for liberation of mankind, well, that is too large a claim. But, I would say that in my case going to Gandhi’s Ashram in 1927, in agony of search, and the conversion to the human condition from the talisman which the Mahatma gave me, made for my concentration on human suffering. Awareness of what I had already known, but confirmed by Gandhiji. I could liberate myself through Indian struggle for freedom and in struggle for many freedoms. Gandhiji said, “When you are in despair, think of one person, the most helpless person, who needs your support and go to him and help, if you can, and you will find your despair going away”. I found that in my novel, Untouchable, a draft of which I had taken to Gandhiji’s Ashram from London, I had already tended to follow the advice of his talisman. Only I really came to deeper understanding of people in lower depths, the rejected, after conversion in the Ashram. Therefore, my liberation of myself, and struggles of my characters, to be free from contempt and dire oppression and suppression have been really the psychological curve of our freedom movement. So I regard my novels as transcendence to an ideal, really as part of the freedom movement in India, and freedom of each character from his own condition to higher living. In that sense Buddha became aware of human condition in the sixth century BC. In the case of my coolie boy, the fact of his being crushed by a society in which every hand is raised against him, reflects the lives of forty million young working in carpet factories, bidi factories and other workshops. It is even relevant today, as it was then. Other characters in my novel also are wanting in their freedom. In this connection, the cue for passion came from reading of ‘The Rights of Man’ of Thomas Paine, which were embodied in the Bill of Rights of American War of Independence, also from the manifesto of the French Revolution of 1889. These struggles were in my subconscious and they became fused with Gandhiji’s struggle for freedom and the advance of our people to awareness of their human rights. Not many people understand that my emphasis is not merely a question of sentimental sympathy but a question of the right of every individual to freedom, to fullness of inheritance of freedom, suppressed by the organized society in which superiors of every kind oppress and depress inferiors. I regard my own novel and novels of other writers like Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan as novels of freedom, which is transcendence above slavery. Freedom becomes the hero of Indian novels by Indian writers one way or other in the years when the political struggle was going on. Therefore, I would say that, in any case, the question is of emancipation and the realization of the rights of man, which are now embodied in Ambedkar’s draft of our constitution as fundamental human rights. These rights are ideals of transcendence to being truly human. My

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early novels have become classics and gone into many languages of the world, may be because my characters were emerging from slavery to fullness of human growth. As for Durrell, the question of agony about the poor does not arise. Born in the middle class family and bred in the atmosphere of middle class values, he, like other English writers, tends to look at his own personal problems, from the point of view of his deprivations, suppression of sex and naturalness, from imposition of his human urges. Already he had witnessed the tremendous impact of D. H. Lawrence’s novels on world society to gain sexual freedom. He noticed the effects of James Joyce’s Ulysses, which liberated the novel with its free love. The English middle class writers were able to think of freedom after the romances from Shelley and Byron downwards. Thus Durrell’s quest to himself and into society around him followed the struggles of D. H. Lawrence towards emancipation of human beings from the code of Victorian morality. [As far as Durrell is concerned, it is true that he did not have the social responsibility which Anand was fated to shoulder in India. As Earl G. Ingersoll mentions in his “Introduction” to his book, Lawrence Durrell: Conversations, “Durrell was the ultimate patriot, an expatriate without a patria or a country to begin with.”20 In this respect, Anand’s social consciousness could be compared to that of Charles Dickens. There is no doubt that almost all writers are engaged in alleviating the human sufferings in one form or other. The irony is that the word “suffering” always carries only the meaning of material sufferings. Hence, it must be seen in this light how Anand tries to justify his novel, Untouchable, which speaks for freedom from every kind of slavery and poverty. On the other hand, Durrell was not bound by any patriotic feelings. The kind of poverty he observed or experienced was spiritual, or metaphysical. He says, “But in England everyone is worried about moral uplift and moral downfall.”21 However, his Quartet reveals the squalid condition of the people living in Alexandria before the war broke out. It was not his interest to write the novels for the sake of reforming a society in the material sense. His attention was on the individual, and through the changes in the self he wanted the society to improve and change. It is the Oriental way of seeking a Utopia. He told Carley that I wanted to do a book about people, but under the people I wanted the city to convey some of the unease, some of the despair, and some of the disgust that I feel about Christianity.22

Thus he goes to the root of the matter. What Anand said about D. H. Lawrence is very true. Unfortunately, Anand was not aware of Durrell’s

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Constance which is, in a way, an extension of Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Durrell confessed to Stephen Gray that the tone of his writing really came from Lawrence: Lawrence confirmed my resentment against England because he was precisely against those narrow, suburban values and because he depicted so marvellously in things like Sons and Lovers the crushing of spirit that can go on in that urban mould. So in a sense he was a great signaller of that; in fact I borrowed liberally from him in tones of voice.23

Therefore, Anand is right when he says, “Thus Durrell’s quest to himself and into the society around him followed the struggles of D. H. Lawrence towards emancipation of human beings from the code of Victorian morality”.] Nambiar: F. R. Leavis said that Durrell “is throwing mud” on literature (Great Tradition) 23. What is your opinion? Anand: F. R. Leavis was a teacher of English in Cambridge. He reacted against Durrell and Henry Miller because of his middle class obsession. F. R. Leavis did not see beyond the English novel to the French novel, to read from Benjamin Constant’s Adolphe or Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. In these writers there was recognition of women’s urges in France before the English realized the aspirations of the female. Nambiar: Don’t you think that the negative attitude to sex is as sinful as, say, untouchability? Anand: In untouchability we have an example of a taboo in our society against human beings who are outcasts in the caste system. The British particularly had a kind of attitude of untouchability against woman. Woman was, in the Victorian sense, the mother of children, an object of lust. She was as in Thomas Hardy, the raped woman. But when D. H. Lawrence broke through the whole totalitarian attitude of the British, especially of the Victorian era, he was really emancipating woman qua rejected woman. [The fact that woman was treated as a rejected woman in one form or other, and also the fact how these writers, like Lawrence, John Fowles and others, attempt to rehabilitate the rejected women in their world of fiction were discussed in the third chapter of this book. We have also observed that Durrell’s emphasis is on psychic rather than social rehabilitation of woman because, except in the Quintet, almost all his female characters are those wounded in sex, like Justine and Melissa, and that they are not really socially supressed women. The only exception is probably Clea who is an intelligent woman capable of taking care of herself. Anand has a more pressing social theme to deal with in his novels, and it is not that he is

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unaware of the condition of women in India. To the following question he touches upon the fact that in ancient India, there was the same attitude of denying gender equality to woman, while she was also being worshipped as Shakti.] Nambiar: I was really moved by the miseries of Bakha (the protagonist in Untouchable), but I was equally shocked to read Durrell’s description of child prostitution in his Quartet. Like him do you also think Monsieur, the Prince of Darkness, is now seated on the throne? Anand: Well, the fact is that Durrell had a poetical way of making misery a condition brought about by the Prince of Darkness. I feel that that kind of poetical attitude does not touch the human condition of men and women violated by society. In our own tradition, there was rejection of woman by Manu.25 He saw woman as desire. She must be shunned. A man should not even sit near his sister or mother because he may be tempted. This attitude is inimical to human growth and a violation of natural human rights. I would say that Durrell’s revolt against child prostitution is not different from our reaction against man’s assumptions of superiority. [Durrell is either ignorant of Manu’s attitude to woman, or he found Tantrism just enough for him as a novelist to express his views on sex and internal liberation. In fact, today, socially, India is not much different from the west as far as the attitude to woman is concerned. I have noted that the ancient scriptures in India not only depict woman as power, Shakti, but they also consider man as a helpless creature in the absence of a woman. Having realized all these aspects of Indian attitudes, Durrell not only depicts the general psychology of sex and woman in his novels but he also shows that the whole human culture is rooted in sex, and that sex, in turn, is rooted in culture. He illustrates in his novels what happens when we go wrong in sex, and along with it how everything, the whole reality too, gets upset. If the interview with Anand had been conducted directly and not by sending a questionnaire, I could have tried to convince him that Durrell is merely reflecting the Gnostic belief about God and this universe in his fiction, which made him think of the world being ruled by the Prince of Darkness.] Nambiar: Do you think, at bottom, Durrell too aims at “residual humanness”26 in his career as a writer, as you do? Anand: He may put it in a poetical way as residual humanness. Ultimately, it is a question of asking for humanness at all levels, in order to transcend the abject human condition by which the bulk of mankind has been consigned by egoist rulers, superiors and oppressors. [In fact, it was not Durrell who used the expression “residual humanness” anywhere in his writing, but Anand in his book, Apology for Heroism.]

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Nambiar: Durrell wrote in The Alexandria Quartet that “The most tender, the most tragic of illusions is perhaps to believe that our actions can add or subtract from the total quantity of good and evil in this world” (AQ 706). Is it a pessimistic view? Anand; It is coincidental with the idea of Shankara that in the Maya, in this illusionary world, we cannot do much to alleviate suffering. But Shankara thought that, with good karma, we can attain salvation in this world of illusion and attain immortality or transcendence or ananda. Durrell adopts this point of view, which makes him akin to Indian illusionism. His mystic view of India was perhaps derived from Miller’s understanding of the human condition as from Buddha who had said that life is pain--Dukha! Dukha! Dukha! And the only way by which one can emancipate oneself and others from pain is by good thoughts, good deeds, and good words to transcend to Nirvana, which means deathlessness. Durrell’s heresy of Shankara may have induced him towards philosophies of Salvationism. I am not sure whether he really believed in this deeply, but certainly in his general attitude he is sympathetic to the Indian attitude of precariousness of life. [Dukha means pain. Shankara’s idea of Salvationalism is what precisely helped Durrell in the creation of his wonderful character, Affad. Affad’s Buddha-like observation of the war that causes not only sufferings but also threatening the total destruction of mankind, combined with his sense of salvationalism, prompted him to take the role of a cultural hero. He was called upon to show the true form of blood sacrifice and illustrate the true art of dying. It is so unfortunate that a philosopher and a novelist like Anand could not get a chance to read Durrell’s Quintet, with the result that few are there today to judge the Oriental depth of that novel. The present question was framed on the basis of Darley’s views in the Quartet, where he started realizing the total absurdity in his relationship with his fellow beings. Finally, we have seen that he tries to retreat from his private world in order to discover his own self. On the other hand, Affad succeeds in retreating from life totally before he becomes a Salvationist.] Nambiar: You accepted Marxism as a fairly good historical yardstick, but Durrell feels that the responsibility for the present day malady lies in the “triad of great Jews who have dominated thought–Marx, Freud, Einstein” (Constance 320). Is there any shift in your outlook today? Anand: My acceptance of Marxism in regard to human condition is integral to the Gandhian idea of emancipation as from Ruskin, from the human condition to which mankind has been condemned. I do not believe that the three Jews, Marx, Freud, and Einstein have done much damage to world civilization. In fact, all the three have freed civilization from much

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oppression, from puritan thought, from suppression of inner life and from the world as phenomena. I think Durrell’s view of Marx, Freud, and Einstein is an eccentric idea of the poet in a pub in London as a young man of twenty one. They were great liberators of mankind. Nambiar: Durrell in his last set of novels, The Avignon Quintet, says: “Instead of fretting about changing this world, why not realize and accept it as it is, admitting that its order is divine, that reality, of which we are part, realises itself thus” (Sebastian 17 ). How good is this approach? Anand: This fatalism of Durrell is from a hearsay acceptance of Shankara without taking from the sage the compulsion to transcend the mundane world. Existence is not divine but sordid until we transcend it. I do not think Durrell ever ventured into the idea of Gautama Buddha, where Nirvana, exaltation to deathlessness is approached from a deeper despair. Gautama found the world precarious. He found human life full of misery and pain. He found that people took pain out of each other. And the only way he felt to emancipate oneself from sordid existence, from the miseries of the world, was to attain deathlessness. Now the fact that Durrell accepts the world as a divine order is rather like Shankara accepting Maya as an aspect of divinity or part of God’s manifestation of himself–one in the many. The existentialism of Buddha was, in my opinion, a far deeper realization than Shankara’s illusionism. [The truth is that Durrell accepted both Shankara and Buddha. For example, Darley in The Quartet realizes that “Existence is not divine but sordid until we transcend it”. The struggle in the Quartet, as already observed, is to transcend his sordid Alexandria. Probably Durrell uses Shankara’s illusionism to help his character, Darley, to realize the absurdity of his past actions and relationships, without which he would find it difficult to grow and reach his proper self. But, in the Quintet, Durrell uses Shankara’s Salvationism to shape the events in such a way that Affad can succeed in attaining Nirvana. As seen earlier in this book, the use of Salvationism helped the novelist in depicting a new reality, metareality, in fiction. In fact, Buddhism helped Durrell in several ways, particularly to get an unbiased view of life, a cosmic view of life, but the most important one he received is in realizing what human personality is. It helped him in viewing life with a demolished ego. It is the “five-basket” theory of Buddhism which rescued Durrell as a novelist from the conventional human attitudes to personality, which installs the ego at the centre of everything.] Nambiar: Do you remember Durrell talking about his “Heraldic Universe”, Groddeck’s theory of It, and his desire to be called a “Gnomic Aorist”?

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Anand: Well, I am not aware of this belief of Durrell. It came to him much later in his life, not in the thirties when we met, later on in the forties also. I think his “gnomic aorist” and Groddeck’s “theory of It” are ideas he took over, may be as extensions from Miller. I believe that I do not know enough of the background of the original thinkers to say anything about it. Nambiar; Durrell did not have any formal education as you had. Did you ever realize it as a weak point in your friendship with him? Anand: Well, in the sense in which Durrell did not go through the philosophies of the world before beginning to think of his own. In that sense the existentialism of Durrell and Henry Miller was from life itself and not from previous thought. Now my existentialism is not from Europeans like Pascal or Kierkegaard but from Buddha and Gandhi. I not only had the advantage of listening to Gandhi, but also of going to Ajanta and tracing my own thought back Gauthama and his teachings. My approach to the human situation may have gained from my previous awareness of philosophical answers to fundamental questions of transcendence. Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller were very genuine people. But they had hunches. They remained eclectic. [In an interview to Lyons and Antrim, Durrell admitted that “Well, I’m not an original philosopher, I’m just a burglar. I burgle ideas.”27 Anand is right when he says that Durrell is not an original philosopher. But to say that he “did not go through the philosophies of the world before beginning to think of his own” might not be true. That Durrell did assimilate in him the philosophies of both the West and the East is a fact that is evident from his work. That he did not have a formal education in philosophy is, however, true. Durrell told Wajsbrot that he “wanted to repair the shortcircuit between the East and the West . . . . I try to close the gap, as Jung tried to do”.28 Durrell’s interest in philosophy is born out of his desire to depict the real world in fiction, a world in which his characters are able to realize truth and live a life of peace and happiness. Anand claims that his existentialism is from Buddha, meaning that Durrell’s is probably not. In fact, Durrell’s ideas are also rooted in Indian metaphysics, particularly in Buddhism which is an integral part of Indian philosophy. He wanted his readers to understand this very clearly. He tells Wheldon in an interview about his early influences.29 While speaking about the great effort with which he wrote his Quartet, Durrell confesses to Mitchell and Andrewski that the “most interesting thing about it for me is the form, and those ideas are not mine.”30 Therefore, Durrell never pretends that his ideas are original. Richard Pine observes,

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The reason why Durrell does not get trapped into any philosophical groove is that no idea, he feels, can be perennial. The essence of Perennial Philosophy is that one should transcend all knowledge, even the knowledge of me, and to this denomination Durrell finally submitted himself. He, like Krishnamurti, never wanted to belong to any school of ideas, because that would arrest one’s inner growth. He told Kenneth Young: “Glad that you seem to realize that all answers to questions are provisional because I am still growing. Next year I might believe the opposite of all I believe today!”32 The readiness to seek more ideas, to shift from one to a better idea, made Durrell “eclectic”, as Anand has said. This greatness is what Durrell finds in Buddhism, it gives wonderful freedom for us to nurture our inner growth.] Nambiar: John Unterecker says that there is no branch of knowledge which Durrell had left untouched. Did you ever notice his reading habits? Anand: Well, he had a good deal as most intellectuals do. But I do not think Durrell left no branch of knowledge untouched. I think that he was not aware of deeper implication of Taoist thought. [Anand seems to be utterly wrong here, in judging his friend. Unterecker may be exaggerating Durrell’s range of reading. He writes: Lawrence Durrell consumed not only passionate Englishmen—from Bede to Blake, from Shakespeare to Brontes, from Keats to Lawrence—but as much of continental literature he could get under his belt. He read church fathers and philosophers—St. Augustine, Jerome, Descartes—and glaring into the sick-room, Europe, Dante and Homer.33

So Anand’s assertion that Durrell “was not aware of the deeper implication of Taoist thought” is a bit hard to accept. Taoism is just Buddhism, if the fundamentals in them are closely studied. Capra writes: All things are seen as interdependent and inseparable parts of the cosmic whole; as different manifestations of the same ultimate reality. The Eastern traditions constantly refer to this ultimate, indivisible reality which manifests itself in all things, and of which all are parts. It is called Brahman in Hinduism, Dharmakaya in Buddhism, Tao in Taoism.34

There is in Durrell all the three: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.] Nambiar: Did he ever talk to you about what he called “English Death”?

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Anand: English death was an obsession with him from his early childhood, from his youth. He may have meant the average British practicalism, their greed for things: “To gain the world–and to lose everything in the bargain”. Nambiar: You wrote in your Apology that “the personality of the Galilean carpenter’s son … is one of the goodest the world has known”.35 And Durrell wrote to Aldington: “My objection to Jesus …. He was such an ignorant and conceited fellow, imagining the world was to “come to an end” for his honour and glory.”36 Did you ever observe this sharp antiChristian sentiment of Durrell? Anand: This is literary man posturing. Obviously Durrell talks like this about Jesus from his reaction to British Methodism! Jesus was a great liberator of mankind as much as Buddha. Actually the reformation against Catholicism was the most important challenge to Christianity. But it was not a challenge against Christ. In fact, in the scene of the Inquisition in Dostoevsky the Cardinals are shown frightened that Jesus might come back. In my opinion, Protestant reformation was not rejection of Jesus, but acceptance of him as a human being. To the extent that Europe became civilized, it was through Christianity. Jesus entered the lives of barbaric Europe and kept people’s humanity to the extent that the inherited barbarism was checked among people though not among kings. [Durrell’s anti-Christian sentiment is that of an artist. We know that he is not alone to react against a system and belief that could not do anything positive to man, in spite of its complete sway over man’s attitudes and thinking for centuries. As observed in the first chapter of this book, human history is the repetition of hatred and violence. Durrell believes that if some reaction is not made against puritanism we will have to live in a morally strangled culture. As stated earlier, Durrell reveals his dislike of excessive moral intervention in literature to Wheldon in their interview. 37 We discussed in chapter two of the present book how human psyche struggles to get released from all kinds of patterns to discover the self. An artist cannot simply be “posturing” when his art is there for us to judge him. Durrell as a novelist was confronting the great problem of “I”. Why “Christianity never satisfied” him was discussed in chapter two of this book, with a reference to the interview between Durrell and Montalbetti38 We are aware of the perils created by the mirrors in the Quartet, which always reflect the self back, causing the distortion of reality. The struggle of Durrell’s protagonist is always to transcend this distorted reality in order to reach the Self. The Quartet moves from the world of outer mirrors to the world of inner mirrors, from the landscape to the mindscape. The reality he seeks, as I pointed out earlier in this book, is for bliss, absolute

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ananda. Durrell wants a smile, a smile in the mind of man. He feels that this smile is missing in the religion practiced: “strangely missing from the portrait is smile, and I wouldn’t have thought that a man could be as great as that and not have a smile somewhere”, he told Wheldon.39 Therefore, it is absurd to see Durrell in terms of any religion. Above all, like Lawrence, his concept of sex and woman makes it difficult for him to accept a faith that says that sex is sin. He says, “I think in England we do tend to confuse moral and aesthetic judgements.”40 Therefore, he accepts Buddhism which gives him total freedom, in which there is no rigid dogma to bother him, as he explains to Stephen Gray: “We start from dogma. It’s the wrong way to start. The dogma must grow out of the experience.”41 Thus, we find Durrell making his stand clear whenever or wherever he gets an occasion to do so. But, there we also have his fiction to judge, whether he is wrong or right in his views. He could never accept any kind of division or duality because that upsets our vision. In the interview given to Graf and Gauthier, he highlights the actual difference between Christian prayer and yoga.42 Durrell, like Emerson, finds that the prayer made in a worshipping centre is always for seeking something. Durrell, like Emerson and Krishnamurti, believes that we should not rely on a booth to call God and seek spiritual relief. He realized that man needs a substitute to practice this, and he finds that the most useful, the most scientific, way of practicing self-reliance is Yoga. There are several aspects to be considered before passing any outright judgement on one’s belief mechanism, particularly in Durrell’s case, because involved in his belief is the question of ego, time, truth and reality. T. S. Eliot once told him that he remains being called a Catholic because no one could detect his true faith from his poems. This startling answer came when Durrell asked him that his poems always carried Greek epigraphs in spite of his Catholic label.43] Nambiar: Durrell wrote in a novel: “And while we are eroding the Indian vision, drowning it in our technology, India is eroding ours, drowning Europe in all the vast meekness of pure insight” (Sebastian 175). I think you will have something to say on this. Anand: Well, I think Durrell was apologising for both the attitudes he himself had adopted. He certainly thought that civilization was destroying itself by the machine life and the consequences of unbridled technology for profit. He also must have felt that fatalism of the Indian people had weakened them. Of course, I don’t think that we drowned Europe in the vast meekness of pure insight. We did influence German thought.

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Schopenhauer became existentialist from Shankara. But I don’t think we ever drowned Europe in our meekness of pure insight. Nambiar: How do you compare Durrell with Kipling? I think Durrell reads Kipling’s “white man’s burden” as white man is (a) burden. (This expression is from the interviewer, and Durrell had never said these words). Anand: Well, I think these are apologies for heroism on the part of Durrell. I do not think Durrell had very much to do with Kipling. He certainly did not believe in Kipling’s idea of “white man’s burden”. Kipling was an imperialist, Kipling was a racist. Kipling said that East is East and West is West. And never the twain shall meet. Durrell had a romantic idea of Indian civilization, as dominantly tender and replete with thought–having gone deeper into the human predicament. Nambiar: You spoke of the “Alps of the European tradition and the Himalayas of my Indian past”.44 Durrell spoke of the “intellectual baggage” he “carried from Europe” and the “full impact of India” on his works.45 Do you recall him talking about his ambitious plans to write a world novel? Anand: Well, you know we both, Durrell and I, had agreed that there were worthwhile values in both the traditions. Indians had reached Himalayan heights of thoughts in the past. Europe had multiplied knowledge. Durrell talks of the intellectual baggage of Europe and of coming naked to India. I have faced both and accept only what I wanted. I went from Heidegger’s existentialism to Buddha. The sage of free living said fulfilment of life is in death. Buddha said this in sixth century BC; the ideal of life is Nirvana, deathlessness. My acceptance of man’s truth is from Greek thought, because of the rejection of man as nothing by Shankara. Exaltation of human life is possible on earth without recourse to God–through ethics without god. Transcendence above mundane existence is possible through awareness. [Anand would have been in a better position to say more on these matters if he had seen Durrell beyond his Quartet. Durrell, as we stated earlier in this book, wanted to lay a bridge between West and East through his fiction. He explains the reason why he chose Alexandria of all the cities to anchor his story in the Quartet to Lyons and Antrim: “All the religions met in a head-on crash there, all the metaphysics; our science was born there: the first measurement of the earth, Euclid.”46 Therefore, Durrell’s endeavour as a novelist is for a fusion of ideas that can bring peace and harmony to life.] Nambiar: Could you trace the source of Durrell’s keen interest in Indian thought?

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Anand: His vague feeling was confirmed by Henry Miller that Indian thought had already gone through all the phases of thinking long before the European began to be conscious. Buddha had anticipated Kierkegaard, Kant and Nietzsche in the sixth century BC. Hymn of creation in RigVeda had anticipated questions of world’s beginnings long before Einstein. Nambiar: Did you see any time Durrell in the company of Ananda Coomaraswamy? Anand: No. Coomaraswamy lived in America, Durrell very seldom went there. I met Coomaraswamy in the house of Eric Gill in 1925. My book, Hindu View of Art, was written under Coomaraswamy’s guidance. I had genuine reverence for the man who, in my opinion, rediscovered various civilizations of our century and revealed to us periods of transcendence, as is Asoka’s renunciation of war, also transcendence in creative arts. Nambiar: Durrell left India at the age of eleven and never returned. Did he tell you the reason for not visiting India? Anand: I am sorry he never told me the reason. In our own meetings he had nostalgia for India. He wanted to come but I do not know why he did not. Perhaps he felt guilty about the doings of his countrymen in India. He may have sensed the barbaric suppression of our people by the British imperialists. He would have been ashamed of the imperial imposition. Nambiar: Ian S. MacNiven wrote: “The East for Larry was probably more a spiritual kingdom than a physical place. I think that that is one reason why he never returned. He never wanted his conception in anyway interfered with by realities of the Orient”.47 He also says that that is why Miller too never visited Tibet. I think you can add something to this view. Anand: I am not sure I can answer this question because in my meeting with Henry Miller it seemed to me that he genuinely wanted to go to Tibet. But, under the conditions of time, it was impossible. He would not have been allowed there as quite a few Europeans who wanted to go to Tibet were not allowed. As for Durrell, not going beyond the Mediterranean he had an advanced European’s idea of India. I emphasize a European’s idea-from the outside, not from within India as E. M. Forster tried to sense it by residence in India. [It will be an interesting attempt if any student can make a comparative study of Forster’s Passage to India and the passage to India that we get from Durrell’s fiction. Forster was a guide to Durrell in discovering the historical and mythical importance of Alexandria which enabled him to write his Quartet. In other words, it was Forster who showed Durrell the passage to Alexandria. However, Durrell’s passage to India cannot be attributed to any single source. This is what the collection of materials in

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the Durrell archive in the University of Paris X reveals. Durrell relied on several historical and philosophical texts about Hinduism and Buddhism to gain passage to India.] Nambiar: Durrell said in an interview that he liked thinking in French and writing in English. Do you also have a similar experience of thinking in an Indian language and writing in English? Anand: Durrell’s love of French culture, especially French literature, was traditional. Almost every English intellectual visited France after his Oxford and Cambridge years. In his case his preference led him to stay away from England, mostly in France and the Mediterranean. In my case the question is quite different. I found myself writing in the English language because my own language, Punjabi, was suppressed by the British. So English was the only medium available to me at that time. As you don’t know, I call my English “Pigeon-Indian”. This title is derived from Yeats who exhorted Irish writers to write in Irish English. So I call my Indian English “Pigeon Indian” after “Pigeon Irish”. Yeats quite rightly thought that one feels in one’s mother tongue and translates those feelings in other languages. So, as an Indian, I feel and think in my mother tongue, as from my sub-conscience. I have written Punjabi-English. I even use Indian words and phrases translated from Punjabi and Hindustan and do not write English as some charming Englishmen demand it. Nambiar: Do you remember the atmosphere of meeting Durrell in France? Anand: Well, when we were in Paris we met in cafes for free talk. Wonderful French tradition! Café culture! The company of Anais Nin whom Henry Miller admired made our meetings more delightful. She was an emancipated woman, who was able to indulge in freedom of conscience, thought and actions, which was not the attitude of the average English women. [The circle of friendship which Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, and Anais Nin enjoyed both personally and literally in Paris is well known. But that there was Anand too in that great literary circle is not known to many. While talking about his wonderful relationship with Henry Miller and Anais Nin to Gilles Farcet, Durrell recollects how greatly helpful they were to him48. He recollects his stay in Paris and the wonderful chance he got to move with them, to discuss several literary and philosophical matters and to share their life with them. It was a great event in his life.48 Similarly, Anand too is proud of his experience in Paris, the experience of his “café culture” with his literary friends.]

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Nambiar: Nin’s biographer claims that, unlike Miller, Durrell resisted the charms of Anais Nin49. Perhaps, you were a witness to the erotic circle of Nin. Anand: Well, I do not think Durrell could resist the charm of Anais Nin any more than I could. I must frankly say that we were all in love with her, not in the sense of wanting to go to bed with her. We admired her intellect, her freedom of mind and heart, and her visionary attitudes towards life. Anais Nin seemed to me at that time one of the few emancipated women in Europe. [The difference between Anand and Durrell in their attitude to Nin can be seen in the difference in the comments they made about her. Durrell told John Hawkes, “Anais also lived quite close with her second husband. She always reminded me of the British Navy’s adage, ‘A girl in every port, and a port in every girl’.”50] Nambiar: What do you have to say about Durrell’s idea of the novel as a “relativity poem”, or Durrell as an experimental novelist? Anand: He was good at making phrases. A novel is born from deep experiences of human life. The writer has all rich experiences, not one experience but many. And all these go into the novel. At the root of it there is a cause, intense situations, conflicts, streams of feeling. Every novel is an experiment if it is a sincere expression of a drama of human life. I do not believe in definitions of novel forms. Every novel is a new book, an experiment on its own. It may owe something to other novels, technically, as well as owe the stream of consciousness to James Joyce. But every novel is a new book. The word novel means new. So I feel that every novel, every work of fiction, which emerges from sincere confrontation by a writer of the human situation is an experiment of a novel. And intensities make one novel more significant than another. Of course, there are advances in the techniques of novel. After eighteenth and nineteenth century narrative novels comes Joyce’s stream of consciousness novel, Ulysses. And André Guide brought in his novel, Counterfeiters, dialogues and criticisms of the novelist by the characters, and experimented in a new inclusive form bringing in dialogues and ideas. My own introduction of conversation, diary, journal in my novel, Bubble, is a new experiment. The new experiments depart from critical estimates and theories of novel, whether they are by Richards or by recent French critics. I feel that every novel is an experiment, a new experiment when it is sincere and intense. [I have already discussed how important for Durrell the form in writing is, and here now we see how dear for Anand the content is.]

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Nambiar: Most of your major novels were written in the thirties and the forties. But Durrell planned his writing in such a way (He wrote about it to T. S. Eliot and Miller) that there is a clear gap of 15 to 20 years between his major novels – The Black Book, The Quartet, and The Quintet. Did he talk to you about his plans? Anand: No. He did not talk to me about his development. I feel whatever gap there was between the two periods of writing in Durrell’s life, the style is the same, continuity of interest is the same, and problems are similar. The only thing is that his novels are placed in different landscapes and different characters come in. And each one has his or her integrity. Nambiar: Robert Scholes says “The novel may indeed be dying, but we need not fear for the future. Durrell and others are leading us in a renaissance of romance.”51 Where does Durrell as a novelist stand today? Anand: Well, I think the fear of the novel dying is needless, because in human life there are always problems. Some people feel deeply about life and novels will be written. As a matter of fact, so few novels have been written about our many people. We would have a million more novels and yet be short of awareness of many sufferers of life. So this kind of statement that the novel is dying is a very partial view of creative art. Creative arts can’t die because the urge of human beings, one feels intensely about some people, or the situation compels expression in poetry and in fiction. Fiction is more difficult than poetry, because it requires knowledge of techniques. But the poet has difficulties in finding words for feelings. The continuity of the novel form is assured only because of the mass media, television, and falsities. Witness such materials As “Bold and Beautiful”, and “Santa Barbara”. Our own serials of Doordarshan are dull! Dull! Dull! I think the novel form regenerates life in a true sense in discovering unknown people by entering areas of awareness of hitherto unknown lives--a novelist, a truthful novelist, not the junk writers. Nambiar: How do you like to remember Durrell -- as a travel writer, as a poet, or as a novelist? Anand: Well, in all his experiments. I remember him as a writer vividly, because he has a genuine gift of words. I think this gift expresses itself beautifully in his travel writings. As a novelist he is certainly superb. All his writings have certain tender touches which endear him. I think that he had a sense of wonder in his eyes, a tender heart, and he was open to ideas. Nambiar: I have observed that Durrell is not widely read in India. Is it because he is not a good novelist or do you find anything wrong in the choice we, Indians, are making? Anand: The fact that Durrell is not read in India widely is because few European writers are widely read in India. Indian intelligentsia, here, is a

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very small part of the world intelligentsia, and deprived of awareness through lack of translations. Those who previously used to go to UK universities do know some English literature, but very few know French literature or German literature. Some of us know Russian literature because most of us were impressed by Tolstoy and Gorky. But the point is that most writers in India, who are intellectuals, who have taken degrees in English universities, have meagrely read the fiction of U K. In their two years stay there it is not possible to get cultured in the fine sense of the word. Now, I think that if Durrell is not read in India, he is not the only genuine novelist not read in India. D. H. Lawrence is not read in India, and Anthony Burgess is not heard of in India. In fact, Indian writers in the languages of India know only real American paperbacks. Absence of libraries in our country is a disgraceful handicap. Some languages like Bengali, in which European novels come in early, have gone further than those languages where modern novels did not enter. The novel is a European form. We wrote stories for thousands of years but we did not write novels. There is only one novel in the medieval period called Ten Princes by Dandi. It seems to me that Indian intelligentsia is abject in its ignorance of novels of the world. I think our language writers are, unfortunately, deprived of books for no fault of theirs. Therefore, I would say in the general ignorance, apathy and absence of awareness of what is going on in the outside world are handicaps which have to be removed. I don’t know how this can be done if we have no libraries. In Kerala Malayalam novels go further because the communists of Kerala have translated Tolstoy, Gorky and Chekov in their language. Bengali has also gained from the fact that in Bengal translations are available. In Hindi there is hardly any translation of world novels. Somebody wrote to me recently that she offered a translation of my novel, Untouchable, to a major Telugu publisher. They told her novels in Telugu don’t sell. So if you can’t find a sale for a world book like Untouchable in Telugu, you can hardly find a sale for Lawrence Durrell in India. Nambiar: How do you look at your friendship with Durrell? Anand: I think this kind of situation doesn’t apply to us. I believed in the tenderness of friendship. He responded. I believe that the extent to which Durrell shared ideas with Henry Miller more and even Anais Nin that friendship between us became a bond, which is memorable, and which I hope influenced each one of us and from which we gained in intensity in loving. Nambiar: Do you have anything to convey, anything the budding writers and scholars may remember?

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Anand: Well, I do not believe in posing as a prophet. I do not believe I can say very much to budding writers. What I can say is that if you feel deeply, say it. Don’t be afraid of hurting others or being looked down by critics. If one searches for truth of life, and says it, I think that itself is a worthwhile achievement. But, I feel the truth must be told as in Gandhiji’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, first of all about one’s own life. You will find that after writing many novels, I have been publishing in recent years, my Confessionals, Seven Summers, Morning Face, Confession of a Lover, The bubble. I believe the truth about one’s self, as Gandhi wrote the truth about him, should be the starting point of all writing. No use writing about others, when one has not written about one’s own feelings, ideas, uncertainties, one’s own agonies. ‘Agony, agony, dream and ferment’ is the drama of every writer, and some small pleasures. A disciple once asked his master, the sage, in the Upanishad: “What shall I do with my life?” The sage answered: Ask yourself everyday who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?” So it seems to me that an autobiographical novel is important to write just before writing about others. Tolstoy’s Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth were his first novels. Unless one asks the question who am I, where I come from, where am I going, one cannot get over egoisms and achieve transcendence. Nambiar: In the light of this questionnaire do you have anything to advise me? Anand: No, I am not a teacher, I am a learner. Nambiar: Thank you, sir.

NOTES

Chapter One: Durrell and India 1. Ian S. MacNiven, preface to Lawrence Durrell: A Biography (London: Faber and Faber, 1998), V111. 2. Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Part 1: Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), 553. 3. Cecile Wajsbrot, “In French I Can Write Only Love Letters” in Lawrence Durrell: Conversations, ed. Earl G. Ingersoll (Cranbury: Associated University Press, 1998), 231. 4. Houston Peterson, Essays in Philosophy (Washington: Washington Square Press, 1974), 503. 5. Bibliothèque Lawrence Durrell, Paris Ouest University, Nanterre, Paris. 6. Jean-Maurice de Montremy, “Evoking Einsteinian Prayer-Wheel” in Conversations, 213. 7. D. T. Suzuki, “East and West” in Essays in Philosophy, ed., Houston Peterson (Washington: Washington Square Press, 1974), 506. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid., 508. 11. E. J. Lowe, Philosophy of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time (Oxford, 1 Clarendon Press, 1998), 2. 12. Paul Arthur Schlipp, ed., The Philosophy of Sarvapally Radhakrishnan (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1992), 38. 13. Adi Shankaracharya: “Shankara’s teaching (simultaneously theoretical and practical, as is that of all true exponents of the Perennial Philosophy) is summarized in his versified treatise, Viveka Choudamani (“The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom”)”, Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 5. 14. P. T. Raju. “Radhakrishnan’s Influence on Indian Thought” in The Philosophy of Sarvapally Radhakrishnan, 515. 15. Jean Pierre Graf and Bernard-Claude Gauthier, “Lawrence of Arabesques: The Durrellean Galaxy” in Conversations, 203. 16. Jean Montalbetti, “Using the Yeast of Religion without Breathing the Word” in Conversations, 194. 17. Richard Pine, Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1994), 119-20. 18. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of physics, (London: Flamingo, 1982), 15. 19. F. Max Muller, “India: What can It Teach Us?”, accessed July 13, 2013,

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20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

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http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=300097&pageno=1, 11. Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York, Harper and Row, 1970), 194. Stephen Gray, “Lawrence Durrell: Two Memoirs” in Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal, NS 4 (1995-96), 15-30. S. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 20. "The Kneller Tape (Hamburg) in The World of Lawrence Durrell, Ed Harry T. Moore. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1962), ix-xix. B. Alan Wallace, ed. “Buddhism and Science—Breaking Down the Barriers”, Introduction to Buddhism and Science (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 2004), 20. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, ed. Joseph Campbell (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 2005), 1. Joseph Campbell, Occidental Mythology (New York: Penguin Books), 499. William S. Waldon, “Common Ground, Common Cause: Buddhism and Science on the Afflictions of Identity” in Buddhism and Science, 145. E. W. F. Tomlin, Psyche, Culture and the New Science: The Role of PN (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 31. Peter Adam, “Alexandria Revisited” in Twentieth Century Literature, 33, No. 3, (Fall 1987), 410. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 238. Lawrence Durrell, Collected Poems (London: Faber and Faber, 1960), 132. S. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 207. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci, 15-30. Eugene Lyons and Harry T. Antrim, “An Interview with Lawrence Durrell” in Shenandoah 22.2, (1971), 42-58 Schlipp, The Philosophy of Sarvapally Radhakrishnan, 836. S. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 56. Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 5. Fletcher Markle, “Teaching Your Characters” in Conversations, 104. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci, 15-30. Graf and Gauthier, “Lawrence of Arabesques: The Durrellian Galaxy” in Conversations, 206. Kenneth Young, “A Dialogue with Durrell” in Encounter 1959, December 1959, Vol 13, 62, accessed September 15, 2013, http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1959dec-00061. Joan Goulianos, “A Conversation with Lawrence Durrell about Art, Analysis, and Politics” in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 17. 2 (1971), 162. Charles Breaux, Journey into Consciousness: The Chakras, Tantra and Jungian Psychology (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1998), 27. Michel Braudeau, “With That I’ve Said It All”, Conversations, 190. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies, 3. His Holiness, the X1V Dalai Lama, “Understanding and Transforming the Mind” in Buddhism and Science, 97.

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47. Cecily Mackworth, “Lawrence Durrell and the New Romanticism” in Twentieth Century, CLXV11(March1960),10 48. S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Religious Thought (New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 2006), 35 49. Ian MacNiven, Lawrence Durrell: A Biography, 65. 50. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of physics, 41. 51. B. Alan Wallace “Introduction” to Buddhism and Science, 8. 52. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci, 15-30. 53. Montreamy, Conversations, 213. 54. Lawrence Durrell. A Key to Modern British Poetry, London: Faber & Faber, 1952), 64. 55. Jack Sarfatti, Destiny Matrix, 214, accessed July 15, 2013, http://www.bavarianilluminati.com/science/Jack_Sarfatti_The_Destiny_Matrix .pdf. 56. Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda in The Holy Geeta (Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2002), 62. 57. Zimmer, Philosophies, 363. 58. Chinmayananda, The Holy Geeta, 63. 59. Ibid., 9. 60. Zimmer, Philosophies, 26. 61. Michel Braudeau, “With That, I’ve Said It All” in Conversations, 189. 62. Zimmer, Philosophies, 3. 63. F. R. Leavis, The Great Tradition (London: Penguin Books, 1948), 36. 64. Read Way Dasenbrock, “Lawrence Durrell and the Modes of Modernism” in Twentieth Century Literature, 33, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), 520. 65. Kenneth Young in Encounter, 64. 66. Charles Breaux, Journey into Consciousness, 5. 67. Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World, trans. Montogomery Belgian (New York: Facet world Library, 1966) 68. Breaux, Journey into Consciousness, 9. 69. Ibid., “Introduction”, V111. 70. Ibid., 8. 71. Paul Arthur Schlipp, Philosophy of Sarvapally Radhakrishnan, 71. 72. Michele Marie Desmarias. Changing Minds: Mind, Consciousness and Identity in Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutra and Cognitive Neuroscience (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 2007), 178. 73. Ibid., 9. 74. Aldous Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, 9. 75. Ibid., 38 76. Ibid. 77. Capra, Tao of Physics, 151. 78. Huxley, 96. 79. Lyons and Antrim, Shenandoah, 42-58. 80. Corinne Alexandre-Garner, “Waking up in Scott Fitzgerald’s Bed” in Conversations, 222. 81. Michel Braudeau, Conversations, 189.

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82. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 62.

Chapter Two: Rereading The Alexandria Quartet in the light of J.Krishnamurti 1. Henry Miller, “J. Krishnamurti—Master of Reality,” in The Mind of J. Krishnamurti, ed. Luis S. R. Vas (Delhi: Jaico Publishing House, 2011), 283. 2. Mary Lutyens, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti (Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundations India, 2006), 64. 3. Robert S. Ellwood, The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mercia Eliad, and Joseph Campbell, (New York: State University of New York, 1999), 135. 4. Mary Lutyens, 76. 5. Ibid., 64. 6. Ibid., 8. 7. Alan Gullette, “Freedom in Krishnamurti”, http://alangullette.com/essays/philo/k_free.htm, accessed 14 July 3013. 8. Dr. S, Radhakrishnan, Preface to Eastern Religion and Western Thought, V111. 9. Ian S. MacNiven, ed., The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80 (London: New Directions), 190. 10. Andy Hoffman, “On the Colossus of Maroussi: A Meditation on the End of war”, http://implizit.blogspot.in/2011/06/henry-miller-and-krishnamurti _3856.html, accessed 14 July, 2013. 11. Jack Sarfatti, Destiny Matrix: The World According to Jack, 53, http://ebookbrowse.com/jack-sarfatti-the-destiny-matrix-pdf-d339673588, accessed 14 July, 2013. 12. Michael Haag, Alexandria: City of Memory (London: Yale University Press 2004), 300. (in his email to Nambiar Haag asked him to see page number 300 of City of Memory) 13. Mary Lutyens, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti, 84. 14. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 284. 15. Maurice de Montremy, 214. 16. J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm, The Ending Of Time (Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, 2008), 13. 17. Roy Bhaskar, meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, Vol.1: Creativity, Love and Freedom (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002), 92. 18. Graf and Gauthier, “Lawrence of Arabesques: The Durrellian Galaxy” in Conversations, 206-207. 19. J. Krishnamurti, The Ending Of Time, 103. 20. Dr. S, Radhakrishnan, Preface to Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 352. 21. Joan Goulianos, Modern Fiction Studies, 160. 22. Ibid., 161. 23. Julian Mitchell and Gene Andrewski, “Lawrence Durrell: The Art of Fiction”, The Paris Review, (Autumn—Winter 1959-60), No-22,

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24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

Notes http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4720/the-art-of-fiction-no-23lawrence-durrell, accessed 15 September 2013. Huw Wheldon, "Lawrence Durrell” in Monitor: An Anthology, ed. Huw Wheldon (London: Macdonald & Co. Ltd., 1962), 118-25 Ending of Time, 68. Hubert Juin, “Letting the Reader loose on the Work” in Conversations, 43. Mary Lutyens, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti, 73. J. Krishnamurti, The Ending Of Time, 77. Luis S. R. Vas, ed. The Mind of J. Krishnamurti, 95. Bolivar Le Frank, “Playing Poker instead of Rummy” in Conversations, 97. Whelden, Monitor, 118-25. Roy Bhaskar, meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, 29. The Ending of Time, 80. Mathieu Ricard, “On the Relevance of A Contemplative Science”, in Buddhism and Science, ed. B. Alan Wallace (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 2004), 265. “The Kneller Tape”, 1X-X1X. J. Krishnamurti, The Ending Of Time, 102. Ibid., 101. Ibid., 95. J. Krishnamurti, Truth and Actuality (Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation, 2008), 59. The Ending of Time, 267-68. Ibid., 86. Lawrence Markert, “The Pure and Sacred Readjustment of Death: Connections between Lawrence Durrell’s Avignon Quintet and the Writings of D. H. Lawrence” in Twentieth Century Literature, 33, No. 4 (Winter 1987), 233. Henry Miller, “J. Krishnamurti—The Master of reality” in The Mind of J. Krishnamurti, 286. Jean Montalbetti, “Using the Yeast of Religion” in Conversations, 198-99. Roy Bhaskar, meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, 97. Capra, The Tao of physics, 197. Mary Lutyens, The Life and Death of Krishnamurti, 150. MacNiven, The Durrell-Miller Letters, 18. The Ending of Time, 209. Ibid., 213. Graf and Gauthier, Conversations, 203. Ending of Time 15. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 103. Ibid., 66. Montalbetti, Conversations, 196. Mathieu Ricard, Buddhism and Science, 264. Montalbetti, 194. S, Radhakrishnan, Preface to Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 80. Joan Goulianos, 161.

Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81.

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meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, 84. The Ending Of Time, 108. Ibid., 67. Herbert Juin, “Letting the Reader Loose on the Work” in Conversations, 41. Ending of Time, 31. Mitchell and Andrewski, Paris Review. Montalbetti, Conversations, 194. Krishnamurti, Truth and Actuality, 58. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci. Ending of Time, 126. Bolivar le Franc, “Playing Poker instead of Rummy”, Conversations. 97. Lyons and Antrim, Shenandoah. Le Frank, Conversations, 96 Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, (Hampshire: Rider, 2010), 212 Lawrence Durrell, Collected Poems, 154. Freedom, 214. Ending of Time, 108. Durrell-Miller Letters, 57. Montalbetti, Conversations, 196. Graf, Conversations, 204. Ibid., 203-204.

Chapter Three: Sexuality and Interior Liberation 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Lawrence Durrell, BBC Talk, 19 October 1965. Jean Montalbetti, “Using the East of Religion” in Conversations, 196. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 62. Mulk Raj Anand, Conversations in Bloomsbury (Delhi: vision Books, 2011), 60. D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20654/20654-h/20654-h.htm#CHAPTER_XV, 275, accessed 15 July, 2013. David Gordon White. Introduction to Tantra in Practice, ed. White (Princeton University Press, 2000), 9. Heinrich Zimmer, Artistic Form and Yoga in Sacred Images, trans. Gerald Chappell and James B. Lawson (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), 12. Robert McDonald, “Jumping about Like Quanta” in Conversations, 157. Alan Watts, Nature, Man, and Woman (New York: Mentor Books, 1960), 162. T. N. Mishra, Impact of Tantra on Religion and Art (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 1987), 45. Ibid., 48. Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World, trans. Montgomery Belgian (New York: Facet World Library, 1966), 122. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci, 15-30. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 576. T. N. Mishra, 45.

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16. D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia, Ch. 15, 279. 17. Julius Evola, The Metaphysics of sex (New York: Inner Tradition international, 1983), 103. 18. D. H. Lawrence, The Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Compiled and ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 53. 19. Milarepa, “Song of the Galloping Horse of a Yogi”, http://www.khandro.net/animal_horse.htm. accessed 15 July, 2013. 20. Lawrence Durrell, Collected Poems, 233. 21. Justine Pomeroy, “Tantra: Aligning Intimacy with Spirituality”, http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Tantra/id/21970, accessed 11 April, 2013. 22. Capra, Tao of Physics, 103. 23. “The Kneller Tape”, 1X-X1X. 24. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 32. 25. D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia, 150. 26. Ibid., 277. 27. John Hawkes, “Lawrence Durrell and John Hawkes: Passages from a Dialogue at Pennsylvania State University." in Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal 33.3, ed. Michael H. Begnal (1987), 415. 28. Cecile Wajsbrot, “In French I can Write only Love Letters” in Conversations, 230. 29. Hugh B. Urban, Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2007), 168. 30. Viparitha Maithuna: “This sexual union is different from what is usually understood by this in the western traditions, in the sense that man is immobile, while the woman, embracing him, assumes an active role during the sexual act.” http://sivasakti.net/articles/tantra/shiva-shakti-art37.html. accessed 17 July, 2013. 31. Benjamine Walker, Tantrism (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1982), 58. 32. “The Kneller Tape”, Conversations, 70. 33. Heinrich Zimmer, Artistic Form, 22. 34. Ibid., 30. 35. Woodroffe, Sir John. The Serpent Power (Madras: Ganesh and Company, 2003), 31. 36. Capra, Tao, 103. 37. Erica Jong, The Devil at Large (New York: Grove Press, 1994), 222. 38. Julius Evola, The Metaphysics of Sex (New York: Inner Traditions International, 1983), 42. 39. Colin Wilson, Origins of the Sexual Impulse, (London: Granada Publishing, 1978), 36 40. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 62-63. 41. Richard Pine, Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 334. 42. Ibid., 335. 43. Ibid., 36.

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44. George Steiner, “Lawrence Durrell: The Baroque Novel” in Yale Review XL1X (Summer 1960), 22. 45. Rougemont, Love in the Western world, 237 46. Ibid., 221 47. E. W. F. Tomlin, Psyche, Culture and the New Science: The Role of PN (London: Routeledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 21. 48. Hugh Wheldon, Monitor, 118-25. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 62. 52. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci, 15-30. 53. Anna Lillios, Conversations, 244. 54. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 36. 55. C. Ravindran Nambiar, “The Spirit of Tantric Maithuna in The Avignon Quintet”, Deus Loci, Special Issue, NS 10, (2006-2007), 167-178. 56. Nambiar. “Appendix”, 177. 57. Robert McDonald, Coversations, 158. 58. Graf and Gauthier, Conversations, 209. 59. Alan W. Watts, Nature, Man, and Woman (New York: New American Library, 1960), 161. 60. Ibid., 165-66. 61. Soundarya Lahari of Sankaracharya, trans. Nataraja Guru, http://www.advaita-vedanta.co.uk/index.php/content/243-saundarya-laharishort-comments, accessed 19 July, 2013. 62. Rougemont, 112. 63. Ibid., 116 64. Ibid., 54. 65. Robert McDonald, Conversations, 155. 66. Gilles Farcet, Conversations, 247. 67. Fletcher Markle, “Using Diversions to Transmit the Essential”, Conversations, 103. 68. James R. Nichols, “Ah—The Wonder of My Body; The wandering of my Mind: Classicism and Lawrence Durrell’s Literary Tradition”, Twentieth Century Literature, 33, Vol. 4 (Winter1987), 455. 69. Isabelle Keller-Privat, “‘With only his eyeballs for probes’: Looking into the Buddhist intertext of The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell” in Confluences: Lawrence Durrell: Borderlands & Borderlines, numero 26 (Paris: Presses Universertaires de Paris, 2004), 156. 70. Lawrence W. Markert”, “The Pure and Sacred Readjustment of Death: Connections between Lawrence Durrell’s Avignon Quintet and the Writings of D. H. Lawrence”, Twentieth Century Literature, 33, No. 4 (Winter 1987), 562. 71. “Sri Aurobindo ou l’aventure de la conscience”, http://hoboonwheels.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/sri-aurobindo-ou-laventurede-la-conscience/ , accessed 15 July 2013.

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Chapter Four: Affad: A Cultural Hero and Contemplative Scientist 1. Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 65. 2. Joseph Campbell, A Hero with Thousand Faces (London: Paladin, 1988), 16, 3. Cecile Wajsbrot, “In French I Can Write Only Love Letters”, Conversations, 231. 4. A Hero with Thousand Faces, 121. 5. James P. Carley, "An Interview With Lawrence Durrell on the Background to Monsieur and Its Sequels." The Malahat Review 51 (1979): 42-46 6. Rougemont, Love in the Western World, 54. 7. Hero with Thousand Faces, 17. 8. Huxley, 104. 9. Roy Bhaskar, meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, Vol.1 (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002), 24. 10. Ibid, 51. 11. A Hero with a Thousand Faces, 30 12. Ibid., 17. 13. Ibid., 388. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid., 120. 16. Ibid., 246. 17. Timothy Conway, “Zen Humour”, http://www.enlightened-spirituality .org/Zen_Humor.html. accessed 19 April 2013. 18. Bhaskar, meta-Reality, 52. 19. Satprem, Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, Translated from French, (Mysore: Manipal Press, 2008), 112. 20. Campbell, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, 218. 21. Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, 56. 22. Fletcher Markle, “Teaching Your Characters That They’re More or Less Free”, Conversations, 104. 23. Huxley, 49. 24. John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman (New York: New American Library 1970), 355. 25. Joan Goulianos, Modern Fiction Studies, 164. 26. Suzuki, “East and West”, 506. 27. French Lieutenant’s Woman, 116. 28. Ibid., 211. 29. Ibid. 30. Hero with Thousand Faces, 391. 31. Bhaskar, Introduction to meta-Reality, XV. 32. Huxley, 106. 33. Ken Wilber, Up From Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution (New York: Anchor Press, 1981), 151. 34. Ibid., 152. 35. Huxley, 86.

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36. Nambiar, “Appendix”, 180. 37. “Commentary by Chinmayananda”, The Holy Geeta (Mumbai: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 2001), 46. 38. Jean Montalbetti, “Using the Yeast of Religion without Breathing the Word” in Conversations, 199. 39. Durrell-Miller Letters, 354. 40. Ken Wilber, Up from Eden, 152. 41. Aldous Huxley, 86. 42. Bhaskar, meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, 29. 43. Ibid., 53. 44. William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1V, Scene 1, 156-7. 45. Campbell, Creative Mythology (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1984), 7879. 46. Capra, The Tao of Physics, 16. 47. Hyman Sarfatti, Destiny Matrix, 233. 48. Dalai Lama, Buddhism and Science, 92. 49. Sarfatti, 222. 50. Capra, Tao of Physics, 102. 51. Ibid., 209. 52. Piet Hut, “Life as a Laboratory” in Buddhism and Science, 402. 53. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 198. 54. James P. Carley, 45. 55. Durrell-Miller Letters, 488. 56. Paramananda Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi (Delhi: Jaico Publishing House 1992), 226-7. 57. Graf and Gauthier, “Lawrence of Arabesques” in Conversations, 206. 58. Fletcher Markle, “Teaching Your Characters That They Are More or Less Free”, Conversations, 100. 59. Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religion and Western Thought, 200. 60. Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 280. 61. Linda Hutcheon, “Historiogaphic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertexuality of History”, http://ieas.unideb.hu/admin/file_3553.pdf, 16. Accessed 18 July, 2013. 62. Nagendranath Ganguly. The Buddha and His Message: The Heart of Enlightenment (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan 2000), 80. 63. Ian S. MacNiven, Lawrence Durrell: A Biography, 2. 64. Piet Hut, Buddhism and science, 403. 65. Durrell-Miller Letters, 486. 66. H. K. Kesavan, Science and Mysticism (The Essence of Vedic Philosophy) (New Delhi: The New Age International, 1997), 190. 67. Anton Zeilinger, Buddhism and Science, 388 68. Pit Hut, Buddhism and Science, 403. 69. Mathieu Ricard, Buddhism and Science, 272. 70. Thupten Jinpa, Buddhism and Science, 73. 71. Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), 605.

202

Notes

72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80.

Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, 56. Ibid, 65. Bhaskar, meta-Reality: The Philosophy of meta-Reality, 174. Huxley., 166. Ibid, 191. Bhaskar, 175 Ibid., 58. Mathieu Ricard, Buddhism and Science, 262. Claude Bragdon, “The Essence of Krishnamurti’s Teachings” in The Mind of J. Krishnamurti, 24. 81. Miller, The Mind of Krishnamurti, 247. 82. Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, 294.

Chapter Five: Illusion and Reality: The Existential Dilemma 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

“The Kneller Tape”, 1X-X1X. Nambiar, “Appendix”, 179. John Hawkes, Twentieth Century Literature, 412. Jean Montalbetti, Conversations, 200. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, 240. Ibid., 239-40. Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, 161. William S. Waldron, Buddhism and Science, 167. Roy Bhaskar, meta-Reality, 44-45. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 64. T. R. V. Murti. Studies in Indian Thought: Collected Papers of Prof. T. R. V. Murti, ed. Harold G. Coward (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas 1996), 43. Ibid., 89. Campbell, Creative Mythology, 78. Ibid., 78. Peter Adam, Conversations, 176. Jean Montalbetti, Conversations, 199. Corinne Alexandre-Garner, Conversations, 219. Roy Bhaskar, meta-Reality, 104. Capra, Tao of Physics, 108. Meta-Reality, 45. Dianne Vipond, “Lawrence Durrell’s Avignon Quintet: A Key to His Achievement in Postmodern Fiction”, Lawrence Durrell at the Crossroads of Arts and Sciences (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris Quest), 31. Ibid., 32. Vipond, e-mail to Author, 13 January, 2013. Bhaskar, meta-Reality, 35. Dianne, email, Jan 13. meta-Reality, 53.

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27. Bhaskar, meta-Reality, 10-11. 28. See page number 112. Also “Zen Humour”, http://www.enlightenedspirituality.org/Zen_Humor.html 29. Bhaskar, Reflections, 23. 30. Huxley, V111. 31. Ibid., 1. 32. E. R. Moras, Autology (Study Thyself) and Autopathy (Cure Thyself) (Chicago: E. R. Moras, 1908), 7 http://archive.org/stream/autologystudythy1908mora#page/n7/mode/2up, accessed 7 July 2013. 33. Bhaskar, Reflection, 11. 34. Ibid., 16. 35. Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, 21. 36. Ibid., 128. 37. Ibid., 134. 38. Bhaskar, Reflections, 53. 39. Ibid, 51. 40. Schlipp, Radhakrishnan, 29-30. 41. Ibid., 43. 42. Ibid. 43. Reflections, 14. 44. Michel Braudeau, Conversations, 190. 45. Peter Adam, Coversations, 170. 46. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 66. 47. “Kneller Tape”, 74. 48. Zimmer, Philosophies, 460. 49. Ibid, 463. 50. Wajsbrot, Conversations 231. 51. Huxley, 208. 52. Paul Arthur Schlipp, The Philosophy of Sarvapally Radhakrishnan, 305. 53. “The Kneller Tape”, 71. 54. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 62. 55. Jean Montalbetti, Conversations, 198. 56. “The Kneller Tape”, Conversations, 71. 57. Durrell-Mille Letters, 508. 58. Peter Adam, Conversations, 177. 59. Zimmer, Philosophies, 286. 60. Ibid., 240.

Appendix: Interview with Mulk Raj Anand 1. Ian S. MacNiven. Letter to Author, 22 November 1993. 2. “Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004)”. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/anand.htm, accessed 7 July 2013. 3. MacNiven, Letter to Author, 22 November 1993. 4. Mulk Raj Anand, Letter to Author, 23 October 1993.

204 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Notes MacNiven. Letter 22 November. Ibid. Ibid. Mitchell and Andrewski, Paris Review. Joan Goulianos, Modern Fiction Studies, 165. Alexandre-Garner. “Waking Up in Scott Fitzgerald’s Bed” in Conversations, 217. MacNiven. Letter, March 1993. Goulianos, 164. See page 115. Kenneth Young. Encounter, 64. John Hawkes. Twentieth Century Literature, 414. Robert MacDonald. “Jumping about Like Quanta” in Conversations, 156. Fletcher Markle. “Teaching Your Characters That They’re More or Less Free” in Conversations, 103. Stephen Gray. Deus Loci. See also page 7. Mulk Raj Anand, Apology for Heroism (Bombay: Arnold Heinemann), 124 Meenakshi Mukerjee, “Beyond the Village: An Aspect of Mulk Raj Anand” in Critical Essays on Writing in English, Ed, M. K. Naik, et al (Dharwar: Karnataka University 1968), 237. Earl G. Ingersoll. Introduction to Conversations, 15. Julian Mitchell in Paris Review. James P. Carley. 43. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci. F. R. Leavis. The Great Tradition (London: Penguin Books 1948), 36. Manu: Manu: The Laws of Manu represent one of the most ancient sources for our knowledge of early Indian social structure. Though it was probably written in the first or second century BCE, the traditions that it presents are much older, perhaps dating back to the period of Aryan invasions almost fifteen hundred years earlier. Manu himself was a mythical character, the first man, who was transformed into a king by the great god Brahma because of his ability to protect the people. The fact that the ancient Indians attributed the beginnings of kingship and social classes to the first man is evidence that they themselves recognized the antiquity of these institutions. http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/261manu.html accessed on 26 August 2013. Anand, Preface to Apology for Heroism. Lyons and Antrim, Shenandoah, 42-58. Cecile Wajsbrot. “In French I Can Write Only Love Letters” in Conversations, 231. Huw Wheldon in Monitor, 118-25. Mitchell and Andrewski, Paris Review. Richard Pine, Lawrence Durrell: The Mindscape, 5. Kenneth Young, Encounter, 67-8. John Unterecker. Lawrence Durrell: Columbia Essays on Modern Writers (New York: College University Press 1964), 8. Capra, Tao of Physics, 141.

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35. Anand, Apology for Heroism, 73. 36. Richard Aldington. The Richard Aldington Lawrence Durrell Correspondence, ed. Ian S. MacNiven (London: Faber & Faber 1981), 28. 37. Wheldon, 118-25. 38. Montalbetti in Conversations, 194. (also Chapter Two, 59). 39. Wheldon, Monitor, 118-25. 40. Ibid. 41. Stephen Gray, Deus Loci. 42. Graf and Gauthier in Conversations, 203. 43. Charles E. Claffey in Conversations, 242. 44. Apology for Heroism, 104. 45. Lawence Durrell, “BBC Talk”. 46. Lyons and Antrim, Shenandoah, 42-58. 47. MacNiven, Letter to Author 7 March 1993. 48. Giles Farcet in Conversations, 247. 49. Deirdre Bair. Anais Nin (New York: G. B. Putnam’s), 50. John Hawkes in Twentieth Century Literature, 411. 51. Robert Scholes, "Return to Alexandria: Lawrence Durrell and Western Narrative Tradition," in Virginia Quarterly Review (copyright, 1964, by the Virginia Quarterly Review, The University of Virginia), Vol. 40, No. 3 (Summer 1964), 411-20.

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INDEX Adam, Peter, 10, 145, 156, 162 Affad, 2, 4, 9, 14, 20, 22, 36, 38, 40, 43, 49, 52, 53, 54, 60, 61, 65, 66, 72, 73, 74, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 143, 148, 149, 152, 154, 155, 156, 157, 163, 164, 179, 180 Ahab, 18 Akkad, 2, 11, 107, 133 Aldington, Richard, 183 Alexandre-Garner, 34, 145, 170 Alexandria Quartet, 3, 13, 17, 22, 34, 36, 37, 39, 59, 60, 62, 66, 67, 78, 141, 143, 166, 179 Anand, Mulk Raj, 26, 63, 119, 137, 165, 167 ananda, 47, 72, 73, 77, 98, 137, 179 Andrewski, Gene, 45, 61, 181 Apology for Heroism, 173, 178 Arjuna, 21, 22, 23 Arnauti, 8, 41, 51, 86 atman, 21, 118, 122, 144 Auden, W H, 151 Balthazar, 16, 39, 40, 41, 42, 48, 50, 54, 57, 58, 86, 108, 126, 140, 141, 142, 145, 159 Basho, 3 being-consciousness-bliss, 155 Besant, Annie, 37, 38, 40 Bhagavad Gita, 13, 20, 21, 22, 24, 44 Bhaskar, Roy, 43, 49, 55, 60, 107, 108, 112, 117, 121, 122, 133,

134, 142, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155 bliss, 2, 12, 26, 33, 47, 53, 66, 71, 72, 75, 77, 85, 96, 97, 98, 99, 109, 117, 147, 154, 155, 163, 172, 183 Blockwood Park, 52 bodhi, 122 Bodhisattva, 149 Bohm, 36, 37, 39, 42, 43, 47, 49, 50, 52, 53, 57, 60 Bon Juan, 27, 86 boon, 13, 104, 110, 111, 113, 115, 117, 126, 154, 156, 167 Braudeau, Michel, 22, 34, 156 Breaux, Charles, 15, 27, 28 Buddha, 70, 124, 130, 134, 149, 154, 175, 179, 180, 181, 183, 185, 186 Buddhism, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, 19, 27, 49, 56, 59, 61, 124, 126, 129, 130, 131, 132, 173, 180, 181, 182, 184, 187 Capra, 6, 19, 31, 55, 76, 83, 89, 124, 125, 146, 150, 153, 182 Chekov, 190 Chinmayananda, 5, 21 Clea, 24, 43, 59, 86, 87, 88, 107, 112, 145, 177 Clifford, 72, 73, 78, 93, 101 Coomaraswamy, Ananda, 186 Caesar’s Vast Ghost, 2, 95, 114, 130, 141, 154, 163 Dadalus, Stephen, 145 Dalai Lama, 16, 49, 125, 131 Darley, 3, 4, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 65, 85, 86, 87, 88, 96, 104, 106,

Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels 107, 112, 113, 114, 122, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159, 163, 164, 179, 180 Dasenbrock, Read Way, 26 Desmarais, Michele Marie, 29 Destiny Matrix, 20, 39 Dickens, Charles, 176 Don Juan, 27, 86, 87 Donne, John, 115, 151 Dostoevsky, 183 dualism, 29, 153 Durant, Will, 1, 6 Durrell archive, 187 Earnest, Collings, 75 East, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 27, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 48, 50, 61, 64, 68, 69, 71, 91, 93, 104, 116, 120, 128, 129, 144, 159, 170, 172, 174, 181, 185, 186 ego, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 21, 22, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 61, 66, 68, 82, 86, 88, 94, 96, 104, 106, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 123, 124, 125, 128, 130, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 152, 153, 173, 180, 184 Einstein, 16, 60, 131, 132, 141, 144, 179, 186 Eliot, T S, 6, 52, 120, 151, 156, 165, 184, 189 Ellwood, Robert S, 37 Ending of Time, 42, 57 Epicurean, 98 Eros, 33, 105, 118, 119 Esslin, Von, 52, 53, 159 eudaemonism, 155 eudemonism, 155 Evola, Julius, 74, 84 Fantasia of the Unconscious, 70, 74, 77 First and Last Freedom, 65

213

Forster, E M, 1, 166, 169, 186 Fowles, John, 115, 116, 148, 172, 177 Freedom from the Known, 64 French Lieutenant’s Woman, 115, 116, 172 Freud, Sigmund, 14, 15, 28, 36, 78, 86, 150, 179, 180 Galileo, 109 Gandhi, Mahatma, 166, 175, 181, 191 Gass, William, 149 Gauthier, Bernard Claude, 5 Ghosh, Aurobindo, 5 gnosis, 11, 122 gnostic, 5, 13, 60, 133, 156 Gnosticism, 39, 54, 89, 106, 120, 126, 127, 129 Gorky, Maxim, 190 Graf, Jean-Pierre and BernardClaude Gauthier, 5, 14, 43, 56, 66, 91, 129, 184 Gray, Stephen, 7, 14, 20, 63, 72, 89, 173, 177, 184 Groddeck, Georg, 52, 131, 141, 180, 181 Gullette, Alan, 38 Haag, Michael, 40 Hardy, Thomas, 90, 115, 116, 177 Hawkes, John, 77, 137, 171, 188 Heidegger, 185 heraldic universe, 47, 60, 113, 131, 148 Hesse, Herman, 139 Hinduism, 5, 10, 15, 76, 83, 106, 120, 124, 126, 182, 187 Hoffman, Andy, 38 horses, 21, 22, 75 Hut, Piet, 126, 130 Hutcheon, Linda, 129 Huxley, Aldous, 1, 6, 7, 13, 14, 30, 31, 33, 37, 39, 66, 69, 103, 104, 107, 113, 114, 117, 119, 121, 133, 134, 135, 140, 150, 151, 152, 153, 158, 159 Ingersoll, Earl G, 2, 176

214 interlinear, 42, 141, 143, 145 Isherwood, 7 Jinpa, Thupten, 131 Jong, Erica, 84 Joyce, James, 18, 176, 188 Juin, Hubert, 46, 60 Jung, Carl, 28, 128, 181 Justine, 15, 42, 43, 44, 45, 51, 62, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 97, 112, 138, 145, 146, 177 Kama Sutra, 89 Kant, 6, 186 karma, 137, 179 Keats, Johnny, 24, 182 Keller-Privat, 12, 15, 24, 31, 42, 51, 53, 64, 78, 84, 85, 86, 101, 121, 123, 155 Kesavan, H K, 131 Key to Modern British Poetry, 6, 7, 11, 19, 20, 24, 28, 31, 32, 33, 46, 52, 106, 150, 151 Kierkegaard, 181, 186 Kipling, Rudyard, 185 Koan, 112 Krishnamurti, J, 36, 37, 38, 39, 67, 135, 147, 150, 182, 184 Lawrence, DH, 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 13, 17, 18, 26, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 84, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 116, 130, 136, 139, 147, 155, 158, 159, 163, 165, 167, 169, 172, 176, 177, 181, 182, 184, 187, 190 Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 81, 93, 96, 97, 131 Le Frank, 64, 65 Leadbeater, Charles, 37, 38 Leavis, F R, 26, 177 Lillios, Anna, 89 Livia, 78, 79, 81, 133, 137, 141, 148, 149 Lord Krishna, 21, 23, 24 Lord Tennyson, 3

Index Love in the Western World, 86, 95 Lowe, Jonathan, 5 Lutyens, Emily, 40 Lutyens, Mary, 36 Lyons, Eugene and Harry T. Antrim, 11, 33, 64, 181, 185 Macbeth, 136, 138 Mackworth, Cecily, 17 MacNiven, Ian, 1, 2, 18, 130, 161, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 186 Mahayana Buddhism, 155 maithuna, 77, 91, 92, 94, 95 Mann, Thomas, 37 Manu, 178 Markert, Lawrence, 53, 101 Markle, Fletcher, 13, 98, 114, 129, 172 Marx, Carl, 155, 179, 180 Maugham, Somerset, 7 maya, 83, 122, 159 McDonald, 71, 172 Melissa, 45, 62, 86, 87, 88, 96, 112, 140, 177 Mellors, 68, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 93, 97, 99, 117, 130, 139 metafiction, 108, 129, 148, 149, 156, 157, 158 metarealism, 137, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158, 159, 162 Milarepa, 75 Mill, John Stuart, 87, 88 Miller, Henry, 1, 6, 16, 26, 36, 37, 38, 39, 54, 55, 66, 84, 97, 127, 131, 135, 162, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 177, 179, 181, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 Mishra, T N, 71, 74, 92 Mitchell, Julian, 45, 61, 181 Moby Dick, 18 Montalbetti, Jean, 5, 54, 58, 61, 66, 68, 138, 145, 161 Montremy, Jean-Maurice, 20, 41 Moras, E R, 152

Indian Metaphysics in Lawrence Durrell’s Novels Mountolive, 17, 85, 145 Muller, Max, 6, 170 Murti, T R V, 143, 144 Nambiar, Ravindran, 90 Narayan, R K, 174, 175 Nessim, 42, 86, 96, 140 Nichols, James R, 99 Nin, Anais, 39, 165, 168, 187, 188, 190 Nirvana, 29, 112, 130, 146, 157, 158, 179, 180, 185 non-dualism, 13, 64, 108, 150, 173 Nunquam, 64, 87 Occidental Mythology, 9 Ojai, 38 Parvathi, 89 Pascal, 181 Patanjali, 60, 131 Perennial Philosophy, 14, 30, 33, 103, 104, 113, 151, 152, 159, 182 Philosophies of India, 21, 157 Pine, Richard, 5, 85, 181 Plato, 6 Plotinus, 125 Pritchett, V S, 174 Psyche, Culture and the New Science: The Role of PN, 10 puritanism, 183 Pursewarden, 16, 40, 41, 48, 65, 86, 131, 136, 141, 142, 159, 160 Pythagoras, 66 Radhakrishnan, S, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 17, 28, 29, 38, 44, 59, 76, 129, 150, 153, 154, 159 Raju, PT, 5 Ramakrishna, Sri, 5 Rao, Raja, 159, 174, 175 Read, Herbert, 165 relativity, 16, 51, 60, 141, 144, 145, 146, 150, 188 Revolt of Aphrodite, 64, 90, 120 Ricard, Mathieu, 49, 59, 131, 134 Rougemont, Dennis De, 27, 72, 86, 95, 96, 105 Russell, Bertrand, 32

215

Sarfatti, Hyman, 39, 124 Sarfatti, Jack, 20, 39 satchidananda, 77 Sat-chit-ananda, 98, 118 Schopenhauer, 144, 147, 185 Schwarz, 94, 97, 100, 110, 124, 125, 128 Sebastian, 9, 10, 14, 15, 54, 63, 69, 92, 101, 106, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 158, 163, 180, 184 Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion, 81 Shakespeare, William, 122, 182 Shakti, 27, 28, 30, 83, 84, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 111, 178 Shankaracharya, Adi, 45, 158 Shaw, Bernard, 37, 66 shedding, 15, 112, 122, 150 Shiva, 27, 28, 83, 84, 89, 93, 95, 111, 125, 126 Siddhartha, 139 skandhas, 14, 28, 29, 30, 129 Steiner, George, 85 stream-of-consciousness, 25 Suares, Carlo, 39, 40, 47, 54 Suzuki, D T, 3, 4, 6, 115, 116, 144, 150, 153 Tambimuttu, 168, 173 Tantra, 15, 24, 27, 28, 70, 71, 73, 74, 77, 80, 81, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 109 Tantric, 20, 26, 27, 28, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 102, 105, 115 Tantrism, 13, 26, 27, 28, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 92, 93, 98, 100, 101, 178 Tao of Physics, 6, 31, 76 Taoism, 182 tat tvam asi, 17, 122 Ten Talks, 38 Thanatos, 33, 105, 118, 119, 120

216 The Alexandria Quartet, 3, 13, 17, 22, 34, 36, 37, 39, 59, 60, 62, 66, 67, 78, 141, 143, 166, 179 The Avignon Quintet, 1, 3, 10, 34, 61, 66, 68, 85, 110, 121, 124, 147, 158, 180 The Bhagavad Gita, 13, 20, 21, 22, 24, 44 The Black Book, 6, 14, 26, 64, 65, 100, 156, 171, 189 The Collected Poems, 75, 121 The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 104, 109 The Kneller Tape, 8, 76, 82, 136, 156, 159, 162 The Life and Death of Krishnamurti, 36 The Metaphysics of Sex, 74 The Serpent Power, 83 The Tree of Idleness and Other Poems, 75 Theosophical Society, 37, 38 Tibetan novel, 2, 50 Tolstoy, 190, 191 Tomlin, E W F, 10, 87, 88 Tropic of Cancer, 171 Tunc, 64, 65, 101 Ulysses, 116, 176, 188 Unterecker, John, 182 Upanishad, 20, 122, 191 Urban, Hugh B, 81 Vedanta, 14, 22, 29, 66, 94, 104, 157, 158 viparitha maithuna, 81, 92 Vipond, Dianne, 147, 148, 149

Index Vivekananda, Swamy, 5 Wajsbrot, Cecile, 2, 80, 104, 158, 181 Waldron, William S, 10, 141 Walker, Benjamin, 82 Wallace, Alan, 8, 19 Watts, Alan, 71, 91, 92 West, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 24, 27, 31, 33, 35, 36, 50, 58, 63, 64, 70, 81, 88, 91, 93, 98, 101, 104, 116, 124, 128, 129, 144, 151, 158, 170, 172, 181, 185 Wheldon, Huw, 45, 48, 88, 181, 183, 184 Wilber, Ken, 6, 118, 120 Wilson, Colin, 84 Wolf, Fred, 39 Woolf, Virginia, 25 Yin and Yang, 28 yoga, 14, 15, 20, 26, 28, 30, 50, 71, 72, 76, 82, 83, 89, 91, 92, 95, 99, 101, 110, 113, 117, 119, 128, 129, 130, 131, 161, 173, 174, 184 Yogi, 14, 26, 33, 106, 111, 114, 119, 121, 126, 127, 128, 131 Young, Kenneth, 15, 26, 34, 69, 88, 142, 156, 160, 171, 182 Zeilinger, Anton, 131 Zen Buddhism, 3 Zen story, 112 Zimmer, Heinrich, 6, 8, 16, 21, 22, 25, 40, 71, 81, 82, 84, 129, 139, 140, 150, 153, 157, 163