From the Elephant's Back (51 page)

[27]
. Thomas Lodge (1558–1625) published this collection of poems in 1580, and it is generally believed that Shakespeare is indebted to him for
Venus and Adonis
.

[28]
. Shakespeare,
Venus and Adonis
9–10.

[29]
. Shakespeare,
Venus and Adonis
251–52.

[30]
.
Hamlet
III.i.161.

[31]
. Durrell is referring to Shakespeare's poem “The Rape of Lucrece,” which is drawn from Ovid's
Fasti
. Sextus Tarquinius, the son of King Tarquin of Rome, rapes Lucrece, who commits suicide, which ultimately leads to revolt against the Tarquins and the creation of the Roman Republic. Durrell uses the name Tarquin for a major character in his
The Black Book
as well as
Panic Spring
.

[32]
. Shakespeare,
Rape of Lucrece
115–17.

[33]
. Shakespeare,
Rape of Lucrece
1074.

[34]
. For instance, see Spenser's
The Faerie Queen
, canto 8, stanza 7.

[35]
. William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) was a comic book writer who created the famous brunette Wonder Woman.

[36]
. Shakespeare,
Othello
I.ii.288–89.

[37]
. This section derives from
Titus Andronicus
IV.ii.1750–85.

[38]
. Shakespeare,
Love's Labor's Lost
IV.iii.1597–99.

[39]
. John Florio (1553–1625) was best known for translating Montaigne into English.

[40]
. Beyond this collection and his contribution to it, very little is known of Chester.

[41]
. Shakespeare,
The Phoenix and the Turtle
25–40.

[42]
. Shakespeare,
The Rape of Lucrece
1611–14.

[43]
. Shakespeare,
The Phoenix and the Turtle
56–67.

[44]
. Originally from a note in the Aubrey manuscript (Chambers 252).

[45]
. Richard Burbage (1568–1619) was the star of Shakespeare's company and a major actor of the period.

[46]
. Shakespeare,
As You Like It
III.ii.1589–93.

[47]
. Shakespeare,
Two Gentlemen of Verona
IV.iv.2007.

[48]
. Shakespeare,
Sonnets
I.1–2.

[49]
. Durrell also had only two daughters, neither of whom had children.

[50]
. Shakespeare,
The Tempest
III.iii.1541–46.

Theatre

[1]
.   This relatively obscure play was printed several times and was well-known at the time, but Danvers-Walker does not appear to have had other productions, apart from acting roles. It concerns a working-class youth who strangles his sweet-heart, and several reviewers note the play's maudlin nature and comic wit are mismatched with its class orientation (Agate 85–86).

[2]
.   Durrell was reading John B. Watson's behaviourist psychology at the time.

[3]
.   The high performance standard is noted by other reviewers at the time as well.

[4]
.   Norman and Wilson are the play's protagonists.

[5]
.   This play went through a large number of productions, during which the cast continued to change. This particular cast cannot be traced back to a specific production date.

[6]
.   Eliot's play
The Family Reunion
was not successful during this first production, which ran from March 21 to April 22, 1939. Durrell attended the opening with his wife Nancy and lunched with Eliot on March 25 before travelling to Stratford-upon-Avon to review productions of Shakespeare's
Othello
and
A Comedy of Errors
(Chamberlin 24).

[7]
.   Durrell may be pointing to Eliot's essay “Hamlet and His Problems,” first published in 1920.

[8]
.   Many critics argue the moral struggles in the play reflect Eliot's difficulties in his first marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot, from whom he separated in 1933. She was committed to the Northumberland House asylum in 1938 by her brother.

[9]
.   This opening production featured Michael Redgrave as Harry, Helen Haye as Lady Monchensey, and Catherine Lacey as Agatha.

The Happy Rock

[1]
.   Miller's works were frequently banned and went through a range of high-profile trials for obscenity around the world.

[2]
.   Herman Melville (1819–1891) and Walt Whitman (1819–1892), both American writers, are frequent references for Miller.

[3]
.   Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), John Dos Passos (1896–1970), and William Faulkner (1897–1962) were contemporary novelists who shaped American Modernism and avant-garde prose. Durrell had few comments and little praise for any of these three authors but does note reading them all in his correspondences.

[4]
.   Durrell first read
Tropic of Cancer
in 1935, likely in August, after Barclay Hudson had given him the book on Corfu (Durrell,
Durrell–Miller
3).

[5]
.   Miller,
Tropic
3.

[6]
.   Walt Whitman's 1855 poetic
magnum opus
.

[7]
.   The Durrell–Miller correspondence lasted from 1935 to Miller's death in 1980. Two critical editions are published, the first edited by George Wickes and the second by Ian MacNiven.

[8]
.   All three are common self-descriptions for Miller found in both his letters and
Tropic of Cancer
. The “gold standard” is a significant theme in the novel and also reflects the financial turbulence of the interwar years.

[9]
.   Of epileptic origins in classification. Miller also uses this term to self-describe (
Henry Miller On
91). Durrell's sense is tied to Kretschmer's types, an early psychological classification system for personalities: normal, hysteroid, cycloid, schizoid, and epileptoid. Also see Durrell's 1937 poem “Ballad of Kretschmer's Types” (253–54).

[10]
. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) and Hamsun (1859–1952) are frequent references in Miller's works. Maria Bloshteyn contends, “the impact of Dostoyevsky on Miller is enormous” (vii), and Miller describes Hamsun as “that Dostoevski of the North” when discussing a letter he received from Hamsun (
Sexus
367). Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) and August Strindberg (1849–1912) are also frequent references for Miller. In
Tropic of Cancer
, he recounts visiting Strindberg's rooms in the Pension Orfila (180–84).

[11]
. Miller's first two novels were published posthumously as
Moloch
and
Crazy Cock
. As Durrell notes in his letter commenting on the book
The Happy Rock
, “I am probably the only person who has read all the Cancer ones as well as the two early bad novels and the original
Tropic
MSS” (
Durrell–Miller
200).

[12]
. Miller discusses all these topics in several places as well as in his correspondence with Durrell. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a major influence on Miller (Nandyal 11–14). Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) was largely known for his book
Decline of the West
, which posited a historical process of rising and falling cultures. Miller highly valued Elie Faure's works on art history, and he wrote a lengthy critical reflection on Lawrence,
The World of Lawrence
. Miller was less kind to James Joyce in his comments but did integrate a section of Joyce's
Finnegans Wake
into
Tropic of Cancer
(286).

[13]
. Sigmund Freud, Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939), Carl Jung, and Otto Rank were referred to frequently by both Durrell and Miller. Miller knew Rank personally in Paris and New York.

[14]
. Miller eventually broke from the Surrealists based on their communism, which conflicted with his own anarchism (Gifford, “Surrealism's” 42–45). See Miller's “An Open Letter to Surrealists Everywhere” (151–96).

[15]
. The “mechanistic” approach to the unconscious is typical of critiques of the communist component of Surrealism.

[16]
. Miller's use of Surrealist techniques is well-established, as is his admiration for several Surrealists, but he remained markedly outside of Surrealism as a movement. Miller states, “Surrealism is the secret language of our time, the only spiritual counterpart to the materialist activities of the socialist forces that are now driving us to the wall. The seeming discrepancies between the language of Breton, Lenin, or Marx, are only superficial” (“An Open” 178). This same difference is asserted as “it is a mistake to speak about Surrealism. There is no such thing: there are only Surrealists….The desire to posit an ism, to isolate the germ and cultivate it, is a bad sign. It means impotency” (181). Durrell's position is similar and stated clearly in his letters to Miller (Durrell,
Durrell–Miller
17–19), but he was more directly involved than Miller with the English Surrealists, many of whom adopted Miller's anarchist revision to Surrealism.

[17]
. A group of young actors known for the 1937 film
Dead End
.

[18]
. Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) was the pseudonym of Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, whom Miller admired greatly. Miller also wrote a book on Lawrence,
The World of Lawrence
, but it was only published posthumously.

[19]
. The Obelisk Press was run by Jack Kahane and published several of Miller's works as well as Durrell's
The Black Book
.
Tropic of Cancer
was first published in 1934. Though the Obelisk published pornographic materials, it also included serious literary works by Richard Aldington, James Joyce, Cyril Connolly, and Frank Harris.

[20]
. Although Miller wrote in the first person, in many respects his “Henry Miller” is also a character, and the novels are unreliable as autobiography.

[21]
. D.H. Lawrence. The
Lady Chatterley's Lover, Fanny Hill
, and
Tropic of Cancer
trial in England was a landmark legal decision in censorship of obscene materials. Also see Durrell's Preface to
Lady Chatterley's Lover
(vii–xi).

[22]
. Orwell discusses Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
extensively as well as Durrell's
The Black Book
in his famous essay “Inside the Whale” (9–50). Durrell and Orwell disagreed publicly over
The Booster
, the periodical produced through the Villa Seurat by Durrell, Miller, and Perlès (Orwell, “Back” 30–31). Tyrus Miller identifies Orwell's essay on Miller as the quintessential moment of Late Modernism (1–9, 209–10).

[23]
. Aldous Huxley's (1894–1963) comic novel
Antic Hay
was first published in 1923.

[24]
. A general term for literary work of the Sitwell siblings, Edith (1887–1964), Osbert (1892–1969), and Sacheverell Sitwell (1897–1988). Thomas Balston, in 1928, compiled a list of their works published under this title as well.

[25]
. Both James Joyce (1882–1941) and D.H. Lawrence faced censorship difficulties due to the sexual content of their works.

[26]
. T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) was by this time known for his religious sequence
Four Quartets
.

[27]
. Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) was an English naval officer famous for winning the Battle of Trafalgar. Durrell was fond of using Nelson as a target for critiques of British prudery, such as in his poem “A Ballad of the Good Lord Nelson” (113–14).

[28]
. Charles Edward Mudie's lending library had a strong influence on Victorian fiction by emphasizing a three-volume structure and family values.

[29]
. A generic term for unionized writers groups. This is likely in reference to the Writer's Guild of America, East, which was founded in 1912.

[30]
. Marie Stopes (1880–1958) was a eugenicist and innovator in family planning who wrote the sex manual (while claiming to be a virgin)
Married Love: A New Contribution to the Solution of the Sex Difficulties
. She openly supported forced sterilization and Adolf Hitler during World War II, even sending him poetry. In contrast, stoats are weasel-like animals whose winter coats are used for the royal fur ermine. They are known for their promiscuous breeding, about which Durrell would have likely been aware through his brother Gerald Durrell, who mentions stoats in his animal books and pioneered captive breeding programs for small mammals.

[31]
. “Art for Art's Sake.” The notion is often tied to Symbolist literature and Oscar Wilde, but the Latin version appears in MGM'S logo with a roaring lion.

[32]
. A character played by Mickey Rooney in a series of sixteen comic films from 1937 to 1958 as well as conservative public service announcements. They promote traditional American values in a small-town environment.

[33]
. In this sense, a utopia.

[34]
. A famous Ancient Greek aphorism inscribed on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi: γνωθι σεαυτόν.

[35]
. Miller wrote in praise of Durrell's typescript of
The Black Book
, “You can grasp it again when you think of history as quite meaningless—as a repetition ad infinitum of the wrong way of living, which is never overcome on the historical plane, by new ideologies, new wars, new revolutions, new conversions, etc.” (Durrell and Miller 60).

[36]
. The 1931 film directly by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff as the monster, not Mary Shelley's novel of the same title.