Sicilian Carousel (29 page)

Besaquino

No stars to guide. Death is that quiet cartouche,

A nun-besought preserve of praying time,

That like a great lion silence hunts,

At noon, at ease, and all because he must.

His scenery is so old, His sacred pawtouch cold.

A lupercal of girls remember him

In nights defunct from lack of sleep

Tossing on iron beds awaiting dawn …

He wound up his death each evening like a clock,

Walked to obscure cafes to criticize

The fires that blush upon the crown of Etna.

Leopardi in the ticking mind,

Lay unknown like an exiled king,

Printing his dreams among the olive glades

In orchards of discontent the fruitful word.

Acknowledgements

T
hough all the characters in this book are imaginary I would like to thank some real people who made it possible as well as pleasurable. M. Pages and Madame Robert of Nimes-Voyages for their itinerary and Simone Lestoquard for hunting up the illustrations in Paris.

L
AWRENCE
D
URRELL

Index

A

Aedoni
146

Aeschylus
38
,
94–95
,
109
,
148

Agrigento
69
,
78
,
131–193
,
196–198
,
201
,
235
,
254
,
284

Akragas
93
,
150

Alcibiades
37
,
120

Alexandria
2
,
12
,
59
,
86
,
180
,
211

Apollinaire, Guillaume
184

Arabs
73
,
138

Aristotle
76
,
176
,
180

Athens
4
,
66–68
,
70
,
73
,
76
,
78
,
109
,
116
,
118
,
120
,
133
,
135
,
156
,
160
,
167
,
174
,
180
,
265
,
285

Augusta
58–59
,
137

B

Baedeker
122

Baudelaire, Charles
184

Bellini, Vincenzo
28
,
37

Besaquino
284
,
290

Buddha
180
,
217

Butler, Samuel
218

Byzantine empire
133
,
138
,
224
,
256
,
264

c

Caesar, Julius
278

Calabria
133

Calatafimi
236–237

Caltanissetta
148
,
164

Cameirus
43

Capri
51
,
273
,
275–276

Caravaggio
115
,
121–122

Carlentini
43

Carthaginians
93
,
138

Castello Maniace
101

Catania
3
,
6–7
,
10–21
,
23
,
41
,
59

Catanian Plain
42

Cavafy
184

Cefalu
257
,
260–264

Centuripe
284

Chaos
158

Charles V, Emperor
216

Cicero
76
,
173

Colonna, Vittoria della
148

Corfu
18
,
65
,
85–86
,
100
,
149
,
262

Corinth
17
,
73

Cos
236

Crete
3–4
,
15
,
17
,
77
,
81
,
183

Cyprus
2–5
,
9
,
13
,
17
,
29
,
47
,
52
,
63
,
65
,
131
,
133
,
136
,
148
,
152–153
,
171
,
206
,
208
,
258
,
275

Dali, Salvador
178

Damarete
93

Delphi
181
,
183
,
215

Diocletian
142
,
146

Diodorus Siculus
190

Dodecanese Islands
145

Douglas, Norman
275

E

Egadi Isles
216

Egypt
68
,
73
,
78
,
192
,
208
,
210

Empedocles
60
175–176
,
178
,
180
,
183
,
286

Empedocles (port)
195

Enna
275

Epicurus
75
,
176
,
179

Epidaurus
236

Erice
212
,
214
279

Eryx
215
,
217
,
219
,
226

Etna
15–16
,
34
,
38
,
41
,
52
,
76
,
180
,
183
,
272
,
274–275
,
284
,
286–287
,
290

Euphemius
138

F

Famagusta
13

Favignana
216

G

Garibaldi, Giuseppe
37

Gela
69
,
92
,
94–95
,
141
,
148–150

Gelon
89
,
92–95

Goethe
33
,
44
,
46
,
103
,
238

Guido, Margaret
190

H

Hadrian, Emperor
78–79
,
146

Harrison, Jane
78
,
107

Heraclius, Emperor
142

Hieron I
94

Himera
88
,
93–94
,
254
,
264

Homer
74
,
134

Hymettus
78
,
160

I

Ionian Sea
16

Ithaca
218

K

Kazantzakis
180–181

Kephissos
75

Kesserling, Field Marshal
278

Kininmonth, Christopher
144

Kyrenia
30
,
47

L

Lampedusa
103

Latomie
102
,
114
,
121
,
279

Lawrence, D. H.
62
,
103
,
274–275

Lentini
43

Leopardi
184
,
290

Leptis Magna
199

Levanzo
216

Lindos
85–86

Lucretius
176

Lycabettos
108

M

Mackenzie, Compton
275

Marettimo
218

Marsala
150
,
204–205

Mentobello Beach
245

Messina
241
,
255
,
259
,
261
,
264–268
,
284
,
286

Midi
7
,
111–112
,
123
,
136
,
138
,
187

Miller, Henry
63

Minoa
81

Mistral, Frédéric
184

Monreale
255

Monte Giuliano
216

Monte Pellegrino
251

Morgantina
146

Mycenae
192
,
234

N

Naxos
2
,
46
,
269
280
,
282
,
289

O

Olympia
80
,
234

Ortygia
85–86
,
101

P

Paleocastrizza
86
,
262
,
273

Palermo
201
,
208
,
226
,
233
,
241–242
,
244

Pantalica
284

Paphos
17
,
133

Parparella
218

Paul, Saint
121
,
180

Pausanias
69
,
78–81
,
258
,
285

Persia
17
,
208
,
270

Piazza Armerina
141

Pindar
78
,
94
,
279

Pirandello, Luigi
103
,
158–159

Plato
75
,
176

Pliny
273
,
280

Plymerion
120

Pompey
278

Porto Rafti
157

Psychico
157

Pythagoras
171

R

Rhodes
6
,
15
,
43
,
63
,
65
,
73
,
78
,
86
,
136
,
145

Rimbaud, Arthur
184

Roger II, Count of Sicily
264

Rome
2
,
6
,
8–10
,
51
,
74
,
103
,
209
,
222
,
273
,
279

Rosalie, Saint
249–254

Russell, Bertrand
176

S

Samos
85
,
227

Seferis
181–182

Segesta
226
,
233–242
,
283

Selinunte
192
,
195–212
,
254

Sikelianos
180–184

Simeto river
43

Simonides
94

Smyrna
133

Socrates
76
,
180

Spain
136–137

Sparta
120

Split
146

Suetonius
92

Swinburne, Algernon Charles
184

Syracuse
41
,
57–59
,
60
135
,
138
,
150
,
216
,
279
,
283

T

Taormina
6
,
153
,
241
,
259
,
261
,
264
,
268–269
,
270

Theocritus
241

Theron
93

Thucydides
116
,
241

Timoleon
278

Tinos
80
,
187
,
227

Tivoli
146

Trapani
212
,
215–220
,
223
,
225

Troy
191
,
199
,
236

Turkey
86
,
137
,
209

Tyndarus
275
,
283

Tyrrhenian Sea
216

V

Verlaine, Paul
184

Villa Imperiale
141

W

William the Good
251
,
255–256

X

Xante
16

A Biography of Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) was a novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet, his acclaimed series of four novels set before and during World War II in Alexandria, Egypt. Durrell's work was widely praised, with his Quartet winning the greatest accolades for its rich style and bold use of multiple perspectives. Upon the Quartet's completion,
Life
called it “the most discussed and widely admired serious fiction of our time.”

Born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Durrell was an avid and dedicated writer from an early age. He studied in Darjeeling before his parents sent him to England at the age of eleven for his formal education. When he failed to pass his entrance examinations at Cambridge University, Durrell committed himself to becoming an established writer. He published his first book of poetry in 1931 when he was just nineteen years old, and later worked as a jazz pianist to help fund his passion for writing.

Determined to escape England, which he found dreary, Durrell convinced his widowed mother, siblings, and first wife, Nancy Isobel Myers, to move to the Greek island of Corfu in 1935. The island lifestyle reminded him of the India of his childhood. That same year, Durrell published his first novel,
Pied Piper of Lovers.
He also read Henry Miller's
Tropic of Cancer
and, impressed by the notorious novel, he wrote an admiring letter to Miller. Miller responded in kind, and their correspondence and friendship would continue for forty-five years. Miller's advice and work heavily influenced Durrell's provocative third novel,
The Black Book
(1938), which was published in Paris. Though it was Durrell's first book of note,
The Black Book
was considered mildly pornographic and thus didn't appear in print in Britain until 1973.

In 1940, Durrell and his wife had a daughter, Penelope Berengaria. The following year, as World War II escalated and Greece fell to the Nazis, Durrell and his family left Corfu for work in Athens, Kalamata (also in Greece), then Alexandria, Egypt. His relationship with Nancy was strained by the time they reached Egypt, and they separated in 1942. During the war, Durrell served as a press attaché to the British Embassy. He also wrote
Prospero's Cell,
a guide to Corfu, while living in Egypt in 1945.