The traffic between storytelling and metaphysics is continuous.

— John Berger



Durrell Threads the Needle

  • Not to be known always wounds. 
  • We went from room to room, fracturing the silences.
  • His heart withered in him and he has been left with the five senses, like pieces of a broken wineglass. 
  • Not to care about gain, that is what Alexandria recognises as madness. 
  • ... rocked upon the oceanic splendors of a language she would never know. 
  • I want to return to my farmhouse in Normandy heart-whole. 
  • At last she goes softly, reluctantly, circumspectly int the lighted world with a little sigh. 
  • ... etiolated flowers of afternoons spent in anguish, tossing upon ugly beds, bandaged by dreams. 
  • ... the open petal of the mouth that fell on mine like an unslaked summer. 

- fragments from Justine, Lawrence Durrell

The Solace of Art

The Inextricable