Balthazar (novel) - Meditation On "Modern Love"

Meditation On "Modern Love"

Durrell writes in the Author's Note : "The central topic of the book is an investigation of modern love...." What he means by the term, he leaves undefined but the subject-matter: prolonged affairs between the protagonists, mutual synchronous polygamy, homoeroticism and transvestitism, psychological and actual sado-masochism - with nary a hint of a socially-conventional romantic or sexual relationship - gives the reader a pretty good clue as to what he is about.

The book abounds in aphorisms - probably an exemplary use of the fecund observations a poet-littrateur writer's journals - such as: " "When you pluck a flower, the branch springs back into place. this is not true of the heart's affections" is what Clea once said to Balthazar.""

Or as when Justine proposes making love to Nessim on their first meeting: "No, she did not mean the words, for vulgar as the idea sounded, she knew that she was right by the terms of her intuition since the thing she proposed is really, for women, the vital touchstone to a man's being; the knowledge not of his qualities which can be analysed or inferred, but the very flavour of his personality. Nothing except the act of physical love tells us this truth about one another...."

Or Pursewarden, to Pombal: " 'On fait l'amour pour mieux refouler et pour decourager les autres.'"

To Balthazar: " 'As for Justine, I regard her as a tiresome old sexual turnstile through which presumably we must all pass - a somewhat vulpine Alexandrian Venus. By God, what a woman she would be if she were really natural and felt no guilt!"

Or "(One of the great paradoxes of love. Concentration on the love-object and possession are the poisons.)", thus neatly subverting the entire premise of Justine. Which is why Balthazar and not Justine is the true "Modern Novel" in the entire Quartet. It might even be argued that the success of Justine is entirely due to its fulfilling the public's expectations of what a novel is supposed to be about, and look like - although the distinct authorial voice and the stylistic magnificence had no small part to play in its enduring fascination for the discerning prose reader. Even Mountolive was described by Durrell as "a straight naturalistic narrative" - as is Clea with its usual fulfillment of plot devices like temporal progression, conflict and denouement. Balthazar alone stands ironically apart, thanks to its mordant interlinear.

Or "As for Pursewarden, he believed with Rilke that no woman adds anything to the sum of Woman, and from satiety he had now taken refuge in the plenty of the imagination - the true field of merit for the artist..."

Or, " "We are all looking for someone lovely to be unfaithful to - did you think you were original?" "

Or, " 'The human race! If you can't do the trick with the one you've got, why, shut your eyes and imagine the one you can't get. Who knows? It's perfectly legal and secret. It's the marriage of true minds!' "

Or, " ' Great heavens! Here we are quarreling like a couple of newly-weds. Soon we shall marry and live in filthy compatibility, feasting on each other's blackheads. Ugh! Dreadful isogamy of the Perfect Match....' "