ABSTRACT
Incontestably, Lawrence Durrell is a man of remarkable talents. Moreover, everything that he writes is distinguished by a rich, sensuous appreciation of language, a capacity for vivid adventurous imagery, and a feeling for the modulation of phrase. That is, he is above all things ‘a writer’; words mean something to him as though they had a tactile actuality, corresponding with the thing described. His poem ‘Style’ may illuminate his procedure, half-will, half-abandonment: Something like the sea, Unlaboured momentum of water. But going somewhere, Building and subsiding, The busy one, the loveless. Or the wind that slits Forests from end to end, Inspiriting vast audiences, Ovations of leafy hands Accepting, accepting. But neither is yet Fine enough for the line I hunt The dry bony blade of the Sword-grass might suit me Better: an assassin of polish…. (The Tree of Idleness)
