Excerpt
He reveals his views on the novel, poetry, suicide, culture, war, and love.
He overturns accepted opinions and demolishes the idols of Puritanism
and Stupidity. Through Alyn’s deft interviews, we come to see Durrell as
a man of many faces—“as a recluse who loves being surrounded by people,
a hedonist whose great pleasure is asceticism; a lazy man who never stops
working; a man who finds joy in despair; a traveler who enjoys nothing more
than quiet contemplation; a dandy truly at ease in the company of tramps
and vagrants; a novelist whose major preoccupation is poetry; and an enemy
of literature who gives the best of himself in his work.
