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 First edition | |
| Author | Lawrence Durrell |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | The Avignon Quintet |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber (UK) |
Publication date | 1982 |
| Publication place | Great Britain |
| Media type | Print (Hardback &Paperback) |
| Pages | 393 p. (Faber edition) |
| ISBN | 0-571-11757-0 (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 9854630 |
| 823/.912 19 | |
| LC Class | PR6007.U76 C6 1982b |
| Preceded by | Livia |
| Followed by | Sebastian |
Constance, or Solitary Practices is the central volume of the five novels ofLawrence Durrell'sThe Avignon Quintet, published from 1974 to 1985. It was nominated for theBooker Prize in 1982. Involving some of the characters from the precedingLivia, the novel also introduces new ones. It is set before and during World War II, in France, Egypt, Poland and Switzerland.
The novel is set in the period from the outbreak ofWorld War II in 1939 with theNazi invasion of Poland, to theAllied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Its settings includeAvignon, France;Geneva, Switzerland; Poland, and Egypt.
The first chapter continues inAvignon, where the previous novel,Livia, was set. It details Constance's blossoming relationship with her husband Sam. As the clouds of war loom, a group of Europeans is breaking up whose last summer together was explored inLivia. Novelist Aubrey Blanford takes a post in Egypt, kindly offered to him by Prince Hassad. During a visit there from Sam, now a soldier, a picnic trip ends in disaster as the party comes under friendly fire. Sam is killed and Blanford crippled in the attack.
Constance moves toGeneva in neutral Switzerland. There she learns of Sam's death. Eventually Constance decides to return to France, where theVichy regime rules over Provence and the south of France after the Nazi defeat of the country and occupation of Paris and the north. She lives in the big house of Tu Duc, where Livia returns. Disfigured by the loss of an eye (the reasons for which are not given untilQuinx, the last novel of the quintet), Livia commitssuicide.
Constance returns toGeneva, where she embarks on a passionate affair with the Prince's aide Sebastian Affad. Affad returns to Alexandria and to disgrace amongst his Gnostic sect for his adventure with Constance in Geneva. It is at this point in the book that Durrell begins to introduce 'fictional' characters fromMonsieur, the first in the quintent, including its author, the novelist Robin Sutcliffe, himself a fictional invention of Blanford's. Not only does Sutcliffe appear in 'real life', but so too does Bruce Drexel, another character fromMonsieur. Alongside this, a number of characters fromThe Alexandria Quartet make 'cameo' appearances, including British Ambassador David Mountolive, intelligence officer Maskelyne, the gnostic Balthazar, the novelist Pursewarden and the dancer Melissa, who sleeps with Sebastian Affad and is rewarded with three cigars to gift her Jewish patron and lover.[1]
The novel was short-listed for the 1982Booker Prize.
American criticJohn Leonard, writing forThe New York Times, was highly critical of Durrell's work in this novel and the previous two books of the Quintet so far: "For a novelist like Mr. Durrell, almost any idea is incapacitating, an excuse to abandon his lyric impulse and resort to old, lazy tricks, like one writer talking to another or confiding in his notebook or finding fragments of a third writer's diary. ... Three books into his Gnostic quincunx, one longs for either amnesia or the stake.
Memory - 'a dog on your back gnawing at your eyeballs' - is Mr. Durrell's real subject, but so far, sad to report,Proust has nothing to worry about."[2]