Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu
Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu
Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu
Ebook225 pages3 hours

Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

From a member of the real-life family portrayed in The Durrells in Corfu, this memoir of the idyllic Greek island is “among the best books ever written” (The New York Times).
 
Before Lawrence Durrell became a renowned novelist, poet, and travel writer, he spent four youthful years on Corfu, an island jewel with beauty to match the long and fascinating history within its rocky shores. While his brother, Gerald, was collecting animals as a budding naturalist, Lawrence fished, drank, and lived with the natives in the years leading up to World War II, sheltered from the tumult that was engulfing Europe—until finally he could ignore the world no longer. Durrell left for Alexandria, to serve his country as a wartime diplomat, but never forgot the wonders of Corfu.
 
In this “brilliant” journey through that idyllic time and place, Durrell returns to the land that made him so happy, blending his love of history with memories of his adventures there (The Economist). Like the blue Aegean, Prospero’s Cell is deep and crystal clear, offering a perfect view straight to the heart of a nation.
 
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 12, 2012
ISBN9781453261651
Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu
Author

Lawrence Durrell

Born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Lawrence Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. A passionate and dedicated writer from an early age, Durrell’s prolific career also included the groundbreaking Avignon Quintet, whose first novel, Monsieur (1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and whose third novel, Constance (1982), was nominated for the Booker Prize. He also penned the celebrated travel memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize. Durrell corresponded with author Henry Miller for forty-five years, and Miller influenced much of his early work, including a provocative and controversial novel, The Black Book (1938). Durrell died in France in 1990.  

Read more from Lawrence Durrell

Related to Prospero's Cell

Related ebooks

Special Interest Travel For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Prospero's Cell

Rating: 4.333333333333333 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

3 ratings2 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A marvellous and poetic evocation of Durrell's life with his first wife on the Ionian island of Kerkyra from 1937 until they were forced to leave for Alexandria by the war. The book was first published in 1945 and is a precursor of his best-known semi-autobiographical sequence of novels "The Alexandria Quartet" .The Greece of today is very different from what it was seventy years ago but anyone who has had his heart stolen by Greek landscape and character will recognise instantly those unchanged features which Durrell captured with such insight.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was wonderful!For years, one of my favorite books has been My Family and Other Animals, written by Lawrence’s brother, Gerald, and which tells the story of the family’s sojourn on the island of Corfu just before World War II. In it, we met the pompous Larry...a character we saw through the lens of Gerald’s irreverent and irrepressible humor.I knew little of this book beyond that it was Lawrence’s view of this same period and I suppose I expected a travelogue, more somber in tone as befitting a serious poet and literary figure, but essentially the same story.Instead I found something I can’t quite characterize. It has elements of the travelogue, stories about the places he visited and individuals he met, about the customs and idiosyncrasies of the people, and reflections upon the culture. But, interspersed with these are vignettes, often no more than a paragraph or two, each a gem illuminating a small moment of his stay. No plot, no story, just a word picture formed from short sentences and fragments that came together like an Impressionist painting to build a picture of the colors, moods and emotions so vivid that I found myself transported to his instant in time.The Larry of his brother’s book is nowhere recognizable, nor does his family figure in the story. Instead the main character is Corfu. We find a very gifted author who was deeply in love with the land in which he found himself and whose memories of that place were focused into beautiful and evocative writing by its loss to the War. This goes onto my bookshelf next to Gerald’s book…a pair of volumes that, between them, illuminate a somewhat bygone era, one a memoir of childhood adventure, the other reflections on adult experience.

Book preview

Prospero's Cell - Lawrence Durrell

cebook_preview_excerpt.htmlu[ےF<T{흫Z ٖ[v;oEH *)aSփgZ$Psɓg/|\g>|Ǧɷ4_~o6S̾k<;7v)f&{lܺ96/iny ݼ$w^>¸oƘgpfc ~n:q:k?5nYg bChu.&]ߜKz?8MsyלpӹtlN88__`? zJ9ťVB!7}ắGH}v9{Œ"1'X9>C^|>sLdO~ݝ^H>Oq̾>c\M&eo2;6yi[;3w3O*=kf]~|B6'/gf_ "0w~2{"Kk6n!7yw%o#xpcYX+E`Jr8m!vBnf0";`lC{-쳉s';,Lg9@)43T] 4w)@h4Zh4i1皢2M=tGqoJlFsC#]gr6t@ =lcR- J企Rg8g !.Z-bBڹ:v#Դt^ˆv:,:DJ:~һ!t2`J+,iJ!gg>@S\PrK%P"Ŏ|zz/iPTUw s=MGir?Qp ~xΔ01h_]Bd {wcu1yR愵0׉7 T0nZw;Nq" vY 8_/ww2f} o=@ZdƲ߼an(}?=-i@>?e@߸y_6\-s]lo^Ջhz/o~_%R(zt-myFbooRbBYs#}x/)&"E]E;; a􄰽cOP`K4w=_nf|4] aZo#4A.*|CCs߾K (#h5q'g$5{_?( !@kL8`͠x@J C}vwW PV),HֿQ@*|Cy/b'ig^G4#{X{ϕ..c A 8^r.ݑrW< 43~ئ3)9"ay-] =!Bp滐߮'IЙ\9)z@T?l{^]L2߁>ܓV(ji"cߕk7n{vOoXv6M-$>n$eUqZ*t?6W\bs0Pٯ y=HK&z>jYPi1γQl72BS1V>] mDezʿYMD|`y 4E8E~ǔLdXLnɨq2Ҟ7Lf"!$=>*' !}Bt} hphp-w˥*05#N TFp;#ӏiP+(`&sa [y2gmϹ1Bco,4,}Mɛ-6l6-v4(8{9a\W`ґ{CL P#:IDr-Y,;ɞ7QyA+YQ,;> p5E0KvDо|%#lNI8V'B|~c^,:fm 0%&KW L؃>jaDot)QEy ㈬_,~_9pK-m6A 'iiP+*b)K-4#pL%߿9( Ъ݄N;AL.c ax&}%&)Af^P]2*8Wb+3Y*28 rq]C*gq =B ,x?/3"h{W|䭻&EClOxD,q짹dF&I ݨxą{519lX o h]?DZeU@e񡇎Kx(%b1'F VJߔjʠ/AZ3z!h[¡+ d5Y}/!Ua6egddl](#`;`0N gř1 RZ71 ltb%K1dFL3auv Dh$ܖ+ntntNB]@3ؚ EDDd𲚕7fUiف0#ԷF-IW\~PлUpSi8TA aϳ>0|8"Cr)Oa9OwӳY7+yڴ S V#[s=Y)eb*ȴW.l\f׷ؔkRW3*ŞX^"K̋2Lc>a= :g)PMl&7~", /I/R<}%L)#@Gw2$dbku:\1"̏X?JR4(eٺ%=^txB yCb;*2b8 楖mA$7f']\ \aGZ";tFSkuycJ) ؟LǓ1NvX3ꑻD@6~, ^iJ /*g=[-^O_[rV(1lg(V `amB'Sﬖς@1}Sm&B2|O=CyvLE_Td̻lhJMA=sx~d vy"PIXڣ$GV)x+c!Hfr^2 ֋q_*;f/k_NGa*cgQ[;ƊhXֽ~ ~]8XCyV,l^ ZE%L+QYQY\2!gwNNa}ev2벐;WָR ~H!WeW)"rΥIfdWd8-[!R5d ;| !,K*M=XA>OO,,S,ԭU5@H-LV?/$rw+˩$]PϩewNSٲ`{N*Bp M]T, $P7b CTFS`T5 ! ANّ`ϳqf`6 92,djȂW)OԈ DhK[J١3YJtgiv/`9%n̰;qbOs=<撶Meɗ^Ud= ,ݫ0"c&SjJVNy^ṢR`:AQ^ F1MYsMp|OԴրU2l"-hB#Y`GyrE*fdIw,iL-wA iRg5N:̖%KYa « ,{ޗ PM}Y SwRV>"9hShzgNaMدe\߈1㫩CVA׮/Ye- P $J7Ʃ߲Fm(NK,9KIxJ$dlRu.N螘wv=g dAEp qd+7,\a}d}¦SYoAlŘQLEMŅHL(C)e 4M (ಶ-uӘږkX i83v&kOIe$I^U!SibKsGu&eV`C_K A3*X'#,QPD:3k(* taf\rJ7Yp^&2 J3]wς{WS.V WY/ q*/ iN)yЋ),lp˃2Q ܭI'-34?Z,y P8kɲ-N"\=@ɔ~lV&PU|Rg^o/ݭ=u{7U8SHQ%LX UB`&Y;j*eҖ%cMΧ 7e~t ~:"^kS^S۠T6i ˵fI Djaⷥg}E.DT;Wb2,Uʮ B / Na”4 HO4?!?7.>Z~dfU'X[cJ/_&yjv*e&uǥR:9G!l{8,{]\*]29,g*#@F F-u5xKjQMɦz%tYubtZ/=vВ=ftް+u eC2 t`S3p.W?32|>7W_ZKU%L KՃ|hG%UQV,a56.K0sZuLh 𐗫3WEU`'Wz0Y}F׍F.PI@BI8HÂ;ZY=uv0MkJZqJ!wΫ|VݴDlpua@},+ ;j3 jY\߫7ʂ A/1ҏ lQ'-6Wn0X[^]'bH2qugb) Z[vfke>Q0Ɍ=*DعI'aJs#}S8ezE) RSڅᐁћh>(t)ZE`ȉ ȪzOL܏x4z/b].="ƻUXg?1W:Q>,F.^?`'e.wzI;{ͽ$Ska.Zz%g+?̸5F n(K!УuHYSrL_\ q{-9IϹ3gk_m kͥ6hR[ ^ `hInHd3?X\ \]T(0QץsTڼTep[kBtLj'ۀsPI\Rav!?2r[;կX+Vjnz; @,J3в[~X~X?i֪X@!tɭ#e 8X%yv]AxZϕ#; vn%I6pj`[liX}9b\geVѪ־ [`NCж<p\^DUU~m6ywU}UVsdB2evA si`ufy:;VT_ 9[]^`Q0gqeD8Z6 Oc76wR>ݗوٿt>Z(7,ci (s̕lc yYڍxّ ;ÖH?r*XxafIٯL;J0 apW?`ťb)a 52,umNtݻ[CcSqKJ} .{ޗO(AF= Lb9F -oq uNi,e%d̓ +8J_`dl.> ,n}ʷydiIspx'?س lkRQSݧLnU0^ݯ_5X//9J(wNK1T~d)Lc6?u(h+*Avέ~Jʟ4-4X#eDeB(W"QINl$ٚt`)vUs*͖1~\Dj)s5{}eD!>XIV+Eʧ7] L{[K嬴ku0@
Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1