Monsieur (novel)

Monsieur

First UK edition
Author	Lawrence Durrell
Language	English
Series	The Avignon Quintet
Publisher	Faber & Faber (UK) Viking (US)
Publication date	1974
Publication place	Great Britain
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	296 p. (Faber edition)
ISBN	0-571-10660-9 (paperback edition)
OCLC	1109339
Dewey Decimal	823/.9/12
LC Class	PZ3.D9377 Ml PR6007.U76
Followed by	Livia

Monsieur, or The Prince of Darkness (1974), is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's The Avignon Quintet. Published from 1974 to 1985, this sequence of five interrelated novels explore the lives of a group of Europeans prior to, during, and after World War II. Durrell uses many of the techniques seen in his Alexandria Quartet, published 1957 to 1960. He described the later quintet as a quincunx.

Monsieur is based on a metafictional narrative in five major sections, each with a competing narrator. The novel does not resolve which narrative is 'real' and which are 'fiction.' The novel was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1974.

Background

The novel draws extensively on Gnosticism, and this system of belief recurs as a plot element throughout the Quintet. This novel was published prior to the 1978 publication in English of the Nag Hammadi Library, an annotated edition of translations of ancient documents from the period of early Christianity when Gnosticism was a powerful movement. The English edition of the Nag Hammadi papers refers to Durrell, but this is largely in relation to his work, The Alexandria Quartet (1957 to 1960). According to critics James Gifford and Stephen Osadetz, Durrell drew from his copy of Serge Hutin's Les Gnostiques, where he had marked numerous passages, as well as contemporary newspaper reports of a Slovenian suicide cult for his treatment of Gnostic materials in his 1974 novel. Gifford and Osadetz brothers say that "most critics" suggested that the author had used Lacarrière's The Gnostics. He was known to have met Lacarrière in 1971, and wrote the "Foreword" to the English translation of his book. But Durrell had an interest in Gnosticism from the early 1940s and had studied Gnostic texts. "Durrell's Gnostics enact their refusal of the cursed world, flawed in every way, through suicide via the active acceptance of death." The Gnostic suicide plot is an element that recurs throughout Durrell's in other novels of the Avignon Quintet.

Plot summary

The novel claims to be written by five persons, including Durrell, referred to as "D," of "Devil in the Details."

In the first section, "Outremer," Bruce Drexel is returning to Provence after learning of his lover / brother-in-law's suicide. His wife has been institutionalized for some time. He revisits Avignon with his friend Toby while attending to the necessary funeral arrangements. He reminisces about his life with Piers and Sylvie. He recalls stylistically rich winter scenes when the three were first in love, as well as a novel written about them by Robin Sutcliffe.

The second chapter, "Macabru," recounts Bruce, Piers, and Sylvie's journey into Egypt where they meet Akkad, who initiates them into a Gnostic cult. Akkad takes them to Macabru in the desert in order to explain the group's rituals. There is an extended journey on the Nile River in this section. (The later novel Livia has a similar river journey on the Rhone).

"Sutcliffe, or the Venetian Documents" presents a new narrator. This appears to render the previous materials as fictional, unless this is another fiction. Sutcliffe has various misadventures in Venice and recalls his failed marriage to Pia, Bruce's sister.

"Life with Toby" returns to Bruce and Toby in Avignon discussing a theory about the Knights Templar that returns to the Gnostic theme. This section is interrupted by another text in "The Green Notebook," which returns to Sutcliffe. Durrell initially wrote Monsieur in a green notebook. "The Green Notebook" in this novel consists largely of his unrevised notes that preceded the novel. This section becomes highly fragmentary.

"Dinner at Quartilla's" is the last section of the novel. It introduces another author, Blanford, who claims to have been writing the entire book, in which Sutcliffe is a character. He dines with his friend, the old Duchess Tu. But she is known to have been long dead.

The novel ends with an Envoi; it provides a list of who begat whom throughout the novel, but without a final resolution.

Reception

Critics generally praised the novel. It won the 1974 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Its complex structure and treatment of Gnosticism has stimulated much scholarly study, but Durrell's reputation declined after his death. The quintet was not as well received as The Alexandria Quartet.

External links

• The International Lawrence Durrell Society, Official website of ILDS
• Durrell 2012: The Lawrence Durrell Centenary, Centenary website and Durrell Journal
• The Durrell School of Corfu, School dedicated to the works and lives Lawrence and Gerald Durrell
• The Literary Encyclopedia