Reflections on a Marine Venus

REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS is the second of Lawrence Durrell's "travelogues", for want of a more precise word. His books on exotic Mediterranean isles -- for example, Corfu, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Sicily -- are sui generis blends of memoir, history, myth, philosophy, and prose poetry. The subject of REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS is the isle of Rhodes, where Durrell spent about two years (1945-1947) as the head of the Information Office during the time that Great Britain administered Rhodes, after defeat and expulsion of the Germans and before turning responsibility for its governance back to Greece. The "Marine Venus" was an ancient statue of a naked woman that some fishermen had dragged up in their nets from the bottom of Rhodes harbor; the statue was placed in a museum on the island where "she sits * * * gravely meditating upon the works of time." For Durrell, the statute symbolizes not only the island, but "the whole idea of Greece" and "a past whose greatest hopes and ideals fell to ruins." The book proceeds in a leisurely and relaxed fashion, as did life on Rhodes. When it comes to describing a landscape (or seascape) or conveying a sense of place, Durrell is a master, and a poet. He also is a highly literate instructor on the history (stretching back to the mythology) of a place, although for him it is a somewhat idiosyncratic history. As he explains, "history as chronology is woefully misleading; for the history of a place, dispersed by time, lives on in fable, gesture, intonation, raw habit." Rhodes of 1945-1947 was not quite the island paradise it probably was before WWII and maybe again in the 50s and 60s (before affluent Europeans began flocking to it for their vacations and second homes). When Durrell was there, the scars of war -- including mine fields, shell casings, and burned-out bunkers and gun placements -- were still fresh and almost ubiquitous. Nor had the economy recovered: for example, the daily newspaper that Durrell superintended publication of was issued for a penny but was worth two cents locally as wrapping paper, so that the paper made much more money from scrapped issues than from current sales. Perhaps it is because the War had not yet abandoned Rhodes that REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS is not quite the magical and lyrical tour de force that I found Durrell's earlier travelogue "Prospero's Cell" (about Corfu, circa 1937-1938) to be. Perhaps it is because Corfu simply was more magical and lyrical than Rhodes. Likely it also has something to do with the genius of Durrell's literary efforts. In any event, "Prospero's Cell" is clearly the superior work, but REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS nonetheless warrants a readership and, therefore, remaining in print.

REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS is the second of Lawrence Durrell's "travelogues", for want of a more precise word. His books on exotic Mediterranean isles -- for example, Corfu, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Sicily -- are sui generis blends of memoir, history, myth, philosophy, and prose poetry. The subject of REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS is the isle of Rhodes, where Durrell spent about two years (1945-1947) as the head of the Information Office during the time that Great Britain administered Rhodes, after defeat and expulsion of the Germans and before turning responsibility for its governance back to Greece. The "Marine Venus" was an ancient statue of a naked woman that some fishermen had dragged up in their nets from the bottom of Rhodes harbor; the statue was placed in a museum on the island where "she sits * * * gravely meditating upon the works of time." For Durrell, the statue symbolizes not only the island, but "the whole idea of Greece" and "a past whose greatest hopes and ideals fell to ruins." The book proceeds in a leisurely and relaxed fashion, as did life on Rhodes. When it comes to describing a landscape (or seascape) or conveying a sense of place, Durrell is a master, and a poet. He also is a highly literate instructor on the history (stretching back to the mythology) of a place, although for him it is a somewhat idiosyncratic history. As he explains, "history as chronology is woefully misleading; for the history of a place, dispersed by time, lives on in fable, gesture, intonation, raw habit." Rhodes of 1945-1947 was not quite the island paradise it probably was before WWII and maybe again in the 50s and 60s (before affluent Europeans began flocking to it for their vacations and second homes). When Durrell was there, the scars of war -- including mine fields, shell casings, and burned-out bunkers and gun placements -- were still fresh and almost ubiquitous. Nor had the economy recovered: for example, the daily newspaper that Durrell superintended publication of was issued for a penny but was worth two cents locally as wrapping paper, so that the paper made much more money from scrapped issues than from current sales. Perhaps it is because the War had not yet abandoned Rhodes that REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS is not quite the magical and lyrical tour de force that I found Durrell's earlier travelogue "Prospero's Cell" (about Corfu, circa 1937-1938) to be. Perhaps it is because Corfu simply was more magical and lyrical than Rhodes. Likely it also has something to do with the genius of Durrell's literary efforts. In any event, "Prospero's Cell" is clearly the superior work, but REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS nonetheless warrants a readership and, therefore, remaining in print.

Lawrence Durrell wrote this little book based on his life on Rhodes after World War II. This a more mature and settled Durrell than the young man who first brought us "Prospero's Cell" about Corfu or who wrote the "Alexandria Quartet" from Egypt during the war. Durrell's work is a time machine, taking the reader back to recovering Rhodes amidst poverty, sunshine, vibrant villages, and sparkling seas. His eye is fresh and clear, and his descriptions transport the reader to a place and time that are ageless and real. Another small classic! Reviewed by David Lundberg, author of Olympic Wandering: Time Travel Through Greece

The `marine Venus' of the title is a statue which was found by sailors in their nets at the bottom of Rhodes harbor and which much appealed to Durrell, who thought of her as the 'presiding genius' of the place. He began this book while assigned to Rhodes as an information officer in 1945, and finally finished it in Belgrade in 1952 while working as a press attaché for the British Embassy. Before publication, it was chopped almost in half by his editor, Anne Ridler. She excised most of the passages dealing with the recent war, and "left the descriptions of the landscape and people....She oriented the book to sunlight, blue skies, and clear sea." [quoted from the introduction David Roessel].War still clings like a gray film to the bright fabric of `Venus.' Durrell writes intense, brilliant descriptions of Mediterranean skies and dazzling Greek villages, but as in all of his works that I've read, there is also a submerged longing for past love, past history, past glory.Some of his most beautiful passages, both in this book, in "Prospero's Cell," and in the books of "The Alexandria Quartet" take place under water. Here, the author goes for a midnight swim in the final chapter of "Reflections on a Marine Venus"---"The [moon]light filters down a full fathom or more to where, on the dark blackboard of weed, broken here and there by dazzling areas of milk-white sand, the fish float as if dazed by their own violet shadows which follow them back and forth, sprawling across the sea's floor."Bright surfaces. Submerged longings. There is even a ghost story floating just below the surface of a trip to the Island of Patmos. This chapter has some of the most powerful and eerie descriptions in the book. It brings together the storms of the `little summer of Saint Demetrius', a lost, lingering voice from the war, and an Abbot who presides over a monastery where St. John was said to have composed the Books of the Apocalypse."Reflections on a Marine Venus" is one of a series of travelogues that Durrell wrote about his pre- and post-war experiences in and around the Mediterranean. The other books in this series are "Prospero's Cell," "Spirit of Place," "Bitter Lemons," (which I've just begun), and "Sicilian Carousel."Ultimately, these books defy the description `travelogue'. Durrell wrote about the peculiar genius of a place, not bound by any moment in time, but for all time.

This is a lovely piece of travel writing about the Island of Rhodes by a master observer of both the human character and the land- and seascapes with which Greece and its islands always delight us. It is a richly sensuous account of Durrell's years in the British civil service just after the end of WWII and just before the island is handed back to Greece. The eye is feted with descriptions of fields, hills, oranges and lemons, and flowers of every form and color. Sounds range from the rhythm of the sea (alternately savage and soothing) to Greek folk songs to sparkling conversation with Brit expatriates (including Gideon the half-sighted wonder). The author even offers a neat summation of a Greek picnic in tems of smells: petrol, garlic, wine and goat. Intermingled with these delicious attacks on the senses there is the play of light over the island as the sun moves across the sky and its rays are filtered through sea mist, mythology and the grim reality of having to rebuild a nation and an island after Nazi cruelty has left it a shambles. Like it or not, the reader is filled in on some mildly interesting points in the author's understanding of ancient history and the medieval Knights of St. John, who came into possession of the island for a time. The last section is about an enormous cookout in honor of a saint at whose shrine miracles have been know to occur, even raising the dead. It is a stroke of irony that during the festivities a young child is run over by a truck and dies the following day despite the best efforts of Mills, a good hearted but overextended British doctor. All in all, this is a delightful book, highly recommendable for those who enjoy travel writing. But Durrell is no Rebecca West, and this is not an example of the best Durrell. But it isn't bad Durrell, either.