Waterscapes as Other Spaces in Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet

Abstract

The mirage with its disruptive and deceptive phantasmagorical features is an image repeated in many of the numerous waterscapes located in Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet. Viewed through memory, the topographical reality of the Quartet’s water scapes becomes a space of illusion and yet, at the same time, a real space perfectly ordered, except that it seems to remain outside of time. Hence, Durrell’s water scapes ambivalently play between the real and unreal of Other spaces in a single space. This essay examines selected waterscapes in The Alexandria Quartet through the theoretical and imaginative lens of Michel Foucault’s conceptualisation of the heterotopia. It is contended that the mirror of the heterotopia, with its distortion of time, offers an important theoretical entry into reading Durrell’s waterscapes as Other spaces. However, related to this, the article argues that Durrell’s excessive and uncanny representation of these waterscapes, as remote and unreal places, acts to disturb a sense of reality, thereby establishing these Other spaces as both heterotopic and Gothic loci.

Opsomming

Die mirage met sy ontwrigtende en bedrieglike fantasmagoriese kenmerke is ’n herhalende beeld van die verskeie waterskappe in Durrell se The Alexandria Quartet. Die tipografiese realiteit van die Quartet se waterskappe word wanneer dit deur herinnering beskou word ’n ruimte van illusie. Terselfdertyd word dit egter ’n werklike ruimte wat volmaak geörden is, behalwe dat dit buite tyd bly. Durrell se waterskappe speel dus dubbelsinnig tussen die werklike en onwerklike van Ander ruimtes in ’n enkele ruimte. Hierdie artikel ondersoek geselekteerde waterskappe uit The Alexandria Quartet aan die hand van die teoretiese en verbeeldingryke lens van Michel Foucault se konsep heterotopie. Die betoog is dat die heterotopiese spieël met sy verwronging van tyd ’n belangrike teoretiese intrede bied tot die interpretasie van Durrell se waterskappe as Ander ruimtes. Verder word daar geargumenteer dat Durrell se oordadige en buitengewone uitbeelding van hierdie waterskappe as afgesonderde en onwerklike ruimtes dien om ’n realiteitsin te versteur, waardeur hierdie Ander ruimtes gevestig word as heterotopiese asook Gotiese lokusse.