Critic criticised
Sir: It's ironic to have my Lawrence Durrell biography attacked for inaccuracy by an ex- Oxford professor of poetry who makes so many errors of his own in the space of so short a review (Books, 11 January). I'm charged with being 'possibly too dull' to have noticed what Professor Levi claims to be Durrell's 'virulence' against Eliot in let- ters to Richard Aldington. I challenge Levi to show me one Durrell letter which adversely criticises Eliot. It was quite the reverse, in fact, rather to Aldington's annoyance. But far be it from me to say that it is Levi who is 'possibly too dull' not to have spotted this. He says I failed to quote from Durrell's Paris Review interview, yet I quote from it at length on pages 33 and 53 — Levi was Just too lazy to check the footnotes. He says that all my stories about Katsimbalis are garbled, yet does not say in what way. My sources are Theodore Stephanides, Henry Miller, John Waller, Durrell and Katsim- balis himself. If my stories are garbled, so are theirs, and if we do not know Levi's ver- sion of events how can we judge how gar- bled his stories may be? I'm sorry I missed the fact that Katsimbalis's father owned hackney cabs, but I cannot see how know- ing the occupations of minor figures in Durrell's life adds to our understanding of him or his work.
Despite saying that my book contains an unspecified 'list' of mistakes, Levi neverthe- less trusts it sufficiently to take from it most of what he himself says about Durrell. Even so, we have to disagree about his novels. I happen to think they're great, Levi does not, but apart from saying that they are unrealistic he offers no persuasive case. His judgment, therefore, tells us less about Lawrence Durrell than about Peter Levi fascinating, no doubt, but irrelevant here.
Gordon Bowker
4, Hillgate Place, London W8
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