19.ĤDurrell comes to Sicily in July 1975, twenty years after having written the last volume of his Trilogy on the Mediterranean Islands, Corfu, Rhodes and Cyprus. 1 Lawrence Durrell, Sicilian Carousel, New York, Faber and Faber, 1977, p.Top of pageġIn this presentation, I intend to examine the world of the islands, seen through the eyes of Lawrence Durrell, with a reference to his book titled Sicilian Carousel, where he returns to examine and explore concepts such as Hellenism and «Mediterraneity» and maturing insularity on Corfu, Rhodes and Cyprus, the big Mediterranean islands where he had spent earlier years.ĢI will attempt to evaluate ways in which Sicilian Carousel reflects the idea of insularity in its double and opposite meaning from one side as a spatial limit to movement to preserve his own identity or, from the other side, as a place from which to escape through the surrounding sea, but, at the same time, offers endless routes of flight in search of new existential perspectives.ģIn conclusion, I will examine the degree to which Durrell’s departure, (in Italian «allontanamento»), from the yearned for Mediterranean islands is due exclusively to geopolitical factors or rather to the inability of the writer, typically cosmopolitan, to endure insularity as a permanent state of life. Durrell’s departure reveals his inability, as an archetypical cosmopolitan, to handle insularity as a permanent state of life as he metaphorically admits in the poem that ends his book. Is this due to imbalances caused by the historical geopolitical events, or rather to escapism? The writer’s mind wavers between the idea of insularity as, from one hand, a spatial circumscription preserving one’s identity and, on the other, as a possibility to escape via the surrounding sea, in search of new existential perspectives. Cyprus, Greece and Italy are indissolubly tied, even geologically, by the seismological fault that unifies and stirs them as it stirs Durrell’s restless spirit, that, in his wandering and attempts to settle in this or that Mediterranean island, is in search of his existential identity, but is continually rejected by the places he loves so much.
![hidden islands in the mediterranean hidden islands in the mediterranean](https://www.hotelsviva.com/hubfs/Mallorcas-hidden-beaches.jpg)
Cyprus is the core of his attempts to rationalise concepts such as insularity, Mediterraneity and Hellenism. In my view Sicilian Carousel results in a contemplation of Durrell’s ideas on insularity, and a return to places dear to his heart - particularly Cyprus which recurs in his references, both tragic and pleasant.