Lawrence Durrell - Landscape and Character

"We are the children of our landscape,"  proclaims Darley in Justine (41).  Our character and actions are a product not so much of our own individuality but of hte landscape that bears and nurtures us. This concept of a "Spirit of Place" which determines character, particularly national character, is a theme which runs through much of Durrell's work.  Its most direct expression comes in his 1960 essay "Landscape and Character."  The actual racial stock is irrelevant beside the dominating influence of mountains and plains and islands.  This same principle underlies Durrell's expression of the landscape and character of Cyprus in Bitter Lemons. The flat and arid Mesaoria Plain, the broad range of the Troodos Mountains, the vine-clad slopes of the Paphos district, and above all the jagged Kyrenia Mountains are all assessed and the appropriate ethnic epithets ascribed:  Levantine, Greek, Anatolian, Gothic. From these ascriptions, in varying proportions, the character of the Cyrpriots is expressed, like oil from the olive press:  Levantine procrastination, Greek argumentativeness, Anatoian indolence, Gothic contemplation.  The sum of th eCypriot national character is the sum of its landscapes. 

    There is a clear objection to this method of ascribing national character.  In Bitter Lemons character derives not from the inhabitants but from one privileged interpreter:  Durrell himself.  If the Cypriots are the children of their landscape, then he is its father.


Lawrence Durrell's Creation of Landscape and Character in Cyprus