Nunquam

Durrell's new novel forms the second in a series begun with Tunc (1968). Felix, narrator of the two, has attempted to break from the monolithic Merlin Group, a sprawling international business conglomerate headed by his brother-in-law Julian whom he has never seen. Felix finds himself sequestered in the Paulhaus, the company's Alpine retreat for the mentally disturbed. He is needed to adapt his computer invention "Abel" to Julian's Faustian scheme - the resurrection of screen idol Iolanthe in "word-perfect" dummy form. Felix says, "When I am writing one book, I write another about it, and then a third about it, and so on." By much the same means no doubt, Durrell unravels this explication de Tunc, using soliloquies to knot the broken threads on the by now familiar themes of time, reality, freedom, culture. One learns that the narrator's wife, Benedicta, derived her hysterical subjection to Julian from their incestuous adolescence; that Julian's manipulation of his employees is compensatory tyranny for the castration father Merlin ordered; that Mark, son of Benedicta and Felix, has committed suicide via the shot heard from Tunc's last page, but the loss fosters parental reconciliation, diverting hostilities to the firm. Iolanthe is a frighteningly real success leading the smitten Julian and herself to an inexorable destruction, with the firm soon to follow. The novelistic scaffolding is more visible than one would like most of the time, but when the Never-land shifts from England to Turkey, the sensual language slides easily into its natural contexts of mystery, ritualism, myth. Fools' gold for the most part, but fortunately for Durrell devotees, it's not a then or never choice - the real thing is still there in his Quartets. (Kirkus Reviews)