Lawrence Durrell est l'homme d'un seul livre, du moins pour moi, non pas chez Penguin mais Faber, du moins pour l 'édition de 1966, cette boîté n'existe peut-être même plus, bref: « Stiff Upper Lip », traduit en français sous le titre « Un peu de tenue, Messieurs! », rendant l'échec de la tentative patent. Humour anglais en descendance direct de Wodehouse, Durrell prend pour prétexte les incidents émaillant la vie d'une mission diplomatique anglaise (le bonhomme ayant été un attaché de presse de la mission britannique en Yougoslavie quelques années).
Voici une petite partie de ce qu'inspire une épidémie de culture dans le corps diplomatique à notre rosbif:
"A series of unforgettable evenings now began, old boy. Each mission thought up some particularly horrible contribution of its own to this feast. The nights became a torture of pure poesy and song. An evening of hellish amateur opera by the Italians would be followed without Intermission by an ear-splitting evening of yodelling from the Swiss, all dressed as edelweiss. Then the Japanese mission went berserk and gave a Noh-play of ghoulish obscurity lasting seven hours. The sight of all those little yellowish, inscrutable diplomats all dressed as Mickey Mouse, old boy, was enough to turn milk. And their voices simply ate into one. Then in characteristic fachion the Dutch, not to be outdone, decided to gnaw their way to the forefront of things with a recital of national poetry by the Dutch Ambassadress herself. This was when I began to draft my resignation in my own mind. O God! How can I ever forget Madame Vanderpipf (usually the most kind and normal of wives and mothers) taking up a stance like a grenadier at Fontenoy, and after a pause declaiming in a slow, deep – O unspeakably slow and deep – voice, the opening verses of whatever it was? Old boy, the cultural heritage of the Dutch is not my affair. Let them have it, I say. Let them enjoy it peacefully as they may. But spare me from poems of five hundreds lines beginning, 'Oom kroop der poop'. You smile, as well indeed you may, never having heard Mrs. Vanderpipf declaiming theses memorable stanzas with all the sullen fire of her race. Listen!
Oom kroop der poop
Zoom kroon der soup
Soon droon der oopersnoop
And so on. Have you got the idea? Perhaps there is something behind it all – who am I to say? All I know is that it is no joke to be on the receiveing end. Specially as she would pause from time to time to give a rough translation in pidgin for Smith-Cromwell's benefit. Something like this: 'Our national poet Snugerpouf, he says eef Holland lives forever, only, how you would say?, heroes from ze soil oopspringing, yes?' It was pulse-stoppins, old man. Then she would take a deep breath and begin afresh.
Oom kroop der poop
Zoom kroon der soup
In after years the very memory of this recitation used to make the sweat out of my forehead. You must try it for yourself sometime. Just try repeating 'oom kroop der poop' five hundred times in a low voice. After a time it's like Yoga. Everything goes dark. You feel you are falling backwards into illimitable black space.
By this time Smith-Cromwell himself had begun to suffer. He leaned across to me once on this particular evening to whisper a message. I could tell from his popping eyes and the knot of throbbing veins at his temple that he was under strain. He had at least discovered what culture means. 'If this goes on much longer', he hissed, 'I shall confess everything.' »
(Comme le disait Nicolas Bouvier, « Il ne faut pas médire de la musique japonaise avant de l'avoir subie six ou sept heures au moins. »)
Ou encore, probablement ma citation préférée, le maître d'hôtel s'étant coincé la main dans le gantelet d'une armure de décoration:
« [He] wanted to heat the whole thing up with a blow-torch until the press-stud expanded but that would have incinerated Percy. By this time, of course, I hardly cared what they did to him. I would willingly have amutated the arm from somewhere above the waist, myself. »
Sa bibliographie (Allez donc faire un tour sur http://www.lawrencedurrell.org/works.htm) mentionne deux autres livres humoristiques: 'Esprit de Corps' et 'Sauve qui peut'. On notera que la traduction du premier de ces titres est 'Esprit de Corps'. Je ne les ai pas encore localisés, mais je me doute qu'ils doivent être à peu près aussi épais.
Sinon, le bonhomme a écrit des carnets de voyage, des gros bouquins ambitieux bourrés d'érudition et probablement relativement indigestes et correspondu avec Henry Miller pendant un bout de temps, entre autres, mais je n'ai lu aucun de ces pavés. Non, j'ai juste lu un minuscule ouvrage, et en rapport qualité/volume, je suis hautement satisfait.
Pour les autres, on copie-colle d'une page qui lui est consacrée:
« Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright, best known for THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET (1957-60). Many once believed it would secure Durrell the Nobel Prize for Literature. The experimental novel of mystery, love, and espionage explored memory and knowledge, contrasting in its story the love affair of a young writer with the recollections of the other people. Durrell spent most of his life outside England - in India, Corfu, Egypt, Yugoslavia, Rhodes, Cyprus, and the south of France.
"Hellenic worlds are replaced here by something different, something subtly androgynous, inverted upon itself. The Orient cannot rejoice in the sweet anarchy of the body - for it has outstripped the body. I remember Nessim once saying - I think he was quoting - that Alexandria was the great winepress of love; those who emerged from it were the sick men, the solitaries, the prophets - I mean all who have been deeply wounded in their sex." (from Justine, part one of the Alexandria Quartet) »
Je vous laisse juges.
Quelqu'un qui n'a rien à voir avec Lawrence Durrell,
mais qui aurait pu.