It is difficult to place Durrell, in general, and The Revolt of Aphrodite, in particular, in any stream of literary precedents and influences. Born in India, Durrell the "colonial" and lifelong expatriate seems distinctly set apart from British literary traditions.

He often seems, for example, to be more of a French writer than a British writer. His affinities with Flaubert, Montherlant, and Proust are much deeper than any connection with Dickens, Conrad, or Greene. And it would be difficult, indeed, to trace as concrete "precedent" any linkage of The Revolt of Aphrodite with the work of Durrell's two prominent mentors, the American novelist Henry Miller and the American-English poet T. S. Eliot, except in the most general senses of concerns with sexuality and spirituality.

One English novelist, however, looms large in any reckoning of Durrell's literary forefathers: D. H. Lawrence. An interesting case has been made...