Paul H. Lorenz
Quantum Mechanics and the Shape of Fiction:
"Non-Locality" in the Avignon Quincunx


Serious readers of Lawrence Durrell are well aware of the "Note" 

in the American edition of Balthazar in which Durrell announces 

his intention to shape The Alexandria Quartet according the 

principles of the Relativity proposition. He chooses Relativity, 

he tells us, because "modern literature offers us no Unities," and 

he is seeking a "morphological form one might appropriately call 

'classical'--for our time," even if the result proves "to be 

'science fiction' in the true sense" (5). The Avignon Quincunx,1 

perhaps more so than the Quartet, can be read as true "science 

fiction." It is as much an experiment in applied Quantum Mechanics 

as the Alexandria Quartet was an experiment in applied Relativity 

Theory, for Durrell is one of many writers working on the 

assumption that the theory of the field is, in fact, the cultural 

religion of the twentieth century (Hayles 4-6; Durrell Interview). 

In the Quincunx, Durrell creates a world which is structured on 

the spatial/temporal principles of the Theory of Relativity and 

governed by the laws and logic of quantum mechanics.



Quantum mechanics came into existence only after the Theory of 

Relativity demonstrated that Newtonian mechanics was unable to 

accurately describe a variety of observable events because it 

assumed, incorrectly, that time and space were independent 

variables and that the universe was structured on the principles 

of Euclidean geometry. While Einstein intended his theory of 

relativity to be a correction of the assumptions which underlie 

Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics demonstrates that Einstein 

did not go far enough. Einstein refused to let go of the 

Aristotelian assumption which stood at the heart of Newtonian 

mechanics: that any valid description of the world should be based 

on the primacy of matter (Heisenberg 82). Quantum mechanics, on 

the other hand, describes events, not objects. Thus, as Werner 

Heisenberg argues, quantum mechanics describes a world of 

Heraclitean Becoming rather than a world of Aristotelian Being 

(63). Because the Theory of Relativity considers "mass" and 

"energy" to be essentially identical it is possible to say that 

all elementary particles are energy and that energy is the primary 

substance of the world. If the Heraclitean element of "fire" is 

interpreted as "energy," it is easy to see that the views of modem 

physics are very close to those of Heraclitus. "Energy," which can 

be translated into matter or heat or light, is that which moves 

and thus it is the primary cause of all change. The strife between 

opposites which forms the basis of the Heraclitean view of the 

universe can be seen in the strife which exists between two 

different forms of energy (Heisenberg 71).



In Physics and Philosophy (1958), Heisenberg devotes an entire 

chapter to the problems associated with developing a satisfactory 

language to describe the insights of quantum mechanics to non-

specialists. In the Quincunx, Durrell discusses these same issues 

in the brainstorming sessions in which the writers Blanford and 

Sutcliffe discuss the problems associated with the presentation of 

new and complex ideas in fiction (e.g. Quinx 22-32, or Livia 7-

26). The danger, as Sutcliffe expresses it, is the creation of "a 

work weighed down with theoretical considerations" (Livia 11) 

leading to a failure to communicate. In many ways, the quantum 

physicist and the Heraclitean author face the same problem. They 

must both develop a language to explain the insights of their 

perception to an audience which assumes that the language and 

logic of classical Western materialistic thought, the language and 

logic of "common sense," provide the only true description of the 

world as it is. Each must create a description of the world which 

can, to quote from the motto of Quinx, "itself create the taste by 

which it is to be judged" (7).



The space/time continuum which encompasses this essay is too 

comprehensive to permit me to discuss Durrell's use of quantum 

mechanics in detail, but I think if we get a taste from the pot 

Durrell is cooking in, you will be prepared to assess the quality 

of the cuisine. Late in Sebastian, Schwarz attempts to describe 

his hopes for the new Israel to be established after the war. He 

tells Constance:


	I am hoping that something like the Principle of 
	Indeterminacy as posited by our physicists for reality 
	will find its way into the religious values of the new 
	state; I see you don't understand me so I won't labour 
	the point. But I'm hoping for a materialism which is 
	profoundly qualified by mysticism--a link between 
	Epicurus and Pythagoras, so to speak.... It would be a 
	marvelous contribution to the future, for we can't 
	continue this worn-out materialism of ours, it leads 
	us nowhere. And while we are eroding the Indian 
	vision, drowning it in our technology, India is 
	eroding ours, drowning Europe in vast meekness of pure 
	insight! (17-75)
	

This is one of several places in the Quincunx where Durrell 

explicitly talks about the reason why these novels are structured 

as they are. Let me try to explain Schwarz's comment by looking at 

Durrell's use of the Principle of Indeterminacy in shaping the 

Quincunx.



The Principle of Indeterminacy is introduced in Monsieur, the 

novel Blanford uses to provide a cluster of themes to be reworked 

in the other novels of his quincunx (Livia 11). After the 

initiation into Gnosticism at Macabru, Piers, the character most 

deeply influenced by Akkad's teachings, goes to the barbershop for 

a haircut. There, he picks up a magazine which contains an article 

claiming that there is a criminal industry taking advantage of 

gullible tourists after initiating them into sham religious cults. 

The article contains not only a detailed description of the 

initiation ceremony Piers and the others have experienced, but 

also a photograph of a "fraudulent" initiation taken at the same 

Abu Manouf mosque at Macabru in which Piers was initiated. In his 

distress, Piers tries unsuccessfully to call Akkad, then borrows 

the magazine so that he can order a copy for himself. When he 

confronts Akkad, he thrusts the magazine into his face only to 

discover that the incriminating article is no longer in the 

magazine. Piers is enraged and exasperated. In a choked voice he 

accuses Akkad, "It was there and you know it." Akkad nods and 

admits:


	Yes, my dear Piers. It was there. I know it was there. 
	I put it there, you see; and I put it there specially. 
	Some time ago I asked Sutcliffe to write it for me for 
	use on such an occasion. And I left the magazine with 
	Fahem, who produces it for clients when I tell him to. 
	(151)

Then Akkad asks Piers the pertinent question:"Do you realize, my 

dear friend, that you were able to go on believing something which 

you knew to be untrue? Your belief was not shaken, was it?" Piers 

admits that even though he was angry with Akkad for apparently 

deceiving him, he had never considered renouncing the insights he 

had obtained at Macabru. Akkad seems to be presenting Piers with 

the Liar's Paradox when he takes the next step and suggests that 

the article was in fact true, but Piers does not take the bait. He 

only laughs and explains his insight: "Good and evil, are a 

question of blood group, not angelic disposition...unless we make 

a special effort we can only see the truth indistinctly--as we see 

the sun, through smoked glass" (152).



This puzzling scene is actually a reproduction of a famous thought 

experiment which Heisenberg often used to explain the Principle of 

Indeterminacy. In this experiment, a closed box is divided into 

two equal parts (fig. 1). The partition has a small hole which is 

  just large enough to let an atom

  pass through. It may be closed 

  with a shutter, if desired.

  According to classical logic, the atom 

  must be in either the left or the

  right side of the box. No third 

  possibility exists. In the logic

  of quantum physics, however, if 

  the door is open, it is possible

for the same single atom to be in 

both the left and the right sides of the box at the same time.

D.S. Kothari, of the University of Delhi, has noted that the logic 

of quantum physics is in accordance with the principles of 

Syãdvãda. This experiment demonstrates the validity of Durrell's 

observation that "great truths are not necessarily Facts--Facts 

are dreams" (Smile 93).



Because we never observe Nature itself, but Nature exposed to our 

method of questioning, we must, as Niels Bohr observed, always be 

aware that we are at the same time players and spectators in our 

search for harmony in life (Heisenberg 58). As a result, any 

concepts or words which were formulated in the materialistic terms 

of Newtonian mechanics and Aristotelian logic, Heisenberg argues,


	are not really sharply defined with respect to their 
	meaning; that is to say, we do not know exactly how 
	far they will help us in finding our way in the world. 
	We often know that they can be applied to a wide range 
	of inner and outer experience, but we practically 
	never know precisely the limits of their 
	applicability. This is true even of the simplest and 
	most general concepts like "existence" and "space and 
	time." Therefore, it will never be possible by pure 
	reason to arrive at some absolute truth. The concepts 
	may, however, be sharply defined with regard to their 
	connections. (92)


Thus, the logic of science and the logic of Heraclitus and the 

East come together. Just as Western cosmology is one skandah short 

in the Eastern mind (Smile 60), our logic is also deficient if the 

world is viewed through non-materialistic eyes (Coauthor 325). The 

truth of a magazine article is as ill-defined as the position of 

the atom in Heisenberg's thought experiment, but as Akkad 

demonstrates, the relationship between Piers and the truth is so 

sharply defined it is beyond question. Or is it? Our materialistic 

terminology serves us so well in ordinary situations that, even 

though the logic and language of quantum mechanics provides an 

equally successful explanatory model (Heisenberg 184-85), 

scientists of the stature of Einstein and Schrodinger would 

characterize the insights of Piers and Heisenberg as "irrational 

mysticism."



Schrodinger objected to the logic of Heisenberg's thought 

experiment by an appeal to "common sense." He devised a "hellish 

contraption" (his words) in an attempt to demonstrate the 

absurdity of the logic of quantum mechanics. In this illustration 

(fig. 2), R is a radioactive source, G is a Geiger counter, A is 

an amplifier, S is a solenoid

relay, and C is a bottle of cyanide. 

The device is designed in such a

way that after one hour, there is 

a 50% chance that the Geiger

counter will have been tripped by a 

particle of radiation from the

radioactive source. When the Geiger 

counter is tripped, cyanide gas is

released and the cat dies 

instantly. Schrodinger argued, along the lines of classical logic, 

that after one hour, the cat was either alive or dead. He claimed 

that it was impossible for the cat to be both alive and dead at 

the same time. Schrodinger believed, and Einstein was inclined to 

agree with him, that the uncertainty as to the cat's fate existed 

only in the mind of the observer who, after one hour, had not yet 

opened the box to determine the fate of the cat.



Interestingly, the arguments and experiments designed by Einstein 

and Schrodinger have not only failed to disprove the logic of 

quantum mechanics, they have helped to establish and 

experimentally verify the meaninglessness of the concept of a 

discrete personal identity--one of Durrell's principal themes in 

the Quincunx--and have even introduced the possibility that a 

multiplicity of worlds may coexist simultaneously. Schrodinger, 

who introduced the wave theory of quantum mechanics, argued that 

the concepts of "indeterminacy" and "complementarity" were 

ridiculous, for they existed only in the mind of the observer and 

had no significance in the description of actual events. In his 

experiment, the cat is either dead or alive, there is no 

intermediate [half-dead, half-alive] state of existence (Penrose 

290-93). This seemingly straight-forward thought experiment, when 

interpreted by quantum physicists, has led to interesting 

speculations concerning the nature of reality.



One of the problems with Schrodinger's experiment is that the cat, 

presumably, knows whether it is alive or dead long before any 

human observer opens the box to collapse the uncertainty of the 

cat's fate into a well-defined reality. Eugene Wigner suggested 

replacing the cat with a human volunteer (known in the physics 

community as "Wigner's friend"). If the volunteer is alive when 

the box is opened, the experimenter could ask the volunteer to 

describe the condition of uncertainty, of being both dead and 

alive at the same time. Wigner had no doubt the volunteer would 

insist that he had been fully alive throughout the experiment. 

Paul Davies describes the significance of this variation of 

Schrodinger's experiment in the following way:


	In Wigner's interpretation of quantum theory, the 
	minds of sentient beings occupy a central role in the 
	laws of nature and in the organization of the 
	universe, for it is precisely when the information 
	about an observation enters the consciousness of an 
	observer that the superposition of waves actually 
	collapses into reality. Thus, in a sense, the whole 
	cosmic panorama is generated by its own inhabitants! 
	(Other 132-33)


Wigner's interpretation has been widely criticized, not the least 

because of its extreme solipsism and its strong hint of level-

confusion. Though Wigner argued that quantum theory cannot be 

correct under all circumstances, his argument does suggest that 

the solution to the mind-body problem may be related to the 

solution of the quantum measurement problem (Davies, God 115). 

Wigner used this experiment to argue that if indeterminacy exists, 

it is because there are overlapping waves of reality, and it is 

only the presence of a sentient observer who collapses the 

undetermined state of the cat into a single clearly-defined 

reality.



In the Quincunx, Durrell likewise explores the extent to which the 

observer shapes the events being observed. Two of these 

experiments are described in Livia. The first occurs when Felix 

accompanies Blanford to Riquiqui's whorehouse in search of Livia. 

When their pounding on the door with a brick is ignored, they 

decide to observe the events inside Riquiqui's establishment, the 

box, by looking through a window. Their observation does not seem 

to have any effect on the action inside the whorehouse, but when 

they get too close to the action, when the observed are aware they 

are being observed, they become involved in the antics of the 

Prince and Quatrefages (144-56). Later in the novel, when Blanford 

and Constance "walk out into the sky" to observe the Prince's 

spree from the Pont du Gard, their observation from a distance has 

absolutely no effect on the festivities being observed (252-61).



These two experiments in observation confirm the observations of 

Bohr and Heisenberg and argue that no distant sentient observer 

can cause the world of potential states to collapse into a single 

actuality. Rather, actuality is shaped by those involved in the 

action. Reality may be undetermined, but it does not require an 

outside observer before it snaps into existence as Wigner 

contends. Wigner's interpretation emphasizes the active nature of 

observation in the formation of worlds but it leads logically to 

solipsism, a philosophical position which Durrell rejects as 

ultimately destructive. Quinx ends with everyone trooping into the 

caves under the Pont du Gard, with the dangerous uncertainty that 

one of the visitors might touch off the booby traps and destroy 

everything. Yet Durrell sees "reality prime" in that uncertainty; 

not the end of the world, but the possibility for the "totally 

unpredictable" to begin to take place (200-01). As Blanford tells 

Constance, the "world ends not with a bang, but a Werther" (Quinx 

48), not in uncertainty, but in the misguided solipsism of a 

Werther that leads to self destruction. Durrell has clearly 

rejected Wigner's description of the quantum world.



While Wigner's analysis resolves indeterminacy into a single 

actual world, when there is no observer, the universe exists, in 

the words of Paul Davies, as "a mere collection of ghosts, a 

multi-hybrid superposition of overlapping alternative realities, 

none of them the actual reality" (God 116). Of course, if God is 

doing the job defined by Wigner, all of these ghosts collapse into 

a single concrete reality. Hugh Everett and Bryce DeWitt have 

argued that overlapping waves of reality exist simultaneously, and 

it is the observer who simply chooses which of the possible worlds 

is to be accepted as "real" (Davies, God 11-18). Their theory 

proposes that all potential quantum worlds are equally real and 

co-exist in parallel worlds in which each set of inhabitants 

perceives only its own branch of the universe. As Davies explains:


	Common sense may rebel against the extraordinary 
	concept of the universe branching into two as the 
	result of the antics of a single electron, but the 
	theory stands up well to closer scrutiny. When the 
	universe splits, our minds split with it, one copy 
	going off to populate each world. Each copy thinks it 
	is unique. Those who object that they don't feel 
	themselves being split should reflect on the fact that 
	they do not feel the motion of the earth around the 
	sun either. The splitting is repeated again and again 
	as every atom, and all the subatomic particles, cavort 
	about. Countless times each second, the universe is 
	replicated. Nor is it necessary for an actual 
	measurement to occur in order that the replication 
	occur. It suffices that a single microscopic particle 
	merely interacts in some way with a macroscopic 
	system. (11-17)


Here is schizophrenia with a vengeance, for the price paid for the 

elimination of Wigner's solipsism in the restoration of reality 

"is a multiplicity of realities--a stupendous and growing number 

of parallel universes, diverging along their separate branches of 

evolution" (117). This splitting of reality is reflected in 

Durrell's Quincunx in the replication of authors and characters 

who are essentially variations of each other existing in different 

realities.



Thus, Everett and DeWitt's vision, which DeWitt himself 

characterizes as schizophrenic, is very close to Durrell's. As the 

character Sylvie illustrates, great brilliance and schizophrenia 

can not only be found together, together they can lead us, as 

Sylvie led Constance, into the discovery of new aspects of our own 

worlds (Sebastian 19-96). Blanford is jealous of Sylvie, not 

merely because she is sleeping with Constance, but because she 

understands physics: she knows that a perpetual spontaneity is 

constantly recreating the world (Quinx 38). Blanford later adopts 

Sylvie's insight as his own when he writes in his commonplace 

book:


	Ah! blessed principle of Indeterminacy which renders 
	every eventual second of time miraculous: because all 
	creation is arbitrary, capricious, spontaneous. 
	Without forethought or afterthought. (Quinx 53)


In Everett and DeWitt's description of quantum reality, this 

capricious, spontaneous creation results in a multiplicity of 

closely interrelated worlds in simultaneous existence. This 

explains the reality of the coexistence of Durrell's, Blanford's, 

Sutcliffe's, and all the other fictional worlds described or 

presented in the Quincunx, as well as the actual worlds which 

Durrell and you and I inhabit. The Bruce and Sylvie of Sutcliffe's 

Monsieur exist simultaneously with the Blanford and Constance of 

the later novels; each is the other in a coexisting reality. 

Sutcliffe too is a version of Blanford; they are "versions of one 

another set upon differing time tracks" (Constance 340).


Early in Quinx Blanford asks Sutcliffe to relay a message to

Einstein. "Tell him from me," he says, "that man only has a tendency

towards existing. I can't go further towards unqualified certainty..." 

(23). Blanford has accepted the world of quantum mechanics. 

Einstein, by contrast, believed quantum mechanics only described a 

partial truth:


	Probably never before has a theory been evolved which 
	has given a key to the interpretation and calculation 
	of such a heterogeneous group of phenomena of 
	experience as quantum theory. In spite of this, 
	however, I believe that the theory is apt to beguile 
	us into error in our search for a uniform basis for 
	physics, because, in my belief, it is an incomplete 
	representation of real things, although it is the only 
	one which can be built out of the fundamental concepts 
	of force and material points (quantum corrections to 
	classical mechanics). The Incompleteness of the 
	representation leads necessarily to the statistical 
	nature (incompleteness) of the laws. ("Physics" 31-16)

Einstein's dissatisfaction with the implications of quantum theory 

led him, along with Podolsky and Rosen, to develop an experiment 

which he hoped would reestablish certainty in physics. To his 

dismay, his experiment demonstrated the validity of some of the 

more bizarre implications of quantum physics: the necessity of 

considering non-local interrelationships in the descriptions of 

events. Quantum mechanics was designed specifically for this 

purpose, to describe non-locality, the effect distant events 

(sometimes impossibly distant in space and time) can have in 

shaping the world which can be objectively discovered.



Einstein devised the EPR (Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen) experiments 

in 1935 because the non-locality of quantum mechanics seemed to be 

in conflict with his own theory of relativity. To a physicist, 

locality refers to a situation where what happens at any given 

point in space and time depends only on events in its immediate 

vicinity. Newtonian or classical mechanics, and all simple 

descriptions of cause and effect, are said to be local. Because 

quantum mechanics was developed to explain situations where 

relatively distant events affect outcomes, such as the presence of 

macroscopic devices to measure microscopic events, quantum 

mechanics is said to be non-local. Einstein wanted to reestablish 

the independent reality of the actual world by checking the spin 

of particles after a collision. Following a certain period of 

time, the particles are essentially in separate worlds because no 

signal can travel faster than the speed of light. He found, 

however, that it is possible for the quantum state of the combined 

system to be such that independent measurements of widely 

separated particles yield correlated results, an effect he 

characterized as "spooky action at a distance." Though it is not 

surprising that two colliding particles should retain an imprint 

of their encounter, the degree of correlation was astounding. John 

Bell demonstrated that there is "a significantly greater degree of 

correlation than can possibly be accounted for by any theory that 

treats the particles as independently real and subject to 

locality" (Davies, Cosmic 176).



Niels Bohr responded to the EPR results by arguing that the 

findings did not contradict the Theory of Relativity if the 

particles were still a part of a unitary quantum system operating 

with a single wave function. It is not enough to physically 

separate two particles in order to give them independent 

existence. The particles remain connected, even though they may be 

separated by such great distances that all forces acting between 

them are negligible (Cosmic 177). The most widely-accepted theory 

to explain the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, assumes just 

such a situation: every particle of the universe was once in 

intimate contact with every other particle. Thus the fate of all 

is intimately connected. It is not surprising that some, such as 

R. V. Jones, should see this universal complementarity as the 

basis for a system of ethics, an idea which underlies Durrell's 

thematic plotting of the Quincunx.



The implications of Einstein's experiment are startling, for they 

seem to support Heraclitus' description of the world. The fate of 

any given particle in existence is "inseparably linked to the fate 

of the cosmos as a whole, not in the trivial sense that it may 

experience forces from its environment, but because its very 

reality is interwoven with that of the rest of the universe" 

(Cosmic 177). In the words of Heraclitus, "the world of the waking 

is one and shared" (Kahn 31). In the Quincunx, not only is every 

character, every theme, every event interrelated; they merge into 

each other to form one extremely complex world of 

interrelationships. "All writers are the same one," we are told, 

"Blake scribbles Nietzsche's notes on the same experience" (Quinx 

28). As Heraclitus observed, "thinking is shared by all" (Kahn 

43). The characters illustrate a trend which is echoed in the 

thematic concerns of the Quincunx. Each character slowly becomes 

the same character, each theme slowly becomes the same theme, each 

world is really the same world seen through different eyes in 

different space and time (Quinx 26).



Durrell's purpose in experimenting with the application of the 

principles of quantum mechanics is closely related to the lesson 

Heisenberg and Bohr were attempting to communicate to the 

followers of Einstein. By the twentieth century, Western culture 

had produced what Wilson Harris has called an age of "progressive 

realism" based on Aristotelian principles and saturated with a 

profound "linear bias" (71). We are goal oriented: we like to 

travel in straight lines and prefer simple explanations and plots 

based on locality, choosing to ignore the complex non-local 

interrelationships which exist all around us, including the 

possibility that the flap of a butterfly's wing in Brazil could 

cause or prevent a tornado in Texas (Lorenz 181-84). In fiction, 

in place of the linear predictability of Freudian psychology and 

the Modernist dependence on the locality of the poetic image as 

the medium of aesthetic communication, Durrell, like his 

contemporaries John Fowles and Margaret Drabble, uses his fiction 

to investigate the possibility that the world we live in is only 

one of many possible worlds. The hope is that we could formulate 

another world and rehumanize the implications of both scientific 

and literary experimentation. Quantum mechanics, with its 

principle of non-locality, has demonstrated that the simple answer 

to the question of how the world is structured is that it is more 

complicated than our Aristotelian conceptions and linear bias 

might desire. It has also demonstrated that nothing, not even the 

Romantic values, which the literary Modernists rejected, nor the 

chaos of the Modernists' own atomistic impressions can be left 

unconsidered in our analysis of the world as it is. In Durrell's 

exploration, the values of the past, no matter how distasteful to 

our own palates, cannot be ignored, for every element which has 

ever had an impact on our development as a species can still be 

measured in each of our individual responses to daily events. 

Thus, in the Quincunx, there is something of the drunken 

Bloshford, the madman Mnemides, the Vestal traitor Livia, the 

foolish Prince, the Nazi general Von Esslin, Nancy Quiminal, of 

Constance the psychiatrist, of Sebastian's mystical beliefs which 

exists in all human beings in all situations, in the trajectory of 

every kiss. Durrell's Quincunx, like his Alexandria Quartet, is an 

attempt to use the findings of contemporary science to overcome 

the linear bias of his readers, to show that progressive realism 

lies about the nature of people and events through 

oversimplification, to force his readers to see the physical and 

psychical complexity of themselves and the world around them, to 

see the truly multi-dimensional nature of human experience.



In a letter to Henry Miller dated March 5,1971, Durrell mentions 

all of the principal ingredients he hoped to combine in the 

Quincunx, and he discusses the marriage of ideas he projected. He 

says, "Alexandria was the source of our science, and if the great 

library hadn't been burned down we'd surely find that Niels Bohr 

and Heisenberg had been anticipated by them. Even the prose of the 

Quartet was intended to have the indeterminacy of quanta 

movements" (446-47). About materialistic philosophy, he complains, 

"Everyone wants to talk about Mao, nobody wants to talk about Tao. 

What a BORE the world has become" (447). Fortunately Durrell did 

not abandon the project which was to become the Quincunx, as he 

had considered doing in February of 1971 (Letters 446). Instead, 

in five novels, he described the primordial soup--the chaos which, 

when stirred, gives birth to the universe.