in the what of experience?

This is a two-part question, first "deep" then shallow. Does anyone know anything about Lawrence Durrell? I'm asking because I have this quotation from him on my little bulletin board, and I've been thinking about it lately. I can't decide if it's really inspiring or sort of obnoxious in a self-help kind of way. Here it is:

"Somewhere in the heart of experience there is an order and a coherence which we might surprise if we were attentive enough, loving enough, or patient enough."

It's from Durrell's book Justine, which is part of a four-book series called The Alexandria Quartet. I have never read these books. Maybe a character who's a real jerk says this statement, or maybe it's meant sarcastically. I know it as the epigraph from one of my favorite collections of poems: Order, or Disorder by Amy Newman.

I like the quotation, I think, because it is something I want very much to believe. I dislike it a little because it's so instructional: be more loving! You are not patient enough! These are concerns I have already, so I don't need Mr. Durrell to let me know how my lack of patience means not only that I'll never be a good kindergarten teacher, but also that I'll never surprise the order of experience.

If you've read Durrell, should I tackle this four-book series? Is he worth it? And what do you think about this order & coherence idea? Isn't it what really good writing does--brings a little order to the chaos?

The shallow: does anyone tape The West Wing? Because I really want to watch last week's episode where Josh and Donna FINALLY made out.

Someone Please Make This Man a Hero of a Novel, or a Poem, or a Story

You'll know who I'm talking about.

I've been reading Jesus' Son again for one reason or another, and when I came across this following paragraph it struck me as being the whole purpose of the collection, as though everything written before it existed just to give this passage its maximum effect, and everything written afterwards is merely a fuller cushion. And not necessarily because it, the passage, is in itself the most brilliant...although maybe it is...but just: this seems to be the whole point of what Johnson was trying to do here, here in these stories, arguably among the best put together in our lifetimes....

But without further ado:

There was a guy with something like multiple sclerosis. A perpetual spasm forced him to perch sideways on his wheelchair and peer down along his nose at his knotted fingers. This condition had descended on him suddenly. His wife was divorcing him. He was only thirty-three, I believe he said, but it was hard to guess what he told about himself because he really couldn't talk anymore, beyond clamping his lips repeatedly around his protuding tongue while groaning.

No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess. Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson, I really appreciate it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.