Durrell's "ideas" are in some ways the most dubious thing about him. They are seldom original or persuasive; they suggest, rather, a combination of half-digested gobbets of wisdom heavily seasoned with personal idiosyncrasy, or just plain whimsy. The same recipe provides most of the fare in A Smile in the Mind's Eye, a short account of Durrell's re-education in the disciplines of the Tao through the effect of two close personal relationships. One of these was with a Chinese scholar resident in the West who brought the manuscript of his work on the Taoist philosophy of love and sex for Durrell to read and criticize before publication; the other was a love-affair with the girl Durrell names as Vega. The book is full of memorable anecdotes—such as that of the two men spending Socratic evenings, after sharing the cooking and eating of a meal combining French and...