The Alexandria Quartet: Justine / Balthazar / Mount Olive / Clea
Lawrence Durrell's series of four novels set in Alexandria, Egypt during the 1940s. The lush and sensuous series consists of Justine (1957) Balthazar (1958) Mountolive (1958) Clea (1960). Justine, Balthazar and Mountolive use varied viewpoints to relate a series of events in Alexandria before...
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Lawrence Durrell's series of four novels set in Alexandria, Egypt during the 1940s. The lush and sensuous series consists of Justine (1957) Balthazar (1958) Mountolive (1958) Clea (1960).
Justine, Balthazar and Mountolive use varied viewpoints to relate a series of events in Alexandria before World War II. In Clea, the story continues into the years during the war.
One L.G. Darley is the primary observer of the events, which include events in the lives of those he loves and those he knows. In Justine, Darley attempts to recover from and put into perspective his recently ended affair with a woman. Balthazar reinterprets the romantic perspective he placed on the affair and its aftermath in Justine, in more philosophical and intellectual terms.
Mountolive tells a story minus interpretation, and Clea reveals Darley's healing, and coming to love another woman.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780140153170 (0140153179)
Publish date: 1991-12-01
Publisher: Penguin
Pages no: 884
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Novels,
Literature,
European Literature,
British Literature,
Cultural,
Africa,
Historical Fiction,
Literary Fiction,
Modern,
Modern Classics,
Egypt
Series: Alexandria Quartet (#1)
Even though it took me ages to finish this massive read, the eloquence and the elegancy of the prose blew me away. I absolutely adored the fact that the plot was non linear,at least during the first 3 books, whilst the landscape descriptions were mesmerizing and haunting.This is definitely an unpara...
A magnificent work, tightly constructed... it is impossible to consider these four volumes independently. Though published separately, they form a whole. I had thought about reading this since I was 20, when I had read what Henry Miller had to say about Durrell. Of course, I would not have understo...
"I suppose...that if you wished somehow to incorporate all I am telling you into your own Justine manuscript now, that you would find yourself with a curious sort of book - the story would be told, so to speak, in layers...a series of novels with 'sliding panels'"Balthazar, p. 338JustineA rhythmic, ...
From the Frontspiece: Durrell's wartime sojourn in Egypt led to this masterpiece which he completed in Southern France, where he settled permanently in 1957.
If you're wondering why I grabbed this book, listen to this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2012/feb/10/lawrence-durrell-100-podcast
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