The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

by Lawrence Durrell (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2005

  $7.55

  Consisting of Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea, The Alexandria Quartet explores the sexual and political intrigues of a group of expatriates in Egypt before and after the Second World War. In Justine, L. G. Darley attempts to reconcile himself to the recent end of his affair with the dark, passionate, multi-faceted Justine Hosnani. Balthazar is named for Darley's friend, a doctor and mystic, and it provides a retelling of Darley's romance with Justine from a more philosophical perspective. Mountolive is the narrative of English ambassador David Mountolive. The final volume, Clea, finds Darley maturing into the knowledge that the gifted painter Clea Montis is the woman for whom he is truly destined.

• Used

  Paperback
  1986

  $4.19

  'Mr Durrell has written about a dozen real love stories, entwined them, explored them with a truly Proustian ferocity and set them all against the marvellous background of Alexandria in the late 'thirties and early 'forties. He is a romantic by temperament, dazzlingly exuberant in style and vision, reckless in ambition, wonderfully prolific in invention.The writing is nearly always superb, not only in the great passages of poetical description but also in the asides, the casual wit and brilliance of comment.' Philip Toynbee in the Observer