The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell

He starts off as a relatively inconsequential character in the first novel but assumes much greater importance later on, particularly when we learn about his work for the British Embassy, and his blind sister. Justine, as we learn later, is in love with Pursewarden (everyone seems to be in love with the wrong person in this novel).

The other English novelist is Pursewarden, arrogant, learned and successful, said to be based on Wyndham Lewis. He also has affairs with three of the main characters – Justine, Melissa and Clea – though, in all three cases, he is not necessarily their first choice. It is he that sees or hears of much of the action and reports it.

He is an impecunious would-be novelist (he is actually writing the Alexandria Quartet during the course of the book), who makes his money by teaching and, briefly, spying and, during the war, working for the British Embassy. His name and activities indicate that he might well be based, at least in part, on Durrell himself. Only one of the English characters has a named book – Mountolive – though perhaps the main English character is the narrator, Darley (though we do not learn his name till well into the book). The main characters are English, Greek and Egyptian Copt. The interesting thing about the characters is that, though the novel is set in Alexandria, an Egyptian city, there is not a single Egyptian Muslim among the main characters.

This story is not just a story where different characters might see things slightly differently but, as we see the same events as viewed by others, we get, in some cases, a radical different view of the action, changing our mind about the various characters and what they did and did not do. The basis of the novel is a story of a group of people in Alexandria, with the story told from several different viewpoints. This is a pity for, reading it again after many years, I found that it still stood up as a fine piece of English literature. Exoticism and exotic sex, so fascinating in the 1950s and 1960s, are now just a cheap flight away while a flowery style seems generally to be frowned on in this age of ten second sound bites. Best remembered for this book, his flowery style, his exoticism (and exotic sex) and complex plot do not seem entirely in tune with the current age. Inevitably, writers such as Hemingway and D H Lawrence come to mind, the former, with his simple sentences and machismo and the latter with his earthy sexuality both seeming somewhat out of date in the 21st century. There are many writers on this site whose reputations were much higher that they are today.

The reputations of writers and their books inevitably rise and fall with literary fashions. Home » England » Lawrence Durrell » The Alexandria Quartet Lawrence Durrell: The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell