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Beautiful writing going on here. Archaic Any illness of the lungs or throat, such as asthma or a cough. Of or relating to a mechanic. Of, relating to, marked by, or skilled in methodical and logical reasoning. Fort Kom el Dick Constantine P. He published poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday. Leonard Cohen - Alexandria Leaving Voices Ideal and dearly beloved voices of those who are dead or of those who are lost to us like the dead.
Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams; sometimes in thought the mind hears them. And for a moment with their echo other echos return from the first poetry of our lives- like music that extinguishes the far off night. Cavafy Summer Egyptian Encounters: The libretto does not specify a precise time period, so it is difficult to place the opera more specifically than the Old Kingdom.
For the first production, Mariette went to great efforts to make the sets and costumes authentic. Given the consistent artistic styles through the year history of ancient Egypt, a given production does not particularly need to choose a specific time period within the larger frame of ancient Egyptian history. Egyptian army suspends constitution and removes President Morsi. Additional reading that flows from the above, much like a great river: Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries.
View all 11 comments. Feb 09, Pavle rated it it was amazing Shelves: Nov 21, T. There are spoilers in my review but, really, the book hasn't much in the way of plot anyway.
It's all character study. I completely understand if others do not care to read through my rambles, and apologise ahead of time for any suffering I cause. If I were rating Justine only on the quality of the wri NB: If I were rating Justine only on the quality of the writing, I would give it six stars for the eloquence of Durrell's descriptive prose: Fitzgerald and Hemingway vs. I decided that Fitzgerald is the better writer stylistically or, I should say, more to my taste nowadays but that Hemingway was very wise to write only what characters do and say, while describing the scenery, and avoiding psychoanalytic speculation on their motivations, at all cost.
That said, Fitzgerald was clear, intelligent, and minimal in his explorations regarding Nicole Diver's "madness" as perceived through her psychiatrist-husband's eyes and, for the time in which he published, it was bold of Fitzgerald to cast blame on Nicole's father for having sexually molested her in her childhood. It was unusual at that time, firstly, to call out fathers for this common but hidden crime; secondly, women were regularly accused of being lying hysterics see Charcot and Freud for disclosing abuse at the hands of fathers, uncles, brothers, et al.
So, I respected Fitzgerald's taking this position and did not find his assumptions ignorant and simple-minded. Hemingway avoided, scrupulously, picking apart people's hearts and minds. I respect him for that. You can read Hills Like White Elephants a dozen times and nowhere will you find a direct reference to abortion or the couple's feelings about it.
The reader may infer what she likes, but Hemingway will not spoon-feed you second-rate psychology or shallow spirituality that cheapens his characters. He presents them to you whole so that their integrity is maintained, but still they are only snapshots of a particular moment in time, which is just like real life, actually. Durrell leaves nothing to the imagination while trying to second-guess his own characters, and yet he is at his worst while doing so.
Similar to Nicole in Fitzgerald's book, Durrell's Justine has been sexually assaulted by a man in her childhood not her father, though he did beat her regularly. Durrell seems to be trying to represent his characters as nearly-literal Jungian archetypes but archetypes, if they can be said to "exist" at all, do so at the level of myth i. It's easy to oversimplify them and reduce them to the point of ridiculousness; likewise, it's easy to over-complicate them.
When you try to make them overtly real, to analyze them too closely and deconstruct their mystery, they lose both their mystery and their potency. Indeed, my perception of Durrell's characters were far from mythic. I found them quite ordinary, despite the fact that he keeps claiming they aren't: They are mostly shallow, self-absorbed, and cynical dilettantes who founder drunkenly in puddles whilst believing they inhabit an ocean. I found the pondering on psychology and spirituality, through the mouths of Durrell's characters, absolutely cringe-worthy and nearly threw the book across the room on several occasions but since it's an expensive Folio edition given as a gift by my husband, I refrained.
It's not merely that I did not like them, for I did like some of them, at least to some degree; besides, I can dislike characters but still find them fascinating as with everyone in Lolita , for instance. We are told in the Introduction that Justine is the lover of a group of "remarkable men" but I could find nothing remarkable about them. I did not feel that Durrell managed to make most of his people even interesting, at least not to me. These men are mostly crashing bores, full of themselves and their own sexual avarice to the point of self-destruction.
That said, Nessim did capture my attention; he did seem to be a man of substance and integrity, battling real demons both externally and within himself. Mostly, though, the men depicted in Justine made me wonder how tedious Durrell must have been as a husband, lover, and father. Despite the fact that Durrell claims the characters are all fictional, that is only true in degree.
They are clearly based on himself and his circle of friends during his time in Alexandria. Justine Justine represents glamour and the feminine mystique to every man in her life, we are told, yet Justine did not come across as enigmatic to me: You should know Justine will betray you because that is her nature. She never promises fidelity, except presumably to Nessim, to whom she is married; but she is clear with him from the beginning that she does not love him and probably never will, and he marries her with that understanding.
He wants her to be with him and offers her a secure home and money, which she hopes to use to find her missing child. She says upfront that this is what she wants and yet, he is persistent that he wants her to marry him. Getting frustrated with Justine for her easy lies, her secrets, her evasiveness, and her infidelities, is like getting angry with a fox for being a fox.
You force your hand into the fox's mouth dreaming that, in this way, you will tame it. Now you've been bit, but who is to blame? Justine gathers people to her and offers them what they all seem to want: She is upfront and not at all coy about this. This reflex is common in women who've always been treated as sexual objects rather than human beings, and especially those who've been sexually molested in childhood.
In exchange, Justine takes whatever knowledge and life lessons she can gain from her men, as well as their money and connections, in hopes of using these to find her missing child. There is nothing mysterious about her except that Durrell feels it necessary to give her many ridiculous motivations that seem contrived and beside the point. I could completely understand why Justine, at one point, tries to burn her husband's Arnauti's novel about her because through this action she sends a clear, but silent, message: You have not understood me at all.
Her first husband, Arnauti, tries to reduce her with his pen to something manageable, conveniently packaged as a book: Justine sees this, rightly enough, as just another way of stealing a person's selfhood, of trying to own what isn't yours. She smells the rot and burns it, in her own version of a cleansing ceremony. Justine is far more interesting when she acts than when she speaks.
If one stands back and watches her, her behaviour seems completely consistent and coherent. Interestingly, in Durrell's own working notes at the back of the book, he symbolises Justine as "the straight arrow in the dark": That is one symbol that makes complete sense to me.
Justine is not as confused as she seems; her words may obscure, evade, or baffle, but her actions do not. Her aim is true. She will keep heading the same direction, whatever the rigmarole going on around her. But Durrell will not leave well enough alone, endlessly trying to explain her feelings and behaviour in ways that ring false.
This very nearly ruined my enjoyment of the novel. It seems that Justine was based on a real woman in Durrell's life or so it is said, though like most characters, she is probably an amalgam of women: Justine offers the same deal to all of her lovers: You can have her body but not her soul. And please don't make her explain herself because the moment she opens her mouth to do so, it's all a terrible muddle. While trying to be profound, she makes sweeping grand statements that sound poetic but are ultimately trite but that is true of most of her friends, too. I assume this is because Durrell himself could not explain the woman or women he knew, only their effect on him.
I think, had he stuck with observing women's behaviours and describing what he saw and heard, he would have been a far better writer, playing to his strengths. Yet for Durrell, that wasn't enough. And for the male characters in his book, what Justine gives them is never enough: They want to fully possess her.
It is clear as the Sun that Justine, though a generous lover, wants to possess herself, not to be owned by others. Most of all, she would love to find her child again. Only Nessim seems to grasp just how vital this need is in her. The fox has bolted and all are left bleeding.
I kept thinking of this classical art meme while reading the dialogue about Justine. More on Hemingway and Durrell Another way in which Hemingway was wise is that he avoided serving up cheap and easy philosophies and even pretending to a coherent worldview. He was not given to banal aphorisms. What are we to make of Balthazar and Justine and her lovers and all their empty cliches delivered in world-weary voices roughened by wine, whiskey, and cigarettes? Half the time, it reminded me of the conversations we used to have when I was an undergrad away at university, or living in New York soon after, and my friends and I would be half drunk, lounging on old couches or the floor, smoking and talking, listening to music, and thinking our slurred utterances profound.
We were very young, forgive us. When I realised that Durrell had written Balthazar as their guru to the "mysteries" of the transcendental life, all hope was lost. I suppose he was meant to be the archetypal Wise Sage figure but he in no way comes across as wise. As a contemplative, he is a joke. Like Pursewarden, Balthazar serves up sophistry as if it were clever and profound.
His aphorisms are simply the hollow and cheap wooings of a jaded poseur. His speculations on his friends' feelings and behaviours are likewise empty: Once you start summing up your friends with self-congratulatory insights which pretend to explain the complexities of their lives, you are no longer their friend. Wise old Hemingway would have said, 'Let's just have another Pernod, eat some olives, and gaze at that sun-splashed ocean, pal. The more he drank, the more profound he thought he was. I thought of him whilst reading Justine because these men drink a lot and, the more they drink, the more insufferable they become.
My friend's lovers, too, ended up leaving him. For him, this was a mystery. After all, he had his attractions. Unfortunately, the more he drank and philosophised, the less attractive he became. When I tried to explain to him that women do not take lovers in hopes of being psychoanalysed by them, to be picked apart with crude mental tweezers, he seemed baffled; didn't everyone dissect their lovers?
Isn't it helpful to point out their flaws and relate every behaviour in their lives back to event X in their childhood? Insert parable about pulling the log out of your own eye before pointing out splinters in others'. This book, in many ways, is like an exquisite perfume sprinkled on a corpse: It offended my own sensibilities on so many levels, yet I am still impressed by its lyrical qualities and I am rather pleased that Durrell allowed Justine's escape from the fox-tamers.
For myself, I believe that deep emotions are better felt silently and inferred subtly, rather than dissected crudely, with chilly needles; that spirituality is better lived-out quietly than preached loudly by fools; that drunken, hollow cynicism shared at the bar is best kept at the bar. Perhaps part of my disenchantment is that I had expected so much of this book.
Indeed, I own the Folio edition because I had so long coveted it and anticipated its exotic grandeur. But you know, these people, these characters, never really came alive for me: They were trapped between the covers of a book from whose aesthetic framework they could not even hope to escape. Perhaps they suspected themselves, when overhearing their self-conscious, literary dialogue, that they were only characters in a novel and not real people at all?
Justine got trapped in a book, after all, despite her best efforts to escape! The reason I am rating Justine three stars is because I give it six for its descriptive eloquence and zero for its philosophical, psychological, and spiritual nonsense. I have already begun the second book in the quartet, Balthazar, and I'm enjoying it more than the first already, but that is probably because Balthazar himself hasn't appeared yet. I have been reading gorgeous descriptive paragraphs about Nessim's trip to his family farm, to visit his brother and mother. It's wonderful writing but I am wary of what will come later.
Jun 19, Matt rated it it was amazing. Like it was making an effort. Like it was really bloody worn out from wanting to be read. Then I pick up Justine and start reading. Our common actions in reality are simply the sackcloth covering which hides the cloth-of-gold—the meaning of the pattern. For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfill it in its true potential—the imagination.
Otherwise why should we hurt one another? But in the most readable and soothing way. With all his middle-eastern sexual ambiguity and muezzins crying out in the background. This, too, I think, is a telling detail from his biography: Ghislaine de Boysson m. Apr 19, Jonfaith rated it really liked it.
These are the moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory, like wonderful creatures, unique of their own kind, dredged up from the floors of some unexplored ocean. Full review of sorts will ensue when the tetralogy is completed.
Oct 26, Czarny Pies rated it liked it Recommends it for: Those who have sexual fantasies involving Jewish women who smoke cigarettes while naked. This is a highly representative work of the fatuous Larry that we know and love from the "Durrells in Corfu". It is a masterpiece of Gnostic eroticism that may have lost its audience due to its outrageous chauvinism.
Women exist in Durrell's world to be fetich objects for male writers and poets. Durrell writes of his alluring heroine. Durrell places a quote from the Marquis' de Sades novel "Justine" at the start of this novel presumably to encourage the reader look for points in common that his heroine has with de Sade's. Justine is however more than a libertine woman capable of inspiring sexual fantasies with every man she meets.
She is also on a deep spiritual quest in the gnostic-cabalistic vein. How probabale it seems! However it sets the table splendidly for the rest of the quartet as it very effectively establishes the themes of Sadistic love and Gnostic spirituality. Aug 22, Tony rated it really liked it Shelves: This book is one beautiful, superbly crafted sentence, after another, after another.
They read like aphorisms, beatitudes, making the reader pause to absorb each one, to weigh it for truth. We were not simply gluttons, were we? And how completely this love-affair has repaid all the promises it held out for us -- at least for me. We met and the worst befell us, but the best part of us, our lovers. They are simply bottom-sniffings raised to the rank of formal ceremonies. Will there be time? I think I have wisely let Durrell do the talking in this review. I'll let him speak for me again: One is not an ordinary man if one can say things so pointed that they engage the attention and memory of others.
As once in speaking of marriage he said: He struck me as having a coherent view of life but madness intervened and all I have to go on is the memory of a few incidents and sayings. I wish I could leave behind as much. Oh, how I wish. Jun 28, Jacob Appel rated it it was amazing. The lost world of multinational, pluralistic pre-war Alexandria, Egypt comes to life in all of its mysterious romance.
Durrell has a particular talent for crafting memorable minor characters: Mnemjian, the kyphotic barber; Capodistria, the one-eyed lecher, Clea, a celibate lesbi "Justine" is not an easy book by any standard --the language is often baroque, the underlying ideas complex and challenging -- but it is one of those rare, brilliant novels that creates an entire self-contained universe.
Mnemjian, the kyphotic barber; Capodistria, the one-eyed lecher, Clea, a celibate lesbian who paints portraits of victims of venereal disease.
These lines are quite simply too high brow for my taste. Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams; sometimes in thought the mind hears them. For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfill it in its true potential—the imagination. For much of the novel I was both disgusted with the complicated language and the ridiculous philosophizing. I also won't pretend that parts of what was being said weren't over my head, because some of his ideas were highly intellectual plus it felt like I had to look up a word I didn't know every five or so pages. Mixed media installation with sound, record players, records, and synchronized lighting. There are secrets, there are lies and none are left unscathed.
Not any easy read for bedtime or the beach, but well worth the investment. Incidentally, for a different take on a similar landscape, I'd also suggest Andre Aciman's riveting memoir, Out of Egypt. This will be a pleasing read for those who enjoy language more than plot.
Justine: A Play in Four Acts Based on the Novel by The Marquis de Sade - Kindle edition by Frank J. Morlock, The Marquis de Sade. Download it once and read. Based on the Marquis de Sade's infamous novel of the same name, this new dramatic version of JUSTINE closely follows the original story.
The writing is luscious and strange, the subject matter slightly decadent. He has affairs with a woman named Melissa and a married woman named Justine, and friendships with a homosexual, Balthazar, Just This will be a pleasing read for those who enjoy language more than plot. He has affairs with a woman named Melissa and a married woman named Justine, and friendships with a homosexual, Balthazar, Justine's husband, Nessim, and various members of the British diplomatic corps.
Mostly he thinks about love and sex, and the atmospherics of Alexandria. I'm told you have to read the other three parts of the Alexandria Quartet to get the full picture, so maybe I will do that. Durrell likes the word velvet. They did not try to escape but spread out slowly like spilt honey. Somehow this, for me, was sadder than the diplomat's wife whose head was cut off as she waited in the back of a car, by Bedouin women who wanted the gold in her teeth.
The part of the book that I find truly moving is at the very end, when many of the characters have left. Justine in Palestine, Clea in Syria, Nessim returning from Kenya, the narrator en route to self-imposed exile on a lonely Greek island—these few rain-washed glimpses suddenly make me care enough about them as people to read the next book, and the next, and the next.
Patient unravellers of elaborately woven gold threads. Recommended to Nate D by: Allen Wilcox via goodreads. A novel that grows into itself. The language is initially of a peculiar 19th century sort of gaudiness, even in the modernity of its plotless and achronological churning of memory and melancholy. Both initial impressions are somewhat deceptive.
Justine remains primarily a character study -- of the titular character, of those whose lives wind themselves inextricably around her bright flame, of the city that surrounds and mirrors them -- but tendrils of plot ease in to pull the reader gently throu A novel that grows into itself. Justine remains primarily a character study -- of the titular character, of those whose lives wind themselves inextricably around her bright flame, of the city that surrounds and mirrors them -- but tendrils of plot ease in to pull the reader gently throught the finish.
More importantly Durrell's prose, at first seemingly overworked and overembellished like a tapestry pushed nearly into bad taste by the ceaseless, untiring work of well-meaning hands -- like that tapestry which fades and decays upon the wall before the influence of air heavy with damp and warmth until it reveals in corruption a stateliness and splendor, like the aging, over-ripened grandeur of Durrell's Alexandria, so his novel slowly inhabits the language that composes it and reveals an arguable perfection.
And so, the novel and the city: Bruised characters and the fleeting episodes of their lives like fruit that dangles, pendulous and already rotting, from creeping vines. View all 3 comments. This book made me question my integrity as a reader. My concentration, it seems, is shot to some degree — however temporary or permanent remains to be seen.
But for this book anyway I had pockets of trouble reading without losing my place. Durrell is a fabulous talent and impressed me from the start, sticking my nose into the neck, arm pit, and hair of Alexandria. He writes like a dream, but an opiate-soaked, English-viceroy dream, which means he meanders beautifully in long, lush sentences that This book made me question my integrity as a reader. He writes like a dream, but an opiate-soaked, English-viceroy dream, which means he meanders beautifully in long, lush sentences that you begin keen and finish floating.
The moments of genius are, to me, irrefutable — it's that moment, as a reader, when a passage hits you so completely, so thoroughly, that you burn with admiration and understand that in your hands, before your eyes, is the glowing, vital ore of genius. That noted, I also kept slipping in and out for pages at a time, perhaps too exhausted to close the deal from beginning to end.
I will almost certainly finish the other 3 books that comprise the Alexandria Quartet, but I just don't know when. One by one, the cast of characters appears, men and women, all complex, all elusive in their own right. The narrator, a struggling writer, is drifting around aimlessly, maybe in search of some sense of fulfillment, and then again maybe not.
Through his eyes and also his heart, we get to meet the people the four novels are built on: Justine, the mysterious femme fatale with a gaping wound in her heart, Clea the gifted painter who has learned to suffer in silence, Nessim, the millionaire with a hidden agenda, Balthazar, the leader of the group in the pathway of Esoterism, Mountolive, the ambassador consumed by an illicit passion, and Melissa, the obvious sacrificial lamb of the group.
Of course, there are many more characters yet, who bob and weave through the pages, essential as some sort of chemical agents of the soul, but also colorful, complex and mesmerizing in their own rights. All those people somehow fit together like some pieces of a puzzle, fascinating as it is through the richness of its colors but also through its design that changes with the eyes that behold it and yet remains indecipherable. This first book is described as a book about Love, which is certainly true but strikes me as quite reductive inasmuch as it merely boils down the novel to a very meager dimension.
But then again, there are many, many declinations of love And then, there is Alexandria, and with it, the desert that scares and fascinates, the heat that subdues and exhausts and the war that is threatening it all. A friend the summer of ' Lost a good start on a review again.
I don't know why Goodreads makes these so difficult to recover. Not in the mood to redo tonight. The Alexandria Quartet is my favorite series of books. Justine is the first of the series, which plays on the four dimensions, three of space and one of time, by telling the "same" story from multiple perspectives. It was written in the late '5o's, early '6o's. I read it over forty years ago now and had long wanted to revisit it. As much as a Lost a good start on a review again. As much as anything, it recreates the ethos of the city of Alexandria. One of the advantages of reading it on an ebook, as I did this time, is having built-in access to a dictionary.
Although I see in looking back at my paperback that not all the words that I underlined then did I need to look up now, I still found myself appreciating definitions with a click. The language and descriptions are lush, the settings and characters often exotic and erotic -- besides an exploration of Alexandria, this is Durrell exploring many faces and attributes of love. Okay, so I did recreate that much.
But this is pathetic. See my review of the entire quartet for a better sense of my feelings. Maybe someday I'll revisit this sorry review for Justine. In the meantime, read those of others Sidebar: Kindle page numbers did not correspond to paperback page numbers. About four decades ago, when I first read The Alexandria Quartet, the books mesmerized me, took my breath away. I was less mesmerized this time around, but the beauty and brilliance of Durrell's language which I now recognized as sometimes excessive still had the power to draw me into the exotic, languorous atmosphere of pre-WWII Alexandria.
A welcome escape from 's fury, fear, and frenzy. The audiobook narrator was uneven. Of the many disparate characters, he conveyed the males perfectly— About four decades ago, when I first read The Alexandria Quartet, the books mesmerized me, took my breath away.
Of the many disparate characters, he conveyed the males perfectly—old and young, Arab, Brit, and French—but he failed to make females sound adequately female. Also, the narration was so slow in a seeming attempt to match the languor of the ambiance that I almost gave up. Then, I increased the playback speed by 1. I may tackle Balthazar next. I recall that it was my favorite of the four.
I mostly think it was because I was very young and yet to go off to uni, but we shall see The language and descriptions are beautiful especially when Durrell is describing the city and surrounds, but it's one of those books you have to concentrate on so not good when you are tired.
Had to read lots of it twice just to make sure I got it and somet Had to read lots of it twice just to make sure I got it and sometimes that wasn't enough. The style is self-consciously literary and Durrell uses big words just because he can, which was annoying at times.
I usually love flawed characters but I just wanted to smack this lot. I also had trouble sympathizing with the self absorbed narrator. However, there is lots to like in this book and I'm intrigued to see how the story develops in the rest of the quartet. I have a feeling there are surprises ahead. Durrell's poetic writing is evident throughout Justine. His words hypnotize and emit a tranquil vibe. I found myself utterly relaxed and absorbed in his beautiful prose. Characters are well developed and introduced in a intimate manner.
The plot is solid and marries with the individual players. Justine is book I of The Alexandria Quartet, only the beginning of the series leading me to read all three books. The ending came all too soon leaving me craving for the sequel. Durrell is now one of my f Durrell's poetic writing is evident throughout Justine. Durrell is now one of my favorite authors. Thank you Mike for introducing me to such a gifted writer that was under my radar for far too long. This book successfully blew my mind, although I managed to salvage a piece of my cerebrum as I never got a chance to finish it.
But it does get decidely difficult and abstract half-way in; then my copy was badly damaged in an accident involving beer. So I need to buy another copy. Anyone want to trade? Durrell makes the environment of the ancient city of Alexandria the protagonist in this literary novel. He has insight into how our environment defines us in ways that are subtle and in contrast to the prevailing idea, at least here in the U. The reason this isn't getting 5 stars is because I couldn't wrap my head around Justine herself.
But Justine herself remains remote and an enigma which is somewhat fitting since she is the love object of our smitten narrator. I find her to be a bitch. Very enjoyable book and having been to Alexandria, the book resounded in my mind. Story is set in Alexandra, Egypt, pre world war II.
The narrator is an Irish school teacher. It is a story of a love triangle, but also a story of Alexandra. The triangles are the 1 school teacher and his mistress, Melissa and Justine 2 Justine, Nessim, and the school teacher, and one could also add Melissa and Nessim bonded together against Justine and the school teacher. The story is more of character study that any plot. There is a bit of plot here and there. There is reference to an act of sexual abuse against Justine in her younger years.
There is some espionage and there is the hunting scene. Mostly it is a character study with Alexandra as probably the main character. As the New Yorker article states; memory has free range, no formal attempt is made at structure or even at rendering the story easy to follow. It takes a great deal of work to read this relatively short work by page count.
Durrell is a lyrist and each word seems to be purposely chosen, often requiring looking up at least for me. Thank goodness for Kindle dictionary. Sex is a big part of this book yet the author does not force a lot of detail on the reader but still it is enough to before and after details and it is used as cover up for espionage, personal sacrifice, neediness, and desire for power.
There really is no healthy sexual encounters in this book. While this is a story where characters are described as Libertines and are on their own, as far as adulthood, it is also a story where the characters are coming to age. Melissa, Justine and our narrator. Lonely writers who dream of traveling abroad armed only with a typewriter and a single suitcase. Recommended to Alan by: At the beginning of Justine , Lawrence Durrell disclaims on behalf of his characters that they are "all inventions together with the personality of the narrator, and bear no resemblance to living persons.
Only the city is real. I considered it a sign when I ran across all four volumes of the Quartet at once, languishing near but not quite next to each other in the marvelously musty stacks and cases of the Paradox Book Store in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia. Wheeling is a town devoid of souks and silks, about as far away culturally from Alexandria as one can get and still be on the same planet. But the looming towers of books in the Paradox, the smell of dusty pages overwhelming the tiny store's narrow aisles Or so it seemed to me. I snatched up the books and paid a ridiculously low price, a quarter of what I'd expected , and hauled them back across the country to await the arrival of time and inclination.
Portentous, melancholy, and tinged with more than a little bitterness, Lawrence Durrell 's Justine nevertheless draws one in, draws one onward. Slowly, Janus-like, each multifaceted sentence looks toward the past while whispering hints of future clarity, promising more meaning than seems possible to convey in mere words: Did this sort of thing happen so often or is it that my memory has multiplied it? Perhaps it was only once, and the echoes have misled me.
Take for example the alliteration, the full sensory experience , in just the first few paragraphs from page Intense light behind cloud; by four o'clock a thin pure drizzle like needles. The poinsettias in the Consulate garden stark with silver drops standing on their stamens.
No birds singing in the dawn. A light wind making the palm trees sway their necks with a faint dry formal clicking. The wonderful hushing of rain on Mareotis. Walking about in her room, studying inanimate objects with intense concentration. The depilatories from Sardis. The smell of satin and leather. The horrible feeling of some great impending scandal Though Durrell's work is often described as "erotic" and in fact the back cover blurb on this very edition speaks of its "dangerous eroticism" , it does not exude any hint of prurience, even at its most explicit.
We are not made to be voyeurs but rather stand witness to acts which, however joyously physical, are not pornographic Justine herself says, "Who invented the human heart, I wonder? One always overshadows the other and stunts his or her growth so that the overshadowed one must always be tormented by a desire to escape, to be free to grow. Surely this is the only tragic thing about love? Durrell's narrators are unreliable, though, and never more so than when they're talking about love. In addition to engaging me deeply, Justine provided me with the ability to correct to a long-standing error on my website.
I'd read musician Stephen Stills, interviewed in Rolling Stone magazine back in , quoted as saying "Well, there are three things men can do with women: I've had my share of success and failure on all three. I believe that I have read and understood what this book is about. It is fair to say that the main theme of this novel is unhappiness.
There are sentinels whispering to us about who is secretly making love to whom, about occult rites and — delightfully — about international espionage. There are even signs telling us how to read the books themselves. We could, for instance, talk about the meaning behind the descriptions of Alexandria as an "unreal" city, already as perceptive Reading Group contributors have pointed out feeling like TS Eliot's Waste Land. Or we could ask why, conversely, Durrell claims in a foreword that it is the only "real" thing in the book. Or why as contributors have also noted Alexandria should be seen the "great winepress of love", psychically damaging, always the fifth character in the four-way love affairs within its walls.
We could, indeed, look at the significance of the number five. We could look at the influence of Freud and Jung and consider Shuggibear's suggestion that Justine has "released the Jungian anima in the narrator We could ask why we hear so little about Justine's feelings for the narrator when we hear so much, so very much, about his passion for her. We could also look at the kabbalah, at perfume bottles, at "dust", at glass eyes and eye patches, at the distortions of time.
We could attempt to discover as many contributors to the Reading group already have who is the "I" of the narrative. Why has this narrator got no name? Is he the author? Is he something else? What is he doing on that island? Why does he say that he has "escaped" there?
Why should we trust him? There are endless options, and I would have enjoyed investigating them all immensely. But to cover every set of clues, every permutation, hint and implication in the book would require an article almost as long as the Quartet itself. So I've decided here to follow just one trail through the first book: When the narrator first meets Justine, he looks up and sees her: In Mnemjian's Barber's shop, where conspiracies are hatched, women and men are procured, and relationships are dissected, all conversations are carried out staring into mirrors. When the narrator thinks about his affair with Justine, he thinks of "Nessim, who was watching us though I did not know as if through the wrong end of an enormous telescope: More alarming still is his entrance into the bathroom where the two stand naked: He developed like a print in a photographer's developing-bowl.
It's safe to say these things are vital to the novel. But what should we see in all of this? I have a few ideas. The many mirror-images could perhaps be seen as a reminder of the book's epigraph from Freud "the idea of regarding the sexual act as a process in which four persons are involved. When lovers speak in front of a mirror, we can see four faces two corporeal, two reflections , four lips moving.