The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960.

A critical and commercial success, the books present four perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during World War II. As Durrell explains in his preface to Balthazar, the four novels are an exploration of relativity and the notions of continuum and subject-object relation, with modern love as the subject. The Quartet offers the same sequence of events through several points of view, allowing individual perspectives to change over time. The four novels are: * Justine (1957) * Balthazar (1958) * Mountolive (1958) * Clea (1960) In a 1959 Paris Review interview[1], Durrell described the ideas behind the Quartet in terms of a convergence of Eastern and Western metaphysics, based on Einstein's overturning of the old view of the material universe, and Freud's doing the same for the concept of stable personalities, yielding a new concept of reality.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Alexandria Quartet #70 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Justine, published in 1957, is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. Justine is one of four interlocking novels which each tell various aspects of a complex story of passion and deception from various points of view. The quartet is set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria of the 1930s and 1940s, and the city itself becomes as much of a complex character as the human protagonists. Justine is narrated by an Englishman, who is not named in this novel, but is named as "Darley" in the later novels of the quartet. He is a struggling writer and schoolmaster. At the beginning of the book, living alone on a Greek island, he retells past events and love affairs, including his affair with Justine- a beautiful, rich, and mysterious Jewish woman who is married to a wealthy Egyptian Copt, Nessim. Almost all of the characters are erotically obsessed with Justine. Justine uses the others obsessions to satiate her own demons, often emotionally destroying those involved. The narrator and Justine begin to be afraid that her husband Nessim, who is also the narrators friend and is obsessed with his wife to such a degree that he has her followed about the city, knows about their affair. Chronology and Characters

The novel is an experimental work of fiction as regards structure and chronology. There are no specific references to dates, although the reader may construct a rough chronology in retrospect. However, this is problematic because the narrative moves back and forward in time, often without explicit transitions. Durrell's narrator explains that it is important to him to describe events not "in the order in which they took placefor that is historybut in the order in which they first became significant for me". Although the "chief protagonist" of the novel seems the eponymous Justine, Durrell builds the structure around the conceit that the city, Alexandria, is the most important player; nevertheless, many colorful and fully-drawn characters abound, like the minor French consular official Gaston Pombal, with whom the Narrator shares lodgings, the Idealized-but-Feared Doppelgnger novelist Pursewarden, the golden-hearted Greek prostitute Melissa who is tubercular, the Greek broker Capodistria, Mnemjian the barber & the cross-dressing transvestite Scobie ( much more fully-developed in the subsequent novels, to great hilarious effect, although he ends la Chekhov in a delirious illness with his Final Watch with the Narrator at his decrepit bed-side heartrendingly detailed in "Clea" ). In many ways, Justine's husband Nessim is the most opaque of the characters - and whether this is due to sexual jealousy veiling the narrator's other-wise acute perceptions, or the colonial mind-set obfuscating the

Author's, is anybody's guess; it is notable that the portrait of Justine's first husband - the Frenchman Arnauti - who also writes a novel about his relationship with Justine, called Moeurs - is much more precise and definite. It's as if Durrell, despite having lived most his life in British Colonies or Protectorates until that time, had an over-weening concept of the "Native" as the mysterious Other. There is certainly a tone of "White Man's Burden" which gets more pronounced as the Quartet moves on and the story moves from the private torments of a struggling poet forced to eke out a living as a ForeignLanguage Teacher in hopeless love to a more extended socio-political narrative detailing, amongst other things, the shenanigans of the British secret service and its reluctant support of the Zionist plotters, which takes centre-stage in the next 2 books, "Balthazar" and especially "Mountolive". Epigraphs and Citations Durrell makes use of epigraphs and quotations, including translations, taken from other authors to set the scene and provide additional dimensions to the novel. The book begins with a NOTE stating "the characters...are all inventions..Only the city is real." One of the epigraphs is from the Marquis de Sade's book of the same name, also known as The Misfortunes of Virtue or Justine ou Les Malheurs de la vertu.

There are two positions available to us--either crime which renders us happy, or the noose, which prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesitation, lovely Thrse, and where will your little mind find an argument able to combat that one? Another epigraph is from Sigmund Freud, stating: " I am accustoming myself to the idea of regarding every sexual act as a process in which four persons are involved..." Balthazar, published in 1958, is the second volume in the The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt around WWII, the four novels tell essentially the same story from different points of view and come to a conclusion in Clea. Balthazar is the first novel in the series that presents a competing narrator, Balthazar, who writes back to the narrating Darley in his "great interlinear." [edit] Epigraphs and Citations Durrell initially titled the book Justine II in his drafts. The novel includes several last minute changes to the publisher's proofs, perhaps most significantly the replacement and expansion of the novel's introductory Note. The NOTE begins: "The characters and situations in this novel, the second of a group - a sibling, not a sequel to JUSTINE...." And later: "Three sides of space and one of time constitute the soup-mix recipe of a continuum. The four novels follow this pattern. the three first parts, however, are to be deployed spatially...and

are not linked in a serial form. They interlap, interweave, in a purely spatial relation. Time is stayed. The fourth part alone will represent time and be a true sequel...." The corrected proofs are held in the McPherson Library at the University of Victoria. Both the epigraphs are from de Sade's Justine; the second, longer one begins: "Yes, we insist upon these details, you veil them with a decency which removes all their edge of horror; there remains only what is useful to whoever wishes to become familiar with man;....Inhabited by absurd fears, they only discuss the puerilities with which every fool is familiar and dare not, by turning a bold hand to the human heart, offer its gigantic idiosyncrasies to our view." The book is dedicated to Durrell's mother: "these memorials of an unforgotten city". [edit] Plot and Characterization The book begins with the Narrator living on a remote Greek island with Nessim's illegitimate daughter from Melissa (now either four or six years old - marking the time that has elapsed since the events of Justine); however the tone is very dark and opposed to the light and airy reminiscence of Prospero's Cell - Durrell's travelogue-memoir of his life on Corfu. The prolonged nature-pieces, which are a highlight of Durrell's prose, still intervene between straight linear narrative - but are uniformly of askesis and alone-ness - and have a more

pronounced "prose-painting" feel to them pre-figuring Clea. PART ONE is given over to the story of the Interlinear, and quickly and unceremoniously undermines all the "facts" of Justine. Balthazar arrives on a passing steamboat with the loose-leafed Inter-Linear - as the narrative manuscript that Darley, the Narrator had sent to Balthazar in Alexandria is now "seared and starred by a massive interlinear of sentences, paragraphs and question marks....It was cross-hatched, crabbed, starred with questions and answers in different coloured inks, in typescript." A few secrets are rapidly revealed with a minimal of ceremony (please read the book for these). The Narrators memory then proceeds to Alexandria, where Darley continues to reminisce lamentingly, and seeks and sometimes finds, the characters of the earlier books. "Profligacy and sentimentality...killing love by taking things easy...sleeping out a chagrin...This was Alexandria, the unconsciously poetical mother-city exemplified in the names and faces which made up her history. Listen. Tony Umbada, Baldassaro Trivizani, Claude Amaril, Paul Capodistria, Dmitri Randidi, Onouphrios Papas, Count Banubula, Jacques de Guery, Athena Trasha, Djamboulat Bey, Delphine de Francueil, General Cervoni, AhmedHassan Pacha, Pozzo di Borgo, Pierre Balbz, Gaston Phipps, Haddad Fahmy Amin, Mehmet Adm, Wilmot Pierrefeu, Toto de Brunel, Colonel Neguib, Dante Borromeo, Benedict Dangeau, Pia dei Tolomei, Gilda Ambron...."

PART TWO is primarily related in Balthazar's voice, and is about the novelist Pursewarden - who is modeled on the British Novelist Wyndham Lewis. There is also the story of Scobie's demise: he has gone in drag to the harbor and is beaten to death by sailors, whom he might have tried to "pick up"; one of the first descriptions of "Hate Crimes" against homosexuals in Modern British Literature. Durrell's colonialist mentality comes to the fore again, though: the "natives" of Scobie's quarter ransack his house, steal all his meager possessions and drink all the bootleg arak he has been distilling in his bathtub. This leads to two deaths and twenty-two severe poisonings - which Durrell scuriliciously calls 'Scobie leaving a mark on the world...' as if conveniently forgetting that the Colonial legacy has, for the most part, been characterized by 'leaving a mark' in its wake of senseless deaths, illness and degradation of the Colonised. PART THREE is about carnival time in Alexandria, and a murder that happened during the height of Darley's affair with Justine - although it is inconveniently not mentioned in the earlier novel, at all. The section is short and unsatisfying - possibly because by now the reader knows that "the truth" will be told in another part of the Quartet. PART FOUR is given over to reminiscences of Clea in which Balthazar reveals to Darley that while he had short-sightedly been caught up in his intrigue with Justine, and finding solace from its emotional fall-out in

the arms of Melissa - the person who "really loved" him was Clea. This section works best if read closely before starting Clea and in this novel has some of the aspects of an anti-climax. [edit] Meditation on "Modern Love" Durrell writes in the Author's NOTE : "The central topic of the book is an investigation of modern love...." What he means by the term, he leaves undefined but the subject-matter: prolonged affairs between the protagonists, mutual synchronous polygamy, homoeroticism and transvestitism, psychological & actual sado-masochism - with nary a hint of a sociallyconventional romantic or sexual relationship - gives the reader a pretty good clue as to what he is about. The book abounds in aphorisms - probably an exemplary use of the fecund observations a poetlittrateur writer's journals - such as: " "When you pluck a flower, the branch springs back into place. this is not true of the heart's affections" is what Clea once said to Balthazar."" Or as when Justine proposes making love to Nessim on their first meeting: "No, she did not mean the words, for vulgar as the idea sounded, she knew that she was right by the terms of her intuition since the thing she proposed is really, for women, the vital touchstone to a man's being; the knowledge not of his qualities which can be analysed or inferred, but the very flavour of his

personality. Nothing except the act of physical love tells us this truth about one another...." Or Pursewarden, to Pombal: " 'On fait l'amour pour mieux refouler et pour decourager ls autres.'" To Balthazar: " 'As for Justine, I regard her as a tiresome old sexual turnstile through which presumably we must all pass - a somewhat vulpine Alexandrian Venus. By God, what a woman she would be if she were really natural and felt no guilt!" This, of course, is the tiresome refrain of Don Juans down the ages - when they find that the sexual favors they thought might come without a price, in eventuality demand more loyalty and commitment they are willing or able to expend. Or "(One of the great paradoxes of love. Concentration on the love-object and possession are the poisons.)", thus neatly subverting the entire premise of Justine. Which is why Balthazar and not Justine is the true "Modern Novel" in the entire Quartet. It might even be argued that the success of Justine is entirely due to its fulfilling the publics' expectations of what a <roman> is supposed to be about, and look like - although the distinct authorial <<voice>> and the stylistic magnificence had no small part to play in its enduring fascination for the discerning prose reader. Even Mountolive was described by Durrell as "a straight naturalistic narrative" - as is Clea with its usual fulfillment of plot devices like temporal progression,

conflict and denouement. Balthazar alone stands ironically apart, thanks to its mordant interlinear. Or "As for Pursewarden, he believed with Rilke that no woman adds anything to the sum of Woman, and from satiety he had now taken refuge in the plenty of the imagination - the true field of merit for the artist..." Or, " "We are all looking for someone lovely to be unfaithful to - did you think you were original?" " Or, " 'The human race! If you can't do the trick with the one you've got, why, shut your eyes and imagine the one you can't get. Who knows? It's perfectly legal and secret. It's the marriage of true minds!' " Or, " ' Great heavens! Here we are quarreling like a couple of newly-weds. Soon we shall marry and live in filthy compatibility, feasting on each other's blackheads. Ugh! Dreadful isogamy of the Perfect Match....' "

Mountolive, published in 1958, is the third volume in the The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt around WWII, the four novels tell essentially the same story from different points of view and come to a conclusion in Clea. Mountolive is the only third person narrative in the series, and it is also the most overtly political. Plot and Characterization

The novel's tensions begin with young David Mountolive on the Hosnani estate, where he has begun an affair with Leila Hosnani, mother of Nessim and Narouz. This leads to a recollection of Mountolive's maturation and career as a diplomat, leading up to the present day of the novel series, at which point Mountolive recontextualizes the materials that appeared previously in Justine and Balthazar. Mountolive then introduces a Coptic gunrunning plot in support of Zionism. Many critics have ridiculed this as a ludicrous idea[1], but more recently scholars have demonstrated the intensely political and well-informed background for Durrell's notions[2]. The novel ends questioning the role that Narouz will play, referring to his whip and the unresolved political plot.

Clea, published in 1960, is the fourth volume in the The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt around WWII, the first three volumes tell the same story from different points of view, and Clea relates subsequent events. [edit] Epigraphs and Citations The Marquis de Sade and Freud again helm the epigraphs - including a nostalgic preface in which Durrell, reluctantly and defiantly, claims the story is now "complete" - failing to convince either himself, or

the Reader. The story will haunt the Author in the Quincunx format of The Avignon Novels - and the discerning and perceptive reader. One never views 20th Century Literature the same way again after reading The Alexandria Quartet and has to make seismic shifts of perception and appreciation to accommodate this essential book from the mid-point of the Century. Plot and Characterization The book begins with the Narrator living on a remote Greek island with Nessim's illegitimate daughter from Melissa (now six years old - marking the time that has elapsed since the events of Justine); however the tone is very dark and opposed to the light and airy reminiscence of Prospero's Cell - Durrell's traveloguememoir of his life on Corfu. The prolonged naturepieces, which are a highlight of Durrell's prose, still intervene between straight linear narrative - but are uniformly of askesis and alone-ness. Balthazar arrives on a passing steam-boat with the loose-leafed Inter-Linear - as the narrative is now styled by the Narrator of Justine. A few secrets are revealed (please read the book for these). They proceed to Alexandria, where Darley continues to reminisce lamentingly, and seeks and sometimes finds, the characters of the earlier books. He runs into Clea in the street - and they effortlessly pick up an affaire de coeur - this time unencumbered by the interfering physical presences of Justine and Melissa

- though there is a lot of pillow-talk about the two women in a self-absorbed manner by Darley. The sex scenes actually read more real than those in the preceding books, where the fervent desperation of "bodies straining against each other while the souls watch the proceedings from some corner of the ceiling" is finally replaced by an apparently real sexual relationship between two mature adults, rather than the teeming adolescent angst of infatuation ( Justine ) and nurturance (Melissa) that precedes this Golden Mean of Coupling. However, this romance is tepid compared to the white-hot intensity of Justine. The other, and perhaps more enduring, deliciousness of the Text is extended meditations on Art, Composition, Form & Intent - with Darley's Inter-Linear, Pursewarden's Novels and Clea's paintings serving as the imaginary scaffold on which Durrell builds his elegant Ivory Tower theoretical stance.