Lawrence Durrell

Justine (Alexandria Quartet)

An unnamed art collector becomes obsessed with a portrait of a woman named Justine, and his hours spent smoking opium and looking at the painting send him rushing around London looking for her, as his sense of what is real and what is fantasy disappears

Justine

Melody Izard

I was supposed to find this poetic and sensual and almost believe that Alexandria was a character. I didn't. It just felt like a slow read to me. I wanted to know who the heck the narrator was and Justine kept reminding me of Lisa in Shantaram.

In the first book of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, the story of the mysterious and charismatic Justine is told by her lover, an impoverished Irish teacher who has sought refuge across the Mediterranean in Greece. It is a love story, but the real heroine of the book is its setting: the city of Alexandria, with a sky of 'hot nude pearl' and a thousand streets below, crowded, sensual and exotic; a complex and heady mix of elegance and poverty.

Jade Flynn

Written with language which bleeds beauty, Alexandria is tangible. But sadly the I found the plot uninspired. I will be reading Balthazar purely for Durrell's writing sometime soon.

Justine (Alexandria Quartet)

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