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A review by left_coast_justin
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell
3.0
Trying to review these books is like trying to review your life. While reading these, I really ceased to exist in 21st-century America and instead felt like I was in a different, slower world that my grandparents would have recognized. Full credit to the author for producing this effect.
An aside: My mother, now chewed up by Alzheimer's, was delighted when I was home on break from college a few decades back and lifted Justine off her reading shelf, where the Quartet had resided in plain view throughout my entire childhood. She advised me to re-read the entire thing once per decade for the rest of my life, something I've tried to do.
So why only three stars?
The "quality of the writing," often praised, seems to be directed at the long, overwritten (IMO) descriptions of landscapes and sunsets. I was impressed, within the first couple of pages of the first book, at the description of "dust-tormented streets"; less so at the dozen or so descriptions of "fly-tormented," "heat-tormented," "mosquito-tormented" etc. that followed. The effect of this overwriting, though, is that it forces you (or me, anyway) to concentrate, lest something important be slipped in there. This is part of the reason it is so engrossing.
I suppose this was the first literature I ever read that dealt seriously with the problems of love and sex. Because I so strongly associated the book with my parents' and grandparents' times, it was a little icky, and I still feel slightly unclean after reading it. But more to the point: I really have difficulty relating to any of these people or their thought processes. The profundities about love leave me scratching my head. I say this seriously: I am too simple-minded for this sort of internal reflection, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
But! --despite all that I think that this quartet is a splendid snapshot in time, and if you read it, you'll never forget it.
An aside: My mother, now chewed up by Alzheimer's, was delighted when I was home on break from college a few decades back and lifted Justine off her reading shelf, where the Quartet had resided in plain view throughout my entire childhood. She advised me to re-read the entire thing once per decade for the rest of my life, something I've tried to do.
So why only three stars?
The "quality of the writing," often praised, seems to be directed at the long, overwritten (IMO) descriptions of landscapes and sunsets. I was impressed, within the first couple of pages of the first book, at the description of "dust-tormented streets"; less so at the dozen or so descriptions of "fly-tormented," "heat-tormented," "mosquito-tormented" etc. that followed. The effect of this overwriting, though, is that it forces you (or me, anyway) to concentrate, lest something important be slipped in there. This is part of the reason it is so engrossing.
I suppose this was the first literature I ever read that dealt seriously with the problems of love and sex. Because I so strongly associated the book with my parents' and grandparents' times, it was a little icky, and I still feel slightly unclean after reading it. But more to the point: I really have difficulty relating to any of these people or their thought processes. The profundities about love leave me scratching my head. I say this seriously: I am too simple-minded for this sort of internal reflection, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
But! --despite all that I think that this quartet is a splendid snapshot in time, and if you read it, you'll never forget it.