Justine

by Lawrence Durrell

Series: Alexandria Quartet (1)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Conversations
1,022	10	3,917	(3.83)	54

Work details

Book details

Title	Justine
Author	Lawrence Durrell
Rating
Tags	literature, alexandria
Collections	Your library
Your review	I first read this book back in January 2007 for a class on postmodern British literature. It intrigued me, and I wanted to read the rest of The Alexandria Quartet, and so I eventually picked them up. But Justine is a confusing book and I was reluctant to dive into its companion novels on only a vague memory, so I decided to give the original a reread beforehand. Justine's an unusual book: it's the recollections of an unnamed English schoolteacher who lived in Alexandria during the runup to World War II. It's not told in chronological order, but ostensibly the order in which the events became important to him. It's mostly concerned with his various love affairs: with Melissa, his true love and an exotic dancer, and with Justine, a good (married) friend of his. How can he love two women at the same time? Does Justine love any of the men she carries on with at the same time? These are the questions that consume the narrator, and the novel is essentially his ruminations on these matters, up to the point where all the arrangements fell apart. It's not the most straightforward of books, but I love Durrell's insights into love, into time, into character. The narrator finds it impossible to understand people, and his attempts to piece them together make some intriguing reading and some good lines. The prose is dense but enjoyable; the city of Alexandria is more than effectively brought to life in these pages. Overall, it's a difficult book, but it's most certainly a rewarding one.
Other authors*
Publication	Cardinal (1961), Paperback, 257 pages
Publication date	1961
ISBN	/
LC classification 1	PZ3.D9377 Ju2 PR6007.U76
Dewey 1	823/.912 20
Subjects	Alexandria (Egypt) › Fiction Love stories
Primary language eng	English
Secondary language	(blank)
Original language
Date acquired	2007-01-01
Date started
Date finished	2007-01-01
Summary 0	Justine by lawrence Durrell (1961)
Comments
BCID	XXX-
Number of copies	1
Citation	Requires valid ISBN.
Data source	Amazon.com

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