The second novel of Durrell's Alexadria Quartet. Like the first book there wasn't much of a plot. What makes this readable are the superb writing and the unique time and place. Pre-WWII French/British run Alexandria Egypt. Durrell's insight's and languid writing make the book readable. Certainly not the best I've ever read but I will read the third book, Clea, one of these days. ( )

The follow-ups to Justine claim not to move through time, but space. Though the "frame" of this novel occurs after that of Justine, it actually covers the same period of time-- in fact, it probably even starts earlier. The conceit is that one of the other characters involved in the events these books depict, the eponymous Balthazar, has read the story we know as Justine, and he's given the still-anonymous narrator a set of notes explaining what really happened. The narrator then writes this up into a new story, adding in some information of his own that he'd previously thought irrelevant, but is now significant in light of what Balthazar told him. It's an interesting conceit, and the new revelations certainly do create a whole new perspective on the events of Justine... but I found myself somewhat unmoved. I might be interested in what's going on... but I'm not involved. Still, I enjoyed it. The main question of the novel is once again one of love and identity and character. Can we ever really know anyone? The conclusion of the narrator at the end of this book would seem to be "no"-- so much of what he thought he knew of Justine, of Melissa, of Balthazar, of Nessim has turned out to be wrong. Which raises the question: how sure can we be of what Balthazar says he knows? I suspect I'll find out in the next volume.

Balthazar is the second member of the Alexandria Quartet, "not a sequel, but a sibling" to Justine, as Durrell insists. The frame story is essentially that the narrator of Justine, still sitting on his Greek island with the child, has sent his manuscript to Dr Balthazar, and Balthazar has now brought it back covered in notes and comments supplying additional information about the events described that the narrator was not aware of. We are taken through the story of Justine once again, as the narrator takes on board the additional information, which throws an entirely new light on the motivations and actions of the other characters.

The technique is thus reminiscent of the "unreliable narrator" technique famously associated with The good soldier, but with the additional twist that Justine was a complete, self-contained novel in its own right: a reader who wasn't aware of the existence of the second book would have no reason to doubt the narrative authority of the first. Of course, now that we have been told that the narrator could be wrong once, we may reasonably enough wonder if we are getting the full story in Balthazar - especially since Durrell's introductory note makes it clear that we are going to get this story at least once more...

Balthazar is similar in style and structure to Justine - a relatively disjointed series of scenes shifting us backwards and forwards in time; descriptions that range from delightful pin-point economy to full-scale, all-guns-blazing, thick, creamy purple soup. At its worst, it is as though Durrell had decided to write a dictionary of quotations, supplying all the material himself; at best it is wonderful. ( )

3644. Balthazar a novel, by Lawrence Durrell (read Nov. 1, 2002 When the Modern Library panel came out in July 1998 with its list of 100 best 20th century novels written in English I noted I had read 71 of them and had on 30 May 1970 read also the first novel (Justine) of The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, and had been so underimpressed by it that I had decided not to read the other three novels which make up the work. I thought I would read them then (in 1998), but the public library no longer had them. I now noted them in a college library and so decided to read them. Balthazar is the second in the quartet. It is a murky, disjointed work and it did not help that it had been 32 years since I read the first of the quartet, since Balthazar is not a sequel but a sibling to Justine. The writing is fluid and turgid and purports to be all very profound, but I could not get too interested. ( )