Clea

by Lawrence Durrell

Series: Alexandria Quartet (4)

Members	Reviews	Popularity	Average rating	Conversations
561	2	8,199	(3.8)	11

Work details

Book details

Title	Clea
Author	Lawrence Durrell
Rating
Tags	literature, alexandria
Collections	Your library
Your review	And, finally, The Alexandria Quartet draws to an end. This book is the first one to move forward chronologically in a substantive way-- while the other occur before World War II, in this one the war is underway (not, as the back cover claims, yet over). We get to revisit all the characters we came to meet in the first three books and see how they have grown and changed as a result of those events, plus those of the war. It's interesting: Durrell says the quartet was his study of love, and each book has had a different thing to say about it. Justine has a very romantic notion of it, full of grand affairs and mad passions and overblown ideas. In Balthazar, we seem to learn that love is mostly based upon lies, but it can still exist, just not in the way we thought we knew. And then in Mountolive, all love is a sham on every level: most of the relationships here are for political or social reasons, not romantic ones. But Clea takes us right back where we began, as the narrator (now allowed to use his name) is able to come to terms with the events of the series thanks to his love affair with Clea, the bisexual artist. This and many other plot threads of the series are tied up in fine form, as all of the characters ultimately come to a fitting end, and the truths (maybe) are finally revealed. Durrell's prose is as fantastic, his descriptions as evocative, and his insights as keen as ever. A strong end to a strong series, whose only fault was the honestly somewhat superfluous metafictional aspects.
Other authors*
Publication	Penguin (Non-Classics) (1991), Paperback, 288 pages
Publication date	1991
ISBN	0140153225 / 9780140153224
LC classification 1	PZ3.D9377 Cl PR6007.U76
Dewey 1	823/.912 20
Subjects	Alexandria (Egypt) › Fiction Love stories
Primary language eng	English
Secondary language	(blank)
Original language
Date acquired	2007-05-01
Date started
Date finished	2008-08-01
Summary 0	Clea (Alexandria Quartet) by Lawrence Durrell (1991)
Comments
BCID	XXX-
Number of copies	1
Citation	MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, Wikipedia citation
Data source	Amazon.com

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