The Alexandria Quartet
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The Alexandria Quartet
| The Alexandria Quartet | |
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| Author(s) | Lawrence Durrell |
| Country | Great Britain |
| Language | English |
| Series | The Alexandria Quartet |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Faber & Faber (UK) & Dutton (US) |
| Publication date | 1962 |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 884 pp (Faber edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-571-08609-8 (paperback edition) |
| OCLC Number | 17367466 |
| Preceded by | Bitter Lemons |
| Followed by | The Revolt of Aphrodite |
The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during World War II.The fourth book is set six years later, in Corfu.
As Durrell explains in his preface to Balthazar, the four novels are an exploration of relativity and the notions of continuum and subject–object relation, with modern love as the subject. The Quartet first three books offer the same sequence of events through several points of view, allowing individual perspectives of a single set of events. the fourth book shows change over time.
The four novels are:
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- Justine (1957)
- Balthazar (1958)
- Mountolive (1958)
- Clea (1960)
In a 1959 Paris Review interview,[1] Durrell described the ideas behind the Quartet in terms of a convergence of Eastern and Western metaphysics, based on Einstein's overturning of the old view of the material universe, and Freud's doing the same for the concept of stable personalities, yielding a new concept of reality.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Alexandria Quartet #70 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Further reading
- Haag, Michael. Alexandria: City of Memory. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
External links
- The International Lawrence Durrell Society Official website of ILDS
- Durrell 2012: The Lawrence Durrell Centenary Centenary event website and Durrell Journal
- The Durrell School of Corfu School dedicated to the works and lives of Lawrence and Gerald Durrell
Footnotes
- ^ Andrewski, Gene; Mitchell, Julian (23 April 1959). "Lawrence Durrell: The Art of Fiction No. 23 (interview)". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/4720. Retrieved 1 July 2006. pp. 26–27.
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