| The Alexandria Quartet | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Author | 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 & Paperback) |
| Pages | 884 pp (Faber edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0571086098 (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 books present four perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during World War II.
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 offers the same sequence of events to us through several points of view, allowing individual perspectives to 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.
Allusions in other works
The characters and their plights in these novels are briefly referred to in a scene between Dustin Hoffman and Will Ferrell in the movie "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006). The following is written on the chalkboard behind them [WARNING: BOOK SPOILERS]: "Liza's blindness, Clea's amputated hand, Leila's smallpox, Justine's stroke, Pombal's gout."[citation needed]
These books were also mentioned in the pilot episode of "Joan of Arcadia" which aired in 2003.
In "Slant", by science-fiction author Greg Bear (the sequel to "The Queen of Angels"), the character Alice is chosen to star in a futuristic Disney Classic filming of "The Alexandria Quartet".
In Amélie Nothomb's play, Les Combustibles, The Professor refers to Le Quatuor d'Alexandrie.
Further reading
- Haag, Michael. Alexandria: City of Memory. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
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 2006-07-01. pp. 26-27.
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