The Alexandria Quartet PDF
Preview The Alexandria Quartet
THE JUSTINE ALEXANDRIA BALTHAZAR QUARTET MOUNTOLIVE LAWRENCE CLEA DURRELL [THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET is also available in a cloth- bound ediion] THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET JUSTINE, BALTHAZAR, MOUNTOLIVE, CLEA by LAWRENCE DURRELL ‘He has abieved the rare feat of perfecly balancing and intertwining emotion, sensation and thinking, through four novels all so closely woven together that once you have them all in your head they fuse and k is no longer possible to separate one from the other thrv…. If ever a work bore an inrantly recognizable signature on every sentence, this is k. It is in fac a formidable, glktering abievement; and not the lear remarkable thing about k is that in qke of the all-pervading qirk of Alexandria, k has, too, a timelessness and placelessness peculiar to works that are big enough to make a world of their own.’ Te Times Lierary Supplement FABER paper covered EDITIONS THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET books by Lawrence Durrell y novels NUNQUAM TUNC THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET: Jurine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea JUSTINE BALTHAZAR MOUNTOLIVE CLEA THE DARK LABYRINTH y travel BITTER LEMONS REFLECTIONS ON A MARINE VENUS PROSPERO’S CELL y humour SAUVE QUI PEUT STIFF UPPER LIP ESPRIT DE CORPS y poetry COLLECTED POEMS SELECTED POEMS 1935-1963 THE IKONS THE TREE OF IDLENESS y drama SAPPHO AN IRISH FAUSTUS ACTE y leters LAWRENCE DURRELL AND HENRY MILLER: A Private Correqondence SPIRIT OF PLACE: Lesers and Essays on Travel y for young people WHITE EAGLES OVER SERBIA Te Alexandria Quartet by LAWRENCE DURRELL JUSTINE BALTHAZAR MOUNTOLIVE CLEA FABER AND FABER London Juxine grx published in 1957 Balthazar grx published in 1958 Mountolive grx published in 1958 Clea grx published in 1960 Firx published in this ediion 1968 Reprinted 1969, 1970 by Faber and Faber Limied 24 Russell Square London W.C.I Printed in Great Briain by C. Tinling & Co. Ltd., London and Prescot. All rights reserved ISBN 0 571 08609 8 (Faber Paper Covered Ediion) ISBN 0 571 05204 5 (Hard Bound Ediion) CONDITIONS OF SALE Tis book is sold to the condiion that i shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise cir- culated wihout the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in whic i is published and wihout a similar condiion including this condiion being imposed on the subsequent purcaser Tis one-volume ediion © Lawrence Durrell 1962 Balthazar © Lawrence Durrell 1958 Mountolive © Lawrence Durrell 1958 Clea © Lawrence Durrell 1960 PREFACE THIS group of four novels is intended to be read as a single work under the collecive tkle of Te Alexandria Quartet; a sukable descriptive subtkle might be ‘a word continuum’. In trying to work out my form I adopted, as a rough analogy, the relativky proposkion. Te Vrr thrv were related in an intercalary fashion, being ‘siblings’ of eab other and not ‘sequels’; only the lar novel was intended to be a true sequel and to unleash the time dimen- sion. Te whole was intended as a ballenge to the serial form of the conventional novel: the time-saturated novel of the day. Among the workpoints at the end I have sketbed in a number of possible ways of continuing to deploy these baracers and skuations in further inralments — but this is only to sugger that even if the group of books were extended indeVnkely the result would never become roman heuve; if, that is to say, the axis of the work has bvn properly laid down k should be possible to radiate from k in any direcion wkhout losing the rricness and congruky of ks relation to ‘a continuum’. It has bvn possible, for this edkion, to correc a number of small slips pointed out by readers and crkics, and also to add some small passages whib were cut out of the original volumes in the MS. rage. Te banges are not very great. Balthazar and Mountolive both lose half a dozen lines of text. Clea gains a small secion, and a new translation from C. P. Cavafy. L.D. France 1962 CONTENTS page Preface 7 JUSTINE: a novel 11 Note 13 Part I 17 Part II 78 Part III 121 Part IV 179 Workpoints 197 Notes in the Text 203 BALTHAZAR: a novel 205 Part I 209 Part II 281 Part III 338 Part IV 366 Consequential Data 385 Scobie’s Common Usage 388 Workpoints 389 Note in the Text 390 MOUNTOLIVE: a novel 391 Note 395 CLEA: a novel 653 Workpoints 878 Some Notes for Clea (by Pursewarden) 879 Notes in the Text 882 JUSTINE NOTE Te baracers in this rory, the Vrr of a group, are all inventions together wkh the personalky of the narrator, and bear no resemblance to living persons. Only the cky is real. I am accuxoming myself to the idea of regarding every sexual ab as a process in whic four persons are involved. We shall have a lot to discuss about that. S. FREUD : Leters Tere are two posiions available to us — eiher crime whic renders us happy, or the noose, whic prevents us from being unhappy. I ask whether there can be any hesiation, lovely Térèse, and where will your litle mind gnd an argument able to combat that one? D. A. F. DE SADE : Juxine
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