Durrell's Alexandria Quartet

The Alexandria Quartet

Justine 1957

Balthazar 1958

Mountolive 1958

Clea 1960

During his time in Alexandria Lawrence Durrell found inspiration to write the Alexandria Quartet, a tetralogy set there during that period. Justine, the titular character of the first book, is widely believed to be based on his second wife, an Alexandrian named Eve Cohen.
Reviewers describe Alexandria as one of the characters in the series and indeed Justine is prefaced with a note assuring the readers that the personages are fictional; “only the city is real”. The theme is described as ‘modern love’ but I think ‘ empty affairs’ might be more fitting. There appears to be an Orientalist objectification of women throughout the series that matches Durrell’s description of Alexandrian women in his letter to Miller. The women pictured on these covers of Balthazar and Mountolive certainly reflect the books' Orientalist tone.

A short excerpt from the beginning of Justine:

"Capitally, what is this city of ours? What is resumed in the word Alexandria? In a flash my mind’s eye shows me a thousand dust-tormented streets. Flies and beggars own it today – and those who enjoy an intermediate existence between either.

Five races, five languages, a dozen creeds: five fleets turning through their greasy reflections behind the harbour bar. But there are more than five sexes and only demotic Greek seems to distinguish among them. The sexual provender which lies in hand is staggering it its variety and profusion. You would never mistake it for a happy place. The symbolic lovers o the free Hellenic world are replaced here by something different, something subtly androgynous, inverted upon itself. The Orient cannot rejoice in the sweet anarchy of the body – for it has outstripped the body. I remember Nessim once saying – I think he was quoting – that Alexandria was the great winepress of love; whose who emerged from it were the sick men, the solitaries, the prophets – I mean all who have been deeply wounded in their sex." (p. 11)

In Justine, Durrell makes numerous references to the Greek Alexandrian poet Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), whose work he helped relay to Western readers. Cavafy was a friend of E.M. Forster, who introduced his work to T.S. Eliot. More on him to come.

Eve Cohen, Durrell's second wife