Justine [Hardcover]

Lawrence Durrell (Author), Peter Porter (Introduction)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: FOLIO SOCIETY LTD (ENGLAND); 1st edition (2008)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001F6PJEK
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,289,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you like the DaVinci Code, this is NOT for you..., October 24, 2004

By 

ssfaris (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Justine (Alexandria Quartet) (Paperback)

I have never read a book as well penned as Justine. It is the type of book that could send an aspiring writer into a bout of deep depression as they are confronted with a tapestry of words ostensibly woven out of gold. My only consolation is that L.D. wrote this in a time where there was no Cable TV, Internet, MSN messenger, cell phones, etc. I read the other reviews and was apalled when I read how other "book fanatics" found this book to be complete rubbish. My advice to them is learn how to really communicate with a book...it requires a lot more concentration, intention, and commitment than watching Sex in the City.

It is not an easy read. It is not full of banal dialogue or easily digestible platitudes. It is composed of mellifluous and thoughtful utterances, indelible landscapes, and psychological/metaphysical nuances (yes, nuances!). This is a book that all writers need to read. It offers you a porthole into the headspace of a fellow artist, tormented, self deprecating, yet proud at the same time.

Arabs, Jews, Copts, and Kabbalists collide, coexist, and sometimes even influence eachother in the Alexandria Quartet. Watching the way these religions served as cultural molds instead of moral guidelines served as a barometer for the times juxtaposing the religious extremism that has made such a comeback in the Middle East today. Egypt has been written about since the beginning of time, and the Middle East is the origin of civilization as we know it. Alexandria is the backdrop for a pre/post WWII drama and is rife with adultery, prostitution, STDs, alcoholism, foreign affairs, and most importantly to me; the loyalty that unifies family and friends.

This book tops my Great Books List...a list that includes Tolstoy, Joyce, Proust, etc... If you are willing to put in the time and effort required for this masterpiece of English literature, you will be handsomely rewarded.

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incandescent, word-drunk novel, November 24, 2000

By 

Alan DeNiro "alan_deniro" (Oakdale, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Justine (Alexandria Quartet) (Paperback)

Durrell has created a city out of language in this novel. I take that partially back--in _Justine_, the city IS language. His lush and tactile descriptions become as real as bricks and mortar in the reader's mind. The Alexandria of this novel hums, crackles, simmers...sometimes it devours the characters who choose to live there, sometimes it gives them moments of epiphany. But reading this novel, you will, yourself, become a kind of resident of this unreal city. You will follow with fondness and sadness the minor characters who give this novel so much texture. You will soak up the cadences of Durrell's prose in creating this city. Justine, Nessim, and the rest of the flawed, though achingly poignant characters will haunt your reading of this novel in one fashion or another. They will seem to you like people you have known in real life--who HASN'T had a topsy-turvy lover in their lives?-- but at the same time take on properties of something out of Greek theatre. The characters are realistic and yet are greater than the sum of their parts. I can't wait to read the next three novels in the Alexandria Quartet. This book will truly endure. It has set off firecrackers in my brain.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Justine and the beauty of language, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Justine (Alexandria Quartet) (Paperback)

Justine is a work of ethereal beauty whose text at times borders on poetic prose. With the exception of Proust, I cannot recall an author who so tenderly employs the use of metaphors to illustrate and develop his themes. Durrell has created an inveterate masterpiece whose characters are victims of their unfettered passions and longings, and cannot help but inflict pain upon those closest to them. The way Durrell describes a glance of Justine's or the narrator's anguish upon the recollection of his beloved Melissa is absolutely moving. Nowhere will you see a more vivid portrait of the human condition depicted in such beautifully poetic terms.

The novel is basically structured upon the recollections of the narrator and the interwoven relationships he was a part of in pre-war (WWII) Alexandria, Egypt. Love is examined on many different levels within this work, each character a personification of a separate plateau, whose apex is only pain and misfortune. Justine is a novel whose indigenous beauty stems from her character's proclivities and shortcomings-they are victims of an unbridled passion that is at times tender, yet always ruthless.