What do you think?
Rate this book
The Alexandria Quartet #3
Mountolive
Mountolive is a novel of vertiginous disclosures, in which the betrayer and the betrayed share secret alliances and an adulterous marriage turns out to be a vehicle for the explosive passions of the modern Middle East.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
About the author
Lawrence Durrell
210 books841 followersLawrence George Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for The Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. A passionate and dedicated writer from an early age, Durrell’s prolific career also included the groundbreaking Avignon Quintet, whose first novel, Monsieur (1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and whose third novel, Constance (1982), was nominated for the Booker Prize. He also penned the celebrated travel memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize. Durrell corresponded with author Henry Miller for forty-five years, and Miller influenced much of his early work, including a provocative and controversial novel, The Black Book (1938). Durrell died in France in 1990.
The time Lawrence spent with his family, mother Louisa, siblings Leslie, Margaret Durrell, and Gerald Durrell, on the island of Corfu were the subject of Gerald's memoirs and have been filmed numerous times for TV.
The time Lawrence spent with his family, mother Louisa, siblings Leslie, Margaret Durrell, and Gerald Durrell, on the island of Corfu were the subject of Gerald's memoirs and have been filmed numerous times for TV.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 302 reviews
August 18, 2022
Un cambio de tono marca este tercer capítulo del cuarteto. El sexo y la sensualidad, la ambigüedad y los desórdenes del deseo y del amor de los dos primeros tomos, contados desde la subjetividad del sentimiento y con el desorden al que invita la melancolía y el desengaño, se trastocan aquí en la voz de un narrador omnisciente y neutral que en una secuencia de tiempo lineal nos introduce en el cálculo y las intrigas políticas y palaciegas del Egipto de principios de siglo con el problema del estado judío de fondo. El sexo es poco más que un instrumento y el amor con mayúsculas sigue siendo, obviamente, un destino inalcanzable. Todo ello se une aquí nuevamente en la figura de Justine.
“El amor es toda una conspiración. El poder de las riquezas y la intriga se agitaban en ella, como delegados de la pasión.”La imagen de la Justine sexual, seductora e irresistible que nos pintó Darley en el primer tomo y que, tras las revelaciones de Balthazar, se transformó en una mujer enamorada y entregada, capaz de prestarse a la humillación, al desprecio y al sacrificio sexual por su amado, es ahora la luchadora política que usa sus encantos en pos de una idea, de unos objetivos que comparte con su marido Nessim. ¿Habrá nuevas sorpresas en Clea? Eso espero, todavía hay algunas preguntas que esperan respuesta y algún hecho cuya débil justificación merecería un mejor trato.
Bien es verdad que me ha gustado algo menos que las dos anteriores entregas, seguramente por el cambio de tono, por la distancia que toma el narrado con los hechos. Aun así, seguimos encontrando frases felices,…
“Los amantes no pueden encontrar nada que decirse uno a otro que no se haya dicho y callado mil veces. Los besos se inventaron para traducir esas heridas, estas nadas”.… maravillosas descripciones de lugares y sucesos, algunos bellísimos, otros atroces, como un Narouz borracho abatiendo murciélagos con el látigo desde el balcón o el descuartizamiento de unos camellos para un banquete, o esa en la que Mountolive, tras protagonizar una escena desgarradora en la que juega un papel despreciable, se adentra en la ciudad de Alejandría para acabar en un burdel de niñas.
Tampoco faltan las disquisiciones en torno a la figura del artista y al propio arte.
“Para el artista, pienso, o para el público, no existe esa cosa que se llama arte. Solamente existe para los críticos y los que viven en el precerebro. Artista y público no hacen más que registrar, como un sismógrafo, una carga electromagnética que no puede racionalizarse. Uno sólo sabe que se produce una transmisión de algo, verdadera o falsa, con buen o mal éxito, según el azar. Pero querer analizar, descomponer los elementos y pasarles por encima la nariz… no se llega a ninguna parte.”De acuerdo, Lawrence, en mi ánimo no se ha encontrado nunca la intención de analizar ni descomponer nada. Como tú, también pienso que en esto del leer la carga electromagnética lo es todo y aquí había menos culombios que en las dos entregas anteriores. Aun así, una vez más, he recibido con claridad la transmisión de ese algo que hace tan especial a esta obra.
May 2, 2015
Past Diplomacy
When I was in secondary school, one of Gerald Durrell's books was all the rage. It might even have been on the syllabus. Looking through his bibliography, the only one I can think it might have been is "Beasts in My Belfry". It wasn't particularly demanding, so my English master (who was also the librarian) suggested that I would enjoy his brother, Lawrence. Thus it came to be that I read, first, "White Eagles over Serbia" and then "Justine".
While the latter began a passion that has survived to this day, the earlier influenced an educational choice that almost shaped a career decision that I realised then (and even more so now) would have been a grave error.
Although the novel was about spies, it got me fascinated in diplomacy. So it was that I headed off to study in Canberra, from where I hoped I might gain entry to the Diplomatic Corps.
I realised pretty quickly that, even then, you probably had to be the child of a diplomat to gain employment. However, a more important reason for my loss of interest was that, around this time, people started hijacking planes and killing diplomats, in pursuit of their political interests. If negotiation and diplomacy didn't work, there was always revolution. And if revolution didn't work, the last resort was terrorism, although in those days I think we used to refer to it as guerrilla action.
I didn't fancy being shot or blown up by a guerrilla. Still don't.
Unsuited by Way of Temperament
The other reason for my change of plan was that I realised that I was probably temperamentally unsuited to diplomacy, which won't surprise anybody who knows me from GR.
In those days, I was relatively polite and occasionally charming. However, it was a time of political turmoil, and it became apparent that, if you wanted to achieve just evolutionary (let alone anything more radical) change within your lifetime or a term of parliament, being polite and diplomatic wasn't enough.
You had to crash through or crash.
In business and political life since then, I still distinguish between executives or managers or politicians on the basis of whether they are either leaders (or doers) or diplomats (whose primary role is to ensure that nobody rocks the boat or causes any problems with either the electorate or the shareholders).
Ultimately, as you get older, and lose interest in leadership and diplomacy, you tend to focus on doing your own thing, provided you still have sufficient energy. Of course, life can become a little predictable when you run your own show, hence the need for an occasional skirmish to raise your body temperature.
Skirmish and Intrigue
I mention this background, because unexpectedly "Mountolive" thrust me back into this world of political and diplomatic intrigue, not to mention espionage.
The first two volumes of the Quartet fascinated me as a metaphysical investigation of love and narrative perspective. I expected it to continue for the remaining two volumes. However, here at least, there was an abrupt change of focus that, initially, I found unsettling.
Mountolive is an English diplomat who has previously spent time in Egypt, speaks Arabic and gets assigned back there later in his career as the Ambassador.
He featured in a minor way in the earlier volumes. However, they focused more on a "vaguely amiable bespectacled" English teacher and would-be novelist.
In this volume, we learn for the first time that his name is Darley. He seems to be regarded as "a good fellow, gentle and resigned," ineffectual, possessing "the shyness that goes with Great Emotions imperfectly kept under control" and of no great significance in the lives of those who really "matter" in the scheme of things (his anomalous love of Justine excepted).
On his first assignment, Mountolive became involved in a relationship with a married Coptic woman named Leila, who happens to be the mother of the businessman Nessim (and his brother, Narouz), which ultimately makes her Justine's mother-in-law.
While Mountolive seems to be a similar age to the main characters in the first two volumes (or perhaps a little older), this one lifts us up a generation.
From Microcosm to Macrocosm
At the same time, it focuses more on the pre-war geopolitics of the Middle East.
Thus, while the first two volumes examined the multiple facets of the mirror ball that was one generation's love action, this volume reverse zooms, so that we can get a broader perspective and context.
Durrell shifts us from microcosm to macrocosm, without sacrificing the intimacy of his language or point of view. He lifts the veil on the Arab world. In his hands, it and we become less disoriented. At times, Durrell's writing reminded me of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and John le Carre.
Superficially, Egypt is determined to establish its pride of place in the world, that "our simple satisfactions should not be less than those of your homeland." Nevertheless, there are multiple sources of tension: imperial, economic, racial, political and religious.
Just as America would later inject itself into the hornet's nest of the Middle East, England did so then for similar reasons. It was more advanced in the development of capitalism. It regarded itself as superior for this reason alone. It needed raw materials, trading partners and markets for its manufactured goods. What better way to ensure the long-term complicity of a country than to conquer and occupy it. Under its sovereign power, perhaps, "the feudal pattern of life", the traditional rivalries between races, religions and sects could be suppressed. Whatever was necessary to do business.
The role, then, of diplomacy was to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the imperial or global market.
From Kaleidoscope to Panorama
Mountolive's arrival as Ambassador takes us back to the time of the first volume, "Justine". We encounter different perspectives from those we were exposed to earlier. Then, we looked through a microscope, perhaps even a kaleidoscope. Now we see an entire panorama, from a distance, through a telescope.
Ironically, what we see now changes what we saw then. The further away we get, the more we see. But equally the mosaic pieces have formed a larger aggregate. We understand more (and differently), because we see more context (and differently).
Durrell dragged me unsuspectingly into this world. I resisted for 50 pages or so, then his picture started to take shape. Once I adjusted, every word on every page contributed to the intrigue.
The Pride, Stripped Bare
Mountolive quickly learns that England's superiority is temporary and illusory. Nothing is as simple as it seems. England has no mortgage on sophistication or deception, let alone pride. It is the same in politics, as in love:
"Somehow his friendship for them had prevented him from thinking of them as people who might, like himself, be living on several different levels at once. As conspirators, as lovers - what was the key to the enigma? He could not guess."
Mountolive confronts the reality which "had always lain lurking behind the dusty tapestry of his romantic notions...Now this old image had been husked, stripped bare...[He could no longer remain] hidden behind measure and compromise."
Master and Bondsman
The novel builds towards the most amazing crescendo (which word, ironically in the case of a novel partly about mid-twentieth century Islam, derives from the same root as "crescent": to spring up, grow, swell, increase, thrive). The last chapter takes us into the heart of internal family and national politics. These are the same people we got to know in the first two volumes. Yet we were not yet aware of what was really happening behind the scenes.
The chapter is one of the best in the novel, and one of the best I have encountered in my reading anywhere. (It reminded me a lot of Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March".)
I don't recall ever being turned around so convincingly over the course of a novel. Durrell is a master. Once he turned me around, I became his bondsman. The experience was truly enthralling.
REVIEWS OF "THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET":
"Justine" (Vol. 1 of 4)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"Balthazar" (Vol. 2 of 4)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"Clea" (Vol. 4 of 4)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
When I was in secondary school, one of Gerald Durrell's books was all the rage. It might even have been on the syllabus. Looking through his bibliography, the only one I can think it might have been is "Beasts in My Belfry". It wasn't particularly demanding, so my English master (who was also the librarian) suggested that I would enjoy his brother, Lawrence. Thus it came to be that I read, first, "White Eagles over Serbia" and then "Justine".
While the latter began a passion that has survived to this day, the earlier influenced an educational choice that almost shaped a career decision that I realised then (and even more so now) would have been a grave error.
Although the novel was about spies, it got me fascinated in diplomacy. So it was that I headed off to study in Canberra, from where I hoped I might gain entry to the Diplomatic Corps.
I realised pretty quickly that, even then, you probably had to be the child of a diplomat to gain employment. However, a more important reason for my loss of interest was that, around this time, people started hijacking planes and killing diplomats, in pursuit of their political interests. If negotiation and diplomacy didn't work, there was always revolution. And if revolution didn't work, the last resort was terrorism, although in those days I think we used to refer to it as guerrilla action.
I didn't fancy being shot or blown up by a guerrilla. Still don't.
Unsuited by Way of Temperament
The other reason for my change of plan was that I realised that I was probably temperamentally unsuited to diplomacy, which won't surprise anybody who knows me from GR.
In those days, I was relatively polite and occasionally charming. However, it was a time of political turmoil, and it became apparent that, if you wanted to achieve just evolutionary (let alone anything more radical) change within your lifetime or a term of parliament, being polite and diplomatic wasn't enough.
You had to crash through or crash.
In business and political life since then, I still distinguish between executives or managers or politicians on the basis of whether they are either leaders (or doers) or diplomats (whose primary role is to ensure that nobody rocks the boat or causes any problems with either the electorate or the shareholders).
Ultimately, as you get older, and lose interest in leadership and diplomacy, you tend to focus on doing your own thing, provided you still have sufficient energy. Of course, life can become a little predictable when you run your own show, hence the need for an occasional skirmish to raise your body temperature.
Skirmish and Intrigue
I mention this background, because unexpectedly "Mountolive" thrust me back into this world of political and diplomatic intrigue, not to mention espionage.
The first two volumes of the Quartet fascinated me as a metaphysical investigation of love and narrative perspective. I expected it to continue for the remaining two volumes. However, here at least, there was an abrupt change of focus that, initially, I found unsettling.
Mountolive is an English diplomat who has previously spent time in Egypt, speaks Arabic and gets assigned back there later in his career as the Ambassador.
He featured in a minor way in the earlier volumes. However, they focused more on a "vaguely amiable bespectacled" English teacher and would-be novelist.
In this volume, we learn for the first time that his name is Darley. He seems to be regarded as "a good fellow, gentle and resigned," ineffectual, possessing "the shyness that goes with Great Emotions imperfectly kept under control" and of no great significance in the lives of those who really "matter" in the scheme of things (his anomalous love of Justine excepted).
On his first assignment, Mountolive became involved in a relationship with a married Coptic woman named Leila, who happens to be the mother of the businessman Nessim (and his brother, Narouz), which ultimately makes her Justine's mother-in-law.
While Mountolive seems to be a similar age to the main characters in the first two volumes (or perhaps a little older), this one lifts us up a generation.
From Microcosm to Macrocosm
At the same time, it focuses more on the pre-war geopolitics of the Middle East.
Thus, while the first two volumes examined the multiple facets of the mirror ball that was one generation's love action, this volume reverse zooms, so that we can get a broader perspective and context.
Durrell shifts us from microcosm to macrocosm, without sacrificing the intimacy of his language or point of view. He lifts the veil on the Arab world. In his hands, it and we become less disoriented. At times, Durrell's writing reminded me of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and John le Carre.
Superficially, Egypt is determined to establish its pride of place in the world, that "our simple satisfactions should not be less than those of your homeland." Nevertheless, there are multiple sources of tension: imperial, economic, racial, political and religious.
Just as America would later inject itself into the hornet's nest of the Middle East, England did so then for similar reasons. It was more advanced in the development of capitalism. It regarded itself as superior for this reason alone. It needed raw materials, trading partners and markets for its manufactured goods. What better way to ensure the long-term complicity of a country than to conquer and occupy it. Under its sovereign power, perhaps, "the feudal pattern of life", the traditional rivalries between races, religions and sects could be suppressed. Whatever was necessary to do business.
The role, then, of diplomacy was to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the imperial or global market.
From Kaleidoscope to Panorama
Mountolive's arrival as Ambassador takes us back to the time of the first volume, "Justine". We encounter different perspectives from those we were exposed to earlier. Then, we looked through a microscope, perhaps even a kaleidoscope. Now we see an entire panorama, from a distance, through a telescope.
Ironically, what we see now changes what we saw then. The further away we get, the more we see. But equally the mosaic pieces have formed a larger aggregate. We understand more (and differently), because we see more context (and differently).
Durrell dragged me unsuspectingly into this world. I resisted for 50 pages or so, then his picture started to take shape. Once I adjusted, every word on every page contributed to the intrigue.
The Pride, Stripped Bare
Mountolive quickly learns that England's superiority is temporary and illusory. Nothing is as simple as it seems. England has no mortgage on sophistication or deception, let alone pride. It is the same in politics, as in love:
"Somehow his friendship for them had prevented him from thinking of them as people who might, like himself, be living on several different levels at once. As conspirators, as lovers - what was the key to the enigma? He could not guess."
Mountolive confronts the reality which "had always lain lurking behind the dusty tapestry of his romantic notions...Now this old image had been husked, stripped bare...[He could no longer remain] hidden behind measure and compromise."
Master and Bondsman
The novel builds towards the most amazing crescendo (which word, ironically in the case of a novel partly about mid-twentieth century Islam, derives from the same root as "crescent": to spring up, grow, swell, increase, thrive). The last chapter takes us into the heart of internal family and national politics. These are the same people we got to know in the first two volumes. Yet we were not yet aware of what was really happening behind the scenes.
The chapter is one of the best in the novel, and one of the best I have encountered in my reading anywhere. (It reminded me a lot of Saul Bellow's "The Adventures of Augie March".)
I don't recall ever being turned around so convincingly over the course of a novel. Durrell is a master. Once he turned me around, I became his bondsman. The experience was truly enthralling.
REVIEWS OF "THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET":
"Justine" (Vol. 1 of 4)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"Balthazar" (Vol. 2 of 4)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"Clea" (Vol. 4 of 4)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
September 12, 2018
Blown away. I'm going to have to let my brain settle down for a day or so to even attempt a review.
July 1, 2020
I was stunned, impressed - a lot of responses to this book; occasionally impatient, and distinctly turned off by one section - the love scene between Nessim Hosnani and Justine - I felt Durrell was over-reaching his skills - aiming for the higher realms of greatness in Literature by trying perhaps to compare his lovers to Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra - he lost me. This, however was the only place where I put the book down.
I think for me, one of the most appealing elements of the book is the incredible evocation of the great landscapes of Egypt - the Nile delta, the ancient city of Alexandria. The novel opens with a night-fishing adventure into the great lagoon of Mareotis and closes with the final chapter deep in the lagoon and backwaters of the Hosnani lands which stretch from the marshes and swamps of the delta to the sands of the desert in the East. I found the introductory and final chapters an immense evocation of the beauty of a very particular place.
It was full winter and the great bird migrations had begun. The long vitreous expanses of the lake had begun to fill up with their winged visitants like some great terminus. All night long one could hear the flights come in - the thick whirring of mallard-wings or the metallic kraonk kraonk of high-flying geese as they bracketed the winter moon. Among the thickets of weed and sedge, in places polished to black or viper-green by the occasional clinging frosts, you could hear the chuckling and gnatting of royal duck. The old house with its mildewed walls where the scorpions and fleas hibernated among the dusty interstices of the earth-brick felt very empty and desolate to him now that Leila had gone.
The whole in fact is filled with riveting descriptive writing, not just of places, but of people, of the weather - there is a fine depiction of a great storm settling over Alexandria as Mountolive drives up from Cairo for the long awaited meeting with Leila. Durrell manages to capture the time and place of colonial Egypt exactly. He describes life inside the British Embassy - with its details of despatches - the green baize desks on which the post is sorted and Mountolive's lonely sortes into the great garden - this is an extract from when he first arrives in Egypt:
… the place echoed around him as he walked about the magnificent ball-room, across the conservatories, the terraces, peering out on the grass lawns which went right down to the bank of the cocoa-coloured Nile. Outside goose-necked sprinklers whirled and hissed night and day, keeping the coarse emerald grass fresh with moisture. He heard their sighing as he undressed and had a cold shower in the beautiful bathroom with its vitreous glass baubles …
And it continues .. The Nile was rising, filling the air with the dank summer moisture of its yearly inundations, climbing the stone wall at the bottom of the Embassy garden inch by slimy inch.
As you begin to understand the nature of these descriptions you know that everything Mountolive sees and feels is about the richness and yet the rottenness of Egypt; its smells of death and decay and at the same time its incredible wealth - in the hands of the ex-British, who have handed over independence in 1922 to the Muslim rulers. The current story is set in the pre Second World War years - I am guessing 1935/36.
But the book isn't just about nature, or the richly decadent lives of the British expats, it is also about the rising disquiet of the Copts, a religious minority who had traditionally held most of the high-ranking government and intellectual posts in Egyptian society. The Hosnani family with its two brothers, Nessim and Narouz represents the traditional Coptic family - they are a Christian minority community but are considered to be direct descendants of the Pharaohs. Nessim, educated at Oxford is a business man, in charge of the family's wide-ranging assets in the delta area - cotton-farms, wells, investments in shipping etc. And Narouz, the younger brother is the traditional feudal lord, overseer of huge tracts of land - he is the rough stone to Nessim's polish.
I am intrigued to read the other books in this quartet, apparently they cover the same story over and over again, but are written from the different perspectives of the main characters: "Justine" Nessim's wife; "Balthazar" the doctor, who is the long-standing friend of Nessim, Narouz, and Mountolive and finally "Clea:" the blond-artist, a woman - the final book apparently set six years after the concurrent events of the earlier three.
Because I live in Cyprus - and have done so for twenty years now - I can't help but be fascinated by the history of this region and Lawrence Durrell, who is famous for having lived here. He wrote "Bitter Lemons", which is about the Enosis freedom movement from British rule. He is an expert also, in this region's ongoing animosities between Orthodox and Muslim religions. There is a chapter on Memlik Pasha - a fictional character based on Sidqi Pasha - who "assumed premiership of Egypt at two critical times" 1930/33 and again in 1946. This character - is given a lengthy section which exposes the barbaric powers men like this had as late as the twentieth century - he reads more like a character from the Ottoman Empire - at the height of its cruel and violent methods to obtain absolute leadership.
Towards the beginning of the book - there is a long epistolary chapter - in the way of a letter from Mountolive's friend, Pursewarden, who has been stationed in Egypt to write a summary of policy in the Middle East.
- the abyss which separates the rich from the poor - it is positively Indian. In Egypt today for example 6 per cent of the people own three-quarters of the land, thus leaving under a fedden a head for the rest to live on. Good! Then the population is doubling itself every second generation, or is it third? … Meanwhile there is the steady growth of a vocal and literate middle-class whose sons are trained at Oxford among our comfy liberalisms - and who find no jobs waiting for them when they come back here. The babu is growing in power, and the dull story is being repeated here as elsewhere . 'Intellectual coolies of the world unite."
With all of Durrell's lush, evocative, other worldly descriptions of Egypt - there is this continuing balancing factor which elevates Durrell from the idealization of the Orient, which plenty of other writers have indulged in. But in this book - Durrell keeps alive for this reader the brutality of this third world country - there is a profoundly disturbing scene near to the end where Mountolive finds himself trapped inside an old ruined building - being brought to the ground by a group of child prostitutes. He feels like Gulliver, tied to the ground with a million tiny picks, focussing the reader on Mountolive as symbol. The British Ambassador, he represents the 'Giant of Western Development' - the UK, - and yet he is tied down, powerless, in this land of many tiny workers. Mountolive can do nothing to save his beloved Egypt, or indeed his friend, Nessim from political despotism.
I think for me, one of the most appealing elements of the book is the incredible evocation of the great landscapes of Egypt - the Nile delta, the ancient city of Alexandria. The novel opens with a night-fishing adventure into the great lagoon of Mareotis and closes with the final chapter deep in the lagoon and backwaters of the Hosnani lands which stretch from the marshes and swamps of the delta to the sands of the desert in the East. I found the introductory and final chapters an immense evocation of the beauty of a very particular place.
It was full winter and the great bird migrations had begun. The long vitreous expanses of the lake had begun to fill up with their winged visitants like some great terminus. All night long one could hear the flights come in - the thick whirring of mallard-wings or the metallic kraonk kraonk of high-flying geese as they bracketed the winter moon. Among the thickets of weed and sedge, in places polished to black or viper-green by the occasional clinging frosts, you could hear the chuckling and gnatting of royal duck. The old house with its mildewed walls where the scorpions and fleas hibernated among the dusty interstices of the earth-brick felt very empty and desolate to him now that Leila had gone.
The whole in fact is filled with riveting descriptive writing, not just of places, but of people, of the weather - there is a fine depiction of a great storm settling over Alexandria as Mountolive drives up from Cairo for the long awaited meeting with Leila. Durrell manages to capture the time and place of colonial Egypt exactly. He describes life inside the British Embassy - with its details of despatches - the green baize desks on which the post is sorted and Mountolive's lonely sortes into the great garden - this is an extract from when he first arrives in Egypt:
… the place echoed around him as he walked about the magnificent ball-room, across the conservatories, the terraces, peering out on the grass lawns which went right down to the bank of the cocoa-coloured Nile. Outside goose-necked sprinklers whirled and hissed night and day, keeping the coarse emerald grass fresh with moisture. He heard their sighing as he undressed and had a cold shower in the beautiful bathroom with its vitreous glass baubles …
And it continues .. The Nile was rising, filling the air with the dank summer moisture of its yearly inundations, climbing the stone wall at the bottom of the Embassy garden inch by slimy inch.
As you begin to understand the nature of these descriptions you know that everything Mountolive sees and feels is about the richness and yet the rottenness of Egypt; its smells of death and decay and at the same time its incredible wealth - in the hands of the ex-British, who have handed over independence in 1922 to the Muslim rulers. The current story is set in the pre Second World War years - I am guessing 1935/36.
But the book isn't just about nature, or the richly decadent lives of the British expats, it is also about the rising disquiet of the Copts, a religious minority who had traditionally held most of the high-ranking government and intellectual posts in Egyptian society. The Hosnani family with its two brothers, Nessim and Narouz represents the traditional Coptic family - they are a Christian minority community but are considered to be direct descendants of the Pharaohs. Nessim, educated at Oxford is a business man, in charge of the family's wide-ranging assets in the delta area - cotton-farms, wells, investments in shipping etc. And Narouz, the younger brother is the traditional feudal lord, overseer of huge tracts of land - he is the rough stone to Nessim's polish.
I am intrigued to read the other books in this quartet, apparently they cover the same story over and over again, but are written from the different perspectives of the main characters: "Justine" Nessim's wife; "Balthazar" the doctor, who is the long-standing friend of Nessim, Narouz, and Mountolive and finally "Clea:" the blond-artist, a woman - the final book apparently set six years after the concurrent events of the earlier three.
Because I live in Cyprus - and have done so for twenty years now - I can't help but be fascinated by the history of this region and Lawrence Durrell, who is famous for having lived here. He wrote "Bitter Lemons", which is about the Enosis freedom movement from British rule. He is an expert also, in this region's ongoing animosities between Orthodox and Muslim religions. There is a chapter on Memlik Pasha - a fictional character based on Sidqi Pasha - who "assumed premiership of Egypt at two critical times" 1930/33 and again in 1946. This character - is given a lengthy section which exposes the barbaric powers men like this had as late as the twentieth century - he reads more like a character from the Ottoman Empire - at the height of its cruel and violent methods to obtain absolute leadership.
Towards the beginning of the book - there is a long epistolary chapter - in the way of a letter from Mountolive's friend, Pursewarden, who has been stationed in Egypt to write a summary of policy in the Middle East.
- the abyss which separates the rich from the poor - it is positively Indian. In Egypt today for example 6 per cent of the people own three-quarters of the land, thus leaving under a fedden a head for the rest to live on. Good! Then the population is doubling itself every second generation, or is it third? … Meanwhile there is the steady growth of a vocal and literate middle-class whose sons are trained at Oxford among our comfy liberalisms - and who find no jobs waiting for them when they come back here. The babu is growing in power, and the dull story is being repeated here as elsewhere . 'Intellectual coolies of the world unite."
With all of Durrell's lush, evocative, other worldly descriptions of Egypt - there is this continuing balancing factor which elevates Durrell from the idealization of the Orient, which plenty of other writers have indulged in. But in this book - Durrell keeps alive for this reader the brutality of this third world country - there is a profoundly disturbing scene near to the end where Mountolive finds himself trapped inside an old ruined building - being brought to the ground by a group of child prostitutes. He feels like Gulliver, tied to the ground with a million tiny picks, focussing the reader on Mountolive as symbol. The British Ambassador, he represents the 'Giant of Western Development' - the UK, - and yet he is tied down, powerless, in this land of many tiny workers. Mountolive can do nothing to save his beloved Egypt, or indeed his friend, Nessim from political despotism.
January 31, 2014
Third in the Quartet and according to Durrell the “nail” that held the rest together. It centres on the diplomat David Mountolive and approaches the events of the first two books from a different angle with a longer timeline. This is probably the most autobiographical of the novels and Mountolive has many elements taken form Durrell himself.
At this point you realise who little Darley knew in the first novel and how much more complex were the ebbs and floes going on around him. Mountolive has been little in evidence in the first two novels, but here we chart his relationship with Nessim’s mother and move to the timeline of the other novels with a fascinating look at the character of Pursewarden.
The prose is as lush and tangled as ever and the descriptions have their usual power. With a diplomat at the centre it is more political; with European powers (especially the British) messing about in Middle Eastern politics. However as a counterpoint there is the relationship between Mountolive and Leila. I think the genius of these novels is the growing sense of looking at the same view from different perspectives; which adds depth and subtlety and there is now a 3D feel to the whole thing. Probably my favourite so far.
At this point you realise who little Darley knew in the first novel and how much more complex were the ebbs and floes going on around him. Mountolive has been little in evidence in the first two novels, but here we chart his relationship with Nessim’s mother and move to the timeline of the other novels with a fascinating look at the character of Pursewarden.
The prose is as lush and tangled as ever and the descriptions have their usual power. With a diplomat at the centre it is more political; with European powers (especially the British) messing about in Middle Eastern politics. However as a counterpoint there is the relationship between Mountolive and Leila. I think the genius of these novels is the growing sense of looking at the same view from different perspectives; which adds depth and subtlety and there is now a 3D feel to the whole thing. Probably my favourite so far.
April 5, 2019
İlk kitap olan “Justine” için 4 yıldız vermiştim. Her ne kadar Durrell ‘in yazımına hayran kalmış olsam da hikayedeki boşluklar ve hatta en önemlisi de Justine karakterinin oturmamışlığı, belirsizliği, daha açık söylemek gerekirse davranışlarını ne kadar uğraşırsam uğraşayım bir türlü rasyonalize edemediğimden dolayı 1 yıldız eksik olarak notlamıştım. Hatta Radioread -sağolsun- dörtlemeyi bir bütün olarak değerlendirmem gerektiğini söyleyince serinin geriye kalan kitapların ilk kitaptaki bakış açımı bu denli değiştirebileceğini hiç tahmin etmemiştim. Hemen hemen her şeyin yerli yerine oturduğu cilt Mountolive oldu. Son cilde başlamadım ama şimdilik anlatım olarak güçlüsü olduğunu rahatlıkla söyleyebilirim.
Bu kadar güzel bir şeyin çabucak bitmesini hiç istemiyor insan, araya birkaç gün koyup Clea’ya başlayacağım.
Bu kadar güzel bir şeyin çabucak bitmesini hiç istemiyor insan, araya birkaç gün koyup Clea’ya başlayacağım.
September 25, 2024
Prva dva dela "Aleksandrijskog kvarteta" odgovaraju na pitanje kako se voli u Aleksandriji – a voli se ulepljeno i zaslađeno kao baklava, pojedena iz svog i tuđeg tanjira sumnjivog lokala, na mekanim jastucima, da bi na kraju saznao da nisi pojeo baklavu, već tulumbu. Treći deo ponovo menja perspektivu ispripovedane priče, te Aleksandrija više nije grad večito gladnog erosa, već postaje poprište politike. Darli više nije narator; njegov čuvstveno melanholični pokušaj da protejsku prirodu stvarnosti i sećanja savlada i pretvori u zaokruženu istinu nestaje iz fokusa. Umesto njega, u Mauntolivu pripovedanje preuzima sveznajući narator (mada se takva distanca povremeno javlja i u drugom delu). U "Mauntolivu" se javljaju novi preokreti u odnosu na one iz "Baltazara", koji su već bili preokreti u odnosu na priču iz "Justine". Tu su kolonizatori i zapadne sile, Arapi, Kopti, Grci, Jevreji, i, naravno, teritorija Palestine. Drugi svetski rat samo što nije počeo a od pojedenih slatkiša se dremka, od lošeg varenja raste splin, a Aleksandrija lebdi između iluzije i stvarnosti, između materije i pesničkih slika.
Koliko se ove tri knjige i tri perspektive uklapaju u jednu celinu? Ima aljkavosti i ponekad zaškripi, što se može opravdati praktičnim razlozima – Darel nije pisao Kvartet odjednom, već je svaki novi deo nastajao nakon što bi prethodni bio objavljen, pa nije mogao da prilagođava novo osmišljeno u odnosu na staro napisano. Ipak, celina funkcioniše. Ne kao švajcarski sat, već više kao mediteranski ples – što je meni primamljivije, jer se zna u šta je zabavnije gledati..
Koliko se ove tri knjige i tri perspektive uklapaju u jednu celinu? Ima aljkavosti i ponekad zaškripi, što se može opravdati praktičnim razlozima – Darel nije pisao Kvartet odjednom, već je svaki novi deo nastajao nakon što bi prethodni bio objavljen, pa nije mogao da prilagođava novo osmišljeno u odnosu na staro napisano. Ipak, celina funkcioniše. Ne kao švajcarski sat, već više kao mediteranski ples – što je meni primamljivije, jer se zna u šta je zabavnije gledati..
December 17, 2020
The saddest book from The Alexandria Quartet so far not only because many book characters lose their hopes and get dissapointed in love, time's effect on relationships, even betrayal of images that our memory keeps and cherishes for years but also because I am as the reader got disillusioned with Nesim and Justine and their deliberately preplanned attachments to people.
Slowly, at the pace of prayer or meditation, the great arc of boats was forming and closing in, but with the land and the water liquefying at this rate he kept having the illusion that they were travelling across the sky rather than across the alluvial waters of Mareotis. And out of sight he could hear the splatter of geese, and in one corner water and sky split apart as a flight rose, trailing its webs across the estuary like seaplanes, honking crassly. Mountolive sighed and stared down into the brown water, chin on his hands. He was unused to feeling so happy. Youth is the age of despairs.
*
[...] the dull report of a gun from the furtherest boat shook the air and suddenly the skyline was sliced in half by a new flight, rising more slowly and dividing earth from air in a pink travelling wound; like the heart of a pomegranate staring through its skin. Then, turning from pink to scarlet, flushed back into white and fell to the lake-level like a shower of snow to melt as it touched the water — ‘Flamingo’ they both cried and laughed, and the darkness snapped upon them, extinguishing the visible world.
*
Have you never starved for love? Don’t you know how dangerous love is?
*
In the gardens the branches of the trees bowed lower and lower under the freight of falling whiteness until one by one they sprang back shedding their parcels of snow, in soundless explosions of glittering crystals; then the whole process began again, the soft white load of the tumbling snowflakes gathering upon them, pressing them down like springs until the weight became unendurable.
*
Mountolive felt the silence close upon them like the door of a vault. There was nothing to be done about it.
*
I have been living with you so long in my imagination — quite alone there — that now I must almost reinvent you to bring you back to life. Perhaps I have been traducing you all these years, painting your picture to myself? You may be now simply a figment instead of a flesh and blood dignitary, moving among people and lights and policies. I can’t find the courage to compare the truth to reality as yet; I’m scared.
*
Here he sat, among the ragged boatmen and schooner-crews of the Levant, to eat his oysters and dip into the newspaper, while the evening began to compose itself comfortably around him, untroubled by thought or the demands of conversation with its wicked quotidian platitudes. Later he might be able to relate his ideas once more to the book which he was trying to complete so slowly, painfully, in these hard-won secret moments stolen from an empty professional life, stolen even from the circumstances which he built around himself by virtue of laziness, of gregariousness.
*
He had never understood Narouz, he thought wistfully. But then, you do not have to understand someone in order to love them.
*
He had now joined the ranks of those who compromise gracefully with life.
November 12, 2020
"Pode um simples gesto de alguém que conhecemos revelar uma mutação interior?"
"-Que escuro! Não vejo senão uma estrela. É sinal de nevoeiro. Sabes que no Islão todo o homem tem uma estrela que lhe pertence desde que nasceu e o acompanha até à morte? Talvez aquela seja a tua, David Mountolive.
- Ou a tua?
- Brilha de mais para ser a minha. As estrelas empalidecem à medida que envelhecemos. A minha deve estar muito pálida. Já percorri mais de metade do meu caminho. E quando partires ela empalidecerá ainda mais."
"Não se pode escrever mais de uma dúzia de cartas de amor sem sentir a necessidade de novos temas. A mais rica das experiências humanas é também a mais limitada nos seus meios de expressão. As palavras matam o amor como matam tudo o mais."
"Formavam um par esplêndido, pensava ele, mesmo com uma ponta de inveja; davam a ideia desses seres habituados a trabalhar em conjunto desde a infância, respondendo instintivamente às necessidades e aos desejos não expressos pelos outros, nunca hesitando em se reconfortarem mutuamente com um sorriso."
"- Penso num laço muito mais apertado, em certo sentido, do que tudo o que a paixão possa inventar: um compromisso baseado na confiança mútua."
"-Que escuro! Não vejo senão uma estrela. É sinal de nevoeiro. Sabes que no Islão todo o homem tem uma estrela que lhe pertence desde que nasceu e o acompanha até à morte? Talvez aquela seja a tua, David Mountolive.
- Ou a tua?
- Brilha de mais para ser a minha. As estrelas empalidecem à medida que envelhecemos. A minha deve estar muito pálida. Já percorri mais de metade do meu caminho. E quando partires ela empalidecerá ainda mais."
"Não se pode escrever mais de uma dúzia de cartas de amor sem sentir a necessidade de novos temas. A mais rica das experiências humanas é também a mais limitada nos seus meios de expressão. As palavras matam o amor como matam tudo o mais."
"Formavam um par esplêndido, pensava ele, mesmo com uma ponta de inveja; davam a ideia desses seres habituados a trabalhar em conjunto desde a infância, respondendo instintivamente às necessidades e aos desejos não expressos pelos outros, nunca hesitando em se reconfortarem mutuamente com um sorriso."
"- Penso num laço muito mais apertado, em certo sentido, do que tudo o que a paixão possa inventar: um compromisso baseado na confiança mútua."
January 10, 2022
Mountolive, şu ana dek dörtlemenin en az sevdiğim kitabı oldu ama bu sevmediğim anlamına gelmiyor; sadece diğerlerine aşırı bayıldığım için böyle diyorum. İlk iki kitaba göre daha olay odaklı bir kitap, cevapsız soruları yanıtlaması ve olay örgüsündeki boşlukları doldurması açısından çok iyiydi. Yine soluksuz okudum, ilk 2 kitapta dinlediğimiz olaylar bambaşka bir biçim aldı, bildiklerimiz şekil değiştirdi. İskenderiye Dörtlüsü’nü kaleydoskopa benzetmelerinin nedenini de bu kitapla anladım; durmadan başka bir yerden baktırıyor yazar ve bambaşka şeyler görüyoruz – ne kadar etkileyici bir iş bunu becermek. Önceki kitaplarda tadına doyamadığım tahlillerin ve insan doğasına / duygularına dair analizlerin bu kitapta görece daha az olmasından ötürü diğerlerinin bir adım gerisinde kalmış olsa da, bu da bambaşka açılardan çok kuvvetli bir kitaptı. Durrell’in bir aşk hikayesi anlatır gibi başladığı öyküye bu romanda kattığı tarihi ve politik zenginliği de çok acayip bulduğumu belirteyim. Oryantalizme, bağımsızlık sonrası Mısır’da olmakta olanlara, güç ilişkilerine dair çok fazla şey var kitabın içinde. Ve tabii yine olağanüstü İskenderiye tasvirleri, olağanüstü. Bir şehri tüm renkleri, sesleri ve kokularıyla böyle canlandırabilmek için çok büyük bir yazar olmak gerekiyor hakikaten. Tüm düğümlerin son kitap olan Clea’da çözüleceğini bilmenin heyecanıyla yola devam ediyorum. "İnsan aşıksa, aşkın ne kadar utanmaz bir dilenci olduğunu bilir."
February 22, 2023
3.5/5
Mountolive, seriyi başka bir yere götüren, İskenderiye’den çıkarak İskenderiye’yi daha da derinleştiren ve -koyduğu mesafeyle- önceden anlatılan hikayeleri daha farklı kılabilen bir kitap. Bu açıdan bakıldığında yapısal olarak neredeyse kusursuz olduğunu söylemek mümkün. Bu kusursuzluğa rağmen, bıraktığı tat olarak serinin ilk iki kitabına göre -bence- biraz daha yavan. Yazar hem anlatıcıyı hem de onun ağzından duymaya alıştığımız felsefi tespitleri, gözlemleri sadeleştirerek daha “düz” bir yola başvuruyor; bu başvuru içerikle örtüştüğü için hayranlık uyandırıcı olsa da edebi lezzet olarak diğer kitapların bir tık gerisinde, kuru kalıyor. Tabii bana böyle gelmesinde ilk iki kitabın oldukça güçlü metinler olmasının etkisi büyük. Clea’yı da okuyup seriyi bir an önce bitirmek istiyorum.
Mountolive, seriyi başka bir yere götüren, İskenderiye’den çıkarak İskenderiye’yi daha da derinleştiren ve -koyduğu mesafeyle- önceden anlatılan hikayeleri daha farklı kılabilen bir kitap. Bu açıdan bakıldığında yapısal olarak neredeyse kusursuz olduğunu söylemek mümkün. Bu kusursuzluğa rağmen, bıraktığı tat olarak serinin ilk iki kitabına göre -bence- biraz daha yavan. Yazar hem anlatıcıyı hem de onun ağzından duymaya alıştığımız felsefi tespitleri, gözlemleri sadeleştirerek daha “düz” bir yola başvuruyor; bu başvuru içerikle örtüştüğü için hayranlık uyandırıcı olsa da edebi lezzet olarak diğer kitapların bir tık gerisinde, kuru kalıyor. Tabii bana böyle gelmesinde ilk iki kitabın oldukça güçlü metinler olmasının etkisi büyük. Clea’yı da okuyup seriyi bir an önce bitirmek istiyorum.
June 18, 2014
شكرا دار الشروق . حقيقى شكرا
والشكر الأكبر لفخرى لبيب (المترجم)
شكر صادق نابع من قلب قارئ قلما ينجح شئ غير القراءة فى إسعاده.
شكرا انكم قدمت عمل بهذا الابداع رغم انه مجرد الجزء الثالث من الرباعيه.
ان تقرأ عن مجتمعك بعيون غريبه عنه لتتحدث عنه فهذا شئ مفيد جدا
وممتع فى نفس الوقت.
فى هذا الجزء لا تقتصر الاحداث عن الاسكندريه بل تشمل الاشارات القاهرة لتصف لنا مجتمع الاجانب فى كلتا المدينتين.
ورغم أنى أرى الكاتب افاض فى الحديث عن شخصيات العمل (الأجنبيه) على حساب عبقرية المكان نفسه لكن العمل فى المجمل مذهل.
التطور فى الجزء دا مبهر فعلا من لغه واحداث وشخصيات .
هبدأ فورا فى الجزء الرابع رغم يقينى من الحزن الذى سينتابنى عند الانتهاء من هذه الرباعيه المدهشه
والشكر الأكبر لفخرى لبيب (المترجم)
شكر صادق نابع من قلب قارئ قلما ينجح شئ غير القراءة فى إسعاده.
شكرا انكم قدمت عمل بهذا الابداع رغم انه مجرد الجزء الثالث من الرباعيه.
ان تقرأ عن مجتمعك بعيون غريبه عنه لتتحدث عنه فهذا شئ مفيد جدا
وممتع فى نفس الوقت.
فى هذا الجزء لا تقتصر الاحداث عن الاسكندريه بل تشمل الاشارات القاهرة لتصف لنا مجتمع الاجانب فى كلتا المدينتين.
ورغم أنى أرى الكاتب افاض فى الحديث عن شخصيات العمل (الأجنبيه) على حساب عبقرية المكان نفسه لكن العمل فى المجمل مذهل.
التطور فى الجزء دا مبهر فعلا من لغه واحداث وشخصيات .
هبدأ فورا فى الجزء الرابع رغم يقينى من الحزن الذى سينتابنى عند الانتهاء من هذه الرباعيه المدهشه
July 18, 2020
As part of the Reading Envy Summer Reading challenge to finish series, I finally read book 3 of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, Mountolive. It follows the parallel story of Justine and Balthazar somewhat from the perspective of David Mountolive, British ambassador to Egypt. But it starts much earlier when he is a young diplomat living in Cairo, when he has a relationship with Leila, Nassim's mother. Ooh, intriguing. You need to read the first two books first, but this has more of the fantastic writing, with more politics and intrigue.
.
I'm hoping to get to Clea before the summer ends!
(When I first did my placeholder review I typed up quotes in my private notes field but they didn't save! Grr and argh. Anyway, some great writing in this book as in all Durrell's works.)
.
I'm hoping to get to Clea before the summer ends!
(When I first did my placeholder review I typed up quotes in my private notes field but they didn't save! Grr and argh. Anyway, some great writing in this book as in all Durrell's works.)
October 27, 2019
The key is fully understanding Justine. That alone makes the books that follow comprehensible. With Mountolive, Durrell completes the geometry of the story, with the first three volumes viewing the same period/events from different angles: the three dimensions of space. The final volume, Clea, will now proceed to advance the plot — the dimension of time.
(2013: What I said in my comment... about the absence of plot in Durrell, is quite wrong. With Mountolive, I can now see why people think the Quartet is a masterpiece.)
(2013: What I said in my comment... about the absence of plot in Durrell, is quite wrong. With Mountolive, I can now see why people think the Quartet is a masterpiece.)
July 31, 2017
I guess I'm allowing too much time to elapse between Alexandria Quartet novels because I had no memory of Mountolive. Here, Mountolive comes to Egypt in his twenties working for the British Foreign Office, has an affair with the middle-aged, still-married Copt Leila Hosnani, and becomes friends with her Oxford-educated son Nessim. Years later (it's now some time in the 1930s, there are rumblings of war) he returns as ambassador. On his plate is a troubling issue regarding Nessim and some illegal armaments, as well as the question of what kind of relationship he will have with Leila now. Many of the old familiars (or forgottens as the case may be) pop up, particularly Justine, married to Nessim, and Melissa, Clea, Balthazar, Darley (who narrated the first two novels), Narouz, Pursewarden.
This volume is missing a bit of the writerly lushness that the first two novels have, but here's one example of the kind of thing I like. The setting is the British embassy in Moscow, where Mountolive is approximately second in command.
The chaplain uttered a short catarrhal sentence and with a riffling of pages they found themselves confronting the banal text of "Onward Christian Soldiers" in the eleventh edition of the Foreign Service Hymnal. The harmonium in the corner suddenly began to pant like a fat man running for a bus; then it found its voice and gave out a slow nasal rendering of the first two phrases in tones whose harshness across the wintry hush was like the pulling out of entrails. Mountolive repressed a shudder, waiting for the instrument to subside on the dominant as it always did - as if about to burst into all-too-human sobs. Raggedly they raised their voices to attest to ... to what? Mountolive found himself wondering. They were a Christian enclave in a hostile land, a country which had become like a great concentration camp owing to a simple failure of the human reason.
July 24, 2016
"Quando se ama sabe-se que o amor é um pedinte, um pedinte sem amor-próprio; e os gostos da simples piedade humana podem consolar na ausência do amor, disfarçando-se numa felicidade imaginária."
Alexandria...
February 26, 2013
This is the third book in the "Alexandria Quartet" but I particularly loved this one. It's so poignant. It deserves a review in itself!
October 31, 2022
I am slowly making my way through Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet, four books originally published 1957-1960. I still have to read Clea, but so far, Mountolive is my favorite. It is a more straightforward and linear narrative than the first two books, Justine and Balthazar.
David Mountolive is a British diplomat who gets promoted and moves back to Alexandria. The storyline covers his initial life in Egypt, and his relationship with the Hosnani family, particularly Leila and her grown sons, Nessim, and Narouz. It covers Mountolive’s rise in the administrative ranks and sheds light on the nefarious events that have earlier occurred, such that the reader understands why one of the characters was murdered.
After reading the first two installments, I have gotten used to Durrell’s elaborate writing style, and I am now enjoying it more. I think it helps that this third book in the series is written in third person. I do not think any of these books stands alone very well, so if you are planning to read this classic set, start with Justine.
David Mountolive is a British diplomat who gets promoted and moves back to Alexandria. The storyline covers his initial life in Egypt, and his relationship with the Hosnani family, particularly Leila and her grown sons, Nessim, and Narouz. It covers Mountolive’s rise in the administrative ranks and sheds light on the nefarious events that have earlier occurred, such that the reader understands why one of the characters was murdered.
After reading the first two installments, I have gotten used to Durrell’s elaborate writing style, and I am now enjoying it more. I think it helps that this third book in the series is written in third person. I do not think any of these books stands alone very well, so if you are planning to read this classic set, start with Justine.
October 17, 2020
Mountolive stands out as a rather unique character in the Alexandria Quartet where loves generally live brilliantly for their terms before dying at their appointed times. Mountolive instead chooses in abject fashion to flee from his true love and to give
himself over to a vampire / succubus. In so doing Mountolive betrays not only his true love but also the Copts of Egypt. At the root of Mountolive's problem seems to be that unlike the positive characters in the novel, he is not a member of Balthazar's Gnostic-Kabbal and never acquires gnosis (γνῶσι).
In this third novel in the cycle, where the focus shifts from sex to conspiracy Durrell acquits himself quite honourably. In "White Eagles over Serbia" Durrell demonstrated that he was an abysmal writer of spy/thrillers. Nonetheless, he learned enough about the genre that he is able in "Mountolive" to successfully add espionage elements to his Proustian roman-fleuve about the bohemians of Alexandria.
Like the other novels in the Alexandria Quartet, "Mountolive" is quite dreadful. The Quartet however is much better than the sum of its parts. Readers are advised to proceed immediately to "Clea" the fourth and final installment.
himself over to a vampire / succubus. In so doing Mountolive betrays not only his true love but also the Copts of Egypt. At the root of Mountolive's problem seems to be that unlike the positive characters in the novel, he is not a member of Balthazar's Gnostic-Kabbal and never acquires gnosis (γνῶσι).
In this third novel in the cycle, where the focus shifts from sex to conspiracy Durrell acquits himself quite honourably. In "White Eagles over Serbia" Durrell demonstrated that he was an abysmal writer of spy/thrillers. Nonetheless, he learned enough about the genre that he is able in "Mountolive" to successfully add espionage elements to his Proustian roman-fleuve about the bohemians of Alexandria.
Like the other novels in the Alexandria Quartet, "Mountolive" is quite dreadful. The Quartet however is much better than the sum of its parts. Readers are advised to proceed immediately to "Clea" the fourth and final installment.
July 2, 2011
Durrell's Alexandria Quartet is like a kaleidoscope, always refracting his characters and story in each succeeding book. In Mountolive, the third volume, the sense of political intrigue that began in Balthazar takes on an even deeper character. Mountolive is a young British diplomat in training when he meets Leila, who takes him as a lover on the advice of her crippled husband.
As we know already from Justine, Leila is mother to Nessim, Justine's husband. Now we learn that both women take lovers for political reasons. By the mid 1950s, it becomes clear that oil, Jews and Israel are involved in the story. Suddenly it all makes sense, because the main story of Great Britain after WWII was the nation's struggle to hang on to an empire that was in fact over.
But what a brilliant twist Durrell has achieved; taking what appeared to be a love story steeped in the mysterious city of Alexandria and turning it into a post Commonwealth critique of the underlying intentions of nations, leaders, diplomats, fanatics and businessmen. He reveals all of it like a Pandora's Box.
I read this book in late winter, 2011 during the days of the uproar in Egypt. It felt like I was reading exactly the right book.
As we know already from Justine, Leila is mother to Nessim, Justine's husband. Now we learn that both women take lovers for political reasons. By the mid 1950s, it becomes clear that oil, Jews and Israel are involved in the story. Suddenly it all makes sense, because the main story of Great Britain after WWII was the nation's struggle to hang on to an empire that was in fact over.
But what a brilliant twist Durrell has achieved; taking what appeared to be a love story steeped in the mysterious city of Alexandria and turning it into a post Commonwealth critique of the underlying intentions of nations, leaders, diplomats, fanatics and businessmen. He reveals all of it like a Pandora's Box.
I read this book in late winter, 2011 during the days of the uproar in Egypt. It felt like I was reading exactly the right book.
March 27, 2022
Bu kitabın durumu benim için çok karışık. Seri boyunca pek çok şeyin yerine oturması açısından en iyi kitaptı. Ancak bu kitaptan sonra Justine i’i daha çok sevdim.
March 30, 2017
الحقيقة عارية.... مذهل بغباء
June 24, 2013
After a long break from Balthazar, I thought it might be tricky getting back into the Quartet but instead I feel back at home. I've tried reading other books but this one kept beckoning. My god, the language transports me. This narrative starts out predating the ones presented by Darley and Balthazar in books 1 and 2.
Finished yesterday. So far my favorite. The most straight forward narrative so far, mostly from the POV of Mountolive, but then switching to the omni narrative. The prose, oh my god, the prose. Such poetry, In this book we get a ton of information as to what is really going on in bks 1 and 2, not at all expected! Hidden conspiracies, Egyptian politics - there is some Durrel racism here, so veddy veddy British leading up to the messy outcome of the Middle East post WWII, but it's directed at the politics not the people themselves except in the form Memlik Pasha.
Onto Clea!
Finished yesterday. So far my favorite. The most straight forward narrative so far, mostly from the POV of Mountolive, but then switching to the omni narrative. The prose, oh my god, the prose. Such poetry, In this book we get a ton of information as to what is really going on in bks 1 and 2, not at all expected! Hidden conspiracies, Egyptian politics - there is some Durrel racism here, so veddy veddy British leading up to the messy outcome of the Middle East post WWII, but it's directed at the politics not the people themselves except in the form Memlik Pasha.
Onto Clea!
April 23, 2015
The sound of water trickling and of sponges crushing softly upon the body of his brother, seemed part of an entirely new fabric of thought and emotion.
Sorry for any undue disclosures, but I'm attempting to keep my stride, however flailing and gurgling, towards the conclusion. A reddened, sweaty review of the Quartet is to follow.
Sorry for any undue disclosures, but I'm attempting to keep my stride, however flailing and gurgling, towards the conclusion. A reddened, sweaty review of the Quartet is to follow.
December 12, 2011
Mountolive is the third installment of the Alexandria Quartet, and it was by far my favorite of the four novels. I believe I liked the change of pace, from dogged introspection through recollections, to something more akin to a “roman de moeurs”. I also could not resist the elements of political intrigue, the complex canvas of betrayals that occur throughout the novel and one of my favorite themes, the notion of forbidden love. All throughout the novels, taboos are being brushed against; and we all have to reconsider our sensitivity to those shortcuts to the prevalent moral code. Finally I could not resist the geopolitical overtones that haunt the book and that seem to remain present, if minimally changed, throughout the Middle East today.
Do things change? Is the human psyche capable of evolving beyond basic predatory behaviors, however spruced up we can hope to make them?
Do things change? Is the human psyche capable of evolving beyond basic predatory behaviors, however spruced up we can hope to make them?
July 13, 2022
تتأرجح هذه الرباعية بين التشتت والملل والإبداع!
لا أعرف كيف أصف هذا لكني أشعر به!
كان هذا الجزء غريب!
كان يُهيأ الطريق لتجلي شخصية جديدة وهى "ماونت أوليف".
بعد ظهور هذه الشخصية عرضاً في الجزء السابق، عادت بكل ما أوتيت من قوة في هذا الجزء.
وهنا، أريد أن أسأل، ما أهمية هذا الجزء من الرباعية؟
استغربت كيف يكون لهذه الشخصية جزء باسمها و"نسيم/الزوج المخدوع" لا! لكن أبهرني الكاتب بأن حضور نسيم وعائلته كان عبقري من خلال هذه الشخصية وتداخلها الغريب في الأحداث!
لكن، أين جوستين؟!
كانت منطوية ومهملة في هذا الجزء. وهذا غريب بالطبع.
بالرغم أن هذا الجزء أعادني إلى حالة التشتت مرة أخرى، إلا أنه أيضاً ترك لدى فضول رهيب للجزء الأخير؛ لمعرفة ما ستؤول إليه الأمور!
تمت
١١ يوليو ٢٠٢٢
لا أعرف كيف أصف هذا لكني أشعر به!
كان هذا الجزء غريب!
كان يُهيأ الطريق لتجلي شخصية جديدة وهى "ماونت أوليف".
بعد ظهور هذه الشخصية عرضاً في الجزء السابق، عادت بكل ما أوتيت من قوة في هذا الجزء.
وهنا، أريد أن أسأل، ما أهمية هذا الجزء من الرباعية؟
استغربت كيف يكون لهذه الشخصية جزء باسمها و"نسيم/الزوج المخدوع" لا! لكن أبهرني الكاتب بأن حضور نسيم وعائلته كان عبقري من خلال هذه الشخصية وتداخلها الغريب في الأحداث!
لكن، أين جوستين؟!
كانت منطوية ومهملة في هذا الجزء. وهذا غريب بالطبع.
بالرغم أن هذا الجزء أعادني إلى حالة التشتت مرة أخرى، إلا أنه أيضاً ترك لدى فضول رهيب للجزء الأخير؛ لمعرفة ما ستؤول إليه الأمور!
تمت
١١ يوليو ٢٠٢٢
January 7, 2022
Durrell had a plot twist I didn't see coming - a political overlay on his turgid tale of love, and some associated double crossing - and that made this book more interesting for me. Durrell's writing remains overwrought and wildly uneven, but Alexandria and its surroundings still vibrate with life (even while certain passages here seem to cross the line into Orientalist caricature), and there are some very vivid anecdotes and as always, a decent number of truly comic episodes.
I think Mountolive also gained by being free of Darley, our drab little narrator who inexplicably (or explicably due to no merit of his own as we learn here) gets all the girls. After being tortured by Darley's musings on love and art in volumes 1 and 2, it was fun to switch perspectives and see him lampooned in this volume.
I embarked on this quartet thinking it was something else entirely (fatal mental mix up with Dance to the Music of Time), and I think I would have liked it more as a younger woman, or perhaps if I'd read it several years ago while wandering in Egypt, alternately baking and shivering. But overall, despite its patent flaws and adolescent sensibilities, I am enjoying the books.
I think Mountolive also gained by being free of Darley, our drab little narrator who inexplicably (or explicably due to no merit of his own as we learn here) gets all the girls. After being tortured by Darley's musings on love and art in volumes 1 and 2, it was fun to switch perspectives and see him lampooned in this volume.
I embarked on this quartet thinking it was something else entirely (fatal mental mix up with Dance to the Music of Time), and I think I would have liked it more as a younger woman, or perhaps if I'd read it several years ago while wandering in Egypt, alternately baking and shivering. But overall, despite its patent flaws and adolescent sensibilities, I am enjoying the books.
June 12, 2012
Impressive, gives a completely new view of the complex relationship between characters, full of sudden and unexpected turns… I was shocked most of the time while reading.
Going back now, I cannot help the feeling that Justine was just an illusion, an imaginary bubble created by poor Darley, and together with Balthazar served just as an introduction to this part which revealed all the complexity of human relations.
What most affected me was that in this part Durrell really hit one and true love between man and woman, not the platonic one based on mutual attraction, but the true feeling of connection between two human beings sharing same deepest and most hidden beliefs and fears…
Enjoyed every minute of it!!!
Going back now, I cannot help the feeling that Justine was just an illusion, an imaginary bubble created by poor Darley, and together with Balthazar served just as an introduction to this part which revealed all the complexity of human relations.
What most affected me was that in this part Durrell really hit one and true love between man and woman, not the platonic one based on mutual attraction, but the true feeling of connection between two human beings sharing same deepest and most hidden beliefs and fears…
Enjoyed every minute of it!!!
June 9, 2017
Now, this was slightly unexpected.
After reading two books where a perenially sad Irishman told us in great detail how he went to Egypt and then proceeded to screw up two relationships at the same time while musing on the allure of Alexandria and love, its almost like Durrell was like, "This is nice but we need to liven things up." Thus, cue the intrigue!
In what has to be classified as one of the great literary left turns, Durrell goes from writing like an exotic John Updike to deciding that what we really wanted to do was bang out a John Le Carre novel, only one written by exotic John Updike. Thus, enter international man of mystery David Mountolive, British Foreign Office official and lover on the side.
I had semi-high hopes for this book, based on Mountolive's brief appearance in the previous book, where he gave off enough of a "I know more than you do but I'm not going to say how" vibe that suggested this book was going to be a slight tonal shift. And it is. Those who liked the fixed first person intensity of the first half of the series are going to be disappointed, shifting entirely to a third person point of view that dances among the various participants (this actually winds up being disconcerting in parts, only because I was used to one perspective . . . very often we dive into scenes with Nissim and Narouz where Mountolive isn't present . . . while the early books were telling us a story, now we're only experiencing it). A side effect of this is that it shifts Darley to the deep background where he barely feels present in the events depicted . . . I was okay with this for the most part because for me the only benefit of Darley as a character was that he wrote like Lawrence Durrell and so it should come as no surprise that I don't miss him at all. Fans of the series deeply philosophical and intellectual musings on love will at least find that Mountolive spends a good portion of the novel pining after the Housani brothers' mom Leila (not really a spoiler since they get together in the beginning of this book) which has the novelty of the May-December aspect of it but it also never threatens to take over the story like everyone's fixation with Justine almost did in the first half.
In fact, this one is much more plot oriented, almost to an absurd degree when contrasted with what we've already gone through. Much like the first half, it takes place around the same events we've previously encountered but from a different perspective so that what we thought we knew before gets recontextualized. And it turns out the context is all kinds of political, with the Housani brothers perhaps involved in some shady arms dealings that Mountolive and company have to get to the bottom of, if there is a bottom to anything is hazy, moderately corrupt Alexandria.
Maybe I'm a cynical soul with no sense of love within my heart but I found the novel overall more engaging than the first half's focus on whether Darley can choose between sensible Melissa and wild Justine, like an adult version of Betty and Veronica . . . audiences at the time weren't pleased at the shift but even the scenes showcasing Mountolive's gradual working his way back to Alexandria have more of a forward momentum than anything else we've seen so far, showing us the events that we witnessed through Darley's literal yet lust drenched filter to be shades of a far more dangerous game being played.
And once it becomes clear that something is up, all the maneuvering becomes vastly more interesting. Pursewarden sort of justifies his placement in the novel as more than local color and someone else to have an opinion on Justine while scenes of Mountolive having to deal with the intricacies of both the British and Egyptian governments in order to get anything done reminds you why the British take so much pleasure in crafting sitcom after sitcom that makes fun of their own system of government. Its probably not going to read as pulse pounding for people raised on James Bond movies but as someone who watched the entire "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" miniseries, descriptions of British civil servants combing through massive files looking for hints is about as close as I get to a certain kind of comfort food.
Frankly, the more political it gets the more interesting it gets and married with Durrell's continued gift for painting stunning images with prose (everyone goes nuts over the camel slaughtering scene but for my money the best image is Narouz practicing with his whip at dusk, surrounded by all the dead and dying bodies of bats he's sliced out of the air) it remains a much more memorable experience than the first two novels, which are more sensory but fleeting in feel. Events have an extra weight, characters act like people and not romanticized myths, and everyone's motivations are a lot grubbier and thus a bit easier to swallow. As everyone maneuvers with the Egyptian government to see things their way (the Pasha's method of accepting bribes is hilarious enough that its probably true) it honest to goodness achieves a climax of sorts as nobody seems to get what they want but everyone wins anyway, setting for the stage for time to finally move forward in "Clea." Whether that will continue the political stuff or take us back to the examination of love in all its forms is something I'll find out shortly. Still, its nearly pointless to read it without reading "Justine" and "Balthazar" since most of its power comes from seeing what we've been previously told upended and the broader focus may turn off people who were reeled in by the more sensual stuff. I was probably so pleasantly surprised that I'm perhaps overrating it slightly and other people may find that by trying to balance the earlier approach with a spy novel atmosphere, it does a disservice to both genres by not fully committing but for me that's what made it feel unique and the closest this series gets to a page turner, even if it is measured, thoughtful, considered page turning.
After reading two books where a perenially sad Irishman told us in great detail how he went to Egypt and then proceeded to screw up two relationships at the same time while musing on the allure of Alexandria and love, its almost like Durrell was like, "This is nice but we need to liven things up." Thus, cue the intrigue!
In what has to be classified as one of the great literary left turns, Durrell goes from writing like an exotic John Updike to deciding that what we really wanted to do was bang out a John Le Carre novel, only one written by exotic John Updike. Thus, enter international man of mystery David Mountolive, British Foreign Office official and lover on the side.
I had semi-high hopes for this book, based on Mountolive's brief appearance in the previous book, where he gave off enough of a "I know more than you do but I'm not going to say how" vibe that suggested this book was going to be a slight tonal shift. And it is. Those who liked the fixed first person intensity of the first half of the series are going to be disappointed, shifting entirely to a third person point of view that dances among the various participants (this actually winds up being disconcerting in parts, only because I was used to one perspective . . . very often we dive into scenes with Nissim and Narouz where Mountolive isn't present . . . while the early books were telling us a story, now we're only experiencing it). A side effect of this is that it shifts Darley to the deep background where he barely feels present in the events depicted . . . I was okay with this for the most part because for me the only benefit of Darley as a character was that he wrote like Lawrence Durrell and so it should come as no surprise that I don't miss him at all. Fans of the series deeply philosophical and intellectual musings on love will at least find that Mountolive spends a good portion of the novel pining after the Housani brothers' mom Leila (not really a spoiler since they get together in the beginning of this book) which has the novelty of the May-December aspect of it but it also never threatens to take over the story like everyone's fixation with Justine almost did in the first half.
In fact, this one is much more plot oriented, almost to an absurd degree when contrasted with what we've already gone through. Much like the first half, it takes place around the same events we've previously encountered but from a different perspective so that what we thought we knew before gets recontextualized. And it turns out the context is all kinds of political, with the Housani brothers perhaps involved in some shady arms dealings that Mountolive and company have to get to the bottom of, if there is a bottom to anything is hazy, moderately corrupt Alexandria.
Maybe I'm a cynical soul with no sense of love within my heart but I found the novel overall more engaging than the first half's focus on whether Darley can choose between sensible Melissa and wild Justine, like an adult version of Betty and Veronica . . . audiences at the time weren't pleased at the shift but even the scenes showcasing Mountolive's gradual working his way back to Alexandria have more of a forward momentum than anything else we've seen so far, showing us the events that we witnessed through Darley's literal yet lust drenched filter to be shades of a far more dangerous game being played.
And once it becomes clear that something is up, all the maneuvering becomes vastly more interesting. Pursewarden sort of justifies his placement in the novel as more than local color and someone else to have an opinion on Justine while scenes of Mountolive having to deal with the intricacies of both the British and Egyptian governments in order to get anything done reminds you why the British take so much pleasure in crafting sitcom after sitcom that makes fun of their own system of government. Its probably not going to read as pulse pounding for people raised on James Bond movies but as someone who watched the entire "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" miniseries, descriptions of British civil servants combing through massive files looking for hints is about as close as I get to a certain kind of comfort food.
Frankly, the more political it gets the more interesting it gets and married with Durrell's continued gift for painting stunning images with prose (everyone goes nuts over the camel slaughtering scene but for my money the best image is Narouz practicing with his whip at dusk, surrounded by all the dead and dying bodies of bats he's sliced out of the air) it remains a much more memorable experience than the first two novels, which are more sensory but fleeting in feel. Events have an extra weight, characters act like people and not romanticized myths, and everyone's motivations are a lot grubbier and thus a bit easier to swallow. As everyone maneuvers with the Egyptian government to see things their way (the Pasha's method of accepting bribes is hilarious enough that its probably true) it honest to goodness achieves a climax of sorts as nobody seems to get what they want but everyone wins anyway, setting for the stage for time to finally move forward in "Clea." Whether that will continue the political stuff or take us back to the examination of love in all its forms is something I'll find out shortly. Still, its nearly pointless to read it without reading "Justine" and "Balthazar" since most of its power comes from seeing what we've been previously told upended and the broader focus may turn off people who were reeled in by the more sensual stuff. I was probably so pleasantly surprised that I'm perhaps overrating it slightly and other people may find that by trying to balance the earlier approach with a spy novel atmosphere, it does a disservice to both genres by not fully committing but for me that's what made it feel unique and the closest this series gets to a page turner, even if it is measured, thoughtful, considered page turning.
February 25, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in July 2005.
The third novel of the Alexandria Quartet may cover the same events for a third time, but it is quite different from both Justine and Balthazar. Mountolive moves away from the first person narrative by a young poet (whose name, we learn, is Darley, significantly similar to Durrell). It is replaced by a third person tale which mainly follows the point of view of Mountolive, a much older man and British ambassador to Egypt just before the war - a man of huge influence after Egypt had been virtually a British colony for much of the preceding half century. The earlier novels concentrated on Darley's affair with Justine, wife of wealthy Coptic merchant Nessim. While this is almost incidental, Mountolive had a similar affair with Nessim's mother while he was a young man, and this is where this novel begins, with what is effectively a long prologue. However, though the memory of this time is still strongly emotive to Mountolive, his concern with Justine and Nessim is more political, for they are suspected of working with Zionist groups in Palestine in anti-British, anti-Arab terrorism there.
This overtly political side to the plot, which almost puts Mountolive into the thriller genre (the style is too slow moving to allow this), is new in the Quartet. Even the Antrobus stories, which are set in the diplomatic corps, have nothing of this sort (being mainly concerned with humour derived from protocol disasters). However, Durrell witnessed at first hand some of the debacles attendant on the dismantling of the British Empire (his experience in Cyprus being documented in Bitter Lemons), and it is not surprising that a book which appeared at the same time as the Suez Crisis, even if not set at the time, should bring to mind some of the political chaos of the period.
In the last fifty years, John le Carré, Len Deighton and a host of imitators have made careers as thriller writers through books about betrayal and how it feels to suspect a friend. Durrell does much the same, in a way, though his characters have no desire to investigate; they want to find out as little as possible, in the hope - and belief - that the suspicions will prove to be groundless. (This inactivity is one of the main reasons that Mountolive can never be classed as a thriller.) This, of course, also gives an insight into the events at the time a few years before the book was written, the days when the treachery of Philby, Burgess and Maclean became known.
As Justine (who was not a native Egyptian) is partly a symbol of Alexandria, so Nessim's mother in her turn is something of a symbol for Egypt as a whole. In this respect, Chapter XV, in which Mountolive finally meets Leila again, is really the key to the novel. The reality is that Leila's beauty, so vividly remembered, has been ravaged by small pox and age, to the extent that even close up he does not recognise her. The meeeting is immediately followed by a deliberate attempt on the part of Mountolive to re-establish the romantic mystique of Egypt in his mind - Leila's symbolic role is apparent even to the other characters in the novel.
Mountolive and Darley also have symbolic roles to play - Mountolive is British involvement in Egyptian affairs, and Darley is the literary interest in Alexandria. Once you begin to see characters as having wider significance, it is hard to stop assigning such roles to them; the answer is of course to always think about whether doing so adds to the interest of the novel. Characters like Pursewarden and Melissa only have parts to play in relation to Darley or Justine, so even though they are more important characters in terms of the Quartet as a work of fiction, they are not really symbols in the same way as the ones already mentioned.
The earlier novels both have interesting endpieces, as does the final part, Clea; Mountolive has none at all. This has the effect of underlining the finality of the novel: this is the last re-examining of these events (Clea picks up the story of the main characters again some years later), and there is no useful purpose in another collection of bons mots or impressionistic notes; Durrell no longer wants the reader to constantly re-evaluate what has gone before. In some ways, Clea is the end-paper to Mountolive, as well as rounding off the whole Quartet.
The third novel of the Alexandria Quartet may cover the same events for a third time, but it is quite different from both Justine and Balthazar. Mountolive moves away from the first person narrative by a young poet (whose name, we learn, is Darley, significantly similar to Durrell). It is replaced by a third person tale which mainly follows the point of view of Mountolive, a much older man and British ambassador to Egypt just before the war - a man of huge influence after Egypt had been virtually a British colony for much of the preceding half century. The earlier novels concentrated on Darley's affair with Justine, wife of wealthy Coptic merchant Nessim. While this is almost incidental, Mountolive had a similar affair with Nessim's mother while he was a young man, and this is where this novel begins, with what is effectively a long prologue. However, though the memory of this time is still strongly emotive to Mountolive, his concern with Justine and Nessim is more political, for they are suspected of working with Zionist groups in Palestine in anti-British, anti-Arab terrorism there.
This overtly political side to the plot, which almost puts Mountolive into the thriller genre (the style is too slow moving to allow this), is new in the Quartet. Even the Antrobus stories, which are set in the diplomatic corps, have nothing of this sort (being mainly concerned with humour derived from protocol disasters). However, Durrell witnessed at first hand some of the debacles attendant on the dismantling of the British Empire (his experience in Cyprus being documented in Bitter Lemons), and it is not surprising that a book which appeared at the same time as the Suez Crisis, even if not set at the time, should bring to mind some of the political chaos of the period.
In the last fifty years, John le Carré, Len Deighton and a host of imitators have made careers as thriller writers through books about betrayal and how it feels to suspect a friend. Durrell does much the same, in a way, though his characters have no desire to investigate; they want to find out as little as possible, in the hope - and belief - that the suspicions will prove to be groundless. (This inactivity is one of the main reasons that Mountolive can never be classed as a thriller.) This, of course, also gives an insight into the events at the time a few years before the book was written, the days when the treachery of Philby, Burgess and Maclean became known.
As Justine (who was not a native Egyptian) is partly a symbol of Alexandria, so Nessim's mother in her turn is something of a symbol for Egypt as a whole. In this respect, Chapter XV, in which Mountolive finally meets Leila again, is really the key to the novel. The reality is that Leila's beauty, so vividly remembered, has been ravaged by small pox and age, to the extent that even close up he does not recognise her. The meeeting is immediately followed by a deliberate attempt on the part of Mountolive to re-establish the romantic mystique of Egypt in his mind - Leila's symbolic role is apparent even to the other characters in the novel.
Mountolive and Darley also have symbolic roles to play - Mountolive is British involvement in Egyptian affairs, and Darley is the literary interest in Alexandria. Once you begin to see characters as having wider significance, it is hard to stop assigning such roles to them; the answer is of course to always think about whether doing so adds to the interest of the novel. Characters like Pursewarden and Melissa only have parts to play in relation to Darley or Justine, so even though they are more important characters in terms of the Quartet as a work of fiction, they are not really symbols in the same way as the ones already mentioned.
The earlier novels both have interesting endpieces, as does the final part, Clea; Mountolive has none at all. This has the effect of underlining the finality of the novel: this is the last re-examining of these events (Clea picks up the story of the main characters again some years later), and there is no useful purpose in another collection of bons mots or impressionistic notes; Durrell no longer wants the reader to constantly re-evaluate what has gone before. In some ways, Clea is the end-paper to Mountolive, as well as rounding off the whole Quartet.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 302 reviews