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Ariel Evans

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Ariel Evans is currently reading

Deep Storage: Collecting, Storing and Archiving in Art

by Siemens Kulturprogramm

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Jun 22, 2009 11:46AM

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The Portable Dorothy Parker

by Dorothy Parker

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read in April 2009

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Ariel Evans said: " If somebody had described Parker's book to me I wouldn't have bothered reading it. Given how I would try to describe it, I would've figured the book arch and forcedly witty, set it back on the bookshelf and forgotten about it. That's what I did for a ...more "

Apr 19, 2009 06:55AM · see review

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The Alexandria Quartet (The Alexandria Quartet, #1-4)

by Lawrence Durrell

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Ariel Evans said: " The Alexandria Quartet is so well-written that for me to write about Durrell's tetrology seems sacrilege; I feel as the proverbial bull in the china shop must've. But the reviews here on Goodreads--at least the ones I've read so far--don't say much a The Alexandria Quartet is so well-written that for me to write about Durrell's tetrology seems sacrilege; I feel as the proverbial bull in the china shop must've. But the reviews here on Goodreads--at least the ones I've read so far--don't say much about what I love about this series, so I throw my hat in the ring anyway:

The amazing thing about Durrell's masterpiece is that it comes as close to collage as I've ever seen in a novel. Narrated by a self-exiled writer living on a small island in the Aegean, Justine (the first book in the series), is the writer's manuscript and meditation on his former life in Alexandria and the events that led up to his current seclusion. The writer's name, which I will use for clarity, is Darley, but this is not revealed until at least the third book in the quartet, which I have not gotten to reread yet. Balthazar (book 2), begins when Darley's Alexandrine friend Balthazar returns with his own interlinear of Darley's manuscript, which reveals more complicated perspectives and relationships than Darley had been privy to: it is the story began in Justine retold through the memories of two people.

As I said, I haven't read Mountolive (book 3) or Clea yet. I understand, however, that Mountolive again retells the same events; it is only in Clea that the narrative moves forward in time. On wikipedia--and this is a well-accepted interpretation of the series--it says:

As Durrell explains in his preface to Balthazar, the four novels are an exploration of relativity and the notions of continuum and subject-object relation, with modern love as the subject. ... In a 1959 Paris Review interview[1:], Durrell described the ideas behind the Quartet in terms of a convergence of Eastern and Western metaphysics, based on Einstein's overturning of the old view of the material universe, and Freud's doing the same for the concept of stable personalities, yielding a new concept of reality.

The multilayeredness of The Alexandria Quartet comes out of the winding and unwinding of the narratives, but also out of the depth Durrell gives to his characters and their setting. Telling their lives through multiple viewpoints, each person and place feels more real--it is a book that extends into the life of its readers. At the same time, every attempt to grasp the book and hold it in the mind eludes me; just at its most "real, it is at its most illusory. , just as Durrell describes his titular city, is a mirage.

Addendum: getting to the end of the book, I am becoming annoyed by Durrell's orientalism and sexism. ...more "

Apr 09, 2009 02:50PM · see review

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