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Clea

(Alexandria Quartet #4)

Lawrence Durrell

4.18 · Rating details · 2,412 ratings · 193 reviews

The magnificent final volume of one of the most widely acclaimed fictional masterpieces of the postwar era.

Few books have been awaited as eagerly as Clea, the sensuous and electrically suspenseful novel that resolves the enigmas of the Alexandria Quartet. Some years and one world war was after his bizarre liaisons with Melissa and Justine, the Irish �migr� Darley becomes e ...more

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Paperback, 288 pages

Published July 12th 1991 by Penguin Group (first published 1960)

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Not Just Yet. Egypt 2011 by Mohamed Abdel-Maksoud

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Dec 24, 2020 Edita rated it really liked it

Shelves: lawrence-durrell

Would it not, I wondered, be wiser to stay where I was? Perhaps. Yet I knew I must go. Indeed this very night I should be gone! The thought itself was so hard to grasp that I was forced to whisper it aloud to myself.
*
Dawn was breaking among the olives, silvering their still leaves.
*
How could I help but think of the past towards which we were returning across the dense thickets of time, across the familiar pathways of the Greek sea? The night slid past me, an unrolling ribbon of darkness. The wa
Would it not, I wondered, be wiser to stay where I was? Perhaps. Yet I knew I must go. Indeed this very night I should be gone! The thought itself was so hard to grasp that I was forced to whisper it aloud to myself.
*
Dawn was breaking among the olives, silvering their still leaves.
*
How could I help but think of the past towards which we were returning across the dense thickets of time, across the familiar pathways of the Greek sea? The night slid past me, an unrolling ribbon of darkness. The warm sea-wind brushed my cheek — soft as the brush of a fox. Between sleep and waking I lay, feeling the tug of memory’s heavy plumb-line: tug of the leaf-veined city which my memory had peopled with masks, malign and beautiful at once.
*
‘Yet the truth’ I said ‘is that I feel no resentment for the past. On the contrary I am full of gratitude because an experience which was perhaps banal in itself (even disgusting for you) was for me immeasurably enriching!’
*
But now, then, tell me — which of us was the greater liar? I cheated you, you cheated yourself.
*
Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.’
*
I wasn’t sure that the cycle would really change, I didn’t know how much you had or hadn’t changed yourself. You are such a bloody correspondent I hadn’t any way of judging about your inside state of mind. Such a long time since you wrote, isn’t it?
*
But I am aware the test may come under any guise, perhaps even in the physical world by a blow between the eyes or a few lines scribbled in pencil on the back of an envelope left in a café. The heraldic reality can strike from any point, above or below: it is not particular. But without it the enigma will remain. You may travel round the world and colonize the ends of the earth with your lines and yet never hear the singing yourself.
*
Yes, one day I found myself writing down with trembling fingers the four words (four letters! four faces!) with which every story-teller since the world began has staked his slender claim to the attention of his fellow-men. Words which presage simply the old story of an artist coming of age. I wrote: ‘Once upon a time….’
And I felt as if the whole universe had given me a nudge! ...more

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Mar 01, 2014 Paul rated it really liked it

Shelves: the-durrells

The final part of the Quartet and it’s been a wonderful journey. Not quite as strong, I thought, as the other three. It is set about seven years later. Darley has been living on a Greek island looking after Melissa’s daughter (with Nessim). Balthasar arrives with information and writing from the late Pursewarden. Many of the aps from the previous novels are filled in.
Darley returns to Alexandria, reuniting Nessim with his daughter. He bumps into Clea and begins a romantic relationship with her. ...more

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Aug 18, 2020 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own, location-egypt, read2020, around-the-world, readingenvysummerreading, middle-east-2020

Over ten years ago, I read the first book of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. This summer I read books 3 & 4. Clea is the final book of the quartet and takes some of the characters' stories to their conclusions, and reveals hidden truths of others. Clea herself is more of a focus and serves as Darley's connector back to Alexandria, even if it has grown more sordid with the war.

As always the writing is astounding even if I had to look up all the French and many of the English words. Du Over ten years ago, I read the first book of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell. This summer I read books 3 & 4. Clea is the final book of the quartet and takes some of the characters' stories to their conclusions, and reveals hidden truths of others. Clea herself is more of a focus and serves as Darley's connector back to Alexandria, even if it has grown more sordid with the war.

As always the writing is astounding even if I had to look up all the French and many of the English words. Durrell always manages to capture the mood of heightened importance many of the characters possess and the distinctions between people because of their backgrounds. This book is a bit of a conglomoration of other texts - the journal and letters of Pursewarden, a satisfying letter from Leila that changes some of the previous volume, the poetry of Cavafy, quotes from characters in previous books of the same quartet (is it pretentious for Durrell to quote himself? I don't know. It adds a feeling of nostalgia but I liked those passages when I first encountered them best; they don't belong to this volume as such.)

The city has changed, but colonialism lives on as Darley and friends continue to make love and go drinking as the harbor is bombed. It's quite unnerving, actually, how sheltered they believe themselves to be (whereas Justine and Nessim are virtually in hiding and are only in the background.) Clea's determination to carry on despite the changes in the city and the increased danger struck a chord with me, as it feels similar to our ongoing pandemic living situations.

"I always believed that a love of human beings would flower more strongly out of a common misfortune. It isn't true... To be here, just the two of us, sitting by candle-light is almost a miracle in such a world. You can't blame me for trying to hoard and protect it against the intrusive world outside, can you?"

And Darley thinks to himself, "...from the depths of my own inner selfishness I was glad of these external pressures, for they circumscribed our world perfectly, penned us up more closely together, isolated us!"

And that's the completion of a formerly unfinished series or book sets for the Reading Envy Summer Reading challenge - to finish a series. ...more

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Mar 16, 2015 Ian "Marvin" Graye rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews-4-stars, read-2015, reviews, durrell

This Precious Image

"Mountolive", the third volume in "The Alexandria Quartet", initially alienated me, but totally turned me around.

"Clea" started in the same manner, but more patient this time, I let it work its magic. It fell into place much more quickly, and the rewards came sooner as well.

Initially, I wondered whether it might be a grab bag of ideas and impressions stitched together as an afterthought to what might otherwise have constituted a trilogy.

Even if it had been conceived of as ...more

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Sep 28, 2018 Darwin8u rated it really liked it

Shelves: british, fiction, 2018

Will review tomorrow.

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Jun 09, 2008 David rated it really liked it

After an absence of 7 years or so we return to Alexandria during the last year of WWII with the reliable Darley as narrator. It seems that Durrell actually intends to give us some resolution to this multi-faceted story, so we revisit the same cast of characters, some now dead, some forever altered ..it's difficult to even conjure up the first impressions I had of this exotic bunch.

Of course, the emotional thrust of the story revolves around Clea, someone that we've only met obliquely in the earl ...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Judy rated it liked it

Recommends it for: lovers of great literature

Shelves: 20th-century-fiction, books-from-1960

Sadly, I have come to the end of The Alexandria Quartet*. It has been a revelatory reading experience and I now see why this dated collection is still read, praised, even loved.

I found Clea the weakest of the four, perhaps because Durrell is winding down, as is the historic city of Alexandria. (These days it is considered an unsafe location for tourists.) During the time covered by Clea, the British Empire's heyday is coming to a close. In his inimitable way, Durrell infuses all of this into a s ...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Julia rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels, part-of-a-set

Last of the Alexandria Quartet. I've quoted from the other three, so here's a bit of Clea: "A phrase of Pursewarden's came into my mind as I softly closed the door of the ward. 'The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.' "

Individually, any of the four is a gem. Altogether, the Quartet is magnificent. I don't love, or even like, Elizabeth Gilbert, but I read a quote of hers a bit ago about listening in a college freshman English class to some dude saying how Harper Lee wa ...more

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Apr 26, 2015 Jonfaith rated it liked it

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

Wow, I didn't expect such a sudden dislike. Allow me to retreat to my hutch to scratch together a review. ...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Alan rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Hard-nosed nostalgia buffs, bleeding hearts and artists and other such scum

Recommended to Alan by: Clayton W.; previous and subsequent work; the Paradox Book Store in Wheeling, WV

Clea is the fourth and final installment of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. If you have not already done so, you should read the others—in sequence—before starting this one. I toyed with the notion of reading these out of order myself, but in the end I'm glad I stuck with the way Durrell presented them. And if you thought perhaps Durrell would run out of material after writing three other books on the same subjects... quite the contrary; there are many revelations here, events not visible ...more

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Jul 17, 2010 Angie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

To finally have finished the fourth in this amazing quartet of books feels like a journey of sorts.

I have really adored being emersed in the lives of this group of individuals, thrown together through public and political life in a backdrop of exotic Egyptian locations and traditions starting in the romantic 1930's through to wartime. The contrast between the British characters: Mountolive, Darley, Pursewarden and others, (many eccentric tales there), to the Egyptian wealthy socialites ,wealthy To finally have finished the fourth in this amazing quartet of books feels like a journey of sorts.

I have really adored being emersed in the lives of this group of individuals, thrown together through public and political life in a backdrop of exotic Egyptian locations and traditions starting in the romantic 1930's through to wartime. The contrast between the British characters: Mountolive, Darley, Pursewarden and others, (many eccentric tales there), to the Egyptian wealthy socialites ,wealthy landowners and dignitaries such as Justine and Nessim; characters they grow to know, love and interact with was interestingly portrayed.

This book follows the pattern of the previous three in that many passages branch off to tell stories of each of the characters, often not related to the flow of the plot but which fill out your knowledge of their complete selves and how they fit into the sequence of events. You can then look at each of them in a different way, when reading of the their progression and how their lives intertwine, often with tragic and unpredictable outcomes. Much of the book is concerned with the tangled sexual and artistic lives of the characters and their passionate affairs with each other. At the close, the feeling of time having passed and events having changed their futures and impressions of each other are felt as they move on to the next phases of their lives.

The near catastrophic climax of this 4th part dramatically unfolded in unexpected ways, the culmination of the narrator's (Darley) time before returning to Europe. Seeing this through to the end has highlighted that each individual book is only a step towards this point, another aspect of the story, sometimes told by other characters, (like links in a chain) the end of the whole read, and I think you have to plough all 4 to appreciate the work in its entirety.

Ploughing through it is a good way to describe it as it hasn't been an easy read overall, often very dense in parts (I really think you would either love or hate it), however, above all it is the writing and the way in which Durrell paints his evocative, sensual world of Alexandria in that glorious era, is the overriding joy and reward of these books. The writing is breathtaking throughout and it has been an immensely enjoyable and challenging reading experience for me over this summer - one which I think will be hard to follow (and one I may well repeat in the future). ...more

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Jan 07, 2013 John David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-fiction, favorites

“Clea,” the fourth volume of Lawrence Durrell’s “Alexandria Quartet,” opens with several years having passed since the events of the first three volumes. Darley, the narrator, is living on a Greek island with the six-year-old illegitimate daughter Nessim fathered with Melissa. After running into Balthazar and his Inter-Linear, he eventually heads off for Alexandria again with the child, full of both trepidation and anticipation about the past and the people he knew there.

When Darley arrives in A ...more

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Nov 01, 2018 Czarny Pies rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: Those who have read the first three books.

Shelves: english-lit

Whereas the first volumes of the Alexandra Quartet begin with a quotation from "Justine" by the Marquis de Sade, Clea starts with a quote from a different work by de Sade. It is as thoroughly sadistic as the first three volumes and equally enjoyable.

Individually, the novels are all dreadful. Together they are quite outstanding. They do however need to be read together over a fairly short period of time. ...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Feliks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: brit-lit-modern, favorites-all-time

There are four volumes in Lawrence Durrell's sumptuous, stupendous narrative experiment ("Alexandria Quartet') and taken as a whole, they will astound any sensitive reader. It is a one-of-a-kind literary experience which amply deserves all the sensation and renown which surrounded its original release.

Durrell: erudite, wordy, perspicacious, sensitive. Writes with supreme adroitness towards both female and male characters. This particular experiment of his is the very last word in the psychology There are four volumes in Lawrence Durrell's sumptuous, stupendous narrative experiment ("Alexandria Quartet') and taken as a whole, they will astound any sensitive reader. It is a one-of-a-kind literary experience which amply deserves all the sensation and renown which surrounded its original release.

Durrell: erudite, wordy, perspicacious, sensitive. Writes with supreme adroitness towards both female and male characters. This particular experiment of his is the very last word in the psychology of love and of people in love. For descriptions of how people in love torment each other, come here. Its probably the best since Stendhal.

Look, you lazy fans of romance or historical fiction; get your act together. Stop following today's 'slob-lit' trends. Toss out Harlequins, throw away those Nicholas Sparks. Stop the baby-spoon-fed lit. Try Durrell. Meanwhile, you readers with a taste for exotic lands and cultures--you can and should plunge into this one succinct concoction and realize just how you are wasting your time with today's cheap HBO-fantasy-series.

Folks, TAQ is challenging, psychologically-realistic literature as well as sensually gratifying. Durrell strokes your cerebellum as well as your perineum. The two pleasures *can* intermesh. Literature can be salacious and brazen and slutty and drunken --and still blinding, blazing, stunning, and fine.

Technique: Durrell is dab. He didn't just tell his story in A---->B---->C style. It would have been impressive enough if he had done just that--but no. Durrell was so technically confident that he takes his group of intertwined British expatriates and wrote each volume from a different angle on the events they all communally experienced. It's an 'origami'-crafted story; a 'Moebius-strip' story; everything is relayed from a different angle; and yet the same angle at all times.

Durrell writes his love tale with multiple characters which twists-around-on-itself. You can pick up any 1-of-the-4 volumes in the quartet--at any page, and its the same starting-and-ending point. Do you have any idea how difficult this might have been to accomplish? Difficult for anyone but Durrell. This kind of audacity though, infused the literature of that long-ago day. Today, no one--no mass-market author of our times--could even attempt this.

Now. This particular novel to which my TAQ review is tied--'Clea'. 'Clea' is the finest episode in the quartet, to my way of thinking. 'Clea' is a vivid and unforgettable character. Each reader must and shall form their own image of her; but howsoever you imagine her, she is a uniquely intense fictional wraith which will remind you of what great literature can do. As far as female characters in fiction are concerned, for me she is 'it'. I've never felt more for any literary character. Never seen one so well drawn. Of course, you can't actually see her, she is only outlined in words; but as you read you will find her developing into one of the most gorgeous girls you've ever encountered. The force of her femininity alone.

Inches away from your face, is her face. Durrell brings you as close to her as you might possibly ever get to anyone: you become acutely aware of even beads of sweat on her skin, the rustle of her sleeves, the way she holds her cup; the lilt in her phrases; the tilt of her head.

Clea is a painter; she is in Egypt to paint but also to love. She is rather sensitive but private about it. Rather slight and frail physically, (but doesn't admit it). Her limbs are wispy and slender; her skin white and chaste; but she has a greedy sexuality. She is entangled very unsatisfactorily between several men. Nessim adores Clea but she can't see him. Clea is in love with Pursewarden (a fellow expat who I imagine looks very much like actor Dirk Bogarde). Inexplicably, he shuns her.

Clea's only real strength is the power with which she loves. It puts her at such a disadvantage; its unnerving how vulnerable she becomes over the course of the story. This is what makes this book the best of the whole quartet. You start to feel anxious for her; as she stumbles and falters and erodes. Her devotion is awesome and proud and strong; where does she get it?

As Pursewarden begins to treat her with his typical callousness and brusqueness, you shudder when she refuses to flinch; you wince in her place while she remains poised. Clea is panting and dehydrated and near-beaten by sunstroke and dry desert heat. Creeping her way down a cobblestone street in Alexandria; feeling her way along the wall with her hands. That's how I last remember her. Chic, blonde, French haircut; a very tiny mouth; and a pencil skirt tied 'round the waist with a sash. Little blind Clea... ...more

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Aug 04, 2012 James rated it it was ok

Without question the weakest volume of the Quartet. I thought it had a really pointless, tacked-on, Godfather III quality. Durrell admitted in a Paris Review interview that he had a tendency to procrastinate and then work really quickly when he found himself in severe financial straits. "Ideally, had I not been short of money, I would have written the four, and matched them properly, because there are still quite a lot of discrepancies which will have to be tidied up if the thing is gathered. Bu ...more

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Sep 04, 2020 Julie Iskander rated it it was amazing

To me this is my most favorable of the four books. It is the best.
Clea, Darley and Balthazar are so developed and the pain of something missing that I always felt in the other three books ends here, I find my peace with this book. Love is so peaceful and inspiring, no more confusing and hurtful. Love is hopeful and patient

“The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.”

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May 01, 2016 Roger Brunyate rated it liked it

Shelves: ww2, africa

Incestuous

[NOTE: This review is intended for people who have read at least the first three volumes of The Alexandria Quartet. I do not recommend starting the series with Clea, and these notes will not be helpful to those that do.]

Lawrence Durrell set himself a huge challenge in his Alexandria Quartet: three volumes looking at the same events from different angles, and a fourth that would extend the story forward in time; he intended it as an analogy to the three dimensions of space and the one o Incestuous

[NOTE: This review is intended for people who have read at least the first three volumes of The Alexandria Quartet. I do not recommend starting the series with Clea, and these notes will not be helpful to those that do.]

Lawrence Durrell set himself a huge challenge in his Alexandria Quartet: three volumes looking at the same events from different angles, and a fourth that would extend the story forward in time; he intended it as an analogy to the three dimensions of space and the one of time. I had found it a little difficult to get into the first volume, Justine, because the combination of the almost incestuous doings of a cosmopolitan coterie in Alexandria in the late 1930s, coupled with Durrell's perfumed prose, was too exotic a cocktail for me at first. But by the end of the first volume, I was wanting more, and read its successors, Balthazar and especially Mountolive, with increasing enjoyment. There only remained this fourth novel, Clea, to complete the story and make a fitting capstone to the whole impressive edifice. Unfortunately, I feel it fails to live up to the challenge.

After the clarity of the third-person narrative of Mountolive, it was a shock to return to the author's own voice once again—or rather that of Darley, as the writer calls himself in the novels. Durrell still writes well; there is a marvelous set piece early in the book when he approaches Alexandria by sea during a wartime blackout, only to have it suddenly appear out of the darkness in the flare of searchlights, tracer bullets, and incendiary bombs. But I found myself resisting the cloying atmosphere and verbal navel-gazing that I had thought were a thing of the past. I am sure this is deliberate, though; when Darley again meets Justine, his siren from the first novel, she has spilt a bottle of perfume over herself, and the entire encounter is bathed in its almost nauseating aroma. The scene is a pair for the one at the end of Mountolive when David finally sees Leila again; Durrell's characters, it seems, cannot just revisit former loves and part as friends; there needs to be an additional twist of the knife as well.

For the most part, the promise to carry the story forward in time takes the form of "Whatever happened to so-and-so?" I am reminded of sitting in on my mother's tea-parties as a child, hearing her catch up with news of old friends from school or college days, people that meant nothing to me. True, we have met all these characters in the earlier books, but Mountolive in particular has brought them into the light of the real world; I find myself no longer interested in re-entering the darkness of their self-obsessions. And so much of this catching-up is handled obliquely: we hear stories passed on by a third person; we read long confessional letters; no less than three separate people, apparently endowed with the power of ventriloquism, give imitations of the dead Scobie, telling tall stories in his voice. Only a very few characters are allowed to speak directly of their experiences, and remarkably little happens in this book that is new—though when something does, in the swimming party near the end, Durrell at least equals the exciting climaxes of his other novels.

Durrell said that he wanted to explore the many varieties of love. As though to swell the catalogue, Mountolive has a brief mention of incest, which is picked up again here. Not in much detail or with any prurience (or very believably either), but that is relatively unimportant. For it is a perfect symbol for a book that is itself incestuous. There is a long excursus in the middle of the book ostensibly taken from the journals of the novelist Pursewarden, in which he describes his impressions of Darley. From the beginning, I felt that this figure was introduced as a slightly comic alter ego for the writer, and indeed he propounds many of the theories that Durrell himself attempts in the Quartet. Mountolive achieves the feat of pulling Pursewarden out of comedy and giving him true stature as an individual. But the Darley of Clea returns to a lesser avatar of Pursewarden, as a kind of fun-house mirror for himself. So we have a thirty-page passage of one writer dissecting another, both alter-egos of the author. How's that for navel-gazing? What is it if not incestuous?

It is incestuous, too, for an author to manipulate his characters instead of letting the story be driven by their personalities; there is an arbitrary quality to most of the resolutions here. Even the central relationship between Darley and Clea seems to come about too easily, rather than as the product of the interplay of personalities revealed in this novel; and when the relationship later encounters difficulty, that too is largely arbitrary and unexplained. As for the rest, it is as though Durrell lined up his characters like pieces on a board, saying "Let's see, who have I not yet paired with whom?" Indeed, in an appendix entitled "Workpoints," Durrell offers further character combinations that the reader can develop for himself if he cares to do so. The author, it seems, has become a mere gamesman. A pity, for this great undertaking had promised so much more. ...more

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Sep 27, 2020 Eric rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

The Alexandria Quartet goes immediately into my favorites list.

As you read these four novels, your perspective changes constantly, as you find out that things you regarded as true, weren't. Darley is the main point of view character for three of the novels, but other points of view are filled in through letters and other documents.

I'll miss all these characters: Darley, Justine, Nessim, Narouz, Clea, Mountolive, Balhazar, Leila, Pursewarden, etc. Even the more comic background characters like Sc ...more

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Oct 22, 2020 Jill Bowman rated it really liked it

The more I read this Quartet the more I like it. I’ll reserve my review because soon I’ll be starting over with Justine. I’m looking forward to it. I think I’ll enjoy it more this time.

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Aug 09, 2017 Ana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016-tbr

An amazing book and whole tetralogy! I wish more people would read this liberating non-judgemental book about personal life juxtaposed with war and history.

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Jul 05, 2011 Christopher Sutch rated it really liked it

It's difficult to articulate the incredible achievement Durrell has produced with the Alexandria Quartet, and this, the final novel and, in many ways, key to the series. As Durrell noted in the introduction to the second volume, _Balthazar_, his overall plan was based on the four-dimensional space of Einsteinian relativity physics, and this last volume, indeed, introduces, explicitly, the effects of time into Durrell's narrative, including all the ramifications time represents for interpersonal ...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Jesse rated it really liked it

so i have spent the last 6 months or so reading the alexandria quartet with my girlfriend and at the moment, i am a good third of the way through volume three in terms of a close read with extensive notes. i don't plan on writing a full review, but do plan on writing an essay on durrell's plagiarism - as i have hunted down a good half dozen, and counting, sources that he filched from. i also wanna try and understand why durrell did this and whether the quartet should be seen in a different light ...more

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Jul 20, 2013 Lori rated it it was amazing

At first this final book in the series didn't hold up as much as the other 3 because requited love can be boring compared to the angst of requited. But oh! how lovely to settle into that flush of union of spirits and Durrell's poetry captures that transcendence. Plus it's vital to the complete series and the horror the soul experiences as it tries to assimilate the hate and ugliness of war. I only keep books that I love. And are worth rereading and while I doubt I will do that in its entirety - ...more

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May 10, 2020 Thomas rated it liked it

Shelves: literary-fiction

El Scob gets a shrine, and almost every other character loses an eye or a limb. (Justine has a droopy eye from a bit of stroke, so she makes the grade.) The concluding fourth volume continues in the same vaguely adolescent vein, swooning its way past Alexandria to the delta. Durrell is a marvelous writer, especially when the tone turns comical. Despite its operatic tendencies, I enjoyed this series.

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May 17, 2020 Lauren rated it it was amazing

I think this has been my favorite of the Alexandria Quartet,i can see why he had to write this, the characters are beyond beyond so quirky and odd so completely mad they would have to be put in books or be painted. I know it`s a novel but very much about Durrells life in Egypt the crazy assortments of ex pats who lived there bohemian lives right on the edge. Such writing its very dense reading and so poetic i like a challenging read it has been quite an assignment i undertook reading this quarte ...more

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Dec 28, 2009 Kristin rated it really liked it

http://kristinsbookblog.blogspot.com/...

Clea – the fourth (and final) installment in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet – returns us to the narrative style of Balthazar, and picks up where it left off.

At the conclusion of Balthazar, Darley receives a letter from Clea, though since I read that novel almost a year ago I don’t have any recollection what that letter was about. But anyway, it was enough to prompt Darley, who had been living on an island with Nessim & Melissa’s daughter, to return http://kristinsbookblog.blogspot.com/...

Clea – the fourth (and final) installment in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet – returns us to the narrative style of Balthazar, and picks up where it left off.

At the conclusion of Balthazar, Darley receives a letter from Clea, though since I read that novel almost a year ago I don’t have any recollection what that letter was about. But anyway, it was enough to prompt Darley, who had been living on an island with Nessim & Melissa’s daughter, to return to Alexandria.

Everything is different in Alexandria. The war is on, and places that used to be apartments are now brothels servicing the various military men that are all over the city. Justine is in exile, under house arrest for her role in the Hosnani Brothers arms smuggling deal. Mountolive has picked up with Pursewarden’s blind sister, Liza. Pombal, Darley’s former roommate, has a pregnant girlfriend whose husband is on the front, and then was taken prisoner (Pombal is not the father – her husband is). Balthazar was beaten up by his younger boyfriend and became a recluse, though he reenters society early in the story. Da Capo really is alive, as I had suspected. Scobie is now an unofficial saint.

Shortly after his return, Darley and Clea begin an affair, though to me, it only seems like a reshuffling. After all, she is the only female left from the core group presented in Justine, and I cannot help but feel that there is a lack of genuine feeling here – or really throughout the entire Quartet. The only real passion anyone appears to have has been for Justine. And perhaps Mountolive for Leila – or Leila for Mountolive.

I’m finding it difficult to summarize Clea, since this novel felt less like its own narrative – by which I mean it did not really contribute much new information to the story – and more like a wrapping up. Here’s all the characters moving on – perhaps symbolized best in the burning of Purswarden’s letters to Liza. The only organizing theme appears to be boat accidents. Pombal’s girlfriend is shot and killed during a disagreement between a naval crew (blockade?) and Pombal. Clea is harpooned while diving when the harpoon gun on board goes off and spears her to a wreck underwater.

I was sitting at my hairdresser’s waiting for my dye job to bake (or whatever it is that hair dye actually does - dry? absorb?) when I read the “Clea gets harpooned” scene. It was then that I suddenly realized how emotionally invested I am with these characters, in the same manner (though to a lesser degree) that I felt connect to Nick Jenkins & Co. from A Dance to the Music of Time. I felt like someone punched me in the chest. There were probably five or six hairdresser’s each working on their clients, and someone had brought in a dog, so there was a lot of commotion, and I almost felt compelled to ask for the proper respect to be paid to Clea – it felt as if I had just received word that someone I actually knew had been harpooned, and might die (she doesn’t). I hadn’t felt that Darley and Clea were going to live happily ever after (“And now this!”), nor did I particularly have any feeling regarding how I wanted any of the characters to end up, but I just felt so terrible. I was awash with relief and hope when they were able to save her. Though I have thoroughly enjoyed these novels, the thought never even crossed my mind that I might actually care about these people to some degree until then.

In the end, Darley leaves (again!) – and everyone knows he won’t be coming back. Amaril (who turns out to be her former lover) has constructed a new hand for her following the accident, and she is able to continue painting. Liza and Mountolive have married. And Justine reemerges. She has made amends with Memlik Pasha by discovering he just wanted an entrance into society. She and Nessim have reconciled (if they could ever have been considered estranged in the first place, given the revelations of Mountolive) and are conspiring to embark on an even bigger scheme in Switzerland. After months back on his island, Darley receives yet another letter from Clea, and we are given to believe that the two of them will meet up again in Paris.

I began the Alexandria Quartet back in December of 2008 or January of 2009 – I don’t
remember which, but I know it feels like a lifetime ago. I am sometimes criticized for being a list person, both online and offline – why do I spend time reading books I don’t expect to like? And even though I complain sometimes, and rage over certain books, selections like Quartet are exactly why I bother in the first place. This series was absolutely wonderful – a meditation on love, on relationships, on fidelity, on perspective – and I likely would never have heard of Durrell in the first place had it not been for the Modern Library list. Justine is clearly the gem of the bunch, and could be read as a stand-alone novel (though the others could not), I found them all worthwhile ways to spend my – now limited – reading time. I know that I will return to Durrell in the future – this may be a series (Justine in particular) that I come back to again and again in my life, and I will likely seek out more of Durrell’s work. ...more

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Dec 03, 2020 Beth rated it really liked it

I have finished The Alexandria Quartet! I have read plenty of other books this year, but my goal this year was to read all of these books. Maybe next year my goal will be to read The Avignon Quintet? Looking back, Mountolive and Clea were probably my favorites.

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Feb 01, 2018 Robert Zoltan rated it it was amazing

A fantastic finale to the quartet. These four books are among the few literary works I would describe as astonishing. What an achievement. I plan to reread them soon.

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Apr 15, 2009 Deborah Palmer rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Clea
Clea is the denouement for the series the Alexandria Quartet
Finished the book Sunday, April 19, 2009.
The lives of Justine, Nessim, Narouz, Pursewarden, Melissa have all unraveled or ended. Pursewarden and Melissa are already dead.
The first two books of the Alexandria Quartet were the foreplay, lovemaking and orgasm, these last two books; Mountolive and Clea are the climax, then the limp, flaccid state in which one reflects. By this time WWII is raging and the remaining characters are either
Clea
Clea is the denouement for the series the Alexandria Quartet
Finished the book Sunday, April 19, 2009.
The lives of Justine, Nessim, Narouz, Pursewarden, Melissa have all unraveled or ended. Pursewarden and Melissa are already dead.
The first two books of the Alexandria Quartet were the foreplay, lovemaking and orgasm, these last two books; Mountolive and Clea are the climax, then the limp, flaccid state in which one reflects. By this time WWII is raging and the remaining characters are either rendered powerless or spent. Clea is the dream sequence. One of deflated egos and broken dreams. As in Justine the series begins and ends with the protagonist Darley, the Irish ex-patriot. Clea and Darley seem to be haunted by the ghosts of Pursewarden and Melissa; of course Darley has been caring for Melissa's baby by Nessim, the little girl named Justine for several years before his return to Alexandria. Upon Darley's return to Alexandria he tries to step back into a memory like in a painting or a photograph but is hit by reality much like Mountolive was when he met up with Leila.
The lovemaking between Darley and Clea is a fractured and delicate sex made a little pathetic by the advance of WWII. Theirs is a lovemaking made comfortable like a soft old sofa that you sink into upon sitting. A subdued passion if you will.
One caveat, the author, Mr. Durrell should leave the character of Pursewarden dead and stop resurrecting him. Pursewarden dies back in the second book of the series Balthazar but he keeps reappearing in subsequent books. The chapter in Clea, "My conversations with Brother Ass" could have been left out. It contributes nothing to the book. It is merely the sarcastic ramblings of an oversexed pervert who lacks creativity and imagination. I find Pursewarden to be an empty, arrogant individual who takes away from rather than adds to the Quartet.

The book ended on a good note with the love affair between Darley and Clea also for Nessim and Justine. Not really a "happy ending" but there is resolution between those two characters. However I am glad that Mr. Durrell did not continue the series. He would have belabored the points and overextended the reach of the characters.

...more

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Jun 05, 2011 David rated it liked it

The finale of this quartet of books is pretty satisfying and (finally) has some gripping plottwists and romantic intrigue, including a James-Franco-esque handcutting scene that's pretty kick-ass.

Books one, two, and four are in Darley's voice, so after the departure of book three, we're back to the over-the-top style begun in Justine. I liked Darley's observations about Egypt and writing (through Pursewarden) more in this book than in the first two, and I think part of my preference derives from ...more

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About Lawrence Durrell

Lawrence Durrell

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Lawrence 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 ...more