Justine cover art

Justine

The Alexandria Quartet, Book 1

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Justine

By: Lawrence Durrell
Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
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About this listen

Justine is the first volume in the Alexandria Quartet, four interlinked novels set in the sensuous, hot environment of Alexandria just before the Second World War. Within this polyglot setting of richly idiosyncratic characters is Justine, wild and intense, wife to the wealthy businessman Nessim, a Mari complaisant. Her emotional and sexual wildness fuels a highly charged atmosphere that, caught famously by Durrell’s poetic language, made Justine (1957), and the three novels that complete the Quartet - Balthazar (1958), Mountolive (1958), and Clea (1960) - both a critical and a popular success.

©1957 Lawrence Durrell (P)2021 Naxos AudioBooks UK Ltd. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction
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This recording brought me right back to when I first read the Quartet. Back in the 60s! Wonderful.

The atmosphere of Alexandria

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What can I say other than, it's a masterpiece. amazing diction, incredibly immense imaginary construction of a talented write in his prime.

Extraordinary

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I must admit that I don’t really know what this book is about. It didn’t really grab me in any particular way. It felt like a number of random interactions between a group of people, that otherwise left me untouched. There was nothing that I might call a plot. It sounded lovely and reminiscent of another time and place that I know nothing about. Who is Pursewarden and why is he being quoted all the time? Characters came and went with rarely any explanation let alone a vague sense of purpose. Relationships (some sexual, but never explicit) began and ended with no idea as to why or how. If all of these things are meant to be happenstance and without rhyme or reason then Durrell has done well. The events are described much as one might describe a beautiful scene but without stirring any feelings, emotions or suchlike. Lovely but a bit sterile. If I’ve done Durrell a disservice here, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what to say.

Really don’t know about this novel.

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Well narrated . Really excellent - captured the atmosphere of Alexandria . Hope it is the same narrator for next in quartet.

Justine

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Brilliantly and beautifully written by an author whose love of writing envelops the reader. The city of Alexandria is vividly depicted in all its horrors and glories. The characters are sensual and hideously real. I felt immersed in this world and couldn’t wait to begin the ‘sibling’ novels in the quartet.

Evocative, sensual and vivid

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