Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Navel Gazers United

Justine by Lawrence Durrell

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Justine follows the various intermingled lives and love affairs of a group of artistic people in Alexandria, where it sometimes seems the city is playing itself out in their daily struggles. This is a bit of a difficult book to write a review of, because frankly not much happens. The narrator is in a relationship with one woman but becomes bound in a passionate affair with another, complicated by the fact that he is friends with her husband, and the fact that this woman Justine […]

Lawrence Durrell (1-2)

Justine by Lawrence Durrell

Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell

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Justine “The sea is high again today, with a thrilling flush of wind.” This is a reread of the first book in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. I read these a few years ago, and well, I suppose I am reading them again. The books are odd in the sense that while they are companion pieces to one another, they are neither exactly sequels nor comprise a series. Instead, they are like different paintings, ostensibly portraying the same scene, but with different light and a slightly […]

There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.

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It’s kind of hard to explain the experience of reading these books. As I write this statement, I’ve read the first two, and it’s entirely possible that further reading will change based on how each book presents the story. But for the first two books, the experience is fractured. For one thing, it’s fractured because the narrative perspective is rather subjective and impressionistic in their methods. That’s not to say they’re like reading Ulysses, though a little, but more so the experience is connected directly […]



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