Clea (Alexandria Quartet 4)

by Lawrence Durrell

Paperback, 1961

Status

Available

Call number

823.912

Publication

Dutton (1961), Paperback, 287 pages

Description

'I knew that Clea would share everything with me, withholding nothing - not even the look of complicity which women reserve only for their mirrors.' In Clea, the concluding part of The Alexandria Quartet, Darley returns to Alexandria now caught by war-fever. The conflagration has its effect on his circle - on Nessim and Justine, Balthazar and Clea, Mountolive and Pombal - and a clarity of purpose emerges as the story moves towards its cadence.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Stevil2001

And, finally, The Alexandria Quartet draws to an end. This book is the first one to move forward chronologically in a substantive way-- while the other occur before World War II, in this one the war is underway (not, as the back cover claims, yet over). We get to revisit all the characters we came

to meet in the first three books and see how they have grown and changed as a result of those events, plus those of the war. It's interesting: Durrell says the quartet was his study of love, and each book has had a different thing to say about it. Justine has a very romantic notion of it, full of grand affairs and mad passions and overblown ideas. In Balthazar, we seem to learn that love is mostly based upon lies, but it can still exist, just not in the way we thought we knew. And then in Mountolive, all love is a sham on every level: most of the relationships here are for political or social reasons, not romantic ones. But Clea takes us right back where we began, as the narrator (now allowed to use his name) is able to come to terms with the events of the series thanks to his love affair with Clea, the bisexual artist. This and many other plot threads of the series are tied up in fine form, as all of the characters ultimately come to a fitting end, and the truths (maybe) are finally revealed. Durrell's prose is as fantastic, his descriptions as evocative, and his insights as keen as ever. A strong end to a strong series, whose only fault was the honestly somewhat superfluous metafictional aspects.

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LibraryThing member thorold

More conventional and more enjoyable than the other three members of the quartet: there is something like a narrative here, that is tied up at the end of the book, and there's a lot of straightforward pleasure along the way. The mood, despite the war, is rather lighter than before. Darley has at

last grown up and stopped whingeing; Nessim and Justine are shunted off to glower off-stage. Scobie and Pursewarden, the two most amusing characters in the series, have a lot of posthumous input. Scobie bizarrely talks through the mouths of other characters who recite his monologues from memory; Pursewarden more conventionally through his letters and notebooks.
I think it was a mistake to pause for a couple of years between reading Mountolive and Clea: it took me a while to get back into the relationships between the characters and remember what we had been told before. There's probably a lot to be said for re-reading the whole quartet quickly once you've read it once. If it ever gets back to the front of my queue...

Assessment of the Quartet as a whole: Hard to say. When I started, I noted that I'm not a fan of Henry Miller, Durrell's most obvious influence. I'm much more comfortable with realist fiction. Evelyn Waugh — to name just one example — managed to capture the idea of Alexandria just as effectively and with far less fuss in a much more accessible form. All the same, I did find Durrell's exercise of digging and redigging through a story to unearth different levels of "truth" interesting and amusing (it's always fun watching someone else working) even if the conclusion that "it's all subjective" seems a bit trite after all that effort. It's undeniable that there's some very witty and beautiful writing there, and some extremely memorable minor characters. So, while it's perhaps a literary cul de sac, it does have quite a bit to offer.

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LibraryThing member lautremont5

this is my favorite book by durrell. i've read it 4 times over the years and always find it inspirational.

LibraryThing member mbmackay

Final book of the Alexandria quartet.
Experimental fiction that was reportedly a commercial and critical success when first published, it has not aged well. Some of the stylistic quirks, such as heavily quoting the words of a fictional author in the story, just seem odd, while others are just self

indulgent, such as the repeated returns to quote Scobie the gay former seaman and now police officer. Still the series is impressive in the capacity to represent the same events from the perspective of different story tellers at different times, and the while thing, in my view, is not great, but a good near miss. Read June - July 2010.

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LibraryThing member kant1066

“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 Alexandria, almost immediately he runs into his old artist friend Clea, and consummates a formerly Plutonic relationship, now that their circle of friends is unencumbered by the presence of Melissa, who has died, and Justine, who is under house arrest for the duration of the novel. More than in any of the others, this novel has several meta-fictional aspects: meditations on art, creativity, and the novel (especially as revealed with Pursewarden’s letters), and some of Clea’s ideas about painting. All of this is, as always in this tetralogy, tied in beautifully with Balthazar’s earlier analyses shot throughout the Inter-Linear.

Reading these four novels has been one of the more powerful set of experiences that I have recently had. Most readers will probably not enjoy this; it’s not action-packed and full of adventure. But if you admire writing that tries to capture the uniqueness of inner coruscating experience, the complexities of passion and romantic relationships, and realizes the inability to tell “the whole story,” even after nearly one thousand pages of trying, I hope you will appreciate this as much as I did. As I said in my review of “Mountolive,” I have simply run out of things to say about how much I loved this. Sometimes admiration must finish itself off in silence.

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LibraryThing member dbsovereign

See the review for Justine.

LibraryThing member JBreedlove

Not a lot of plot but great prose, almost Wolfean. A good example of mid-century British writing describing friends and experiences in an Alexandria that no longer exists.

LibraryThing member jonfaith

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.

LibraryThing member Cecrow

World War II has begun and Darley returns to Alexandria in wartime. He resumes the narrative, but this time he adopts the lighter chronological approach of the third book. It's a happy marriage of the two styles as he reunites with friends and the city, and most especially with Clea. She has been

an interesting peripheral figure up to now, liable to be someone's love interest but stubbornly resistant to the role. A confidante mostly, a sounding board but never really a source of advice, remaining aloof and devoted to her art. She would have received less of my attention to now if her name wasn't attached to this fourth novel of the quartet. Here she becomes catalyst, as Darley works through relinquishing the scars that Alexandria and his experiences there left etched on his memory.

Pursewarden's journal interrupts the flow of the story, but it is a brilliant metatextual piece where it seems like Durrell rather than the character who is speaking to the value and place of art and the artist. He positions it next to religion as a partner in healing the psyche, and explains the oblique, slanted messages that it delivers as a gateway for providing the reader a means to discover universal truths. The reader should not become too caught up in the vessel's quality but try to see through it as through a telescope to the great beyond that the author is working to forge passage to. Ultimately this quartet was Pursewarden's story, its central figure, and the realization of art its central theme. There is a price to be paid for achieving it, now or later, but a sweetness in the prize.

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LibraryThing member Castlelass

This is the final book in the Alexandria Quartet. As the story opens, Darley is returning to Alexandria at the beginning of World War II. The narrative focuses on the relationship between Darley and Clea, characters introduced in earlier books. Darley was the protagonist of book one (Justine), and

Clea has been a minor character up to this point. The storyline between Darley and Clea is broken by excerpts from Pursewarden’s journal. He has influenced events throughout the quartet. We learn about his views on the nature of art and the artist, along with the reason for his prior actions.

This set is character-driven. The sights and sounds of a past Alexandria are featured prominently. The writing is beautiful, and I have gotten used to Durrell’s style over the course of the four books. I appreciate it more now than I did at first. It is a fitting conclusion that relates what happened to all the main characters we have come to know and love.

This is my second favorite of the set. I enjoyed the final two books the most. It is really a single work told in four parts. None of the four would stand alone very well. After finishing, I appreciate the entire work more than I did while reading the individual installments. It has taken me quite a long while to get through all the books (this is a work that should not be rushed through) but am glad I took the time to read it.

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LibraryThing member Gypsy_Boy

My first reading of “The Alexandria Quartet” has now concluded. A second reading is inevitable. That said, I was mostly disappointed in Clea, the last volume in the series. It’s hard to offer a meaningful review of the fourth book in a four-book set since it can’t really stand on its own

without some knowledge of the first three volumes. Clea takes place a number of years after the “action” of the first three volumes and ties up loose ends, revisits (most) minor characters to see what has become of them, and creates a meaningful and worthy cap to a great achievement. There are, to be sure, shocks and surprises, and further developments: much of this volume is given over to Darley’s relationship with Clea. And to my surprise, how Durrell chooses to leave the characters works far better than I anticipated. My greatest disappointment is the writing itself. Clea contains some wonderful passages but the first two volumes far exceeded the last two in sheer enjoyment of the writing. I found the first book (Justine) exceptional. Balthazar, volume 2, less so but still a remarkable achievement. Mountolive, volume 3, even less felicitous and now Clea, least of all. One cannot maintain the white hot degree of invention through four volumes, I suppose. On balance, I think the Quartet is an extraordinary achievement and I know I will return again and hopefully again after that: it will be impossible not to.

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