If it's beautifully written misogyny does it become art? This is a question that has long been debated in the art world. On one hand, some argue that a work of art can be judged solely on its aesthetic value, regardless of its content. They believe that if a piece is beautifully crafted, it can be considered a masterpiece, even if it contains offensive or controversial ideas.

On the other hand, many people believe that the content of a work of art is just as important as its form. They argue that misogyny, or any form of prejudice or discrimination, has no place in art and that such works should not be celebrated or promoted.

In my opinion, while a beautifully written piece may have some aesthetic value, it cannot be considered art if it contains misogynistic or other offensive content. Art has the power to influence and shape our thoughts and beliefs, and we should not tolerate works that promote harmful ideas. Instead, we should strive to create and欣赏 art that is both beautiful and meaningful, and that reflects the values of equality, respect, and compassion.

Interpreting in Justin is extremely difficult. The psychological torture makes you feel your feet, your head as you move on to another text that has some kind of connection with the same text.

The text seems easier to navigate between its lines, but after effort, you discover that it is not easy. It is your spirit that has returned to the style of translation and the harsh poetic metaphors. The beauty of this quatrain, in my opinion, is not that its name is the Alexandrian quatrain and it carries and describes it, but because it describes Alexandria with a non-Egyptian eye. So perhaps we will not find between the lines except some of the names of the neighborhoods that we know. As for the spirit of Alexandria that surrounds us... the truth is that I did not find it... The beauty of this quatrain is that it has taken Alexandria as a place for the psychological torture of human beings with all this harshness and savagery... The torture of human relationships with this psychological filth of contradictions, weakness, struggle, hesitation between confession and revenge, doubt and departure... The human accounts that exist in the face of the glare and the historical complications that any human being carries as a genetic inheritance and the inheritance of his entire life from experiences... Where does all that lead? The most complex, illogical, and verbose descriptions are the most true in reality... And the truth is a challenge to writing in general, and Darrell only challenges this challenge, and I cannot say here... easily no... but rather with a literary struggle, there is no doubt. And my soul too, so it cannot remain the same after writing the text... It is impossible or so it is prepared for me.

Most of the reactions are forgiving, but they cannot be forgiving from the beginning... There is a history that it contains and it is ultimately based on a law that we know nothing about. Therefore, you come out of the text not as affected by its events as you are affected by its insides and surroundings and this struggle that takes place between Darrell and his characters - and between you and them too - for they did not discover it easily, and Alexandria did not experience it as it should. If my soul were to look at it with another eye after this text, it would not be considered a place that contains us, but rather a place that imposes the story and determines its relationships and its endings... With the idea that the stones with which the buildings in the middle of the city, the sand station, Fuad Street, and the sea were built... These stones perhaps line up to preserve a spirit or spirits that have been lost for a long time by recreating their stories again and again and again just to obtain their immortality. Their existence is only born from the stories that protect them.

Just as difficult as it was for you to enter the text and its world, it is just as difficult to exit it... The events, even if they do not resemble each other, and our lives and all of us, only the pure human reactions resemble each other, and there is no doubt that they repeat to a certain extent... As if pity and cruelty are mixed with us... Harshness with sarcasm, desire with greed, and love with indifference... These contradictions that express the deepest meanings of the existence of the lost human soul, especially with regard to the world of the forgotten, buried, and perhaps desolate.

Lawrence says in the voice of the hero: “I see people who form part of the place without being aware of it. They have buried themselves up to their middles between the folds of a strange city, and have wallowed in its values like those creatures that Empedocles wrote about, “isolated members striving to find their unity in each other” or as he writes elsewhere, “the sweet adheres to the sweet, the bitter moves towards the bitter, the acid accepts the acid, and the hot is associated with the hot.” They are all those who inhabit the city whose actions lie outside the scope of the soul's measures and exceed them: they are the Alexandrians.”

And he also says, “The intermingling of truths is the only way to be safe with time: for time, at every moment, gathers an infinite number of multiplying possibilities. And life depends on the act of choice, the eternity of Dionysus, and the eternity of selection.” At the end of Baltazar, after several such sayings, he arrives at the truth of his relationship with Alexandria and says:

“I see with two new eyes, from this privileged location on the island, all things in their duality, from the intermingling of truth and illusion. Amazement follows me, and I reread the real and reformulate it in the light of all that I know now. My feelings themselves have grown and changed, indeed deepened. Then perhaps the destruction of my Alexandria was necessary (for the original work of art never shows a flat face). And perhaps the seed of truth has ripened and its matter has been refined there in the depths of all this as a right of time, and if I can come to terms with it, it will lead me a little closer to what is truly the search for myself as it should be.”

I read Justine a long time ago, probably when I was around 17 years old. So, I can't really offer a detailed comparison between it and Balthazar. However, this book contains many elements that I recall liking about Lawrence Durrell.

His vivid sense of place is truly remarkable. It's as if he transports you to the very locations he describes. And his writing style is like a delicious lemon custard left on an afternoon terrace, accompanied by the last drops of a gin and tonic, now mostly melted ice.

The book is delicate, impressionistic, and almost plotless. Towards the end, there's a really strange carnival scene that might not be to everyone's taste. But I, for one, quite enjoyed it. After reflecting on it for a day, I found that I liked it even more.

I appreciated how it tells stories through prosody and the description of smells, tastes, and the qualities of light. It also captures the essential passive and laid-back attitude of Northern expatriates in Southern countries, which includes myself. What I really liked was that Lawrence Durrell seemed to have written this book solely for himself, without any concern for what others might think.

Overall, Justine is a unique and captivating read that has left a lasting impression on me.

A decent and truly unique follow-up to Justine.

I have a great deal of respect for the fact that it delves deeper into the first book rather than simply being a straightforward sequel. However, I must admit that I found its prose and content to be somewhat weaker.

Nevertheless, I did appreciate that it managed to answer some of the confusing questions that remained after reading Justine. On the other hand, it also raised a whole new set of questions of its own.

There were several standout scenes in the book. For instance, the semi-supernatural encounter with the hypnotist was quite captivating. The entire carnival sequence added an element of excitement and mystery. And Pursewarden’s amusing yet brief romance with Justine was a charming addition.

I did find that the whole deception aspect between Justine and Darley felt a bit forced and didn't quite make sense. However, I liked the sense of emptiness and confusion that this revelation created.

I read this book relatively quickly and, for the most part, I was left satisfied. I will probably read the next two books in the series sometime in the next year or two. I have definitely grown attached to the main cast of characters. In fact, this series is almost like a literary, bohemian sitcom that keeps pulling me in.

The second part of the Alexandria Quartet.

Definitely better than the first part, and the focus on the city itself is higher than that of the first part.

The language, despite its good translation.

The events and details have not changed their nature much from the first part.

The characters in the work have developed very well and are better than those in the novel, and the development is more clearly than that of the first part.

In general, it is a good work within the quartet of novels and may be one of the greatest things I have read.

Overall, the second part of the Alexandria Quartet offers a more engaging and developed exploration of the city and its characters. The language, while translated, still manages to convey the essence of the story. The events and details, although similar in nature to the first part, are presented in a more nuanced way. The character development is a particular strength, with the characters evolving and growing in a more distinct manner than in the first part. This makes the second part a worthy addition to the quartet and a great read in its own right.

Now I truly understand how Frodo felt after the Ring was destroyed.

For Frodo, the burden of carrying the Ring had been an almost insurmountable one. It had weighed on his soul, constantly tempting him and corrupting his very being.

When the Ring finally met its end in the fires of Mount Doom, a great weight was lifted from Frodo. But at the same time, he also experienced a profound sense of loss.

The Ring had been such a central part of his life for so long that its destruction left a void.

He had sacrificed so much, endured so much pain and suffering, all in the name of destroying the Ring and saving Middle-earth.

Now that it was over, Frodo was left with a sense of exhaustion and a feeling of not quite knowing what to do next.

But he also knew that his journey had been worth it, that he had made a difference and that Middle-earth would be a better place because of his actions.

I can only imagine the complex emotions that Frodo must have felt in that moment, and I have a newfound respect for his courage and determination.

Serge's second novel, Balthazar, reveals the events to us readers and the curious writer in a rather blunt way, saying "That thing wasn't actually like that." Compared to Serge's first book, Justine, this book also has an interesting atmosphere of tension. The novel very successfully conveys the tension that something will happen and a secret will be revealed. I read the last pages with great excitement.

I will continue with Mountolive, but I also want to state that I'm most curious about Clea because I think she is my favorite character in the series :)

“Desde la posición privilegiada de esta isla lo veo todo en su duplicidad, veo con nuevos ojos cómo se intercalan los hechos y la fantasía. Y al releer, al trabajar nuevamente la realidad a la luz de todo lo que ahora sé, me sorprende comprobar que incluso mis sentimientos han cambiado, han madurado, se han ahondado. Quizá la destrucción de mi Alejandría particular era necesaria (\\"ese objeto que es toda verdadera obra de arte nunca muestra una superficie plana\\"). Quizá en el fondo de todo esto yace el germen y la substancia de una verdad –usufructo del tiempo– que, si logro asimilarla, me hará avanzar un poco más en lo que es realmente la búsqueda de mi propio yo.”

  “Desde la posición privilegiada de esta isla lo veo todo en su duplicidad, veo con nuevos ojos cómo se intercalan los hechos y la fantasía, –y al releer, al trabajar nuevamente la realidad a la luz de todo lo que ahora sé, me sorprende comprobar que incluso mis sentimientos han cambiado, han madurado, se han ahondado. Quizá la destrucción de mi Alejandría particular era necesaria (\\"ese objeto que es toda verdadera obra de arte nunca muestra una superficie plana\\"); quizá en el fondo de todo esto yace el germen y la substancia de una verdad –usufructo del tiempo– que, si logro asimilarla, me hará avanzar un poco más en lo que es realmente la búsqueda de mi propio yo.”

The love of his life, the time he spent with her, the magical city that served as the backdrop to his great passion –“Una ciudad se hace un mundo cuando uno ama a uno de sus habitantes”–, all that Darley, the melancholy narrator, thought about these things changes when he receives the reflections that Balthazar has made on his manuscript about Justine and has personally brought to the island where he lives in seclusion. These reflections bring him a little closer to the knowledge of himself, to the always difficult handling of the membrane that inevitably interposes between us and the facts.

  “Vivimos vidas que se basan en una selección de hechos imaginarios. Nuestra visión de la realidad está condicionada por nuestra posición en el espacio y en el tiempo, no por nuestra personalidad, como nos complacemos en creer. Por eso toda interpretación de la realidad se funda en una posición única. Dos pasos al este o al oeste, y todo el cuadro cambia.”

We need only a few pages to realize that justifying the idea contained in this quote is one of the objectives of the novel and, it seems, of the quartet as a whole. Like Darley, the readers must also be constantly recomposing and adjusting the whole picture that we had made based on these new brushstrokes. The characters are not what they seemed, the relationships between them are far from being as clear as they were defined in Justine, and as if this were not enough, the new installment also creates in us the suspicion that we are still far from knowing the true hidden plot in all this network of characters and relationships, it even induces in us the doubt of whether we will ever know the truth, whether it is possible to know any truth about anyone.

  “En cuanto a los personajes humanos, sean reales o inventados, son animales que no existen. Cada psiquis es en realidad un semillero de predisposiciones antagónicas. La personalidad concebida como una entidad con atributos fijos es una ilusión... ¡pero una ilusión necesaria si queremos enamorarnos!”

And in that change of perspective, the figure of Justine stands out. The woman we saw given to pleasures, who did not stop minds in the pain she inflicted on her lovers, is now the subject of that pain. In this second installment, we discover that Justine, who vegetated in her marriage, who maintained a passionate relationship, which we now know was not so much, with the narrator, was really living and suffering for love of another man, someone she could not be sure of, someone she admired without restrictions, someone she could not punish with her infidelities, someone, in short, she could not save.

The novel maintains the lyrical and baroque style of the previous installment, with the same ability for the recreation of atmospheres and the description of landscapes and feelings and with an abundance of artistic and philosophical reflections. More episodic than the previous installment, it has two especially beautiful and cruel focal points, as fundamental as the hunt with which the first part of the quartet ends: the rural life staged in Nessim's visit to his mother and brother to announce their engagement to Justine, and the carnival party, unrestrained in its confusion of masked beings and that culminates in a grotesque murder.

And naturally, the tragic vision of love and desire is maintained.

  \\"Al principio –escribe Pursewarden–, tratamos de complementar el vacío de nuestra individualidad por medio del amor, y por un breve instante tenemos la ilusión de la plenitud. Pero es sólo una ilusión. Pues esa criatura extraña que creímos nos uniría al cuerpo del universo, consigue al final separarnos aún más de él. El amor une, luego separa. ¿Cómo, si no, podríamos desarrollarnos?\\"

Love is still treated as a disease, as madness, never satisfactory, always lived out of time or with the wrong person, an obsession that pushes us to desire to possess the impossible, full of disappointments, that clouds and hinders any relationship that in its absence would be infinitely more pleasant, that even drives our self-destructive urge.

  \\"Los jugadores y los enamorados juegan en realidad para perder.\\"

Veremos.

First Impression Followed by a Second

Initially, I harbored doubts that this second volume of "The Alexandria Quartet" might pale in comparison to the first. However, upon completing it, I realize it's not an entirely distinct work. Its essence and purpose are to tweak "Justine". It serves as both a supplement and a complement. What emerges in the reader's mind isn't so much a second separate work but a combination of the two. My memory of the first has been irrevocably altered by the experience of the second. Soon, I anticipate having one collective impression of "The Alexandria Quartet".

The Great Interlinear

Like "Justine", this novel is a composite of diverse fictional contributions. Over the two volumes, we soak in the narrator's words, Justine's journal, her first husband's novel ("Moeurs"), letters from Clea, Pursewarden's notebooks for his novel, and the "the Great Interlinear" contributed by Balthazar as a critique of the narrator's first draft of "Justine". According to the dictionary, "interlinear" means "inserted between lines already written or printed". Durrell also uses the word "intercalary" to describe the interposition of additional material. In a way, Durrell employs Balthazar's Interlinear to clarify, question, contradict, qualify, or change what he or his narrator has written.

Towards the Creation of a Palimpsest

Balthazar explains his motive for writing the Interlinear in terms of the pursuit of truth. The narrator realizes that his memories of Alexandria and his friends are an ongoing creative work. The Interlinear highlights the extent to which it is "a palimpsest upon which each of us had left his or her individual traces, layer by layer." By extension, the reference to a palimpsest emphasizes that Durrell's metaphor is an artistic or painterly one. The past is a lost civilization if we rely solely on our own experiences and observations.

Retroactive Perception

Now that we know a bit about the city and its characters, Durrell seems to think it's time we observe them interact. Thus, there is far more narrative action in "Balthazar". However, the events in this volume retroactively shape the narrator's perception and memories of the past. This is a good summary of the novel, with a counter-plot for every aspect of the plot, writhing before our eyes.

A Memory Reflected in a Mirror

Durrell indulges in more description of both the psychic and the physical landscape. There is more conflict in this volume, and the narrator becomes more engaged with his subject matter, with his perspective changing. The surface detail invites him to explore the depth beneath, and he acknowledges that the surface has altered his perception of the earlier layers. I love the constant reflexivity that the mirror brings to the mind and its memories.

The Key to the Self

Although the narrator's mind is composed of memories, he is gripped by them. The city of Alexandria might be a metaphor for life and perhaps the individual, but he must escape it to know himself. Ironically, he must know more before he can discard the wealth of information. He believes he must discover the self ("my own real (inner) life") that is separate from his experiences and memories.

The Self Located in a Space and Time Marriage

The narrator wonders if his mission is misguided. There is no static or constant self that simply perceives a constantly changing exterior world. The self is at the heart of relativity. Pursewarden, the novelist who has been reading Einstein, is the vehicle for these speculations. Once again, we witness the changing composition of the art work, the picture, the portrait.

The Other's Love of the Self

If our individual perspective can change in space, perhaps we need the perspectives of others to approach the truth more surely. Hence, Balthazar's Great Interlinear and other metafictional devices. Ironically, the other's observation of the self contributes to whatever substance the self can have. We need verification and vindication. Love, it seems, is a way of acknowledging the existence of another and being acknowledged in return.

The Illusion of Completeness

Still, the foundation of one's own self is unstable. Love is a perceived but inadequate prop. At first, we seek to supplement the emptiness of our individuality through love and enjoy the illusion of completeness for a brief moment. But it is only an illusion. Love joins and then divides, and that's how we grow.

The Form of Truth

As with the first volume, Durrell constructs the novel on the foundation of these abstract concerns. We increasingly encounter multiple, incrementally changing perspectives in the constant search for truth. It's too early to say if Durrell was positing a stable or variable concept of truth. Time itself might be a constant or at least an invariable truth, but Balthazar contradicts this, suggesting that Time is multi-faceted, subjective, and variable, in other words, relative.

The Form of the Novel

Ultimately, this speculation is reflected in the form of the novel. Balthazar proposes that if the narrator were to incorporate what he is saying into his "Justine" manuscript, it would result in a curious sort of book, with the story told in layers. The narrator responds that the Interlinear raises the question of form for him, as life does itself. It's almost as if life is a fictional work that we create as we experience and remember it, but the more we learn or the more the author writes, the more the fiction changes.

In the Light of These New Treasures

As readers, we're still striving for coherence within the fictional world of Durrell's novel. The more we think about it, the more it changes, and we're only halfway through. It seems too early to rush to judgment about what's really happening. More treasures await us. The narrator has isolated himself in Corfu to distance himself from the city and its characters to write about them, but by the end of this volume, the characters want him back. They crave input into the narrator's (if not the author's) enterprise. If reality is fiction, here is fiction striving to become reality. These metaphysical and metafictional concerns are often associated with Post-Modernism, but up to this point, at least, the Quartet is a persuasive argument that they were also part of the Modernist project.

Balthazar, the second volume of Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet, is a captivating work set in Alexandria, Egypt, during the 1940s.

The story unfolds through the eyes of the central character, L.G. Darley, who keenly observes the complex interactions of his lovers, friends, and acquaintances.

The novel is named after Darley's friend, Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, who offers a philosophical and intellectual interpretation of Darley's views.

The dedication, "To My Mother: these memorials to a forgotten city," adds a personal touch and a sense of nostalgia.

The opening description of the landscape is vivid and evocative, painting a picture of brown to bronze tones, a steep skyline, low cloud, and a pearl ground with shadowed oyster and violet reflections.

The mention of the lion-dust of the desert and the prophet's tombs turning to zinc and copper at sunset on the ancient lake further enhances the atmosphere and sets the stage for the rich and sensuous narrative that follows.

Seri Balthazar continues with the notes it holds. As we get a better chance to observe the characters more clearly, they are adorned with such vivid and detailed descriptions that it makes us feel as if we are actually guests in their conversations and reading the writings just as the reader would find them.

Tesadüfler, yanlış anlamalar, gizlenen bir takım sırlar ve karakterlerin içindeki asıl saklı duygular are what is told in this book. While in the first book, our narrator's passion for Justine is in the foreground, in the second book, we see the emotions (anger, love, compassion, jealousy, sexuality, passion, and betrayal) more deeply. The author has a different writing technique; when telling one moment, he can skillfully transition back to the starting time by inserting another moment in between. Is it complex? Not when you read it, but if you read the book at long intervals, yes, understanding time can cause confusion in the mind. In many ways, being able to tell the characters' views about each other and the events from different perspectives is a great achievement in my opinion.

Perhaps it portrays a place you have never been to so beautifully that while learning the stones and soil of that place, it also causes you to get to know every nuance from our heroes' attitudes to their cultures. I will definitely read the next book of the series with great anticipation. My only advice to you regarding this series is to read it one after the other without taking too many breaks.

#balthazar #lawrencedurrell #canyayınları

Falling in love with a mask, finding oneself masked... which of the two will be the first to have the courage to unmask?

This statement presents a rather interesting and thought-provoking scenario. It implies a situation where someone becomes enamored with an image or a facade that is presented, perhaps without fully realizing the true nature beneath. At the same time, the person themselves is also wearing a mask, hiding their true self.

The question then arises as to who will be the first to take that leap of faith and reveal their true selves. It could be a matter of fear, of not wanting to disappoint or be rejected. Or perhaps it is a case of not even knowing who one truly is beneath the mask.

In any case, it is a complex and fascinating concept that makes us wonder about the nature of relationships, identity, and the courage it takes to be true to oneself.