**This Precious Image**

"Mountolive", the third volume in "The Alexandria Quartet", initially alienated me. However, it later managed to turn me around completely. "Clea" started in a similar fashion. But this time, being more patient, I let it work its magic. It fell into place much more quickly, and the rewards came sooner as well. At first, I wondered if it might be a random collection of ideas and impressions stitched together as an afterthought to what could have been a trilogy. Even if it had been conceived as a trilogy, "Clea" fits in neatly. It is set some years later, during and after the war. By now, the relationships that were once in turmoil in the earlier volumes have started to settle. People have matured, figured out what they are seeking, and some have even found it. Others, however, have moved on or passed away. Most importantly, for the narrator Darley, he is now distant enough from the original events that he has lost some of his timidity. He has gained a perspective (or at least a combination of multiple perspectives), realized that he is ready to write about these events, and decided on the form his project should take. He says, "It had been so long in forming inside me, this precious image...the old story of an artist coming of age."

**The Kingdom of Your Imagination**

The Quartet is not only a story about Alexandria and its inhabitants, as it is said, "When you are in love with one of its inhabitants, a city can become the world". It is also a story of an artist delving into the past and preparing to write about it. Although Darley feels that "the whole universe had given me a nudge", it is Clea who has seen what the universe has in store for him and for herself. She tells him, "As for you, wise one, I have a feeling that you too perhaps have stepped across the threshold into the kingdom of your imagination, to take possession of it once and for all." Each of them is now "a real human being, an artist at last."
**Finding Your Self in the World**
"Clea" is probably the most plot-dense of the four novels and also the most linear, even hinting at a happy ending. However, its concerns seem to revolve around questions such as: What does it mean to live? What does it mean to love? What does it mean to be an artist? What is the relationship between the imagination and the truth? In concepts that evoke Hegel, the writer Pursewarden theorizes, "The so-called act of living is really an act of the imagination. The world - which we always visualise as 'the outside World' - yields only to self-exploration!" Thus, we need to explore ourselves to understand the world, and vice versa. By understanding the city, we can understand its inhabitants, and vice versa.
**Pursewarden's Inkling of the Truth**
Pursewarden often serves as the means by which Durrell allows Darley to gain wisdom, without Darley necessarily realizing the immediate or abstract significance of what is happening before his eyes. Part of the novel's metafiction involves Darley reading Pursewarden's correspondence, journals, and draft fiction and verse. He says, "Seeing Pursewarden thus, for the first time, I saw that through his work he had been seeking for the very tenderness of logic itself, of the Way Things Are; not the logic of syllogism or the tidemarks of the emotions, but the real essence of fact-finding, the naked truth, the Inkling...the whole pointless Joke."
**Action and Reflection**
Another writer character, Keats, adds, "The man of action and the man of reflection are really the same man, operating on two different fields. But to the same end!" For an artist, at least, one needs to be both a man of action and a man of reflection, as each quality informs the other.
**Meddling with Time**
Pursewarden makes a similar point in relation to Proust. He says, "Time is the catch! Space is a concrete idea, but Time is abstract...In the scar tissue of Proust's great poem you see that so clearly; his work is the great academy of the time-consciousness. But being unwilling to mobilise the meaning of time he was driven to fall back on memory, the ancestor of hope! Ah! But being a Jew he had hope - and with Hope comes the irresistible desire to meddle." This passage seems to imply that Proust focused on memory in the absence of action in the present. Yet, it also suggests that Proust was prone to hope and meddle, presumably in relation to the future. Perhaps, then, Pursewarden (in contrast to Proust) focuses more on the present than either the past or the future, as the present is the only aspect of Time that can be immediately influenced and mobilized by Man. However, Pursewarden also suggests that, in trying to mobilize the progress of Time into the future, "we Celts" have the opposite problem to the Jewish predicament of hopefulness. He says, "We Celts mate with despair out of which alone grows laughter and the desperate romance of the eternally hopeless. We hunt the unattainable, and for us there is only a search unending."
**Selective Fictions**
No matter what the characters think they can achieve by acts of will, a sense of determinism sometimes creeps into the novel. The past seems to shape both the present and the future. Darley says, "It was indeed another island - I suppose the past always is. Here for a night and a day I lived the life of an echo, thinking much about the past and about us all moving in it, the'selective fictions' which life shuffles out like a pack of cards, mixing and dividing, withdrawing and restoring." If at times we seem to be actors on the stage of life, have our lines already been written for us? Or are our choices simply limited to the number of cards in the pack?
**The Seeds of Future Events**
Darley, looking back on events in the past in preparation for writing about it, says, "It is not hard, writing at this remove in time, to realise that it had already happened, had been ordained in such a way and in no other. This was, so to speak, only its 'coming to pass' - its stage of manifestation...The seeds of future events are carried within ourselves. They are implicit in us and unfold according to the laws of their own nature." It's almost as if our character determines our fate. Perhaps, not just our own fate, but we all contribute to the passage of history, which is just a record of the passage of Time. In a beautiful musical analogy, Darley writes to Clea that the individual events in our lives might "plant themselves in the speculative mind like single notes of music belonging to some larger composition which I suppose one will never hear."
**The Poisoned Loving-Cup**
Throughout the novel, various permutations and combinations share a loving cup, but Darley refers to it as a "poisoned loving cup". Obviously, some lovers were never meant for each other at all. However, Clea is the first to appreciate that love can often be a matter of timing. It doesn't help that this is love during wartime. She says, "I shall see if I can't will him back again. We aren't quite ripe for each other yet. It will come."
**The Richest Love**
Durrell reserves some of his most beautiful writing for these moments of intimacy. He writes, "So it was that love-making itself became a kind of challenge to the whirlwind outside which beat and pounded like a thunderstorm of guns and sirens, igniting the pale skies of the city with the magnificence of its lightning-flashes. And kisses themselves became charged with the deliberate affirmation which can come only from the foreknowledge and presence of death. It would have been good to die at any moment then, for love and death had somewhere joined hands. It was an expression of her pride, too, to sleep there in the crook of my arm like a wild bird exhausted by its struggles with a limed twig, for all the world as if it were an ordinary summer night of peace." But perhaps it should be Pursewarden who has the last word. He says, "The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time." We must love as if this is the only time available to us. Because, when all is said and done, this much is true.

The final part of the Quartet has arrived, and it has truly been a remarkable journey. However, I must admit that I didn't find it quite as strong as the other three installments. Set approximately seven years later, we find Darley living on a Greek island, taking care of Melissa's daughter (who is with Nessim). Balthasar then arrives with valuable information and writings from the late Pursewarden, which fills in many of the gaps from the previous novels.

Darley decides to return to Alexandria, where he reunites Nessim with his daughter. It is here that he bumps into Clea, and a romantic relationship blossoms between them. Clea and her relationship with Darley take center stage in this novel, and it is through them that the Quartet seems to hold together. The prose is still as wonderful as ever, although there were one or two loose ends that didn't quite convince me, such as Justine. Overall, though, Durrell has once again created a masterpiece.

Darley remains as short-sighted as ever when it comes to his romantic entanglements, and the events of the war continue to intertwine with the story. Alexandria is now in the hands of the Free French, and there are some delightful comic touches, such as the late cross-dressing Scobie, who is now an unofficial saint with his own feast day. All of the main participants get their moment to shine.

Durrell indulges in various meditations on art, the novel, and creativity, all set within his outstanding writing and Freudian allusions. The fragments from Pursewarden add an extra layer of cynicism and weirdness. At the heart of it all is the nature of love and how it can make us miserable. The whole thing is a fascinating look at modern civilization and its decadence. I also believe that Durrell is exploring the nature of truth, as he presents events from multiple perspectives, making the reader question their initial judgments.

The Quartet is an extraordinary achievement, and the prose is so beautiful that it is almost indescribable. While I may have enjoyed the first three novels slightly more, they all stand together as a whole. It is a work that will continue to be studied and admired for years to come.

The Alexandria Quartet is filled with some of the most captivating and compelling scenes. In each installment, the characters encounter their fates in highly dramatic manners.

In this final chapter, Darley makes his way back to a city that has undergone significant transformations, both big and small, due to the impact of World War II and the unpredictable nature of love.

There is one rather meandering chapter where a character pens a letter that serves as a profound treatise on poets and the art of writing. It offers a unique perspective and adds an interesting layer to the narrative.

However, the remainder of the story provides a fitting conclusion to the complex entanglements of a city filled with competing interests. It ties up loose ends and brings a sense of closure to the various storylines and relationships that have developed throughout the quartet.

The Alexandria Quartet is a rich and engaging work that explores themes of love, war, and the human condition in a vivid and thought-provoking way.

2.5 - Clea is the conclusion of the Alexandria Quartet. The plot can be quickly summarized. The protagonist of the first part, the Irish writer Darley, returns to Alexandria after a long exile on a Greek island and tries to feel at home in the city again. Alexandria has changed mainly due to the war. Italian bombers bombard it at night and during the day, soldiers shape the image of the city. However, for Darley, the reconnection with his old circle of friends plays a much greater role than the war. He meets his old friends and acquaintances one after another, whom the reader already knows from Justine, Balthazar, and Mountolive, or hears about the fate of others.

After an interesting second and great third part, I was unfortunately disappointed here. While the two previous volumes each offer a unique, completely different, and surprising perspective on the events of the first volume, and especially in Mountolive, the threads of the plot are brought together and brought to a conclusion, there is actually not much left to say in the last part. Therefore, Clea reads more like an epilogue in which Durrell once again goes through each character and their fate since the events of Mountolive as if following a checklist. Nevertheless, he has also described episodes of great poignancy and beauty in this last part, so that I round up my 2.5-star rating.

This final installment of the Alexandria Quartet, while not as engaging as its predecessors in some aspects, still manages to offer some moments of literary excellence. The characters, who have become familiar throughout the series, are given a proper send-off, and their stories are brought to a close in a somewhat predictable but still satisfying way. The description of Alexandria during the war adds an interesting backdrop to the narrative, although it could have been explored in more depth. Overall, Clea is a decent conclusion to a remarkable quartet of novels.

Clea is the FINAL chapter in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. [My reviews for Justine, Balthazar, and Mountolive have already been posted.] As previously stated, this quartet just gets better and more & more interconnected the further into the series you read! Clea was my ABSOLUTE favorite of the Alexandria Quartet novels.

In the ruse of returning Nessim's illegitimate daughter to him, Darley finds himself running into his comrades in Alexandria. He has been formulating a novel about them. Darley is welcomed with open arms and becomes enamored with his friend Clea almost instantly. They have an intensely co-dependent relationship. Despite their appearances of having as much time alone as necessary, their summer affair comes to a tragic end. The loss of friends and the loss of innocence in Alexandria mark the end of their relationship. The city becomes completely disenchanting for Darley and he finds himself growing away from his previous comforts.

A great conclusion to the quartet. Definitely not as romantic as Justine was, Clea is a much more realistic romance and novel. It has many speculations on love and art. I can see why the series is one of the Modern Library's Top 100 novels. It is a complex and engaging exploration of human relationships and the city of Alexandria. The characters are well-developed and the story is full of twists and turns. Overall, I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys literary fiction.

Time to close the stories. And since there are so many, there is hardly any space for the stories to absorb you as in the previous volumes. Nevertheless, it is a satisfactory ending for a major work that you will return to in the future. If, upon finishing a book - especially one with 1000 pages - you feel like reading it again, that is a resounding yes.

This work has managed to captivate readers throughout its many pages. The variety of stories presented offers a rich and diverse experience. Although it may not have the same immersive power as the previous volumes, it still leaves a lasting impression. The ending ties up loose ends and provides a sense of closure, yet also leaves room for further exploration and reflection.

Overall, it is a remarkable achievement that will surely be cherished by fans of the genre. Whether you are a first-time reader or a returning enthusiast, this book is well worth the investment of your time and attention. So, sit back, relax, and let the stories transport you to another world.

To me, this is my most favorable of the four books. It stands out as the best among them.

Clea, Darley, and Balthazar are so well-developed in this book. The sense of pain and something missing that I always felt in the other three books finally comes to an end here. With this book, I find my peace. Love, as depicted here, is so peaceful and inspiring. It is no longer confusing and hurtful. Instead, it is hopeful and patient.

As the quote goes, “The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.” This book truly embodies this idea. It shows how love can grow and endure over time, through all the trials and tribulations. It gives me hope and makes me believe that true love exists.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a beautiful and inspiring story about love. It will touch your heart and leave you with a sense of peace and contentment.

It's extremely difficult to precisely articulate the truly incredible achievement that Durrell has brought forth with the Alexandria Quartet. This, the final novel, holds a special significance and is, in many ways, the key to the entire series. As Durrell himself noted in the introduction to the second volume, _Balthazar_, his overall plan was ingeniously based on the four-dimensional space of Einsteinian relativity physics. And this last volume indeed explicitly introduces the profound effects of time into Durrell's narrative. It encompasses all the far-reaching ramifications that time represents for various aspects such as interpersonal relationships, artistic creation, the complex dialectic of sex, aesthetics, and death, illusion, and the continuous progression of generation after generation of humanity in the world (or in the specific context of Alexandria, in this case).

The prose throughout the entire series is absolutely breathtaking, leaving the reader in awe. The characters are completely believable,展现ing a wide range from being highly sympathetic to less so as the reader encounters them in different circumstances and with varying degrees of knowledge. A comprehensive and in-depth study of these four books would be not only possible but perhaps has already been accomplished many times over. It is truly quite an amazing work of art that continues to captivate and inspire readers.

\\n  “No escribo para aquellos que jamás se han preguntado en qué punto comienza la vida real” \\n

I began this adventure back in March, predicting how extraordinary the reading of the entire Alexandria Quartet would be for me. And I wasn't wrong. Everything that has surrounded the reading of this work will remain in my memory as a very special event.

\\n   “The curious thing is that those few words and her stifled, ironic laugh could have done what no one could do for me. Suddenly, I felt that everything was changing, lightening, coming into motion. I felt weak, almost sick. I was perplexed. Later, little by little, a clearing opened up. It was a sensation like escaping from a paralyzed hand.” \\n

As it couldn't be otherwise, Clea is a farewell. Although it brings some new elements, it takes care of closing the pending themes, even if it leaves us with some questions that each one will answer in their own way. It's not the best of the four novels, although we have once again enjoyed the lyricism of Darley's voice that we had missed in the previous chapter and that has put our hearts in a fist on several occasions. With it, this entire inventory of loves and lovers that has been the quartet ends, almost all of them tragic, some impossible or unattainable or incomprehensible or only dreamed or prohibited, the one that only emerges under certain conditions and even the comic has its place here.

\\n   “A single word, “love”, defines so many different species of the same animal!” \\n

This animal that perturbs us, capable of transforming us and deceptively transforming the object of our love into what we believe we need (“It was there forever, and it had never existed!” ), that lies to us by making us believe we are co-participants in a unity (\\"No matter how close we wish to be to the beloved creature, thus, we always remain so separated.”), that doesn't admit honesty, that confirms us in our solitude, “an absolute that takes or loses everything”, that upsets everything (”A city becomes a world when one loves one of its inhabitants” ), an illness, a madness, an obsession. Everything is more pleasant in its absence.

\\n   “So we let time pass, and so we could have remained, like static figures in a forgotten painting, savoring without haste the happiness granted to beings destined to enjoy each other without reserve or self-contempt, without the premeditated coverings of selfishness, the invented limitations of human love.” \\n

And only a little less terrible than love, the sting of art, the aspiration to be a writer, …

\\n   “Art, like a skilled masseur in a playing field, is always alert to help heal wounds and blows; and like those of the masseur, its occupations relieve the muscular tensions of the psyche. That's why it always looks for the areas of pain, presses with its fingers on the muscular ligaments, the cramped tendons, the sins, the perversions, everything unpleasant and annoying that we repugn to admit. A rough tenderness that loosens the tensions, relaxes the psyche.” \\n

… but also the great hope of humanity, capable even of laying the foundations for a new society.

\\n   “The human animal will be taken out of the cage, and its dirty cultural straw and its coprolitic remains of beliefs will be cleaned. And the human spirit, radiant with light and joy, will gently step on the green grass like a dancer; will rise to cohabit with the forms of time and procreate children into the world of the elemental, nymphs and salamanders, sylphs and wild ones, Gnomes and Vulcans, angels and elves. Yes, so that physical sensuality reaches mathematics and theology; to nourish, not to obstruct the intuitions.” \\n

But above all, a great individual longing that can give meaning to what, in any case, will never have it.

\\n  \\"I wait, serene and happy, transformed into a true human creature, into an artist at last. Clea.\\"

“Yes, one day I found myself writing with trembling fingers the four words (four letters!, four faces!) with which every artist since the world began has offered his concise message to his fellows. The words that simply presage the old story of a mature artist. I wrote: “Once upon a time there was...” And I felt that the entire Universe gave me a hug.” \\n

Alexandria Quartet, Oh God, on its beauty.
When any foreigner talks about a city or a place, you are faced with two possibilities:
- That he will exaggerate in this place (or generalize about it), that is, his personal opinion prevails.
- Or that he will present personalities and events from his own perspective about a place he loves.
In this work: a foreigner talks about a city from the most ancient cities in the world (which is Alexandria) through carefully selected personalities to present his perspective through them.
(Whoever has read Chicago will understand my perspective) but the difference between what the great Alaa Al-Aswany did and what Lawrence did: is that Al-Aswany was focusing in the first place on the impact of the foreign on the Egyptians and did not delve into the city itself (which is Chicago). As for (Lawrence Durrell), he painted a complete colorful picture of a strange city with its own charm. A city that colored the foreigner with its colors and imposed its silence on those who live in it, even if they are foreign to it.
What is enjoyable in this quartet is the personalities, frankly (especially the main personalities):
Because through these personalities, he presented to us: different emotions (love and hate, respect and contempt) and presented to us the motives of a kind of powerful love and love of power, represented in his characters.
A great work (or rather a great project).
The part that impressed me the most is this one: (collectively): because he presented to us women with their charm, mystery, allure, and revolt. With their madness and wisdom and what is between the two in a thin and delicate thread.
Women in all their beauty and attractiveness.
He presented to us the center of the universe and the source of its joy and happiness and also the source of its boredom and confusion.
In all simplicity, he presented to us: women.

I discovered that with each successive book in this renowned quartet, my enjoyment grew.

Justine was, of course, masterfully written (as all of them are exquisitely crafted). However, I wasn't certain if I would continue the series initially because the narrator's constant psychoanalyzing of the titular character was rather off-putting for me.

I decided to resume with Balthazar mainly because I craved the virtual experience of being in Egypt as depicted through the writer's eyes. And to my surprise, I found it better than the first, although still not quite meeting my exact hopes or expectations.

Nonetheless, I was glad to continue basking in LD's desert heat while reading by the fire during a chilly Victorian winter in Australia. Mountolive I liked very much, more than the first two. So, after finishing it, I seamlessly transitioned into Clea. I absolutely adored this last one, and in retrospect, it made me appreciate the entire quartet even more, without changing my stance on how frustratingly banal and irritating I found Justine.

What I stated in my review of the first book holds true until the last. For me, deep emotions are best felt silently and inferred subtly, rather than being crudely dissected with chilly needles. Spirituality is better lived out quietly than loudly preached by fools. And drunken, hollow cynicism shared at the bar should stay at the bar.

I believe what made me jaded towards LD's characters (with a few exceptions like Nessim, Leila, Clea, and Balthazar when he was in his doctor role) is that we repeatedly hear how remarkable these men are supposed to be, yet there is little to back up that claim. The most blatant example of this is Pursewarden, who is ultimately regarded by his friends as a far-seeing mystic and profound genius. This seems preposterous to me as nothing he says or does, whether ironic or straightforward, ever supports that perception of him.

Anyway, having now reached the end, I have a profound respect for LD's beautiful lyrical prose, his prismatical view of his characters' lives (undoubtedly a challenging task), which added depth and interest as one continued reading, and his astonishing ability to immerse a reader in a specific time and place and bring it vividly to life.

I don't have much more to say as I'm exhausted from staying up all night reading. But if you too desire a deep immersion into a hot and captivating ancient city that may or may not have ever existed except in LD's imagination, I highly recommend this set of books. Go for the cheerful seaside cafes and the festive nightlife, and stay until the end for the romance of it all.

I think this has been my favorite of the Alexandria Quartet.

I can clearly see the reason why he had to write this. The characters are truly beyond description. They are so extremely quirky, odd, and completely mad that they simply had to be either put in books or painted.

I understand that it's a novel, but it is very much about Durrell's life in Egypt. The crazy assortments of ex-pats who lived there, leading bohemian lives right on the edge, are vividly portrayed.

Such writing makes it a very dense read, yet it is also so poetic. I really like a challenging read, and undertaking to read this quartet again has been quite an assignment. However, I have no regrets. It has been just beautiful.

The detailed descriptions and the unique personalities of the characters have made this a truly unforgettable literary experience.

I look forward to exploring more of Durrell's works in the future.