Rating: 
Summary: Gutter Lyricism
Review: 'We are all in the gutter,' Wilde says somewhere, 'but some of us are gazing at the stars'. This is such a star-gazing book: gutter lyricism. Startling in its content and style, Justine deals with Great Love ... grown sick, or bad. Terribly beautiful.
Rating: 
Summary: I got through it
Review: Don't believe the hype. This book is not a masterpiece, but if you are able to stick through the piles of metaphorical images that are at moments beautiful but most often don't quite make sense together and make it to the end of this novel you'll be pleased to find some actual action and true emotion in Justine. It took me a very long time to read through the first half of this book. The narrator is irritatingly affected and the writing drags with a myriad of descriptions that are uneffective at creating a cohesive picture. But what kept me going were Durrell's secondary characters. He has a nack for capturing and creating quirkiness that borders on bizarre and his stories of the more minor men and women in Justine are striking, emotional, and entertaining. I am glad that I was able to make it to the end of the novel (there is a hospital scene that made it all worth while), but I do regret that I recommended this novel to my bookgroup and I do not plan to complete the quartet.
Rating:
Summary: Master of Mixed Metaphors
Review: Don't believe the hype. This book is not a masterpiece, but if you are able to stick through the piles of metaphorical images that are at moments beautiful but most often don't quite make sense together and make it to the end of this novel you'll be pleased to find some actual action and true emotion in Justine. It took me a very long time to read through the first half of this book. The narrator is irritatingly affected and the writing drags with a myriad of descriptions that are uneffective at creating a cohesive picture. But what kept me going were Durrell's secondary characters. He has a nack for capturing and creating quirkiness that borders on bizarre and his stories of the more minor men and women in Justine are striking, emotional, and entertaining. I am glad that I was able to make it to the end of the novel (there is a hospital scene that made it all worth while), but I do regret that I recommended this novel to my bookgroup and I do not plan to complete the quartet.
Rating:
Summary: Magical
Review: Durrell does a brilliant job of conveying the mystery and alienness of Cairo and the orient through the eyes of his narrator. Perhaps because the protaganist is in such unfarmiliar surroundings he falls easily to a woman who is eminently self-destructive, and who almost manages to bring him with her to the culmination of her journey. The prose is dense and elegant, and the book is very rewarding
Rating: 
Summary: Incandescent, word-drunk novel
Review: Durrell has created a city out of language in this novel. I take that partially back--in _Justine_, the city IS language. His lush and tactile descriptions become as real as bricks and mortar in the reader's mind. The Alexandria of this novel hums, crackles, simmers...sometimes it devours the characters who choose to live there, sometimes it gives them moments of epiphany. But reading this novel, you will, yourself, become a kind of resident of this unreal city. You will follow with fondness and sadness the minor characters who give this novel so much texture. You will soak up the cadences of Durrell's prose in creating this city. Justine, Nessim, and the rest of the flawed, though achingly poignant characters will haunt your reading of this novel in one fashion or another. They will seem to you like people you have known in real life--who HASN'T had a topsy-turvy lover in their lives?-- but at the same time take on properties of something out of Greek theatre. The characters are realistic and yet are greater than the sum of their parts. I can't wait to read the next three novels in the Alexandria Quartet. This book will truly endure. It has set off firecrackers in my brain.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: Durrell is often celebrated for the beauty of his prose. But compared to, say, Virginia Woolf or Proust, Durrell's writing often seems strained and self consciously arty. Many beautiful metaphors and, to me, just as many that fall flat and say nothing. Add to that characters who seem more like vehicles for ideas and actions rather than actual human beings (as V.S. Pritchett noted). Skip it and try Swann's Way or Mrs. Dalloway instead.
Rating:
Summary: Maybe not for you
Review: Durrell's writing may not be for everyone. As several other reviewers complained, there's not a whole lot of action, especially in the beginning of the novel; however, Durrell's prose is abolutely luminous and his study of Gnosticism, Kabbalah and other mysticism makes the text even richer.
Rating:
Summary: A Tease or an Indulgence?
Review: I finish Durrell's first book of the Alexandrian Quartet- "Justine" and rush to my keyboard in search of the perfect words or phrases that would do this masterpiece justice. Nothing. Is this to signify writer's block? Or perhaps Durrell has already written of women what I would like to say of his book? Out of self-pride, and the highest of praises, I opt for the latter. Durrell has done himself the justice he deserves as one of the greatest writers of all times. Of an erotic story I once wrote, a friend/critic remarked that it is often better to tease than indulge. Being the brash young man that I was (still am to some degree) I had a hard time understanding that a slight tease can sometimes be more fulfilling than a deep indulgence. I picked up "Justine" with the understanding that a tease was all that would be offered. What I found upon completion was a desire for more rather than a smug satisfaction. That is the difference between a tease and an indulgence. "Justine" begins with pages upon pages of beautiful poetic prose. Initially, I found it difficult to become immersed in the book, but as the story unraveled, I found myself more entwined. Upon further thought, I have concluded (and this is open to interpretation, as with anything) that Durrell was trying to paint a picture of a time and place that escapes everyday language. Rather than succumb to hum-drum limitations, he uses poetic prose as a painter would use layers of colors to achieve a desired effect. What the reader is left with is a sort of anxiety, as one would experience in an actual unknown world, where black and white only exist as stepping stones for more magnificent colors of experience. After all, experience is ultimately left to the individual; the successful writer offers an alternate path for such experiences. Only by reading this book can you truly understand what I am trying to say. My words about his book mean nothing without the book itself to provide the avenues for meaning.
Rating:
Summary: If you like the DaVinci Code, this is NOT for you...
Review: I have never read a book as well penned as Justine. It is the type of book that could send an aspiring writer into a bout of deep depression as they are confronted with a tapestry of words ostensibly woven out of gold. My only consolation is that L.D. wrote this in a time where there was no Cable TV, Internet, MSN messenger, cell phones, etc. I read the other reviews and was apalled when I read how other "book fanatics" found this book to be complete rubbish. My advice to them is learn how to really communicate with a book...it requires a lot more concentration, intention, and commitment than watching Sex in the City.
It is not an easy read. It is not full of banal dialogue or easily digestible platitudes. It is composed of mellifluous and thoughtful utterances, indelible landscapes, and psychological/metaphysical nuances (yes, nuances!). This is a book that all writers need to read. It offers you a porthole into the headspace of a fellow artist, tormented, self deprecating, yet proud at the same time.
Arabs, Jews, Copts, and Kabbalists collide, coexist, and sometimes even influence eachother in the Alexandria Quartet. Watching the way these religions served as cultural molds instead of moral guidelines served as a barometer for the times juxtaposing the religious extremism that has made such a comeback in the Middle East today. Egypt has been written about since the beginning of time, and the Middle East is the origin of civilization as we know it. Alexandria is the backdrop for a pre/post WWII drama and is rife with adultery, prostitution, STDs, alcoholism, foreign affairs, and most importantly to me; the loyalty that unifies family and friends.
This book tops my Great Books List...a list that includes Tolstoy, Joyce, Proust, etc... If you are willing to put in the time and effort required for this masterpiece of English literature, you will be handsomely rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: Alexandria love and life
Review: I read this book on a desert Island when my life
was rather dull. I came home, I fell in love, my
girlfriend left me, my friend crashed his car killing a girl who only the day before had sat on my pizza, I lost my job, junkies ruined my house, my girlfriend came back, we travled to the mohave and sonoma, we saw a three bears real close..., we swam in Lake Superior, it was sunny in Scotland... there was thunder and I woke in a puddle and visited Mont San Michel...I lived
If you have any romance in you or chance of
living you have to read all 4 books in the Alexandia Quartet.
It is sad to see so many people praising "The English Patient" when here is a towering masterpiece set in the same time and location
and handling similiar themes. For scope, romance, passion and life this is a giant where the other is very very small pigmy.
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