Rating: 
Summary: Strongest At the Middle
Review: I would have happily given this series five stars had not the last book ended so disappointingly. The first and fourth books are the weakest, Justine because of Darley's immense naivete, and Clea because the exigencies of plot become contrived, the characters falling to the mercy of Durrell's need to make something happen. The Quartet is strongest, in my opinion, when little or nothing is actually happening. It is in the seemingly random recollections of incidents in the first two books that Durrell's theories (illustrated within the books by the metafictional character of Pursewarden, the novelist) work best, each showing events which will recur in later books and be explained in an entirely different way. Who is Justine? What is the reason for Pursewarden's fate? What, in fact, is the true face of any of these characters? The answer seems to be a multiplicity--every interpretation bears equal weight, which is to say none at all. At times Durrell's prose is not equal to the ambition of his narrative, but this is truly a fascinating read, especially for writers and students of literature.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Premise - Execrable Execution
Review: The premise of this work is to tell the same story from four different viewpoints to demonstrate the role of the narrator in fiction - it would have helped enormously if there'd been a story to tell from the beginning.Instead, we're treated to a fantastically dull narration of an incredibly mundane and ordinary sequence of nothing-really-happening, and to add spite to injury, when done once, we must traverse the same static space of lack of events three more times, told from very subtly different viewpoints, not really doing much for the original premise. The idea is very interesting and could have been a marvellous work - instead its entire lack of a story to tell leaves one with the feeling that it could have been done much, much better. As it is now, it one of the most incredibly boring books I've ever read.
Rating: 
Summary: Bittersweet
Review: This book is about pre-WWII Alexandria with its promenades, palms swinging in the wind, colonial palaces and dark, smelly, narrow passages of the old kasbah; it is about delicate relationship between the Alexandrian expat community (writers, diplomats, soldiers, hangers on, ne'er do wells) and the native Egyptians, Copts and Jews. Like in today's New York, these people love and hate and yearn in blatant disregard of unwritten rules of conduct that separate the rulers and the ruled in the post-colonial world. i simply love the delicateness with which Durrell writes about passion, about the unfolding of the senses, creative inspiration and about the soul. i love the humour that seeps through the pages and the uncanny way he captures the personalities of his protagonists. The people in this tetralogy have become my friends - Scobie, Clea, Nessim, Melissa, Darley, Pombal, Pursewarden ... have taught me about living (and about dying). In many ways, the tetralogy is very unpretentious - it is about ordinary lives of Alexandrians just before WWII. But how very extraordinary is the ordinary. How beautiful is the gradual unfolding of Darley's own character from the clutches of passion and lust and into the embrace of love. These books are about giving and taking, about the mundane and the sacred, sweet and sour of life. And they are about nostalgia and yearning which take refuge in an open heart. I recommend them highly.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat Disappointing
Review: I kept digging and digging, but all I found under the sands of Alexandria was more sand. Not nearly as breathtaking as I had expected.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Prose and Exceptional Plot
Review: Durrell is an incredible writer who is masterful at setting moods, both through his imagery and the use of his character's psyches. That being said, these books are a true pleasure to read. The plot threads are a melange of romance, politics, intrigue, but everything blends together to become a superb statement about the quality of all human experiences. Even though Durrell spent much of his life outside of the Western world, his descriptions of an Islamic world are still colored by his Christian mindset, which can be frustrating if you are looking for cultural relativity, or delightful, as it allows you to sympathize with many of the characters, who are of occidental descent and out of place in Egypt.
Rating:
Summary: Massive undertaking
Review: Poetic, rich in detail, interwoven cleverly. __Justine_ was my favorite of all.
Rating:
Summary: A Frustrating Mix of Wonderful and Boring
Review: This quartet is a frustrating mixture of wonderful writing and boring passages. I read it once a decade ago and a second time recently. To decide whether you'll like it, consider the following. Structure: Durrell is writing spatially as well as sequentially. The first book, Justine, leaves gaps in the reader's knowledge to reflect the gaps in the narrator's knowledge. The second book, Balthazar, retraces the same material and fills in some of the gaps as the narrator learns more. The third book, Mountolive, tells the story in the form of a traditional novel (third person) and fills in most of the gaps. The fourth book, Clea, is set later in time; it once again leaves gaps to reflect what the narrator doesn't know. This is a fascinating approach, but to enjoy it, you must be willing to endure unanswered questions that reflect the narrator's lack of knowledge (including some, in Clea, that will never be answered). Introspection: The characters spend a great deal of time looking within themselves, trying to understand their motives and desires. This can be interesting to those who like psychology. But the characters spend so much time introspecting that it becomes annoying. They are so self-centered, so hung up on everything they themselves do and wondering why they do it, that after a while one longs for a character who is more interested in someone else than in him/herself, more interested in action than in endless thought. Style: Durrell is a wonderful wordsmith. Some of his sentences will stay with you for a long time. And he paints vivid word pictures of Alexandria. But that is also a problem: he paints, and paints, and paints. After a while, even readers who much prefer character-driven fiction to slam-bang potboilers will long fervently for something to happen. Characters: If you like detailed descriptions and analyses of secondary characters, you may find characters such as Scobie enjoyable. If you don't, the extended time spent on such characters will become a tedious digression that slows down the story to a snail's pace. Plot and philosophy: If you've spent a a fair amount of time wondering what love is, why some lovers are manipulative, why some love is destructive to the lovers, why and how people destroy their own loving affairs because they don't understand themselves and their motivations, this quartet will provide you with considerable food for thought. But if you regard love more as something to experience and feel than to analyze and interpret, if you believe that you're pretty much in control of your emotions and won't fall in love with someone who's bad for you, if you regard love as something fairly straightfoward and relatively easy to understand rather than as something highly complicated and abstruse, the lengthy reflections and ponderings of the characters will probably drive you up the wall. Culture: World War II Alexandria is of course far different from the contemporary United States. If you like exploring different cultures and peoples, you'll like this aspect of the quartet. But if you like to identify with the characters in a novel as a way of getting into the story and better understanding yourself, you may find that these characters and locales are too different for you to do so. Overall impact: Tbe book reads like a lesiurely and luxurious immersion in words, words, words. This can be sensuous and enticing. It can also leave the reader with the feeling of watching a craftsman put on a show that, ultimately, has little lasting impact. There is much in the quartet to admire. But there are also serious negatives. For me, the considerable effort hasn't been justified by sufficient rewards. Which is not to say that I won't go back some day and try it for the third time.
Rating:
Summary: Overwhelming, Sensual, Thought Provoking
Review: I just finished the quartet. I must admit that the overall work is so lush and so deep that I cannot reconstruct the interweavings, orderings, motivations etc. But I can also say that most of the characters live for me. Even though I have finished I find myself wondering how DaCapo is doing. I wonder who Justine is introducing to Memlik. And I wonder if Melissa's daughter is growing up and going to high school now. I am grateful to Durrell for expanding my understanding of love and artistry. I hope to read other of his works. One fun thing that I was able to do with this reading was to read it with a friend. So as I was reading one book, he was reading another. We compared notes on what was happening with particular characters in our respective books. It added depth to the readings and gave us something fun to talk about.
Rating:
Summary: It's an all-or-nothing reaction....
Review: I have now read and re-read the Alexandria Quartet and there's little doubt that it ranks up there with the very best - it's scope, ranging from being an exploration of the human 'emotional' condition through politics and philosophy to being a 'cracking yarn', is comparable to that of Tolstoy. In my opinion it matters little in which order the Quartet is read - confirmation of Durrell's success at attempting a literary equivalent of the 'theory of relativity' - but as Justine (the 1st book..) is a beautifully written emotional outpouring (from the standpoint of an Anglo-Saxon who, upon landing in Alexandria, has just discovered unbuttoned love...), containing little in the way of plot signposts, it demands perseverance...here's my advice (for what it's worth): if you feel the need to orientate yourself in the story read Mountolive 1st, everything flows thereafter. Does the fact that this Quartet needs something of a roadmap make it a flawed book? I think not, it should be seen, instead, as a measure of the satisfying, if complex, story Durrell tells.
Rating:
Summary: Nowhere to begin
Review: Unlike these four gems, words fail me as I make a sorry attempt to even convince you how magnificent Durrell's work is. Discovering these was like a slap across the face. What was I reading before the Quartet? Junk. I remember after finishing three or four Hesse novels thinking to myself, "Well, he has said it all..." How naive and wrong I was. Treat yourself to the most wonderful of stories, the darkest of intrigue, and the raw power of our human condition. Perhaps the finest collection of aphorisms since Human, All Too Human by Nietzsche. Just read the damn things...
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