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Summary: A brilliant masterpiece of the 20th century
Review: Durrell's evocation of Alexandria and exploration of living as a process of discovery and encounter is a brilliant masterpiece. Returning to it after many years, I was astonished at how strong and successful it is. Don't be misled by the wonderful false clues (Durrell may even have believed them, but that doesn't matter!)--this series restores the novel to its capacity to enlighten, delight, and introduce the reader to the world as a world of encounters. All places become exotic after one reads about Durrell's Alexandria. Characters acquire character, not psychological traits--this is its most surprising, and non-"modern", aspect. And to think that Durrell managed this book, truly an artistic masterpiece, imbuded with the viewpoint of the artist, as a mass popular success! And why not? Hard to do; he did it--a hat trick. Durrell is revealed as a brilliant writer, and you will not forget his Alexandria.
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Summary: Thank you thabele
Review: My friends Jai, Thabele and Anna were constantly talking about this book and I always felt out of the conversation. Eventually I was driven to read it. The best decision in my life. The wonderful images and heartrending prose will be in my mind always. There are many happy rereadings to come.
Rating: 
Summary: I Must Have Missed Some Footnotes
Review: While Justine was certainly well-written, I have rarely had a more difficult time sorting out the relationships among a small cast of characters and understanding their past histories. Durrell offers his reader no assistance whatsoever, tossing off references to events and individuals as if we are all magically in-the-know. I kept flipping backward and forward, expecting someone or something to be explained, and finally realized I was on my own in Alexandria with no guidebook. I was left with no desire to move on to the other three novels.
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Summary: A fantastic exploration of the human psyche.
Review: The Alexandria Quartet is possibly the finest literary work of our time. It moves the soul to search itself for answers to timeless questions about emotions which we all experience. -Jelousy, love, fear, greed, hatred, insecurity, the need to posses another...etc. Justine is a great novel on its own, but The Quartet allows it to be a part of a masterpiece, and thus all four books should be read in sequence. Durrell's command of the English language is not easily paralleled.
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Summary: Impressive prose marred by defective sociology
Review: I read Justine, the first of the Quartet, and was initially very taken with Durrell's great facility in sketching emotional landscapes, and an almost mesmerizingly poetic prose style. Unfortunately, the book is marred by quite a few blatantly racist descriptions, of black people in particular; I'll spare you the details. Surprising in a book written past the half-century mark (published in 1957, I believe) and purportedly about an ultra-cosmopolitan city.The other problem I had was the complete implausibility of most of the dialogue; it was as if Durrell didn't know how to make his characters distinct from the narrator's own sensibility; they all talk like master prose stylists with ultra philosophical and literary bents. Some may say this was intentional stylization, but if so, it works against the book.
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Summary: A near encyclopedia of emotions and experience.
Review: In my view, this is one of our century's great literary works, equal in sweep to Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" and to Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time." Though nearly drenched in graphic sexuality, the book does present a multi-faceted view of the characters' entangled lives and manages to go beyond the Marquis de Sade's "Justine" [from whom Durrell drew a great deal of his inspiration for this work].
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Summary: A Place in Time
Review: This set calls out for a personal response: I found Justine by 'accident' in a house we rented in Tuscany. It is a novel that enthralls you, never letting you go. Very few novelists can write about love as the object itself - or of self-understanding; Justine or Nessim, Clea or the putative writer could be ordinary people but we would never know. Durrell masterfully mixes metaphor and sets atmosphere; he is writing of world, that like the love story itself, is long part of the past. He sweeps us along with him, and we enjoy the experience of reading emotionally as well as intellectually. The success of the quartet is not only literary, but also emotional and sensual. Self-Understanding, Alienation, Coming to terms lost love, not sentimentalizing the past, building a rich tapestry of the present and hope for the future all form elements of the catharsis in this novel. Durrell fits into a rich tradition that includes Marguerite Duras and Ford Maddox Ford -- writers who meditate on language and love using a place, a time and a notion of the 'foreign' to express their character's alienation and attempts at self-understanding.
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Summary: Long Live Scobie
Review: Any more words of praise, beyond what has been said, for this series of books would be banal. You will never forget Justine, Nessim, Balthazar, Pombal, Clea and the always entertaining Scobie. Just read it. No don't read it, live it! When is the next plane to Alexandria!?
Rating: 
Summary: Alexandria Quartet: The Endless Waste Land
Review: Unless you are one of those people where only the unconventional and impossible amuses you anymore, stay away from these books. Durrell writes without any clear point, grasping at the most blurred edges of pointless metaphors, such as the repeated use of "mirrors" in Justine, to appear clever and witty. It is clear to this reader that Durrell has only vague ideas about what he is trying to convey and probably sits behind his word processor laughing at potential readers knowing that through unsolvable puzzles comes respect. The only thing slighty interesing about this book is you learn something of the wonderful city of Alexandria.
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Summary: YOUR BRAIN WILL NEVER BE THE SAME
Review: This is how an old friend convinced me to read Durrell's stupendous "The Alexandria Quartet": Picking up the book, she flipped to a page at random, and let her finger settle on a line, which she read out loud. And whatever the line was (I don't remember now) I marvelled at it and crumpled inside. And so she flipped to another page and read another line. And damn me if it wasn't better than the first line! And this continued until I could take it no longer and snatched the book from her. And that's how I started reading what became one of the most MOMENTOUS books in my life. A desert island book if there ever was one.
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