^#smrgSAHAF The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea -

The reputations of writers and their books inevitably rise and fall with literary fashions. There are many writers on this site whose reputations were much higher that they are today. Inevitably, writers such as Hemingway and D H Lawrence come to mind, the former, with his simple sentences and machismo and the latter with his earthy sexuality both seeming somewhat out of date in the 21st century. Durrell is another of these writers. Best remembered for this book, his flowery style, his exoticism (and exotic sex) and complex plot do not seem entirely in tune with the current age. Exoticism and exotic sex, so fascinating in the 1950s and 1960s, are now just a cheap flight away while a flowery style seems generally to be frowned on in this age of ten second sound bites. This is a pity for, reading it again after many years, I found that it still stood up as a fine piece of English literature.

Clea, ünlü İngiliz romancısı Lawrence Durrell'in dört kitaptan oluşan İskenderiye Dörtlüsünün dördüncü ve son romanı. Daha önce yayımladığımız Justine (1957), Balthazar (1958), Mountolive adlı ilk üç kitapta anlatılan olaylar ve yaratılan kişiler, ancak dördüncü roman Clea (1960) ile bir bütünlük kazanıyor. Diyelim ki Balthazar'da romanın kişilerinden biri olan Pursewarden intihar etti; üçüncü roman Mountolive'de bu intiharın nedeni açıklanır gibi olur; ama Clea'da, Pursewarden'in kendi kör kızkardeşine yasak bir aşk beslemesi olduğunu görürüz...