Justine
Justine is the "autobiographical novel" of a Scottish writer living in Alexandria's émigré community between the two World Wars. (The book's actual author, Lawrence Durrell, lived in Damascus and wrote the novel in 1957.) In main part it is the dissection of a scene: writers, philosophers, artists, prostitutes, loan sharks, and the odd (and eccentric) civil servant or banker. At least, you sense that the "author" of the novel would have liked to have written a novel about this scene, had settled in Alexandria in order to write a novel about this scene, but that what he actually wrote was a novel describing his close circle of friends in literary/poetic/psychological terms, quoting them quoting each other quoting À Rebours. Everyone in this group is "interesting"/dysfunctional and the main subject of their conversation is themselves: their various worldviews and the regrettable circumstances which have caused these to come about.
This may sound boring but due to the high concentration of Very Interesting and Intelligent Characters(tm) it is fascinating. Which brings me to my second point: this is a novel about fascination. The author's circle of friends would be incestuous enough even if they were NOT mostly obsessed with Justine, but this is not the case. Only three characters, Scobie, Pursewarden, and Melissa, are primarily acquaintances of the author, and even these three do not manage to escape her. (Well, maybe Pursewarden. Melissa might have if she'd had more choice. Scobbie is confined to bed.) The author himself is carrying on an affair with Justine, right under the nose of her husband and his best friend, Nessim. This affair does not make him happy but only fatalistic and obsessive, but he can't walk away from it. As for Justine, she is "not intelligent but possessed of an animal cunning" and a knack for appropriating other people's intelligent remarks; she is broken but also magnetically, hypnotically, compellingly, beautiful.
Justine SAVES this book. I mean you have 50 pages in the beginning of the author struggling (mostly unsuccessfully) to bring together a lot of impressionistic detail about Alexandria and somehow, through repeated insistence, convince you (the reader) that there is a PHYSICAL MALAISE to the place that stifles creativity and produces (like a factory) prismatic personalities like Justine. This part of the book is atmospheric but shallow (does the author know anything about the real Alexandria? Or does he only know its marketplaces, houses of prostitution, University, and émigré community?) and I, personally, was a bit bored by it. Sure, the style is there, but where is the substance? But then the author finds, and begins quoting from, "Moeurs": a novel by a French writer who was the lover of Justine when she was younger. This writer was obsessed with determining the underlying cause(s) of Justine's behavior and "curing" her, and to this end he took her across Europe to all the famous psychiatrists of the day. "Mouers" becomes the author's textbook/guidebook/Holy Text and Justine (the novel, but also the character) becomes 100% more compelling the instant it appears.
Lawrence Durrell does a lot of interesting things with this book, I think. He describes a place. He fills it with interesting characters. He uses Romantic language which incorporates, increasingly, covert modern psychology. He has his characters saying very interesting -- and quoatable -- things. All of this is recorded by an author about whom the reader knows next to nothing, though we can figure a few things out from inspection: He's not a very good writer, at least not at first. He insists on identifying every quotation -- in contrast to Justine who never does? Or in order to maintain a clear sense of which thoughts are his? He struggles to keep a part of himself separate. He prefers impersonal explanations (The City) over personal ones. And yet, because of the company he is keeping, he becomes, over the course of the novel, a very good portrait-artist-in-words -- but maybe only of his friends who thoughtfully deconstruct themselves? These same friends tell us, furthermore, that Justine is not unique but rather belongs to a long lineage of Dangerous Personalities, and that the author is not the first person to fall into this particular trap.
Any of the characters in this book could honestly have carried an entire novel by themselves, so in a sense it is a shame that so much of the novel's stage time is eaten by Justine. I would have liked to have known more about Nessim or Melissa, especially. But there is a rule of fascination in literature: the more the fascination is described, the more it is replicated in the person of the reader. There is a reason the novel is called Justine, in other words.
The ending is very interesting and worth talking about (it is about Peace destroying Art only the author does not say definitively that this is what has taken place), but I do not want to spoil too much. Spoilers are welcome in comments, but not for the other three books in the Quartet, which I definitely intend to read -- recommended!
This may sound boring but due to the high concentration of Very Interesting and Intelligent Characters(tm) it is fascinating. Which brings me to my second point: this is a novel about fascination. The author's circle of friends would be incestuous enough even if they were NOT mostly obsessed with Justine, but this is not the case. Only three characters, Scobie, Pursewarden, and Melissa, are primarily acquaintances of the author, and even these three do not manage to escape her. (Well, maybe Pursewarden. Melissa might have if she'd had more choice. Scobbie is confined to bed.) The author himself is carrying on an affair with Justine, right under the nose of her husband and his best friend, Nessim. This affair does not make him happy but only fatalistic and obsessive, but he can't walk away from it. As for Justine, she is "not intelligent but possessed of an animal cunning" and a knack for appropriating other people's intelligent remarks; she is broken but also magnetically, hypnotically, compellingly, beautiful.
Justine SAVES this book. I mean you have 50 pages in the beginning of the author struggling (mostly unsuccessfully) to bring together a lot of impressionistic detail about Alexandria and somehow, through repeated insistence, convince you (the reader) that there is a PHYSICAL MALAISE to the place that stifles creativity and produces (like a factory) prismatic personalities like Justine. This part of the book is atmospheric but shallow (does the author know anything about the real Alexandria? Or does he only know its marketplaces, houses of prostitution, University, and émigré community?) and I, personally, was a bit bored by it. Sure, the style is there, but where is the substance? But then the author finds, and begins quoting from, "Moeurs": a novel by a French writer who was the lover of Justine when she was younger. This writer was obsessed with determining the underlying cause(s) of Justine's behavior and "curing" her, and to this end he took her across Europe to all the famous psychiatrists of the day. "Mouers" becomes the author's textbook/guidebook/Holy Text and Justine (the novel, but also the character) becomes 100% more compelling the instant it appears.
Lawrence Durrell does a lot of interesting things with this book, I think. He describes a place. He fills it with interesting characters. He uses Romantic language which incorporates, increasingly, covert modern psychology. He has his characters saying very interesting -- and quoatable -- things. All of this is recorded by an author about whom the reader knows next to nothing, though we can figure a few things out from inspection: He's not a very good writer, at least not at first. He insists on identifying every quotation -- in contrast to Justine who never does? Or in order to maintain a clear sense of which thoughts are his? He struggles to keep a part of himself separate. He prefers impersonal explanations (The City) over personal ones. And yet, because of the company he is keeping, he becomes, over the course of the novel, a very good portrait-artist-in-words -- but maybe only of his friends who thoughtfully deconstruct themselves? These same friends tell us, furthermore, that Justine is not unique but rather belongs to a long lineage of Dangerous Personalities, and that the author is not the first person to fall into this particular trap.
Any of the characters in this book could honestly have carried an entire novel by themselves, so in a sense it is a shame that so much of the novel's stage time is eaten by Justine. I would have liked to have known more about Nessim or Melissa, especially. But there is a rule of fascination in literature: the more the fascination is described, the more it is replicated in the person of the reader. There is a reason the novel is called Justine, in other words.
The ending is very interesting and worth talking about (it is about Peace destroying Art only the author does not say definitively that this is what has taken place), but I do not want to spoil too much. Spoilers are welcome in comments, but not for the other three books in the Quartet, which I definitely intend to read -- recommended!