eight months later... the return of the Alexandria Quartet!

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I decided to finish Clea (final book in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet) instead of Anathem. Hard to discuss this series without giving away key plot points but I will try.

Justine: See previous post.

Comments

sorry that it's taken me so long to reply, have some chat

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me: actually my theory (which i told sabina) is that justine is some of durrell's earlier writing that he just couldn't bear to throw away XD
Charmian: LOL
me: so he found a way to salvage it
Charmian: Interesting theory
me: think about how difficult it would be to rewrite all of justine to include the insights in balthazar
Charmian: well, since Darley didn't know about them, how could he have had such insights?
A first person narrator cannot tell what he doesn't know
me: you're assuming that the gaps were (originally) deliberate
Charmian: ah, so in the beginning, Durell thought Darley's story was the correct story?
me: i'm saying that durrell looked over what he had written, and noticed that there were weaknesses - for instance, it's too serious, he needs some humor to lighten the mood
and the characters are flat - that can't possibly be all there is to them
so he thought about how he could fix what he'd done so far
and came up with the revelations in balthazar
Charmian: ah, and it was by introducing another perspective?
Heh, I wonder if we can find out whether something like that might be the truth