As the New Yorker article states memory has free range, no formal attempt is made at structure or even at rendering the story easy to follow. Style/structure: epiphany style of James Joyce. Durrell Legacy: modernistic, prewar story of love, sex. Mostly it is a character study with Alexandra as probably the main character. There is some espionage and there is the hunting scene. There is reference to an act of sexual abuse against Justine in her younger years. The story is more of character study that any plot. The triangles are the 1) school teacher and his mistress, Melissa and Justine 2) Justine, Nessim, and the school teacher, and one could also add Melissa and Nessim bonded together against Justine and the school teacher. It is a story of a love triangle, but also a story of Alexandra. Story is set in Alexandra, Egypt, pre world war II. I don't think I am sufficiently interested in them to read the other books of the quartet. This book is the first of four books about the same group of people so perhaps some of those people will become more important in other books. Various other personages circle through the pages. Justine's present husband suspects she is having an affair but doesn't seem to know with whom. Our narrator has almost memorized the whole book.
Justine has a history of sexual affairs her first husband wrote a book about her and her unfaithfulness. He has a girlfriend, Melissa, who is a dancer at a nightclub but he falls in love with Justine, the wife of a rich banker. He doesn't actually have much spare time because he hobnobs with the expat community. He supported himself by teaching and he was trying to write in his spare time. He is English probably although that is never completely specified. Nevertheless I wasn't caught up by the story.The unnamed narrator writes about his life in Alexandria Egypt before World War II. For its time (1957) I'm sure it was daring because of the sexual frankness. Some of the writing is magical and evocative and the structure of the novel is rather unusual. Maybe at another time in my life I would have rated this book higher than 3 stars out of five.
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