Justine by Lawrence Durrell

I'm only about 50 years behind on this one, but glad that I have discovered Lawrence Durrell. Found Justine while browsing around Barnes & Noble several weeks ago. The story takes place in Alexandria, Egypt in the late 1930s. Whether Durrell depicts his locale as an exotic old world port or as a decaying and decadent vestige of the worst parts of antiquity, he paints with a pallet of words and expressions beyond the skills and vocabularies of most 21st Century writers. (my that was a mouthful...i must be inspired.) Justine is the first of four books which make up The Alexandria Quartet. While I have read only a quarter of it, I am hooked. His descriptions of feelings and thoughts, places and people are expansive, honest, sympathetic and often heart-wrenching. I can't wait to read more. Here is a brief idea of what I am talking about:

"I do not know," she said with a savage, obstinate, desperate expression of humility upon her face, "I do not know;" and she pressed herself upon me like someone pressing upon a bruise. It was as if she wished to expunge the very thought of me, and yet in the fragile quivering context of every kiss found a sort of painful surcease--like cold water on a sprain. How well I recognized her now as a child of the city, which decrees that its women shall be the voluptuaries not of pleasure but of pain, doomed to hunt for what they least dare to find!

And so I am spending my spare moments these days with Lawrence Durrell, a namesake of sorts. I cannot image a better way to spend a winter's day. If you enjoy writing that challenges, be sure to check out Justine and other works from Durrell on Amazon.