Do I have to read Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet?

[MsAmerica]

I was quickly browsing through some used books, saw a nice one-volume copy of the Durrell and bought it for pennies, as it's on my radar in the back of my mind as a "good" book.
I thought myself lucky, until I sat down and started to read. Okay, I didn't know anything about it. But I hate it. I hate the style. Is there any reason I should force myself to try to tackle it?

None whatsoever. Life's too short to force yourself to read something that doesn't click with you.

Nope, not at all. If it’s the history aspect you’re interested in, maybe try Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War.

But be warned, she is rightly criticised for an incident at the beginning of the first book of the Levant trilogy, which she took from real life and ran away with in a very unkind direction.

Absolutely this. I tried to read Durrell and did not manage to continue. Fortunes of War had me gripped though, very character driven.

I read the whole Quartet last year and from your initial reaction I'd say no, don't read it. Three of the four books are very much in the same vein—somewhat stiff relationships, unexplained jumps in perspective, a faintly clumsy/condescending authorial voice—so if you truly 'hate the style' for those reasons you're going to find it hard to get over, unless you love the setting.

For my part I did find the setting fascinating so it was worth persevering, and there were from time to time long, almost stream-of-consciousness passages—an encounter with child prostitutes, or a long ride through the delta and desert with a significant character's brother—which were almost transcendental and the payoff was immense. It doesn't sound like you're in a mood for that.

Interestingly the third volume, Mountolive, isn't like that, but is the straight-down-the-line story of a British diplomat caught up in those wider events. It's the book that enabled me to make overall sense of the thing. I never thought of how it would read on its own but, if you did want to exhaust every possibility before abandoning, you could give that part a go and see if it sticks.

I loved his Stiff Upper Lip and Esprit De Corps- also about British diplomats but funny-but couldn't get through the trilogy.

Thanks, but I'd disagree with that. There are often reasons to read something that you find unpalatable.

Actually, not only am I not interested in the history aspect - I didn't even know what it was about!

You put it nicely - stiff and condescending.

🙁

God, no. There are so many great books out there it would absurd to grind away at one you hate. I'd make an exception of, say, Hamlet or Keats' odes or Orwell's 1984. These are such important works, and so short, that it's worth persevering. But in general I'd say don't. As someone once said, "Proust is too long and life is too short."

There are many great books, and great writers, I dislike. I can't get on with Nabokov, for example. People tell me he's the supreme stylist of the 20th-century, but I can't see it. I have no doubt it's my stupidity, but there it is. With most of the other great stylists (Newman, Pater, Ruskin, Conrad, Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald) I can see why people make a fuss. Not with Nabokov. To me his prose is just too flowery and alliterative. I find the prose of P G Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh far more beautiful. I admire Joyce and, though I struggle at times, I can see real beauty there. However, I prefer Anthony Burgess. Burgess was a Joyce scholar who modeled his writing on Joyce. Unfortunately, I prefer the student to the master.

I also have an on off relationship with Wilde. The dialogue in Dorian Gray is gorgeous. And I love the world Wilde conjures up (Victorian aesthetes with silky hair smoking opium rolled cigarettes and discussing art). His style grates on me at times though. When he describes the moon, say, or the waving grass, it seems nauseatingly overwritten. As a writer of ideas, whose books fizz with wit and sophistication, I prefer Aldous Huxley. I also find Waugh and Wodehouse funnier. Wilde was witty, but that's not the same as being funny.

Dappy, I absolutely LOVE your saying, "I have no doubt it's my stupidity, but there it is." I often feel I'm a complete aberration in feeling that my failing to appreciate something "great" is likely my own lapse.

And, yes, I agree that there can be a distinction between liking a work, and not liking it, but yet understanding what others feel is commendable.

The Alexandria Quartet has been on my bookshelf for nearly forty years, and I still haven’t got past chapter 1 of book 1. Beautiful cover though.

Lol. That reminds me of trying to start Gone With the Wind.

I applaud your willingness to go against the current mantra about life being too short to read challenging books. I would say life is too short to bother reading books that I can zip through in no time but are ultimately just entertainment and do nothing for my soul. I adore The Alexandria Quartet and loathe Fortunes of War, finding the plot negligible, the prose turgid and the characters uninteresting. Which of these two volumes would you prefer, or maybe you would dislike them equally? And there’s the catch - the only way to find out is to read them! There is no other way, certainly not someone else telling you what to think. No one should ever tell anyone NOT to read a particular book. In a sense, every book you read is a worthwhile experience. I can only say that something in TAQ energised me that didn’t in FOW. The rest is up to you.

I applaud your willingness to go against the current mantra about life being too short to read challenging books. I would say life is too short to bother reading books that I can zip through in no time but are ultimately just entertainment and do nothing for my soul. I adore The Alexandria Quartet and loathe Fortunes of War, finding the plot negligible, the prose turgid and the characters uninteresting. Which of these two volumes would you prefer, or maybe you would dislike them equally? And there’s the catch - the only way to find out is to read them! There is no other way, certainly not someone else telling you what to think. No one should ever tell anyone NOT to read a particular book. In a sense, every book you read is a worthwhile experience. I can only say that something in TAQ energised me that didn’t in FOW. The rest is up to you.

As someone once said, "Proust is too long and life is too short."

Proust is great though, surprisingly funny and readable - just long!

I read it first as a student back in the 1960s. It absorbed me then and the books have lived with me over the years and I re-read them every so often. The sense of place and time is so good. And the books are rather like a jigsaw where you have to work hard to put things together and work out what really happened. I can understand if you find the overblown style irritating, and I would never suggest anyone persevering with an author who has that effect. Personally I hate Henry James for this reason though I can see that other people feel quite differently.

I'm not quite so virtuous, but I do feel guilty reading something I'm pretty sure is junky.
And I'm more willing to stop. Once upon a time I felt obliged to finish anything. Then at some point I was midway through what I think was my second John Grisham book, which I knew to be a best-selling and picked up while staying at a friend's house. And I suddenly thought: This is terrible - why am I reading this? And stopped.

Devoured ‘Justine’ in one day some years ago - wonderful rich evocative language -but didnt get into the others.
What was the issue with the Levant trilogy?

What would be those reasons? There are way too many books in the world for us to read all of them in a lifetime.

I'm not advocating for reading junk but rather making a considered choice of how to spend your reading time. I like Nabokov which a previous poster doesn't get along with. If it's OK for her not to read him, why would you have to struggle through Durrell?

Like Sskka said, Mountolive is easier to read. I read that as an individual book first, before I had the other volumes, and I think it made the others easier. I love it but it’s very of it’s time.

I loved My Family and Other Animals when I was 14, so obviously my next library choice was the Alexandria Quartet. I struggled through, very disappointed. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that it's nowhere near as funny.

Coming to this very late, but I wondered which incident you are referring to? Is it the scene with Angela Hooper and her son?

Yes, that’s right. She based it on a real occurrence. I think it was fairly callous to use the story in the way she did, especially as the grieving parents were recognisable, but the later plot around the Angela Hooper character was not based on the same mother.

Yes, I think loads of us read Gerald Durrell aged twelve and thought ‘Oh, the funny brother is what I’ll read next!’

Well, one of the most obvious reasons to read something unpalatable might be a wish to be informed.