Mountolive, published in 1958, is the third volume in The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt, around World War II, the four novels tell essentially the same story from different points of view and come to a conclusion in Clea.Mountolive is the only third person narrative in the series, and it is also the most overtly political.
According to biographer Ian MacNiven, Lawrence Durrell regarded Mountolive as the clou, the nail holding together the entire structure of the Quartet. And Durrell gave to David Mountolive, his English ambassador, details from his own life: "Mountolive had been born in India, had left it at age eleven, had had an affair with a Yugoslav dancer. Mountolive had not seen his father again after leaving India, and this Larry joined to his own myth of abandonment, a myth he came absolutely to believe, that he had not seen his father after coming to England."[1]
Plot and Characterization
The novel's tensions begin with young David Mountolive on the Hosnani estate, where he has begun an affair with Leila Hosnani, mother of Nessim and Narouz. This leads to a recollection of Mountolive's maturation and career as a diplomat, a career which in time returns him to Egypt, leading up to the present day of the novel series, at which point Mountolive recontextualizes the materials that appeared previously in Justine and Balthazar. Mountolive retains Pursewarden as his chief political adviser. Mountolive then introduces a Coptic gunrunning plot in support of Zionism. This plot development has been criticised as unrealistic,[2] but more recently scholars have demonstrated the intensely political and well-informed background for Durrell's notions.[3] Pursewarden kills himself; Nessim is warned to act to curb his brother Narouz, whose subversive rhetoric has become dangerously extravagant.
The novel ends with the Copt wake for Narouz. The Pasha has disingenuously pretended to believe he is the Hosnani in the incriminating papers so he can continue to receive bribes from Nessim. Mountolive, meanwhile prepares to turn his back on Egypt, totally disillusioned.
Responses
Durrell had sent out proofs and carbons of Mountolive to a few people whose opinions he valued. Richard Aldington praised the long letter from Pursewarden to Mountolive (V), and the mourning of the Coptic women. Henry Miller admired the description of the slaughter of the camels (V). Gerald Sykes, the novelist and New York Times reviewer, found the fish drive (I) "in [Durrell's] best manner." Early reviews, following the publication date of 10 October 1958, contained contradictions. The TLS called it "possibly the most significant of the series". Pamela Hansford Johnson in the New Statesman praised the style but was critical of the absence of a "moral and intellectual centre." Time praised the imagery and "penetrant thought," but judged the novel the weakest of the series to date. In November 1958 Mountolive was named an American Book of the Month selection, which would guarantee Durrell $20,000.[4]
Footnotes
↑ Ian MacNiven, Lawrence Durrell, A Biography, Faber 1998, p.466-468
↑ Manzalaoui, Mahmoud (1962). "Curate's Egg: An Alexandrian Opinion of Durrell's Quartet." Etudes Anglaises 15.3. pp. 248-260.
↑ Haag, Michael (2004). Alexandria: City of Memory. Yale University Press. 0300104154.
↑ Lawrence Durrell, a Biography - Ian MacNiven, p.488, 490
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell.
Lake Mariout, is a brackish lake in northern Egypt near the city of Alexandria. The lake area covered 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi) and had a navigable canal at the beginning of the 20th century, but at the beginning of the 21st century, it covers only about 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi).
The Alexandria Quartet is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and characters in Alexandria, Egypt, before and during the Second World War. The fourth book is set six years later.
Theodore Philip Stephanides was a Greek-British doctor and polymath, best remembered as the friend and mentor of Gerald Durrell. He was also known as a naturalist, biologist, astronomer, poet, writer and translator.
Justine, published in 1957, is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's literary tetralogy, The Alexandria Quartet. The tetralogy consists of four interlocking novels, each of which recounts various aspects of a complex story of passion and deception from differing points of view. The quartet is set in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in the 1930s and 1940s. The city itself is described by Durrell as becoming as much of a complex character as the human protagonists of the novels. Since first becoming available to the public and reviewers in 1957, Justine has inspired what has been called "an almost religious devotion among readers and critics alike." It was adapted into the film of the same name in 1969.
Clea, published in 1960, is the fourth volume in The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt, around World War II, the first three volumes tell the same story from different points of view, and Clea relates subsequent events.
Loxwood is a small village and civil parish with several outlying settlements, in the Chichester district of West Sussex, England, within the Low Weald. The Wey and Arun Canal passes to the East and South of the village. This Civil Parish is at the centre of an excellent network of bridleways and footpaths crossing the Low Weald and joining with those in adjacent Counties.
Justine is a 1969 American drama film directed by George Cukor and Joseph Strick. It was written by Lawrence B. Marcus and Andrew Sarris, based on the 1957 novel Justine by Lawrence Durrell, which was part of the series The Alexandria Quartet.
Bitter Lemons is an autobiographical work by writer Lawrence Durrell, describing the three years (1953–1956) he spent on the island of Cyprus. The book was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize for 1957, the second year the prize was awarded.
Monsieur, or The Prince of Darkness (1974), is the first volume in Lawrence Durrell's The Avignon Quintet. Published from 1974 to 1985, this sequence of five interrelated novels explore the lives of a group of Europeans before, during, and after World War II. Durrell uses many of the experimental techniques of metafiction that he had integrated into his Alexandria Quartet, published 1957 to 1960. He described the later quintet as a quincunx.
The Revolt of Aphrodite consists of two novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published in 1968 and 1970. The individual volumes, Tunc and Nunquam, were less successful than his earlier The Alexandria Quartet, in part because they deviate significantly from his earlier style and because they approach more openly political and ideological problems.
The Avignon Quintet is a five-volume series of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1974 and 1985. The novels are metafictional. He uses developments in experimental fiction that followed his The Alexandria Quartet (1957-1960). The action of the novels is set before and during World War II, largely in France, Egypt, and Switzerland.
Balthazar, published in 1958, is the second volume in The Alexandria Quartet series by British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt, around World War II, the four novels tell essentially the same story from different points of view and come to a conclusion in Clea. Balthazar is the first novel in the series that presents a competing narrator, Balthazar, who writes back to the narrating Darley in his "great interlinear."
The Black Book is a novel by Lawrence Durrell, published in 1938 by the Obelisk Press.
Panic Spring is a novel by Lawrence Durrell, published in 1937 by Faber and Faber in Britain and Covici-Friede in the United States under the pseudonym Charles Norden. It is set on a fictional Greek Island, Mavrodaphne, in the Ionian Sea somewhere between Patras, Kephalonia, and Ithaca. The island, however, resembles Corfu strongly, and in at least one inscribed copy of the novel, Durrell includes a map of Corfu identified as Mavrodaphne.
Livia, or Buried Alive (1978), is the second volume in British author Lawrence Durrell's The Avignon Quintet, published from 1974 to 1985. Durrell has described the novels as "roped together like climbers on a rockface, but all independent. .. a series of books through which the same characters move for all the world as if to illustrate the notion of reincarnation." The description of this form for the quintet actually appears in Livia. The first novel of the quincunx, Monsieur, received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1974.
Constance, or Solitary Practices (1982) is the central volume of the five novels of Lawrence Durrell's The Avignon Quintet, published from 1974 to 1985. It was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1982. Involving some of the characters from the preceding Livia, the novel also introduces new ones. It is set before and during World War II, in France, Egypt, Poland and Switzerland.
Quinx, or The Ripper's Tale (1985), is the 5th and final volume in Lawrence Durrell's "quincunx" of novels, The Avignon Quintet, published from 1974 to 1985. It explores the activities of Constance, Aubrey Blanford, Robin Sutcliffe, Lord Galen, and most of the other surviving characters as they return to Avignon and Provence in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
Henry Robin Romilly Fedden, CBE, (1908–1977) was an English writer, diplomat and mountaineer. He was the son of artist Romilly Fedden and novelist Katherine Waldo Douglas.
Richard Leslie Beswetherick Pine is the author of critical works on the Irish playwright Brian Friel, the Anglo-Irish novelist Lawrence Durrell, and aspects of art music in Ireland. He worked for the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ Raidió Teilifís Éireann before moving to Greece in 2001 to found the Durrell School of Corfu, which he directed until 2010. In 2012, to mark the centenary of the birth of Lawrence Durrell, Pine edited and introduced a previously unpublished novel by Durrell, Judith, set in 1940s Palestine. He has since edited a further novel by Durrell The Placebo, and a 2-volume edition of Durrell's ephemeral and hard-to-find material - plays, short novels, stories, diaries and travel writings. From 2009 to 2020 he wrote a regular column on Greek affairs in The Irish Times and was also an obituarist for The Guardian. Lawrence Durrell described Pine's work as "the best unpacking of my literary baggage I have heard."
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