Mountolive

[Editor's Note: The following is a combined review with JUSTINE, BALTHAZAR, and CLEA.]--The four linked novels that comprise English author Lawrence Durrell's masterpiece, THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET, are set in Alexandria, Egypt, around the time of WWII. The four novels explore the city's polyglot society, full of intrigue, mystery, and sensuality, telling essentially the same story from different points of view. JUSTINE focuses on the beautiful Jewish wife of a wealthy Copt. Her story is told by Darley, her English lover. In BALTHAZAR, Darley reconsiders and retells the story he told in Justine, using information from a mysterious new character, Balthazar. In MOUNTOLIVE, as war begins to loom, British Ambassador David Mountolive enters the intrigues of the interwoven community of characters. In CLEA, Darley returns to a war-fevered Alexandria as the stories of the many characters move toward conclusion. Narrator Nigel Anthony provides a brilliant reading, keeping the variety of voices--English, French, Egyptian--distinct throughout. He offers a one-man play, conveying the passions, disappointments, and triumphs of the complex cast. The classical music interludes that delineate sections of this beautifully produced and packaged set help transport the listener to back- streets of Alexandria. R.E.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Born in Gibraltar, the sometimes-Shakespearean actor Nicholas Boulton is the perfect narrator for the third book in the cherished Alexandria Quartet. And no, you needn't have listened to the others; this novel is a universe unto itself. Boulton fully inhabits the often drunk, always stuffy, plainly ridiculous characters who ran the empire on which a British sun refused to set. Without attempting mimicry, he shifts his voice to play the Egyptian beauty in one line, her English lover in the next. His tongue wraps deftly around Durrell's vast and sometimes-prickly vocabulary. Magnificent prose explodes in the ear, igniting the smallest detail. This witty tragedy will have you chortling happily until it wrings your heart. And then, if you are like this listener, you'll begin again at the beginning. B.H.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine