Go here for comments on Justine, book one of The Alexandria Quartet.
"How
disgusting, how unfair love is! Here I had been loved for goodness
knows how long by a creature--I cannot say a fellow-creature--of
whose very existence I had been unaware. Every breath I drew was
unconsciously a form of his suffering, without my ever having been
aware of it. How had this disaster come about? You will have to
make room in your thoughts for this variety of the animal. I was
furious, disgusted and wounded in one and the same moment. I felt
almost as if I owed him an apology; and yet I also felt insulted by
the intrusiveness of his love which I had never asked him to owe me."
Page 231
The
above could serve as a microcosm for both Justine and
Balthazar.
"Seen
across the transforming screens of memory, how remote that forgotten
evening seems. There was so much as yet left for us all to live
through until we reached the occasion of the great duckshoot which so
abruptly, concisely, precipitated the final change--and the
disappearance of Justine herself. But all this belongs to another
Alexandria--on which I created in my mind and which the great
Interlinear of Balthazar has, if not destroyed, changed out of all
recognition." Page 226
The
above is a hint as to the beautiful confusion and impending
enlightenment that is reading Balthazar.
Durrell
makes much of Balthazar not being a sequel to Justine
but a 'sibling.' Much of the meta fiction in the in the first book
is present in the second and, at very pointed times, he draws so much
attention to the writing itself as to make me roll my eyes. (Not
that it's ever taken much for me to do so…) All said and done, I
have to admit, Balthazar is not a 'new' book; there is no,
'What happens next…' in the story. Rather it's a very curious,
telling of events that were happening concurrently as Justine
only at the time of writing Justine our unnamed narrator (who
finally gets a name in Balthazar!) was unaware.
While
Justine is so intimate and so forced and focused through one
set of eyes, Balthazar, both the novel and the character are able to
give perspective on events. Which really makes one want to go back
and read Justine again and re-evaluate events we already
thought we knew.
Justine
was essentially a memoir of a very specific time for the narrator, he
sent the manuscript to Balthazar to get it off his chest; Balthazar
basically sent it back with marginalia 'corrections.' It's odd that
we learn the most about the main characters relationships through
Balthazar as he isn't in love with any of the main characters.
Justine was playing everyone for a fool--the narrator more than most;
Pursewarden a minor character in Justine becomes a rock star
(basically the real McCoy of how the narrator fashions himself) and
Nessim is both knowingly cuckold and the orchestrater of a grand
scheme not even Balthazar knows in full. I should also say up front
that Balthazar seems a very reliable narrator and is full of
information, but while he fills in many of the blanks in Justine
he also seems equally reticent to 'tell all.' It is done in part to
spare the narrator's feelings and in part to be respectful as not all
he knows is his to disclose. (His cutting off of a few of Clea's
letter's midway was particularly painful.)
At
the heart of the story, insomuch as Justine had a 'story,' we
see that Nessim and Justine's marriage is a business arrangement.
The terms are very tangible and Nessim's endgame is anything but.
More than any other character Balthazar's new information changed the
way that Nessim is perceived. It wouldn't say that Balthazar
makes Justine out to be a story of deception but certainly
nothing is what it seems. And there in lays the most prevalent theme
of the novel: masks.
"We
sat once more to our meal, fellow bondsmen, heavy with a sense of
guilt and exhaustion. Hamid waited upon us with solitude and in
complete silence. Did he know what was preoccupying us both? It was
impossible to read anything on those gentle pock-marked feature, in
that squinting single eye." Page 214.
Having
read the novel, that passage got me thinking about anything but the
moment it portrays.
Nearly
everyone is hiding something and it's the few open and honest ones in
the story who seem to get hurt the most; which is probably why
Justine seemed so sensitive as it was written by the most
vulnerable character. Some characters have to hide in domino during
carnival; others--Nessim's family--behind veils or horrific
birth-scars (which makes Nessim's hiding in plain sight so amazing!);
some cross dress; while still others lean on homosexuality to avoid
confronting awkward or unwanted relationships. Finishing Balthazar
in many ways feels like never having read Justine to begin
with; or perhaps that I didn't really read it correctly.
As
with Justine, the writing itself is the most arresting part of
the novel. Unlike Justine, the writing is so plain, simple,
oddly tangible, concrete and ultimately linear as to make you think
something is wrong, but then again aren't all books supposed
to read like that? Balthazar isn't the 'artist's attempt' as
the narrator's efforts was in Justine, rather it's the
enlightened professor reading the student's work and saying, "Let
me tell you what's up…" In Justine it was easy to get
lost in the abstract beauty of Durrell's words and presentation.
Balthazar is noting like Justine in that regard but may
be more profound as the scaled down to normal form and substantially
less florid prose make it easy to think about what you're given in
both books. As pretentious as it sounds Durrell pulled it off:
Balthazar is not a sequel: it's the exact same book as it's
predecessor only with one-hundred percent new content.
"I
suppose (writes Balthazar) that if you wished somehow to incorporate
all I am telling you into your own Justine manuscript now, you would
find yourself with a curious sort of book--the story would be told,
so to speak, in layers. Unwittingly I may have supplied you with a
form, something out of the way! Not unlike Pursewarden's idea of a
series of novels with 'sliding panels' as he called them. Or else,
perhaps, like some medieval palimpsest where different sorts of truth
are thrown down one upon the other, the one obliterating or perhaps
supplementing another. Industrious monks scraping away an elegy to
make room for a verse of holy Writ!" Page 183
If
nothing else Durrell was a great critic of his own work and a damn
good salesman…
"I
wonder why only now I have been told all this? My friends
must all have known all along. Yet nobody breathed a word. But of
course, the truth is that nobody ever does breathe a word, nobody
interferes, nobody whispers while the acrobat is on the tight-rope;
they just sit and watch the spectacle, waiting only to be wise after
the event. But then, from another point of view, how would I,
blindly and passionately in love with Justine, have received such
unwelcome truths at the time? Would they have deflected me from my
purpose? I doubt it." Page 130
To
say something concrete of the story: I think Melissa knows everything
(which, if true, makes her the most out-of-the-blue complex character
in the whole story); Balthazar is mean to say the least and as
forthcoming as he is, he is equally holding back; the narrator is the
most naive person alive; Nessim is up to something (good or bad, but
something…); I love this book.
I
feel duped; you see, I've read this book before. The first time I
read it, it was called Justine. I read it a second time and
it was called Balthazar and it seems absurd to be blown away
upon re-reading such a familiar book.
There
seems to be a theme in the series: the most unlikely character is
always the narrator, or perhaps that's how it always is (or should
be). We'll never get to read from Justine's point of view or
Nessim's. I have no clue what Mountolive could possibly contribute
but I can't wait to find out. As much as I want to read what Clea
has to say it seems so appropriate that she has the last word.
