Clea (novel)
Clea, published in 1960, is the fourth volume in The Alexandria Quartet of novels by the British author Lawrence Durrell. Set in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 1930s and 1940s, the first three volumes tell the same story from different points of view, and Clea relates subsequent events.
Durrell wrote the book in four weeks.
Plot and characterization
The book begins with the Narrator living on a remote Greek island with Nessim's illegitimate daughter from Melissa. The child is now six years old—marking the time that has elapsed since the events of Justine. Darley has been able to spend this period on the island—thinking, writing, maturing—due to the £500 left him in his will by the writer Pursewarden.Mnemjian arrives to see Darley with a message from Nessim and news of events in Alexandria—notably the fall from prosperity of the Hosnani family. Mnemjian is a prosperous barber, and possibly brothel owner.
They proceed to Alexandria, now under nightly bombardment because of the War, Darley continues to reminisce, sometimes lamenting, and seeks and sometimes finds, the characters of the earlier book.
He runs into Clea in the street—and they effortlessly pick up an affaire de coeur—this time unencumbered by the interfering physical presences of Justine and Melissa.