2 Novels by Lawrence Durrell
Requirements: .ePUB Reader, 1.6 MB
Overview: Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990) was a novelist, poet, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet, his acclaimed series of four novels set before and during World War II in Alexandria, Egypt. Durrell’s work was widely praised, with his Quartet winning the greatest accolades for its rich style and bold use of multiple perspectives. Upon the Quartet’s completion, Life called it “the most discussed and widely admired serious fiction of our time.”
Born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Durrell was an avid and dedicated writer from an early age. He studied in Darjeeling before his parents sent him to England at the age of eleven for his formal education. When he failed to pass his entrance examinations at Cambridge University, Durrell committed himself to becoming an established writer. He published his first book of poetry in 1931 when he was just nineteen years old, and later worked as a jazz pianist to help fund his passion for writing.
Genre: Fiction > Literary, Contemporary
The Black Book: As over-the-top as it is inventive, Durrell’s breakthrough novel is a series of sordid vignettes drawn from the lives of decadent artists, doomed bohemians, and continental rascals inhabiting a shabby London hotel, narrated in turns by the unforgettable Lawrence Lucifer and Gregory Death. Together, these characters seek to escape the absurdity of a Europe haunted by devastating war, yet beginning to pitch toward another apocalypse.
First published in 1938, and influenced by Henry Miller and the sincere pranksterism of the surrealist movement, The Black Book marks the emergence of one of the most revolutionary voices in twentieth-century English literature.
This ebook contains a new introduction by DBC Pierre
The Dark Labyrinth (Cefalu): Who will survive the Labyrinth of Crete?
A group of English cruise-ship tourists debark to visit the isle of Crete’s famed labyrinth, the City in the Rock. The motley gathering includes a painter, a poet, a soldier, an elderly married couple, a medium, a convalescent girl, and the mysterious Lord Gracean. The group is prepared for a trifling day of sightseeing and maybe even a glimpse of the legendary Minotaur, but instead is suddenly stuck in a nightmare when a rockslide traps them deep within the labyrinth. Who among the passengers will make it out alive? And for those who emerge, will anything ever be the same?
To some extent the book is a roman à clef and Durrell’s characters talk with great reality about their experiences, themselves and a certain psychological unease that has led most of them to embark on their journey. The climax is a disastrous visit to the labyrinth, with its reported minotaur. The novel is a gripping piece of story-telling, full of atmosphere and the vivid first-hand writing about Mediterranean landscape and people of which Durrell was a master.
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