{"product_id":"balthasar-isbn-9780140153217","title":"Balthasar","description":"The dazzling second volume of \u003ci\u003eThe Alexandria Quartet\u003c\/i\u003e—an enthralling and deeply disturbing work of gorgeous surfaces and endless deceptions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In Alexandra, in the years before the Second World War, an exiled Irish schoolteacher seeks to unravel his sexual obsession with two women: the tubercular café dancer, Melissa, and Justine, the alluring Jewish wife of a wealthy Coptic Christian. What emerges in his sessions with the psychiatrist Balthazar, however, is something far more complex—and unfathomably more sinister—than neurosis. Lawrence Durrell’s kaleidoscopic narrative ushers us into a world in which no perception is reliable—and love itself is always an act of treachery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Durrell is one of the very best novelists of our time. . . . He has a sensuous, vigorous style that I have not found equaled by any other novelist today. . . . A spontaneous, resourceful new beauty that any sensitive reader will almost certainly love.”—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “It is difficult to sum up \u003ci\u003eBalthazar\u003c\/i\u003e; it will not be contained. It spills or slips away like smoke. The sheer writing is superb. . . . A wonderful book, a book to read many times.”—\u003ci\u003eThe Houston Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eLawrence Durrell \u003c\/b\u003ewas born in 1912 in India. He attended the Jesuit College at Darjeeling and St. Edmund's School, Canterbury. His first literary work, \u003ci\u003eThe Black Book\u003c\/i\u003e, appeared in Paris in 1938. His first collection of poems, \u003ci\u003eA Private Country\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 1943, followed by the three Island books: \u003ci\u003eProspero's Cell\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eReflections on a Marine Venus\u003c\/i\u003e, about Rhodes; and \u003ci\u003eBitter Lemons\u003c\/i\u003e, his account of life in Cyprus. Durrell's wartime sojourn in Egypt led to his masterpiece, \u003ci\u003eThe Alexandria Quartet\u003c\/i\u003e, which he completed in southern France, where he settled permanently in 1957. Between the quartet and \u003ci\u003eThe Avignon Quintet\u003c\/i\u003e he wrote the two-decker \u003ci\u003eTunc \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eNunquam\u003c\/i\u003e. His oeuvre includes plays, a book of criticism, translations, travel writing, and humorous stories about the diplomatic corps. \u003ci\u003eCaesar's Vast Ghost\u003c\/i\u003e, his reflections on the history and culture of Provence, including a late flowering of poems, was published a few days before his death in Sommières in 1990.","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301892149477,"sku":"NP9780140153217","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780140153217.jpg?v=1767722145","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/balthasar-isbn-9780140153217","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}