[In The Alexandria Quartet Durrell paints a] fevered city, a dying city, a prodigal, stranger-loving, leaf-veined city. A city of deep resignation, of spiritual lassitude and self-indulgence, of jealousy and retribution….

How do all these divergent images add up? They are dramatic, erotic, anything but peaceful; they cannot be easily summarized, for Alexandria is like the recurring palms that appear in the mirrored walls of the ballroom at the Cecil, fractured and prismatic. She is to be discovered. (p. 163)

Alexandria is home of the medieval quest—a quest that, as John Unterecker suggests—lies at the core of most of Durrell's important work. The hero must take a ritual journey across water entering a sick land. There he seeks balms to cure his own wounds and those of his city: there he does battle with all the forces that would destroy.

But, ironically, the city that he would...