Scan barcode
luciaslucas's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 ⭐️ raw and beautiful and sick and pretty and disgusting, but loses its way towards the end
yarnreader's review against another edition
1.0
This is a horrible book. I did not understand what was going on at all. It seemed like all the author could think about was sex. I do not recommend this book to any one, at all.
lookhome's review
3.0
Durrell's Black Book is beautifully written with moments of truly inspired, poetic meditations on life, love, death and art.
There are important, time tested themes here and a memorable array of characters not unlike his later Novel Justine.
However, where Justine provides a story and structure worth dissecting, the narrative here is disjointed, distant and dull.
This reads more like a philosophical call to terms than a novel and while there's nothing wrong with a well placed or well meaning philosophical call to arms, it seem, in his youth, Durrell couldn't really decide what to do, or slapped on a narrative to try and express certain points of view.
He nearly admits as much throughout the novel.
This is a good concept and a decent first novel and it is filled with great lines and capital T truths, it simply isn't a very good story.
There are important, time tested themes here and a memorable array of characters not unlike his later Novel Justine.
However, where Justine provides a story and structure worth dissecting, the narrative here is disjointed, distant and dull.
This reads more like a philosophical call to terms than a novel and while there's nothing wrong with a well placed or well meaning philosophical call to arms, it seem, in his youth, Durrell couldn't really decide what to do, or slapped on a narrative to try and express certain points of view.
He nearly admits as much throughout the novel.
This is a good concept and a decent first novel and it is filled with great lines and capital T truths, it simply isn't a very good story.
tillybeller's review against another edition
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
elisabethbeck's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
guinness74's review
1.0
Do you remember the first time you opened a thesaurus and, suddenly, you were desperate to start using all the words? Even if you didn't know what they meant, they were replacements for words you thought you knew and it made you sound more intelligent, at least in your own head? Welcome to The Black Book.
This book is the straw that breaks me from having to read any more books that I don't understand and couldn't care less about. I assume that when this was written all the talk about vaginas and thrusting was somehow new and inventive, but even that is lost among the complete "word salad" that Durrell imposes on his readers. There are entire paragraphs that are like inside jokes laden with random letters as if he wrote this while playing Scrabble. They're big words and they're probably great to use in a novel, but if they don't make any sense, then it doesn't make much difference.
So, why did I keep reading? Well, there are occasional moments of clarity which lead one to believe that it's getting better. It was tantamount to standing in the rain without an umbrella and finding the random break in the clouds. Trust me on this one...it's going to keep raining. By the time I figured out that the rain would never stop, I was really too far gone to give up on it completely. So I just kept hoping for the sunshine moments to appear.
Rated 1 star because I have to rate it something, but at best it's 1/2 a star.
This book is the straw that breaks me from having to read any more books that I don't understand and couldn't care less about. I assume that when this was written all the talk about vaginas and thrusting was somehow new and inventive, but even that is lost among the complete "word salad" that Durrell imposes on his readers. There are entire paragraphs that are like inside jokes laden with random letters as if he wrote this while playing Scrabble. They're big words and they're probably great to use in a novel, but if they don't make any sense, then it doesn't make much difference.
So, why did I keep reading? Well, there are occasional moments of clarity which lead one to believe that it's getting better. It was tantamount to standing in the rain without an umbrella and finding the random break in the clouds. Trust me on this one...it's going to keep raining. By the time I figured out that the rain would never stop, I was really too far gone to give up on it completely. So I just kept hoping for the sunshine moments to appear.
Rated 1 star because I have to rate it something, but at best it's 1/2 a star.
catladyreba's review against another edition
2.0
I won't lie. I don't even know what I just read. This one was painful to get through.
sarahreadsaverylot's review against another edition
3.0
3.5~4 stars.
Something of what you would expect from a young tormented Durrell. The prose is almost embarrassingly purple. Sometimes a violent violet, other times a subdued mauve. It is existential Freudian coming of age prose. It is brooding, angst-ridden prose. Prose that comes from loving Lawrence and Miller. And Baudelaire.
"These abstractions crossing and recrossing the drunken mind; and we on a planet, buzzing in space across the alphabetical stars: the creak of the earth curling away into the night like a quoit, like the creak of cable and spar on a ship; and only this mushy carpet on which to dread out our footsteps towards the final wedding with loneliness.
Does the endless iteration of loneliness tire you? It is the one constant in our lives. Even when the night now is spotted with shadows whose dapple seems to present a graph of this emotion. Oh, behind it, I know--somehow behind it in a dimension which I cannot fathom, life still tumbles across the scenes smelling of pageantry, heroic, wet white, blue goitres, clowns, sopranos, fire-eaters. . .But we shall never reach it."
Ho hum.
Something of what you would expect from a young tormented Durrell. The prose is almost embarrassingly purple. Sometimes a violent violet, other times a subdued mauve. It is existential Freudian coming of age prose. It is brooding, angst-ridden prose. Prose that comes from loving Lawrence and Miller. And Baudelaire.
"These abstractions crossing and recrossing the drunken mind; and we on a planet, buzzing in space across the alphabetical stars: the creak of the earth curling away into the night like a quoit, like the creak of cable and spar on a ship; and only this mushy carpet on which to dread out our footsteps towards the final wedding with loneliness.
Does the endless iteration of loneliness tire you? It is the one constant in our lives. Even when the night now is spotted with shadows whose dapple seems to present a graph of this emotion. Oh, behind it, I know--somehow behind it in a dimension which I cannot fathom, life still tumbles across the scenes smelling of pageantry, heroic, wet white, blue goitres, clowns, sopranos, fire-eaters. . .But we shall never reach it."
Ho hum.
karna's review against another edition
1.0
This is the first Lawrence Durrel's book I didn't finish.
I was bored from the first page, and after 20 pages, I still didn't know who were the characters, which relationship they have among them and what was the book about.
I'll try to read it again one day, but not in a near future I think...
I was bored from the first page, and after 20 pages, I still didn't know who were the characters, which relationship they have among them and what was the book about.
I'll try to read it again one day, but not in a near future I think...
rupertowen's review
5.0
I found Lawrence's prose to be utterly immersing, initially I only got so far into it and then had to start again as so dense is [b:the painted word|2671|The Painted Word|Tom Wolfe|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1161129102s/2671.jpg|6617] used by Lawrence that I found myself losing track, or smudged in. However the second attempt from scratch was continuous and I gave up noting words down to look up in the dictionary as Lawrence tends to fill entire sentences with wonderful words for the job that although not knowing half the meanings, I got the picture.
The story is wonderfully crass, filled with anti-erotica, kind of like if Tom Sharpe was to have written À rebours. The characters, especially Tarquin are sublime, although Gregory Death came and went losing me a bit, I never quite knew where Gregory Death stood in relation to Lawrence Lucifer - the rest were fine such as Lobo, Gracie, Clare, and Perez, but because Gregory and Lawrence were the only characters to speak in the first person I stumbled along their relationship to each other.
It is said that Lawrence felt this book to be the first time he "found his voice" and at 24 you can only imagine what that must have felt like, but Lawrence himself felt the book to be somewhat "green", I can understand that, some of the symbolic metaphors and references to obvious external influences in literature and culture were clearly the same as any artist has when cutting his teeth in the world of expression and self.
All in all, I will read this book again, no doubts about it. I have Lawrence's novel "Bitter Lemons" to look forward to but I don't think I'll read "The Alexandria Quartet", I certainly have an interest in reading Lawrence's brother's book "My family and other animals" which is the same account of one of Lawrence's novels, I forget the name of right now.
The story is wonderfully crass, filled with anti-erotica, kind of like if Tom Sharpe was to have written À rebours. The characters, especially Tarquin are sublime, although Gregory Death came and went losing me a bit, I never quite knew where Gregory Death stood in relation to Lawrence Lucifer - the rest were fine such as Lobo, Gracie, Clare, and Perez, but because Gregory and Lawrence were the only characters to speak in the first person I stumbled along their relationship to each other.
It is said that Lawrence felt this book to be the first time he "found his voice" and at 24 you can only imagine what that must have felt like, but Lawrence himself felt the book to be somewhat "green", I can understand that, some of the symbolic metaphors and references to obvious external influences in literature and culture were clearly the same as any artist has when cutting his teeth in the world of expression and self.
All in all, I will read this book again, no doubts about it. I have Lawrence's novel "Bitter Lemons" to look forward to but I don't think I'll read "The Alexandria Quartet", I certainly have an interest in reading Lawrence's brother's book "My family and other animals" which is the same account of one of Lawrence's novels, I forget the name of right now.