{"product_id":"balthazar-9780140153217","title":"Balthazar","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Lawrence Durrell\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Penguin Publishing Group\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Literary\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe dazzling second volume of \u003ci\u003eThe Alexandria Quartet\u003c\/i\u003e--an enthralling and deeply disturbing work of gorgeous surfaces and endless deceptions. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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","brand":"Penguin Publishing Group","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":45408424788119,"sku":"9780140153217","price":1896.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780140153217.webp?v=1767309871","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/balthazar-9780140153217","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}