TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Books: Eros in Alexandria

JUSTINE (253 pp.)—Lawrence Durrell —Dutton ($3.50).

This extraordinary novel is a sensuous and beautifully written hymn to the "postcoital sadness" of mankind. The heroine, Justine, a slum-born Jewess of great beauty, marries Nessim, a Coptic millionaire, who suffers her infidelities in silence. Nearly every male in the book and at least one female have a try at "awakening" Justine, but she is the sort of woman "who makes her body accessible to one and yet who is incapable of delivering her true self—because she does not know where to find it."

The book is...

Time.com on Digg

POWERED BY digg

Quotes of the Day »

MICHAEL BREEN, vice president of the Truman Project, a national security leadership institute, on the possible outcome of the U.S. and Israel's tough stance on Iran's nuclear program
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.