Disappointing.
Darley returns to Alexandria with Nessim’s daughter, who is immediately taken home by Nessim. War has now broken out and Alexandria is being sporadically bombed. Darley moves in with Clea (who has previously appeared to be gay, but perhaps sexuality is fluid in these books). Apart from Balthazar, few of the other major characters reappear; it appears that Pursewarden may have had an incestuous and blind daughter, who dies and this may be the real reason for his suicide. There are long and hard work to read extracts from Pursewarden’s notebooks.
Near the end, Clea, Darley and Balthazar are involved in a horrific accident when Balthazar staples Clea’s hand to an underwater wreck with a harpoon, and Darley has to cut her hand off to prevent her from drowning. She survives, Darley returns to his Greek island and both she and he plan to return to mainstream Europe, Paris in particular. A disappointing and inconclusive ending.
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