What’s Left of the Night
This biographical novel takes place during a trip to Paris in the young life of Constantine Cavafy, the Greek poet credited as C. P. Cavafy. We follow the young man as he suffers through conversations with Mardaras, a Parisian society know-it-all, and mulls over poetry with his brother John, his travel companion.
While set against the controversy of the Dreyfus Affair, the narrative drops in other real-world people, such as Emile Zola and Marcel Proust, to give a concrete historical reference. The reader gets the sense of the languishing days for ambitious, new writers: afternoons spent at cafés, evenings spent trying to be noticed, nights spent scribbling. It is the nights in which we experience the lyrical portions of this novel. Some scenes are hallucinatory, blending reality and dreamscapes, often revolving around an object of desire. As a gay man, Cavafy still has to be careful with his “assignations,” and he keeps his desires to himself. They instead become the fuel of his dreams, these obsessive, solipsistic lyric episodes.
Biographical fiction is a challenge, as lives do not follow a narrative arc. Using lyricism, especially while describing the life of a poet, is a clever way to structure a coming-of-artist story. The café scenes are quite vivid, and there is an excellent feeling of being in the historical moment. Unfortunately, this reader had a hard time engaging with the close point of view of a narcissistic young man. The book is well written, and as it nears the end, the narrative becomes increasingly strange, which is interesting, but not precisely gripping. Overall, What’s Left of the Night feels like a tip of the hat to writers like Proust, while illuminating the beginnings of the poet Cavafy.
