Unreal City

Given that Constantine Cavafy (born 1863) was an interesting figure and that Liddell is an interesting writer, readers are probably better advised to read Liddell's critical biography of the Greek poet than this disappointing fictionalized portrait. Although Cavafy died in 1933, Liddell chose to set his story in Caesarea (Alexandria) during WW II. As in his darkly funny portrayal of Oxford town in The Last Enchantments , Liddell's narrator is a rather self-effacing outsider, Charles Harbord. One of the very few Englishmen not in the army, Charles soon pairs up with another outsider, the notorious homosexual writer Christo Eugenides. The elderly Christo becomes Charles's landlord, his colleague (the two are working on an article about third-century Caesarean undertakers), his guide to Caesarea's underbelly and--here's the rub--his friend. Although supposedly the most clever and sophisticated man in the burg, Christo comes off instead as the most insufferable: whiny, petty, selfish and annoying. For readers interested in Egypt during the war, however, Unreal City does have some real rewards: Having spent the '40s teaching in Alexandria and Cairo, Liddell has a firm grasp of the chaotic jumble of Greeks, Egyptians, exiled European Jews, military personnel and others who lived among ``this Babel.'' (Sept.)