Ce Qui Reste de La Nuit

by Ersi Sotiropoulos

Paris – juin 1897. Trois jours dans la vie du jeune Constantin Cavafy. En son for intérieur, il mûrit une oeuvre poétique mais les entraves personnelles sont nombreuses : sa poésie est encore incertaine, le carcan de la rime le corsète, son homosexualité le tourmente, et la tyrannique affection que lui témoigne sa mère l’empêche de se réaliser. Sans compter la faillite familiale qui l’humilie depuis son enfance. Ces trois jours à Paris seront la pierre de touche, le catalyseur décisif pour la vie et l’oeuvre du grand poète alexandrin.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Greece, Gay, Historical Fiction, Historical

296 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2015

About the author

Greek: Έρση Σωτηροπούλου

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poet C.P. Cavafy's a world-famous, acknowledged great master. Go read "Ithaka" if you wonder why. His fellow gay poets, Auden and Forster, bigged him up after his death; but honestly, it was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis whose death did the most to bring him Fame. ("Ithaka" was read at her 1994 memorial service.) How appropriate, I think; a woman whose life was begun, lived, and ended in a world Cavafy would've recognized...the haute bourgeoisie...and who, but for the lightning of Fate would've been his equal in obscurity, used (albeit unwittingly) her own fame to make his.

Okay. I've given you the stakes...poet of huge talent labors in obscurity his whole life like everyone else who commits poetry...now what's all this got to do with What's Left of the Night? Ersi Sotiropoulos wrote a paean, a song of praise, to the man at a critical juncture in his life, a birthing pain of a poet emerging from a boring failed bourgeois. Cavafy, the poet, doesn't appear like Aphrodite from the foam; he left behind a truncated-by-war but still considerable paper trail. His juvenilia were, in a word, mediocre. He lashes himself with this knowledge, but Author Sotiropoulos puts its cruel certainty into the hand of Greco-French poet Jean Moréas where Cavafy, not known to have met the great man on this flying tag-end trip, can see it en passant as it were. As with all artists, Cavafy responds to a hurtful characterization of his poems as having "weak artistry" by going off the deep end, by standing on his agonized, violated sense of himself and leaping head-first into an insomnia-generated sensory fugue state.

A lot more is at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud Saturday, 19 December, at 6:30 EST. The whole linky-linky review just doesn't suit this space, I've been told.

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The weekend I finished reading this, there was an article in the Sunday Times about 19-year-old South African Adam Seef taking his own life because he feared he could be gay. That this kind of tragedy can still occur in our supposedly enlightened times beggars the imagination.

While I don’t know anything about Cavafy other than what I’ve read on Wikipedia, I was pleased this did not prove a hindrance to me enjoying Ersi Sotiropoulos’s sensational reimagining of his three-day sojourn in Paris. This seemed to have been both an artistic and personal catharsis for the young Cavafy, placing him firmly on the path of future literary immortality.

Though given his naivete and callousness as evinced here, it is a wonder that the poor young unconfident poet was barely able to scratch together a single line. There is a lot about the meaning of art and life in the course of the book, sandwiched between wonderfully homoerotic passages, but nothing dry or preachy.

Karen Emmerich’s translation is truly sensational. The writing is both deep and erotic at the same time, astute, and acutely descriptive. Paris lives and breathes from these pages. Oh, and then there is that ending, which I am sure Samuel R. Delany would give a nod and a grin to.

One thing is for sure, I am never going to look at a baguette in the same way again. Sotiropoulos does for the baguette what Andre Aciman did for oranges in Call Me By Your Name.

Though bear in mind that this version involves the decidedly unromantic locale of a pissotière: “As obscene as it was, he thought, there was also something sacred about that feast …”

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads giveaway

[Juan Naranjo]

Esta novela, ambientada en el París de finales del siglo XIX, cuenta los tres últimos días de unas vacaciones europeas de Cavafis y su hermano. Paseamos con ellos por los bulevares de la capital francesa, visitamos los cafés y presenciamos la gran actividad artística que se vivía en la ciudad en aquella época.
Creo que lo más interesante de este libro es la capacidad de la autora para hacer un retrato psicológico del que estaba destinado a convertirse en el gran poeta del Mediterráneo. Es sorprendente contemplar cómo aquellos poemas inmortales salieron de la mente de un hombre que, ya en su treintena, aún estaba muy inseguro de sus capacidades personales y artísticas.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

(my 2021 review corrected, but not changed, in 2024)

On the cover this book is described by Edmund White as "A perfect book" and, while he is often quoted on books I have yet to find his praise to be anything but justified - in this case his praise is not simply justified it could be said to be an understatement. Beautiful, lyrical, I honestly can't think of how to stop saying nice things about this book. If you are not interested in poetry, have no interest in Constantine Cavafy and in addition have a pronounced desire to know nothing about him, and if the way a greater writer discovers his art, muse and voice have absolutely no meaning for you then don't read this book. But if they do then get hold of it, read it, and love it. I will certainly read this book many times in the future.

[Vasileios · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://www.vintagestories.gr/ti-mene...

Η Έρση Σωτηροπούλου στο μυθιστόρημά της Τι μένει από τη νύχτα (εκδόσεις Πατάκη, 2015) μάς προσφέρει ένα βιβλίο αφιερωμένο στον μεγάλο δημιουργό Κωνσταντίνο Καβάφη. Το βιβλίο, που αποτελεί αποτέλεσμα ενδελεχούς έρευνας της συγγραφέως, φωτίζει μια άγνωστη κατά τα άλλα περίοδο από τη ζωή του Καβάφη, ο οποίος ταξιδεύει στα τριαντατέσσερα χρόνια του στο Παρίσι (1897) μαζί με τον αδερφό του Τζων.

Η καταπληκτική γραφή της Έρσης Σωτηροπούλου, καταφέρνει να μας «βάλει» κατευθείαν στα γεγονότα, σαν να είμασταν ουσιαστικό κομμάτι της αφήγησης, μετατρέποντας τον Καβάφη έναν δικό μας μυθιστορηματικό ήρωα.

Ο Κωστής, όπως τον αποκαλούν φεύγει από την Αλεξάνδρεια γεμάτος δίψα να ανακαλύψει την Ευρώπη που τόσο πολύ έχει ανάγκη. Η Αλεξάνδρεια φαίνεται να τον έχει πιέσει πολύ.

Εκεί, λοιπόν, ο Κωστής δέχεται τα αναρίθμητα ερεθίσματα της μεγαλούπολης, και προσπαθεί να συγκρατήσει τα εξίσου αναρίθμητα πάθη του. Ωστόσο, οι θύμισες από νεαρούς που τον αναστάτωναν δεν μπορούσαν να μην τον επηρεάσουν.

Στην παραμονή του αυτή, ζούμε από «πρώτο χέρι» τη προσπάθειά του να κατευνάσει τα παθη του αλλά και τη συγγραφή κάποιων από τα γνωστότερα ποιήματα του όπως είναι «Η πόλις», καθώς και η ανασφάλεια που τον διακατέχει καθώς τα γράφει:

Μισώ τον κόσμο εδώ ως με μισεί
εδώ που την ζωή μου την μισή
Παράλληλα όμως, προσπαθεί να βρει το εκτόπισμά του σε σχέση με άλλους συγγραφείς ή ποιητές όπως ο Μωρεάς, ο Μπωντλαίρ, ο Τολστόι ή ο Ρεμπώ· μόνο που η σύγκρισή του μαζί τους, τον κάνει να αισθάνεται πολύ μικρός, ιδιαίτερα με τον Ρεμπώ.

Αδυναμία έκφρασης Κακοτεχνία.
Καταδίκη σε τρεις λέξεις.
Αυτή είναι η σημείωση που είχε κάνει ο Ζαν Μωρεάς σε κάποια ποιήματα που του είχε στείλει Κωνσταντίνος Καβάφης. Τα λόγια αυτά τον στιγμάτισαν τόσο που εμφανίζονται πολύ συχνά στις σελίδες και του βιβλίου. Βέβαια, στη συνέχεια αποκαλύφθηκε ότι ήταν οι σημειώσεις του Νίκου Μαρδάρα, γραμματέα του Μωρεάς.

Το μυθιστόρημα της Έρσης Σωτηροπούλου μάς παρουσιάζει τη μετάβαση του ήρωά μας, από τον νεαρό Κωστή ως τον εμβληματικό ποιητή μας Κωνσταντίνο Καβάφη. Το ταξίδι του αυτό θα εξελιχθεί σε μια ιδιαίτερη περιπλάνηση που σκιαγραφεί τον ερωτικό πόθο ως κίνητρο δημιουργίας αλλά και τονίζει τη δύσκολη σχέση μεταξύ της δημιουργίας και κοινωνικής ζωής.

Συνέχεια > https://www.vintagestories.gr/ti-mene...

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am an ardent admirer of Cavafy’s poetry and have read it in both English and Italian translations. This novel was given to me as a gift by a friend who was aware of my love of his poetry. I had to force myself to finish it. I found the exposition wholly undigestable and confusing (I personally dislike literature where one can never quite tell who is saying or doing what and other characters are mentioned without a context) and it wasn’t until about a third of the way in and the introduction of Madame de that I found it enjoyable. Quite honestly, after Madame de left the scene the denoument returned to that same undigestable hallucinogenic quality that, for me, was stagnant and even repulsive. This book was not at all my brand of eroticism and perhaps was completely contrary to what I personally view as erotic, nor did it seem to reflect what I find so enticing and delicious about Cavafy’s eroticism. I just kept waiting for SOMETHING to happen! The book is left with so very many things unfinished, unaddressed, and much like a meal that is both under- and overseasoned: too much salt yet not enough. Each bite was unsatisfactory save for the few that were delectable. The character of Madame de was the highlight for me: a woman who might as well have stepped out of the pages of Balzac or Zola or Wilde (the latter two are mentioned in the novel, so clearly the inspiration is evident) but I found the character of Cavafy to be mostly uninteresting and hard to identify with. While the real Cavafy is someone I would love to have known, his potrayal in this novel paints him as imbalanced and insufferable. How his behavior wasn’t looked upon with either suspicion or concern from those around him is baffling to me. Too hazy and not enough concrete storytelling. Some of the language was beautiful, descriptions that were lovely and entertaining, others that rambled and lost interest for me. And then the whole scene in the latrine...I get that some people are into that, and historically it was one of the few areas men could go to attend to their repressed desires...but...but...just no. Not like this. It was repulsive.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, rounded down.

"It all meant something but he was too confused to figure out what." p. 246.

I first encountered the poet Cavafy, as I suspect many people have, through the inclusion of several of his poems in Durrell's magnum opus The Alexandria Quartet, and have since read much of his poetry - but didn't know a lot about his personal life. Unfortunately, I STILL don't, as this book only covers three days in which Constantine visits Paris with his brother John. A lot of it is interesting and well-written, but it sure could have used a judicious edit and lost a good 50 pages or more... there is a LOT of extraneous filler that just slows the story down to no apparent purpose.

[Elina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Λοιπόν, ολοκληρώνοντας το βιβλίο μένω με μια περίεργη και ανικανοποίητη αίσθηση. Στα θετικά είναι ότι η κα Σωτηροπούλου γράφει πολύ καλά. Ρέουν και πάλονται οι λέξεις μέσα στο κείμενο. Φαίνεται επίσης ότι έχει κάνει έρευνα για να γράψει αυτό το βιβλίο. Όμως δεν κατάλαβα ποτέ ποιά ανάγκη την ώθησε να το γράψει. Δεν οδηγεί σε κάτι νέο, λυτρωτικό, διαφορετικό. Ωραίες οι ερωτικές περιγραφές, ωραία η πάλη στο μυαλό του Καβάφη για τους στίχους του, όμως τί στόχο πραγματικά είχε αυτή η ιστορία; δεν ένιωσα συμπάθεια για κανέναν χαρακτήρα και όλη η υπόθεση πέρασε δίπλα μου, πολύ επιφανειακά, χωρίς να με αγγίξει καθόλου. Ίσως, αν το βιβλίο δεν αφορούσε ευθέως τον Καβάφη αλλά τον υπονοούσε, να μου άρεσε περισσότερο.

[Alessia Scurati · Rating 3 out of 5]

Allora, partiamo dalle confessioni personali: volevo leggere questo romanzo da un po’, ma non l’ho fatto per dispetto a seguito di un episodio che definire sgradevole è troppo, ma che sicuramente mi aveva allontanato dall’impossessarmi del volume - metto un asterisco e ve lo racconto alla fine, se volete, sennò proseguite con quel che ho da dire sulla lettura, senza influenze (***).
Innanzitutto, è un libro che può essere letto sia che uno conosca Kavafis sia che non si sia mai venuti a contatto con la sua opera. Anche se, essendo un racconto su quello che è un tassello mancante nella vita dell’autore (cosa è successo nel viaggi fatto a Parigi col fratello), forse alcune cose sulla vita del poeta è bene saperle.
Per una buona metà del testo, il romanzo è stato molto coinvolgente. Lunghe frasi, descrizioni (vengono citati Zola e Wilde nel romanzo, come numi tutelari), il rapporto di Kavafis con la sua poesia e al contempo la ricerca estenuante della perfezione estetica, di musicalità e di contenuti che essa richiede. Il legame con il fratello, così uguale eppure così diverso caratterialmente. La frequentazione del mondo culturale greco fuori dalla Grecia fatto di esuli, apolidi e mistificatori, rappresentati dallo sgradevole Mardaras, ominucci insignificanti nascosti dietro aneliti intellettuali da decadenti eredi dell’Ellenismo.
Mano a mano che prosegue la narrazione, però, diventa sempre più spezzettata e allucinata. Diventa sempre più un viaggio dentro le pulsioni soffocate, che si ritorcono in scene sgradevoli e a tratti proprio repellenti. Ecco, questo crescendo più che dare esplosività, toglie piacere alla lettura, è come essere tirati per la manica ora per un cantone ora per quell’altro con qualcuno che ci dice ‘guarda qui, guarda qui’ per stupire e invece ottiene esattamente l’effetto opposto.
Onestamente, è una scelta stilistica che non ho capito.
È una sorta di viaggio narrativo alla David Lynch che però non sfocia in nulla e lascia troppi temi irrisolti. Quando si crea tanta aspettativa e le promesse non vengono mantenute, il lettore ci resta male. La sensazione è quella di insoddisfazione, anche per come viene trattata la figura del poeta: se il romanzo nasce per farci vedere il Kavafis in un punto cruciale della sua esistenza come persona e anche come poeta, fallisce miseramente nell’intenzione.




(***) L'epidosio in seguito al quale non volevo leggere questo libro:
All’ultimo Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino mi avvicinai con le migliori intenzioni allo stand della casa editrice di questo romanzo. Chiedo info al ragazzo che era lì e che alla fine credo (spero) non facesse parte della casa editrice. Costui si infervora e inizia a parlarmi di Kavafis: «Il migliore e più famoso poeta greco contemporaneo». E già qui, partiamo malissimo. Mai dire a un lettore che quello che vendi è meglio di quello che gli piace. Perché si dà il caso che a me Kavafis piaccia anche molto, ma che io gli preferisca sia Seferis che Ritsos. E gliel’ho detto. Il ragazzo (a parte che dalla faccia sul nome di Ritsos si capiva che non sapeva manco chi fosse), non contento del danno fatto, mi risponde: «Beh, Seferis forse, ma Kavafis è sicuramente il più celebrato. Diciamo che la sua opera per grandezza come poeta può essere paragonata a…», fa una pausa. Poi il colpo di genio finale: «ad Alessandro Manzoni». Cioè io credo di averlo guardato come se fosse una nullità, scusate l’espressione.
Come si fa a dire una cosa del genere?
Alessandro Manzoni?
Ma come?
Ma perché?
Se qualcuno che ha a che fare con una casa editrice sta leggendo: non credetevi mai bravi tanto da saperne di più di un lettore, perché non sapete mai che lettore avete di fronte.
Questa cosa a me ha creato una repulsione nel confronto del romanzo assurda.
Senza contare che, ovviamente, non ho comprato nulla quel giorno, anzi con assoluto cinismo posso rivelare di aver letto la versione eBook comprata solo e soltanto perché era in offerta.
Concludo suggerendo inoltre che fare un errore di cui sopra davanti a una persona che chiede e fa domande con un pass stampa al collo da diritto a 50.000 punti di bonus per la furbizia nelle pubbliche relazioni.
Menomale che io di lavoro non faccio recensioni.
Fine dell'episodio (***)

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Μία ενδιαφέρουσα και ιδιαίτερη μυθιστορηματική μάτια στη ζωή του Κωνσταντίνου Καβάφη. Η συγγραφέας επιλέγει τον δύσκολο δρόμο θα ακολουθήσει τον ποιητή όχι στην αισθησιακή Αλεξάνδρεια που ήταν το επίκεντρο της ζωής του και της δημιουργικότητάς του αλλά σε ένα ταξίδι του στην Ευρώπη. Αυτό φυσικά μας στερεί από μία πιο άμεση επαφή με το έργο του αλλά από την άλλη δίνει την ευκαιρία στη συγγραφέα να μας δείξει το μεγάλο ποιητή σε μία περίοδο της ζωής του που μακριά από την πατρίδα του βλέπει τα πράγματα με κάποια αποστασιοποίηση, αναρωτιέται αν έχει το απαραίτητο ταλέντο και μπαίνει σε κρίσιμες σκέψεις καθοριστικές για την πορεία του έργου του. Φυσικά, όπως πίστευε και ο ίδιος, ακόμα και στις σημαντικές πόλεις της Ευρώπης η δίκη του πόλη τον ακολουθούσε και έτσι ακόμα και εκεί η εσωτερική του διαμάχη με τα πάθη του και η αισθητική του αντίληψη εξακολουθούσαν να κυριαρχούν στους συνειρμούς του και να διαμορφώνουν την ποίηση του.

Όλα αυτά μας τα παρουσιάζει η συγγραφέας με έναν πολύ όμορφο τρόπο, δείχνοντάς μας έναν Καβάφη ανθρώπινο και οικείο, να παλεύει με τον εαυτό του και να εμπνέεται για κάποια από τα πιο σημαντικά ποιήματα του. Βέβαια σε κάποια σημεία ένιωθα ότι η αφήγηση που ξεκίνησε καταπληκτικά έχανε τον δρόμο της, οδηγώντας μας σε κάποια αχρείαστα στιγμιότυπα, η γενικότερη εντύπωση, όμως, είναι πως πρόκειται για ένα βιβλίο ικανό να απορροφήσει τον αναγνώστη και να το κρατήσει το ενδιαφέρον μέσα από αυτό το γοητευτικό ταξίδι στο μυαλό του μεγάλου Αλεξανδρινού ποιητή. Για αυτό είναι ένα απαραίτητο ανάγνωσμα για όσους έχουν πραγματικά συγκινηθεί από το έργο του.

[ALEARDO ZANGHELLINI · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this quite boring and contrived. The main character didn't speak to me. The whole story seems pointless, leaving you feeling you have not gained much either in insight or pleasure. The descriptions of animal behaviour are all wrong (not just those that are meant to sound supernatural): no insect digs troughs on toast with its legs just by crawling over it; no dog sticks and keeps its tongue out undecided whether to lick something (dogs either go for it or don't bother; the only time a dog's tongue is not immediately retracted is if they are panting or have missing canines!). The ending is completely anticlimatic. The atmosphere of fin-de-siecle is effectively conjured up, but that's not enough to sustain the book all by itself. There is one lovely erotically charged scene involving fingers stuck up the upholstery of the back of an armchair: one wishes a short story had been written around it, leaving it at that.

[Márcio · Rating 4 out of 5]

No verão de 1897, no decorrer de uma viagem de férias pela Inglaterra e França, os irmãos Cavafy, John e Constatinos, aproveitam os últimos dias de suas aventuras parisienses antes de partirem para Marselha para apanhar o navio que os levarão de volta à Alexandria. Constantinos tem então cerca de 34 anos.

Junta-se a eles, Nikos Mardaras, conhecido de John de há muito tempo em Alexandria. A Constantinos, não lhe interessa a companhia de Mardaras, por lhe parecer presunçoso e bastante afetado por seus interesses pela alta-sociedade parisiense, não obstante seja o secretário não pago do poeta Jean Moréas. Foi a Moréas que Constantinos enviou dois de seus poemas para apreciação. Em visita clandestina ao apartamento do poeta, Constatinos percebe o seu envelope em cima da mesa de correspondências, aberto, e com os dizeres em tinta vermelha: Expressão fraca Arte pobre.

E é desse enredo inicial que se desenrola a história contada em "O que resta da noite" (Τι μένει από τη νύχτα).

Outras camadas serão adicionadas à história, como a breve paixão de Constantinos pelo jovem dançarino russo que se hospeda no mesmo hotel; Madame de, uma figura que parece uma interseção entre o alto mundo parisiense, alguns vanguardistas e o mundo do ocultismo surgido na França nos fins do século XIX; as várias recordações da vida em Alexandria junto à Gorda (sua mãe); e um lugar sempre citado por Mardaras, localizado nos arredores de Paris chamado de "A Arca" e frequentado sobretudo pela alta-sociedade (le tout-Paris) e por artistas, onde acontecem as coisas mais inimagináveis.

De início, achei a escrita de Sotiropoulos repetitiva, como se sempre precisasse voltar a um ponto anterior para relembrar e para fixar. E, no entanto, quando a leitura já ia pela metade, percebi que na verdade se tratava de uma forma de expressar o pensamento do poeta Constatinos Cavafy, que para reter pensamentos e ideias para os seus poemas, inclusive para fixá-los e trabalha-los mentalmente, voltava à momentos pretéritos. Cavafy, para escrever um poema, quase sempre chegava a produzir diversas versões do mesmo, até chegar à forma que acreditava acabada, em que o poema atingia sua glória própria. Não é a toa que são tão belos.
Trata-se de prática de criação que nos pode parecer estranha hoje, haja vista os recursos tecnológicos e a facilidade com que temos de não fixar informações em razão do excesso delas. Vale lembrar que o poeta russo Osip Mandelstam criava mentalmente seus poemas, linha por linha, repetindo-os à exaustão, e somente quando sentia que o poema estava concluído é que se dignava a sentar e escrevê-lo. O resgate na escrita da forma de memorização e trabalho de Cavafy acabou por se tornar ao fim uma forma de percepção do poeta, uma homenagem.

Há passagens que são sublimes, entre as quais cito aquela em que, em seu quarto de hotel, Constatinos revê dois de seus poemas que tem por base a Ilíada. Trata-se de "O funeral de Sarpédon" e "Os cavalos de Aquiles". Em outro momento, apaixonado pelo jovem dançarino russo, o poeta se vê no escuro perante a porta do quarto de hotel em que acredita que o jovem se encontra com sua amante e onde vive mentalmente uma intensa fantasia erótica contando apenas com um fio dos "macios testículos" do dançarino. E por fim, a cena final em que o valete do hotel vem buscar sua bagagem:

"Diante dele, um menino de cabelo arenoso, muito leve, com uma marca de nascença em seu
rosto. De onde se encontrava, a marca na bochecha do menino parecia uma ilha, uma inexplorada
ilha, um trecho de terra seca que se espalhava ainda mais quando o menino sorria e seus olhos pequenos e tristes se acendiam."

[Cherrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was recommended this book when I visited a quaint but loveable bookstore hidden in the Oia part of Santorini. The shopkeeper recommended this when I asked for fiction by a Greek author and or based in Greece. I always enjoy any recommendations from people and was glad to have purchased and read this book. All in all, not my cuppa tea but if you enjoy stream of consciousness, this might be for you. (EDIT: This is historical fiction -- Cavafy is a real person but the novel was constructed to give a glimpse of his early career.)

At least the storyline is linear and the characters are few. Cavafy's thoughts are wild and I felt like I was being dragged along in his sleep-depraved and lust-filled journey but I also felt how restricted he felt from being himself and expressing his sexuality as it raged in his body. He was that hairless white cat in a cage. I was waiting for him to resolve to staying in Paris but I guess that didn't happen. The author Ersi Aotiropoulos did a great job capturing Cavafy's war with his mind and body but for me, it's hard to resonate because (1) streams of consciousness are hard to follow, (2) I am not knowledgeable of the wars and day-to-day cultural happenings of the time (e.g. the iconoplast debate, the mimesis perspective, or any of the wars he refers to), and (3) I don't care much for poetry.

[carelessdestiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this novel even though I'm a bit baffled by the point of it. It doesn't have any plot to speak of and doesn't give any insight into the man's poetry. Instead it's a fanciful creation of the feelings someone might have had in two days in historical Paris and, in spite of tortuous emotions described, it comes across as a rather camp experience. I think Mr. Cavafy might have been a bit surprised by the superficiality of the style, but maybe he would have found it whimsical and entertaining too.

[Gerasimos Evangelatos]

Η μεγαλύτερη γοητεία του μυθιστορήματος ειναι οι στίχοι - λέξεις - σπαράγματα απο την ποίηση του Καβάφη που ανθίζουν σε ανύποπτο χρόνο κατα τη διάρκεια της αφήγησης.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are several reasons not to read "What’s Left of the Night" by Ersi Sotiropoulos which tells the story of how the great, Greek poet Constantine Cavafy discovered his vocation for homoerotic verse in a public "pissoir" in Paris in 1897. Although the passages involving fecal matter, urine and auto-eroticism will make certain readers queasy, the main problem however is that one needs a very strong interest in art and the artistic process in order to enjoy this perverse but in many ways quite brilliant novel. The good news is that if one does, the novel despite its prurient and scatological elements is great fun.
Allusions to places, poets, writers and artistic schools rain down. Sotiropoulos casually drops the names of Zola, Proust, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Wilde, Hugo and many others. She has a Russian ballet dancer uttering lines from "Ochi Chornyje" without identifying the source. She makes constant references to the "Corniche" without explaining that the characters are talking about the waterfront promenade of Alexandria in Egypt where Cavafy lived most of his life. Ultimately, none of this matters in the slightest. What Sotitropoulos is doing, and doing rather well, is recreating the atmosphere of fin-de-siècle Paris.
Where it matters, Sotiropoulos explains things very carefully. In particular, she makes it very clear what the connection between Cavafy and the three writers mentioned most often in the text: Charles Baudelaire, Leon Tolstoy and Jean Moréas. Cavafy is profoundly impressed by Baudelaire's poem the "Albatross" because in it the point is made that the poet in human society is like the albatross that has been captured by sailors in that he constantly feels humiliated and looks ridiculous. Cavafy admires in "War and Peace" by Tolsto because of the passage where Prince Bolkonsky confronts and reconciles himself with "atrocious" death. No specific work is cited of Jean Moréas the founder "Symbolism". Rather Moréas is presented as being the object of a great deal of reflection on the part of Cavafy comes to the conclusion that on "ism" ever made even the slightest contribution to poetry.
The novel is also filled with references to current events all of which are easy to understand for the non-Greek reader. There is much talk of the Dreyfus Affair. Cavafy makes a snide comment about the first modern Olympics held the previous year in Athens were in dreadful taste. There are also several discussions of the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 which has taken place several months earlier. Again with these references Sotiropoulos is able to create atmosphere without unduly taxing the erudition of the reader.
There are some very interesting characters in the novel. The two main ones are Cavafy and his brother John. Mardaras the pretentious and sycophantic secretary of Moréas is also quite engaging. Like a number of GR reviewers I also like Madame De a character who by her extravagant pronouncements reminds the read of Proust's Baron de Charlus. What I particularly enjoyed was Madame De's thesis that the Dreyfus Affair and the Byzantine Iconoclast movement (737 AD to 843 AD) were very similar. In the view of Madame De, both matters reflected the human tendency towards forming factions and fabricating disputes. Moreover both had started with the military classes.
Inevitably there is a lengthy debate about the purpose of art and poetry. Cavafy's brother John feels that art should imitate life (Aristotelian mimesis) while Mardaras Moréas argues that life should imitate art (Symbolist anti-mimesis). Cavafy takes the position that art is a condensation or concentration of life. There is no resolution of the debate of course as the objective was simply to elucidate the ideas of Cavafy.
The novel appears to meander before finding direction. The two brothers argue constantly and are disappointed that the secretary of Moréas will not take them to a night-club called "L'Arche". On their last night in Paris, Mardaras escorts them to the club which proves to be a disappointment. However, after leaving the night-club they spend half hour that they spend in a public urinal that proves to be a roaring success.
Once again, however, Sotiropoulos fails to be clear with the reader. She fails to put the words "Half Hour" in quotations which is the title of Cavafy's most famous homoerotic poem. The trip to Paris then has had a legacy but this is not made explicit to the reader.
The strength of "What’s Left of the Night" is also its weakness. It elucidates Cavafy's poems of homosexual love but these poems form just one part of Cavafy's oeuvre. Cavafy insisted that his poems in three categories - philosophical, historical and homoerotic. "What’s Left of the Night" essentially deals with only the final category. Cavafy's philosophical and historical poems are basically ignored.

[Demo]

my mother's eccentric friend recommended I read cavafy years ago. she also told me to read carl jung and freud with their original texts just to give you an idea of who she is. maybe she saw the budding queerness in me, maybe she just really is out of her mind, but i did go and read cavafy on her recommendation. for years, i clung to the poem "ithaka" which beautifully guides odysseus on his journey away from home, towards a sense of self, only to return and find that self again. ithaka mirrored how i felt in my 20s leaving the confines of my home to venture out, wary of the monsters that lurk about, but ultimately changed for the better towards a truer sense of self.

last year before my trip to greece, elena and I went to a reading and interview with a cavafy translator. he spoke about cavafy's queerness, greek identity, and the deep yearning that permeates his poems. cavafy was a taurus -- born and died on the same day (!!) -- who spent a majority of his life in alexandria chasing the dream of an artist. that's what this novel intended to be about. it details, in long laborious prose that sometimes veers into poetry, a fictionalized mental state, cavafy on the verge of artistic explosion and liberation. what seemed at the beginning to be a luxurious and aesthetic-filled text ended up being a drag as paragraph after paragraph was spent on repetitive inner thoughts and circular doubts. if I wanted to read about an artistically frustrated gay greek man, i'd just read my own journal entries. i had high expectations and hoped that the novel would have the yearning and sexual charge and historic beauty of cavafy's poetry, but i was left feeling disappointed and empty afterwards.

[Levi Huxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

My enjoyment of What’s Left of the Night increased dramatically after I stopped reading and did a bit of online research on Cavafy, possibly the most celebrated Mediterranean queer poet since Antiquity. Herein lies my advice to future self (and fellow readers).

Before starting this novel by acclaimed Greek writer Ersi Sotiropoulos, I had only read two or three of Cavafy’s poems. He’d popped up here and there in my reading, in books or articles by Daniel Mendelsohn and Andre Aciman, brief but indirect glimpses of a towering figure of turn-of-the-century literature.

What’s Left of the Night isn’t a biography, focusing instead on three days Cavafy spends in Paris with his brother in the summer of 1897. When I put the book down, perhaps a third of the way through, I was frustrated by the mundane details of the brothers’ trip. Much was made of where they should eat and who they should try to meet. They hang out with the “tout Paris”, the aristocrats and intellectuals who make-up the literati, and yet no one seems to have anything insightful to say. They vaguely search for the Ark, a secret underground party whispered about for its debauchery. Cavafy agonises about what an influential local writer may or may not think of his poetry, and the homosexual desires that he can no longer deny.

Come on! This is one of the world’s greatest queer poets, in the world’s cultural capital, at a moment when the continent is on the cusp of colossal transformation. Is that all you have for me?

I shut the book and put it away. Often, when a piece of writing doesn’t make sense, I turn inward rather than against the author. What am I not getting? Irritated, I read a few reader comments and reviews: the frustration wasn’t mine alone. There is both too much exposition and too little. I am not an erudite reader, was I missing context?

I found a few of his poems online (the recently published Mendelsohn translations were priced out of my reach). Appreciating poetry does not come easy to me, but Cavafy’s verse felt lucid, clear and pierced with insight. I read some biographical notes. Aha! There was the context. Finally, I settled on an interpretation of this book that allowed me not only to persist but, eventually, to enjoy it thoroughly.

Cavafy’s celebrated style came into being as the century turned, shortly after his Parisian trip. By 1897, I’m told, the 34 year-old Cavafy had written very little of lasting significance. This seemingly innocuous interlude is not a revealing glimpse into the mind of a great poet. It’s the last days of a mediocre talent about to rebel against everything that has informed his writing to date. Sotiropoulos doesn’t describe the click of the artist finding his voice exactly, she explores the moments that immediately precede it.

The young poet’s Parisian long weekend takes on a new meaning through this lens. The critics’ opinion should matter to the poet as much as ornithology matters to birds. The intellectuals’ pronouncements are irrelevant. The aristocrats’ gossip is just noise. The ornament and lyricism of Cavafy’s own writing are nothing but an affect to be shed. Rhymes, it turns out, are a prison.

And the desire and transgression that his contemporaries seek – in the form of an illicit party accessible only to those in the know – pale in comparison to Cavafy’s own true longings.
The real epiphany of What’s Left of the Night, felt like deeply buried treasure, at least in the eyes of this superficial reader. In reality, it was right there beneath the surface. Cavafy cannot become a true poet until he follows his own illicit yearning and emancipates himself from the rules and conservative conventions of society.

His rising, inexorable desire – expressed in a feverish and hallucinatory scene where he fingers a hole in the upholstery of a chair behind which sits the object of his lust – is the key that unlocks this creativity. The truth he finds in himself, after a couple of sleepless nights and exhausting flaneries through the capital, is the true rupture he needs to free his poetry from the need to please others or follow trends.

Meanwhile, I also wondered if a knowledgeable Cavafy enthusiast might glean another layer of meaning from the prosaic meanderings and superficial observations recorded in this travelogue. Will some of the seemingly unimportant observations of the fledgling poet find their way into his future verse, transformed through creative genius? I guess the only way to find out is to read the poet’s work…

Don’t you love it when that happens?

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

The problem was Alexandria, the city stifled him’.

Constantine Peter Cavafy (1863 – 1933) was an Egyptiot Greek poet, journalist and civil servant. His consciously individual style earned him a place among the most important figures not only in Greek poetry, but in Western poetry as well. Cavafy wrote 154 poems, while dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. A gay poet, among is many awards was his nominations for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Poetry.

What Ersi Sotiropoulos offers in this luminous book is a sensitive insight into the formation of Cavafy’s artistic career beginnings as well as his sensual leanings. Ersi has written fifteen books of fiction and poetry and has been twice awarded Greece’s National Book Prize as well as her country’s Book Critics’ Award and the Athens Academy Prize. This book, WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT, won the 2017 Prix Méditerranée Étranger in France.

In this translation by Karen Emmerich the poetic approach to this biographical view of Cavafy shines. A brief passage from the opening of the book – ‘And if the lovers don’t respond to your touch? he thought. If they’re warm, soft-skinned statues that receive all caresses with the indifference of works of art? That Platonic idea enticed him, but only to a point. The object of desire was so distant, so close. Lips, limbs, bodies. Lips, gasping mouths. That was what he should write about. So close, so distant. That was the purpose of art, to abolish distance. He recalled the figure of a youth from years ago. Had it been in Constantinople? Yeniköy? A beardless youth working as an ironmonger’s apprentice, and as the boy bent half naked over the anvil, sparks flying onto his glistening chest, he saw his face lit heroically, imagined him crowned with vines and bay leaves. They hadn’t spoken, and he never saw him again. Who would write about him? Who would heave him up out of the oblivion of History?’

And that is the eloquent manner in which this gaze into the mind and life of Cavafy is related – a prolonged poem, worthy of the subject of the memoriam.

[Bασίλης Τσιρώνης · Rating 3 out of 5]

Δεινή αφηγήτρια η Σωτηροπούλου ξέρει να κτίζει καλά με ποίηση και όνειρο ή εφιάλτη τις ιστορίες της - γι' αυτό ούτε λόγος. Εντούτοις, μου φάνηκε πως κάπου έχασε το δρόμο της και παρά το μόχθο της σε όλο το μυθιστόρημα το όλο εγχείρημα μοιάζει ελλιπές και χαοτικό.

Αξίζει να διαβαστεί

[Marcus Woodman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like I would have appreciated this book more had I been familiar with the poet's work. However, I did enjoy the characters and the way Sotiropoulos described conversations. A few later scenes left me baffled--they felt utterly real, but also dreamlike, and had me a bit lost as a reader.

[Ron Mohring · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of the way through this, I kept asking myself, Do I want to keep reading? (Yes, but no.) I kept comparing it to Garth Greenwell's (incomparable) prose, probably unfairly, but this is my problem with this novel: it never stopped feeling *tedious*.

[E. · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel has some mesmerizingly well-written parts, but then there was a long section where I grew bored, and the ending I felt was both unsatifsying and, frankly, repulsive. I kept imaginging it could have been different and better. I'm surprised it is as well-reviewed and awarded as it is.

[Takisx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Κι όμως είναι ανεπανάληπτη. Και η ιστορία της για τον Καβάφη ένα καθαρό διαμάντι

[James Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not impressed. I like Cavafy and b don't know what I hoped for from this, but definitely more.

[Andy White · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of the most beautiful writing I have encountered recently. Sadly, the storyline can be hallucinatory and the ending is bizarre.

[Elena Sala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Constantine Cavafy (1863 – 1933) was a Greek-Egiptian poet whose distinctive style earned him a place among the most important figures in Western poetry.
In 1984, Ersi Sotiropoulos, author of WHAT'S LEFT OF THE NIGHT (published in Greek in 2015), curated an exhibition dedicated to Cavafy at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome. While consulting the archives she came across references to Cavafy's trip to Paris in 1897—the first and last holiday journey of his life. There was very little information about it, only a few memorabilia, but this acted as a trigger to start thinking about the poet as a young man, about his passion for writing, his anxiety to find his own voice, and how he was tormented by sexual desires forbidden back then. Paris in the last years of the nineteenth century was a mecca for the avant-garde, the place where Marcel Proust, Erik Satie, and Edgar Degas were living and creating, where modernism was being born. Sotiropoulos was intrigued by the encounter of Cavafy—reserved, awkward, tormented by contradictions and doubts—with this exciting world.
This novel is not historical fiction nor a biography. It is an interesting novel about the making of the artist, a perceptive portrait of a budding author—before he became a world-renowned poet—that illuminates the complex relationship of art, life, and the erotic desires that trigger creativity. However, I found the last part of the novel somewhat baffling because the author introduced unexpectedly a dreamlike atmosphere which made no sense at all. I might have missed the point, but it did spoil the ending for me. Anyway, I think I'd rather know about Cavafy through his dazzling poetry about nostalgia, about the Hellenic past, about his imagined sensual experiences. My own imagined Cavafy.

[Ygraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is an intensely, tantalisingly frustrating book -- it feels like something stuck between my teeth, like running my tongue over & over the same place until it feels sensitive & numb & over-familiar, and still the alien thing scratches & aches & won't come loose. there's a few moments of real eroticism, where desperate need, sexual, emotional, intellectual, all three, overwhelms both character & reader, and a few moments of real struggle, where the language and pattern of thought feels too disjointed, too muddied to move through -- but no relief, no satisfaction.

i think this has picked up on the threads of cavafy's identity as an artist that interested me in daniel mendelsohn's introduction & notes; the sense that he was endlessly working towards some absolute, some dense, true thing, revising & deliberating & undoing; the sense of elusiveness and incompleteness, the interplay of honesty & deceit, irony & blindness, faith & bitterness, belonging & alienation, ease & painful, painstaking labour through his poems & the process of creating them; the sense of diligent historical & self scrutiny worn lightly, with a thousand crossed through pages left behind. & i think the answer to the frustration of this novel is the poems themselves, those that cavafy completed & published particularly but even those he didn't -- they finish the story, in their wholeness, in their artistry, in their consummation of desire & distance & memory & truth.

[ClaraAS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adoro a Cavafis y la autora lo conoce con todos sus recovecos y muros de los que hablaba en sus poemas, es capaz de crear el mundo interior de un gran poeta en un momento de inflexión, podría haber sido Cavafis o cualquier otro, pero al ponernos en la piel de un hombre homosexual cuya familia cayó en desgracia cuando era pequeño, no solo nos muestra el proceso de ruptura y el deseo de una voz propia del poeta sino también como afecta la vida a la obra, como afecta el entorno al poeta que huye de su propio ser, que desea pero teme saltarse los convencionalismos, ¿un hombre corriente, temeroso, puede hablar de los grandes dilemas del ser humano?, se pregunta el protagonista de la novela, poemas como "Las velas" muestran que sí. Hay que considerar que muchos de los poemas de Cavafis nunca fueron publicados en vida por deseo del poeta que no quería mostrar su faceta homosexual a su familia y entorno y también algunos por su obsesión por la corrección.
Me ha parecido una obra magnífica que hubiera aplaudido el Alejandrino, que nunca creyó que sería un referente poético del siglo XX. La traducción también tendría que llevarse un aplauso, es difícil traducir una obra que tiene tantas referencias a una obra poética, los traductores han hecho un gran trabajo.