Edward Said and Constantine Cavafy

I just finished Edward Said's posthumous book on Late Style in literature and music. As always, it is brilliant and highly recommendable. Poignant in being a work drafted as he was dying (and finalized by a friend - tho all the writing is Said's).

I usually like best his writing about music, and this volume is no exception, especially the treatment of late Beethoven. I could listen to that music day in and day out. The late piano sonatas, the late string quartets esp.

He also writes about the wonderful poet of Alexandria, Constantin Cavafy. Like Cavafy, Said is a subtle, brilliant Egyptian. Unlike him, he was also a thoroughgoing American, with his political commitments, his careerism, and his aggressive use of his extraordinary mind. Of course, Said's great claim, and his great identification, is as Palestinian. But, his father was a Cairene, and that's where Edward grew up.

He looks Egyptian, and he thinks like an Egyptian. I'm a huge fan of his work -- even his intense, political writing and his unabashed support of the Palestinian cause (of which, in great part, I'm a supporter too). Cavafy, on the other hand, was lucky enough to live in a time before this particular conflict. He was Greek by birth, but lived the greatest part of his life in Alexandria and became closely identified with the city. Here is one of his best-known poems:

The God Abandons Antony

At midnight, when suddenly you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive - don't mourn them uselessly:
as one long prepared, and full of courage,
say goodbye to her, to Alexandria who is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and full of courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion,
but not with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen - your final pleasure - to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.