Certain places possess those elusive qualities which fill us with that sense of je ne sais quoi. Is it awe, or is it merely that we are carried away by a contagious energy, enthusiasm or excitement? Such is the power of these charismatic places that we don’t actually need to have been there to develop a feeling of affinity or nostalgia. Romantic notions of Venice or Paris — or Alexandria — are what compel us to rise from our armchairs and grab the next flight.

Perhaps without realizing, we arrive at our destination already prepared to love it. We have been primed, we are filled with facts, we have poured over maps and guidebooks. And what we ultimately take away from the experience is greater than the sum of its parts.

We owe a debt to the writers who have felt compelled to set down their own impressions and have done it in such a way that it feeds our own nostalgia and adds immeasurably to the texture of our own impressions, whether real or imagined.

Alexandria is one of those cities that loom large in the imagination. It has had a storied past — twice! Once in ancient times from its founding by Alexander the Great in 331 BC to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 AD when it was the seat of learning, and then again from around 1860 to 1945, when it became an enclave of expatriate Greeks, Italians, Sephardic Jews, French and English, who all shared for a brief time a genuinely multicultural period of prosperity and creativity. After WWII with the rise of Nasser and a new authoritarian nationalism, the spark that flamed briefly in Alexandria was quenched, the expatriate communities were driven out, and the dreamy little town of 500,000 became just another overcrowded city of 4 million.

The modern mystique of Alexandria — once known as the Pearl of the Mediterranean — was helped merrily on its way by three writers who flourished there during the early 20th century — Greek poet Constantine Cavafy and British novelists E.M. Forster and Lawrence Durrell. Alexandria: City of Memory by Michael Haag is largely an account of the second flowering of the city as seen through the published writings and letters of these authors. It is also generously illustrated with photographs taken during the period of people and places of interest. Readers of Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet will especially appreciate this book which introduces us to actual people on whom Durrell based many of his characters. The “city of memory” is the city of Durrell and Forster’s memories with some historical background included where relevant.

Neither Durrell nor Forster spent more than a few years actually living in Alexandria, but the experiences were life-changing for both. Forster wrote a guidebook called Alexandria: A History and a Guide which is fascinating in that it tries to locate the famous lost monuments of the ancient city, which at the time archaeology had been unable to do. Forster was well aware of the difficulty of his task, but his guidebook continues to be read for its evocative representation of a place and has been hailed by some as the best guidebook ever written. (Happily this scarce book was recently made available on Kindle.)

The poet Cavafy conjured up the spirit of place for both Forster and Durrell. Some of his poetry appears in Durrell’s novels. Forster called on him frequently during his sojourn in Alexandria. Cavafy lived most of his life and he died in Alexandria, where there is a museum dedicated to his memory.

Alexandria: City of Memory is every bit as haunting as the Alexandria Quartet, and readers of the latter will appreciate the maps of the city and the background on people and places that make up the essence of the novels.

Author Michael Haag summed up beautifully the spirit of Cavafy, Forster and Durrell:

“If more of the city survived it would haunt you less, but the imagination is left to dream, and the dream for some becomes palpable, sensual and ‘real’” — and quoting from Balthazar: “The city, half imagined (yet wholly real), begins and ends in us, roots lodged in our memory.”

Sadly, much of what captivated Durrell and Forster has been changed — by growth as much as anything else. But we too can dream of the city that was, thanks to the written word and photographic record presented here. ( )

Of the triumvirate of Alexandrian literary giants of the early twentieth century - Constantine Cavafy, E. M. Forster, and Lawrence Durrell - Cavafy is perhaps the guardian spirit. His poetry provides the capstone to Forster's Alexandria: A History and a Guide, and is present both as invoked persona ("the old poet of the city") and fictionalized character (Balthazar) in Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. Cavafy's presence also haunts Michael Haag's evocative Alexandria: City of Memory. Though the book focuses on the Alexandria of Forster and Durrell, the photograph of Cavafy's melancholy face seems to stare through every page, and his poem "The City," used as epigraph, imbues the text with nostalgia. The image Haag describes of Cavafy at twilight opening or closing shutters, "adjusting the fall of light on his guests," aptly describes Haag's approach to his material, illuminating the sojourns of Forster and Durrell in this city.

Both Forster and Durrell were cast into Alexandria by wars: Forster came as a Red Cross "searcher" in World War I, interviewing wounded soldiers to ascertain the whereabouts of the missing; Durrell fled the Nazi invasion of Greece. In Alexandria both found the loves that, if not the most inspiring of happiness, nevertheless provided the foundation for some of their greatest writing.

Forster fell in love with a tram conductor, Mohammed al Adl, and their tenuous, fraught relationship is movingly recounted in Forster's long "letter," never sent, and continued after Mohammed's death at twenty-three from consumption. Their relationship, transformed, underlies Forster's acclaimed A Passage to India, informing both Dr. Aziz's friendship with Fielding, and the misunderstandings between Aziz and Adela Quested. Perhaps the most strangely stirring image in Haag's book is the tattered photograph of Mohammed that Forster kept with him to the end of his life, preserved only because he had taped a tram ticket to the reverse side.

The eponymous central character of Durrell's Justine is based on his second wife, the Alexandrian Jew Eve Cohen. They met at a party, where she terrified and entranced Durrell with her voluble eagerness and puckish beauty. Eve was involved with an Austrian Jew who didn't feel he could trust her, and Durrell had recently ended his first marriage, so they initially discussed their difficult love lives. But when Eve left her family, it was to Durrell that she turned; they were soon lovers, and then married. Their relationship, lopsided, passionate, scarred by violence, is evoked in Haag's book through Durrell's letters, the memories of friends, and interviews with Eve Durrell.

A host of minor characters fills out the book, which is assiduously researched, lucidly written, and accompanied by a trove of photographs that bring to life this fleeting, fascinating epoch of Alexandria's history.