Five years ago Lawrence Durrell announced in his envoi to "Monsieur" that it was to be the first novel in a quincunx—"five novels only dependent on one another as echoes might be." There he begat an alter ego, Blanford, with whom he shared the authorship of "Monsieur"; and Blanford begat another writer, Sutcliffe, whose commonplace book full of uncommonplace and conflicting thoughts supplies a sort of preposterously punning Greek chorus to the present volume ["Livia"]; Sutcliffe in turn begets another writer, Bloshford—and so on, one supposes, ad finem quincunxis. This "quincuncial style" may suit the author, but what one might call the Doppelgänger effect all too often leaves the reader in the lurch. "The writer Blanford suddenly felt like an enormously condensed version of a minor epic. Buried Alive!" Many readers may share that suffocating sensation as they worm their way through "Livia."…

The sense...