4 out of 5 stars
As it's been a while (a long while!) since I read this book, I don't
think I'll be able to turn my notes into a coherent, "traditional"
review, so I'll just post them here as-is.
-Like other reviewers
have pointed out, the continued use of “the phallus” got old very
quickly. After the first use, in fact. And, for me, it wasn't
necessarily the use of the word 'phallus' that bothered me, though it
was annoying enough; no, it was the fact that it was always referred to
as “the phallus.” Greenwood slipped up one time and wrote “my phallus,”
and, oh boy, I had a hearty chuckle over that.
--Once again, Nefertiti is portrayed as being
beautiful yet stupid. I mean, I guess I can see that as one explanation
as to why she goes along with Akenaten's new religion—Greenwood writes
Nefertiti as extremely biddable and easily placated, as someone who
won't be dissuaded from a path of action once she's fixed on it, no
matter how much anyone argues with her to the contrary—I'm just getting
tired of people writing beautiful women as also being stupid. Haven't
there been many beautiful women, both famous, infamous, and ordinary,
over the centuries who have been twice-cursed with both brains and
beauty? Why not Nefertiti as well? I guess I'd just like to see her
written as being rather canny, perhaps as a woman who used Akenaten for
her purposes rather than simply bowed to his. Maybe I'm just
daydreaming.
--I am not a lettered or professional historian or
Egyptologist; I'm more what you would call an “armchair” expert. So I
can't comment on the research Greenwood has done in order to write this
book, though, to my eyes, it looks comprehensive enough. And some of
the hypotheses she's used in her story seem perfectly reasonable,
especially as regards to Akenaten's personality. After all, Akenaten
was a cult leader, probably one of the first. He managed to convince an
entire country, willing or not, to abandon their belief system in favor
of a god, the Aten, he may not have necessarily created but certainly
limned in the image decreed by Akenaten. Because of this high-handed
approach, Akenaten, as described by Greenwood, is dreamy, unfocused,
unconcerned with day-to-day problems, yet also completely ruthless,
megalomaniacal, deluded as well as delusional, and completely willing to
sacrifice anyone in the service of his religion and his goals for the
Aten. The Amarna period is a fascinating one and ripe for all sorts of
exploration and deconstruction by novelists. It's also quite vulnerable
to revision, which makes the version presented by Greenwood the most
realistic, even probable.
--I think the main problem I had with the
book, apart from it not being a mystery despite what it says on the
cover (which I really can't figure out, unless they're talking about the
mystery of Amarna and the goings-on of Akenaten et al, but even that
seems rather senseless). What was I saying? Oh, yes, the main problem I
had with the book is that it seemed as though it couldn't decide
whether to be a dynamic tale of two people set in the court of Akenaten
or an expanded version of one of those “What Life was Like...” books,
where the daily activities of the Amarna period are brought to life by
showing a couple of characters, real or fictional, acting them out. The
story itself was compelling, at its heart, that of two people,
Mutnodjme, half-sister to Nefertiti, and Ptah-Hotep, Great Royal Scribe,
who get caught up in the center of the whirlwind changes instigated by
Akenaten, from their beginnings to the bitter end. The story alternates
between those two P.O.V.s, which is fine. However, where the “What
Life was Like...” aspect came in was with the insertion of almost
tedious asides, such as the numerous poems and songs and fables and
parables recited by one character or another for the edification of some
other character and, by extension, the reader. After the first couple
of these recitations, which didn't seem to have any bearing on the
actual plot, I started skimming over the others whenever they appeared,
which was quite frequently. It's not that I have anything against
reading ancient Egyptian literature; quite the contrary, in fact. I
just didn't see the point of inserting so many examples of their writing
into the novel. Yes, when the characters quoted something wise or on
point in regards to the action of the moment, those were relevant, but
the others simply felt like an excuse for Greenwood to share some of her
research with us.
--It was hilarious at the end of the book:
Someone forgot to put the end tag to some italic text (yet another piece
of Egyptian writing, this time an edict by Horemheb, concerning his
right to the throne), meaning that the last two and a half pages of the
book were italicized. This has been the poorliest (that's a word,
right?) edited book of Greenwood's put out by Poison Pen Press that I've
ever read. The constant italics were the worst error, but I saw many
others as I read, usually having to do with punctuation. Was PPP in
that much of a rush to publish this book that they could've have taken a
bit more time to make sure it was a bit better edited? Seems sloppy to
me.
--Yet the more I think about the book and remember the story,
the more I like it, in spite of its problems and idiosyncrasies. It's a
vivid, entertaining, richly detailed (and I do mean detailed) look at a
period of ancient Egyptian history that, yes, has been covered quite
extensively in the past. But because the Amarna period is a lively
enough nonfiction subject, there's enough scope and depth to mine for
inspiration, and the mysteries that come along with the facts provide
ample fodder for intelligently hypothesized solutions to those
mysteries. Thankfully, Kerry Greenwood is an intelligent and competent enough
writer to tackle those mysteries and do them some justice.
Read from August 15-20, 2013
Reviewed March 19, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment