Akhenaten : Dweller in TruthA Novel

Rating:
Summary: Mr.O's online book review
Review: The book Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth was a very interesting book. The plot is interesting and I would highly recommend it to others.

It starts out with a great queen of Egypt who has two sons. The younger one becomes prince and eventually pharoah, but one day he hears the voice of God say to him that he is the only god that should be worshipped and there is no other but him. So, Akhenaten turns to monotheism and starts to spread this new religion. The nobles and most of the people of Egypt accuse him of being crazy and label him a heretic. So he leaves to build his own city and takes his followers and his wife with him. There is a great war over the people and eventually, Akhenaten is all alone.

Now, the story is being told to a young boy named Meriamun, who is hearing it from many different views. He hears the story over and over from some of the priests, Akhenaten's wife, and even some of the gaurds. Meriamun is on a mission to find out the truth.

I hope you read the book and enjoy it just as much as I did. Don't be fooled by this review just because it's for my school, I did enjoy the book, and I hope you will too.

Rating:
Summary: The Egyptian
Review: There is a Hindu saying that "a work of art has many faces." As Mafouz's short novel eloquently shows, not only art but religion, history, and human character as well share a multi-faceted difficult character.

This novel tells the story of the Pharoah Akhenaten. As a youth, he rejected the primary gods of Egypt and worshipped the sun. Subsequently, he came to the concept of a singly, incorporeal God, accessible to all human beings who ruled the universe with love and asked only that people love him and each other and treat each other with kindness and justice. Ahkenaton was removed from the throne after alienating the priests of the traditional Egyptian gods and died shortly thereafter, probably the result of assasination.

The novel is told by a young Egyptian, Meriamun, who is fascinated by the story of the "heretical" Pharoah and seeks to learn his story by interviewing those close to him. Meriamum's father reluctantly allows his son to follow this path, writes him letters of introduction, and counsels him to "be like history, impartial and open to every witness. Then deliver a truth that is free of bias for those who wish to contemplate it."

Following the introduction, the book consists of Meriamun's interviews with those close to Akhenaton, including his teacher, the pagan priests, the security guard, his priest, physician, a woman from the harem, and his wife, Neferiti.

Each of these people has his or her own story to tell about Akhenaten. They bring their own standpoint to bear upon his religion, his leadership as the Pharoah, has sexuality, and his sanity.

We see the situation as more complex than a courageous, lone individual finding a way to monotheism. The priests have their point too as Akhenaton is a weak ruler, provokes or at least fails to discourage civil war, and, most pointedly, issues an order forbidding the worshippers of Egypt's traditional gods to worship in their own fashion.

Through all this, the sense of ethical and mystical idealism shines through the book and through the portrayal of Ahkenaton.

The book stimulates thought on the nature of religion, its relationship to the world of practical politics and the nature too of fanaticism. Ultimately, I think, the book is a parable of spriritual seeking similar in some ways to Hesse's Siddhartha. On one level, the seeker is Akhenaten. On a second level, the seeker is the narrator Meriamun. On the third and most important level the seeker is the reader as he or she becomes drawn into the story and reflects upon its significance.

This is a deceptively simple story worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Akhenaten merits more than this...
Review: This book belongs to the first stage of Naguib Mahfuz literary production, a series of 40 novels dedicated to the history of Pharaohnic Egypt. Later on, he was deflected into a new type of novel, one that addressed social/political issues, the raw reality of his native country, and it is within this phase that we have him at his best ("Cairo Trilogy", "Children of the Alley", "Miramar", amongst others). Readers who are familiar with Mahfuz's outstanding novels might be disappointed with this one.
Akhenaten (formerly Amenhotep IV) was one of the most enigmatic pharaohs, one over which there is much historical, archeological, and mystical debate. Details about his life were purposely erased from Egyptian history as he was usually referred to as "heretic" or "rebel." Little can be said and affirm about him, and a good deal of supposition is what accounts for his life, deeds, and character. Was he in fact a victim of Marfan's Syndrome, which accounted for his peculiar physique? Was he a product of miscegenation and therefore had Negroid features? Was "Tut" his brother, son, or son-in-law? Over some aspects, historians seem to have reached an agreement: he was a visionary who implemented a monotheistic religion, had a new city built as the main center of his empire (Amarna), changed the traditional structure of the Egyptian society, and reversed Egyptian's foreign policy. In this revolutionary undertaking his main victim was the priesthood upon which power and tradition was based. The result was a general disruption of traditional patterns of religion, resistance from those representing the previous status quo, and the inevitable failure and death of the new system (including the Pharaoh himself).
The main character in the book, young Meriamum sets to understand the truth about Akhenaten by means of several interviews with a number of the Pharaoh's contemporaries (friends, his wife Nefertiti, the high priest, soldiers, etc). He is a passive listener, makes no attempt to ellaborate on the information given, and what is being told turns out to be extremely contradictory and quite repetitive.
By dealing with a historical character over which there is little factual evidence, Naguib Mahfouz could indulge in the realm of fiction, but by doing so he is further undermining whatever truth might be said about Akhenaten. There is no reference to the social/political/religious reality of Ancient Egypt. As a work of fiction it needs more structure, as a historical fiction it swims in shallow waters.
Leaving the fictional element aside, a much broader, academic and meaningful account of Akhenaten and his time is to be found in "Akhenaten: King of Egypt" by Cyril Aldred.