Tagged: ancient egypt
The Portrayal of Cleopatra in Historical Fiction
Cleopatra has been a favourite subject of many artists.
Cleopatra is a cultural phenomenon; you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who has not at least heard her name. There are movies, plays, songs and (of course) books about her life, but I’m only focusing on one of these mediums: books. How is Cleopatra portrayed in historical fiction and just how accurate are these portrayals?
First, we have to take a look at the basics of her life. Cleopatra VII Philopator (Father-Lover) was the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt in most people’s eyes. She was, however, part of the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and the last Egyptian pharaohs had been long dead by her time. It is said she was fluent in nine languages, including Egyptian, which endeared her to the native Egyptian population the typically Greek-speaking Ptolemies ruled over.
Cleopatra, as was Egyptian tradition, ruled jointly with her father and later her two brothers in the typical brother-sister marriages. Why? According to Egyptian tradition, it was the royal women that held the power to legitimize the males. In addition to that, nearly all of the gods were married to their siblings. Isis and Osiris, Set and Nepthys, Nut and Geb. And were the pharaohs not the sons of gods? Well, that was the theory anyway. Continue reading
Black Ships by Jo Graham
(Cover picture courtesy of Lost in a Good Book.)
In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, she is destined to counsel kings.
In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.
I have to admit, I was pretty uncertain about Jo Graham’s debut novel for the first few chapters. It was (dare I say?) boring until Gull turned sixteen and became the Pythia. After that, things got interesting and I was finally able to connect the Trojan War to her situation as well as apply what I know about the history of ancient Egypt and realize just how much effort Jo Graham put into Black Ships.
Gull, as I mentioned, becomes the voice of the Lady of the Dead and is known after that as Pythia. The Lady talks to her, gives her visions, advice and premonitions that allow her to counsel the man who would become a legend: Aeneas. Aeneas himself is an interesting character, but not very much like the hero of legend that other authors paint him as. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it shows that Jo Graham is trying to paint him as a man, but as a man he seems to be lacking kingly qualities. The other characters emphasize how much Aeneas doesn’t want to be a king, yet he really does behave like one. He just doesn’t seem like much of a leader to me, but perhaps that’s from my own biased image of him.
The plot isn’t fast-paced in the traditional sense of the word, but the dialogue is witty and Jo Graham doesn’t really get bogged down in navel-gazing introspection, as is so common in historical fiction. She has brought to life a period of chaos and uncertainty that has been neglected so often in literature, so I really do give her credit for that. Black Ships, being her debut novel, isn’t nearly as good as Hand of Isis. But with that said, one must also mention that her debut novel is better than a lot of authors’ fifth or tenth novels.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile by Kristiana Gregory
(Cover picture courtesy of Elmhurst.)
3 Januarius, Morning
I could feel my insides shaking. Would this sister try to poison me? Yes, I believe so. As for my other older sister, Berenice—never! She and I adore each other even though I am eight years younger.
I took the cup and raised it toward Tryphaena as if toasting her, but really I was watching the liquid, looking for oil floating on its surface, or powder sticking to the sides of the cup. If I suspected poison and tossed it into the pool, she would have her guards behead me on the spot. If it was indeed poison, one sip and I could die…
My eyes closed as I took the first sip, as if savoring such an excellent taste, but really my thought was, O Isis, I am afraid….My stomach turned with nervousness, or was it from a fearsome death beginning in me?
The Royal Diaries series is a great one for young girls to learn about the lives of famous women. And no woman is more famous than Cleopatra VII, who has become a cultural phenomenon. So who was she? What was she like as a child? Kristiana Gregory tries to answer that question by writing a diary from Cleopatra’s own point of view.
What I like about Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile is that it doesn’t feel like you’re reading a diary. It feels like you’re seeing the events happen in real time as Cleopatra describes them, unlike some of the other books in the series. Kristiana Gregory obviously put a lot of research into her novel and it shines through in the little details about ancient Egyptian life. The narrative takes a different direction than a lot of books about Cleopatra’s younger years as it shows her going to Rome with her father, which may or may not be true—after all, it is ancient history. This is where she meets Marc Antony and helps her father, who speaks no Latin, navigate Roman politics.
Readers will fall in love with Cleopatra. She’s resourceful, strong and is, at the same time, a teenage girl at heart. She falls in love, she gets scared, she doubts herself…most readers will be able to relate to her.
The only caveat I have about this book is the religious aspect. Cleopatra admires Nefertiti and Akhenaten for their monotheism, even though no one by the Ptolemaic period would have had any clue who they were as the city they built (Akhetaten) was torn apart brick by brick and used in other Pharaohs’ monuments.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
(Cover picture courtesy of Michelle Moran’s website.)
Nefertiti and her younger sister, Mutnodjmet, have been raised in a powerful family that has provided wives to the rulers of Egypt for centuries. Ambitious, charismatic, and beautiful, Nefertiti is destined to marry Amunhotep, an unstable young pharaoh. It is hoped that her strong personality will temper the younger ruler’s heretical desire to forsake Egypt’s ancient gods.
From the moment of her arrival in Thebes, Nefertiti is beloved by the people, but she fails to see that powerful forces are plotting against her husband’s reign. The only person brave enough to warn the queen is her younger sister, yet remaining loyal to Nefertiti will force Mutnodjmet into a dangerous political game—one that could cost her everything she holds dear.
To put it bluntly, Nefertiti was disappointing.
I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but I was hoping to at least have the story told from Nefertiti’s own point of view, not her half-sister’s. Mutnodjmet to me at least, had no backbone and remained woefully naïve about the political machinations of the court throughout most of the novel. When a conspiracy was uncovered, it was either her servant, mother, father or Queen Tiye who revealed it to her. She was not a very proactive narrator, instead reacting to events as they came her way.
Mutnodjmet was incredibly reluctant to be part of the royal family, which I can understand, but she still allowed herself to be pushed around. It was rather frustrating that she was so innocent that she had never told a lie (since she understood the laws of Ma’at) until she was thirteen. Nefertiti, who was supposed to be the subject of the novel, came off as shallow, petty, vain and…a bitch. There was really not one sympathetic bone in her body and although I loathe swearing, there is really no other word that can describe her. And maybe, you know, Nefertiti was like that in real life and was just as power-hungry as her husband, Akhenaten. However, she must have had at least some redeeming qualities, right?
The plot of Nefertiti is relatively slow-paced, but when you’re a regular reader of historical fiction, that’s usually not an issue. Michelle Moran stuck mostly to the facts, even though not as closely as she did in Cleopatra’s Daughter, and did include a historical note explaining why she changed things where she did. Perhaps it was just me who didn’t like the characters because I do tend to lean toward strong, rather cynical types. Or, perhaps, I will have to do what I’ve been threatening to do for a year now and write a novel from Nefertiti’s point of view.
Now that is most definitely wishful thinking.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
It starts in prehistory. A young man and a young woman fight over a precious jewel. Their time together is short, but the reverberations are lasting.
Years pass. Generations pass. Centuries pass. But fate keeps drawing them together. Whenever their paths cross, there is that strong attraction. That unexplainable affinity. That feeling that they’ve been together before.
Theirs is a love haunted by history. From Egyptian slavery to Greek society. From Massachusetts witch trials to Civil War battlefields. From Paris in the 1930s to the present day. Circumstances will fight them…but a greater force will reunite them. Because some people are meant for each other—no matter how long it takes.
This is not a book you read for historical accuracy, fast pacing or an unpredictable plot. This is a book you read for guilty pleasure. And as long as you keep that in mind, you’ll enjoy Reincarnation.
Suzanne Weyn’s novel is by no means historically accurate. For example, when they are in ancient Egypt—she a singer named Tetisherti and he a Nubian slave called Taharaq—it made me snort aloud when he called Thebes ‘Luxor’, claiming that was its ancient Egyptian name. Bull crap. Thebes was called Weset. And the idea that Taharaq saw the pyramids when he was coming up from Nubia to Weset is enough to make an Egyptologist cry. And for reasons unknown, Suzanne Weyn calls Abu Simbel ‘Abu Simpel’ and Sekhmet ‘Sempkhet’. I have never, ever seen those names translated in such a way (even in the Wikipedia articles I’ve linked to). Utter nonsense. But again, this is not meant to be historically accurate.
One thing that actually made me enjoy Reincarnation was the characterization. All of the different reincarnations are three dimensional and sympathetic. The attraction between them was very real and the romance actually didn’t feel forced. There were certain traits that stayed with the characters in all of their lifetimes, but their circumstances in those different lifetimes were very different.
The plot is predictable, no doubt. Come on, you know how stories like this are going to end. However, because of the nice writing style and interesting characters, I actually enjoyed Reincarnation as a sort of guilty pleasure. It’s never going to win any literary awards (nor should it) but as long as you take it as what it is—light reading—you’ll enjoy it.
I give this book 4/5 stars.