Readin'
Let's see if I can write coherently about literature. It's been a while.
I just finished The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. I got it because I enjoyed his Prague (which is set in Budapest and also very good). It's told as a series of journal entries and letters, mostly in 1922 but some in 1955. At first - blah, right? Epistolary novels blow. But it didn't bother me as much as, say, Dangerous Liaisons. Plus, all the different authors were in different fonts, and I dug that.
Anyway. This format is important to the story. The biggest theme of the novel was the fleeting nature of truth and how writing something down can apparently make it true, but not actually. People believe something is true because it is written, but it is not. A novel in letter format drives that home even more than an unreliable narrator. Most of the story was told by an inspector writing a series of letters from his "extremely reliable" notes, thirty years later, and by a man who was keeping a journal in 1922 that was basically a series of fabrications to the point that the reader really has no idea whether he believes it himself or if he's been lying to himself for so long that he thinks it is true. The reader knows that neither of these writers knows the whole story, about each other or about the tale that they're unfolding. This comes across in a number of small ways as well as at the end.
The medium of hieroglypics plays into this too. At one point, one narrator shows us how three different translators have interpreted a line of hieroglyphics, and they are barely similar. How, then, can we be sure what the ancient Egyptians were writing, if we cannot translate it into our own language? Similarly, how can we communicate with people in our own language when there is this necessary chasm between what we wish to communicate and what we are successful in communicating? Late in the novel, the narrator goes through a lengthy interpretation of hieroglyphics, at one point saying that the writer was trying to depict sarcasm - how can you depict sarcasm in that language? At the same time, however, the author is able to convey sarcasm toward the narrator by one of his helpers, sarcasm that the narrator is oblivious to. (A little bit of satire here - satire and metafiction are two of my mostest favoritest things.)
Plus, they talk about class and how people who are born into status are in a better position to achieve things and how that sucks. Hurrah, rabble-rousing masses!
There is no dramatic twist at the end; it is pretty easy to figure out what happens. I kept reading because I wanted to see how the people would find out each other's stories. In many ways, this book reminded me of Possession. If you're only going to read one and you're not especially interested in Egyptian history, I would recommend Possession over The Egyptologist, but one can only read Possession so many times, and this was a very good book. A little slow to get into, but worth it.
The End.
I just finished The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips. I got it because I enjoyed his Prague (which is set in Budapest and also very good). It's told as a series of journal entries and letters, mostly in 1922 but some in 1955. At first - blah, right? Epistolary novels blow. But it didn't bother me as much as, say, Dangerous Liaisons. Plus, all the different authors were in different fonts, and I dug that.
Anyway. This format is important to the story. The biggest theme of the novel was the fleeting nature of truth and how writing something down can apparently make it true, but not actually. People believe something is true because it is written, but it is not. A novel in letter format drives that home even more than an unreliable narrator. Most of the story was told by an inspector writing a series of letters from his "extremely reliable" notes, thirty years later, and by a man who was keeping a journal in 1922 that was basically a series of fabrications to the point that the reader really has no idea whether he believes it himself or if he's been lying to himself for so long that he thinks it is true. The reader knows that neither of these writers knows the whole story, about each other or about the tale that they're unfolding. This comes across in a number of small ways as well as at the end.
The medium of hieroglypics plays into this too. At one point, one narrator shows us how three different translators have interpreted a line of hieroglyphics, and they are barely similar. How, then, can we be sure what the ancient Egyptians were writing, if we cannot translate it into our own language? Similarly, how can we communicate with people in our own language when there is this necessary chasm between what we wish to communicate and what we are successful in communicating? Late in the novel, the narrator goes through a lengthy interpretation of hieroglyphics, at one point saying that the writer was trying to depict sarcasm - how can you depict sarcasm in that language? At the same time, however, the author is able to convey sarcasm toward the narrator by one of his helpers, sarcasm that the narrator is oblivious to. (A little bit of satire here - satire and metafiction are two of my mostest favoritest things.)
Plus, they talk about class and how people who are born into status are in a better position to achieve things and how that sucks. Hurrah, rabble-rousing masses!
There is no dramatic twist at the end; it is pretty easy to figure out what happens. I kept reading because I wanted to see how the people would find out each other's stories. In many ways, this book reminded me of Possession. If you're only going to read one and you're not especially interested in Egyptian history, I would recommend Possession over The Egyptologist, but one can only read Possession so many times, and this was a very good book. A little slow to get into, but worth it.
The End.
posted by Sandra | 11:39 PM
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