Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth by Naguib Mahfouz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Lord of the beautiful, O beautiful One" Naguib Mahfouz' Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth (1985) is an interesting novel about the Pharaoh Akhenaten, who shook the Egyptian Empire in the 2nd century BC by founding a new religion--possibly the world's first monotheistic one. To tell the story, Mahfouz sets a young man named Meriamun on a quest for the truth behind what happened by interviewing fourteen people who knew the "heretic" Pharaoh, including a high priest, a counselor, a general, a sculptor, a princess, an epistoler, a physician, and a chief of police. The composite story thereby told depicts the Pharaoh's youth as a prince, his strangeness and charisma, the death of his older brother, his estrangement from his parents, his marriage to Nefertiti, his becoming Pharaoh in 1353 BC, his establishment of a new religion based on his own sun god Aten ("the one and only God" of love and light), his attempt to end the worship of all other deities, his removal of the capital from Thebes to a brand-new city he had built to become the center of his new religion, his fostering of a new art style free from traditional conventions, the brief period of happiness and prosperity in the new city, the increasing civil unrest and external pressures that led to his being replaced as Pharaoh by Tutankhamen, the repurposing of the new city into a prison for the former Pharaoh and his wife, and the resumption of Egypt's millennia old traditional polytheistic religion. Needless to say, each person has a different memory and understanding of Akhenaten's attempt to force a new religion onto Egypt. About half of the witnesses refer to him as "the heretic" and describe him as ugly, feminine, and mad, "A vile, low-born man who humbled the strongest of men by his perversity. The drums of war were silenced, the flags of glory lowered; the sound of music ascended from the throne of the pharaohs. I, commander of armed forces, was forced to remain idle as the empire was torn to pieces and gradually fell into the hands of the enemies and the rebels." About half of the witnesses express their admiration and affection for him, "A voice from another world, intriguing yet incomprehensible. How did we become friends? How did my heart become filled with love for him? These are questions I cannot answer." About two thirds of the witnesses condemn Nefertiti, like her half-sister, who calls her a whore. In words Mahfouz must take to heart, Meriamum's father advises the youth 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." Mahfouz is not, however, writing a Rashomon-like account in which each witness is equally believable. I think he has most sympathy for the Pharaoh, whom the sub-title calls "Dweller in Truth." The anti-Ahkenaten people had their own agendas threatened by the Pharaoh and are unpleasant in their expressions of hatred, while the pro-Ahkenaten people are appealing in their affectionate memories. Significantly, Mahfouz gives the last memory to Nefertiti, who reveals herself to be loving, faithful, and sad. She explains her abandonment of her husband after his deposition as her attempt to make him compromise with the overwhelming forces against him, and then points out that their jailers prevented her from communicating with him. The impression we're left with is that although Akhenaten was impractical and unsuited to maintain a big empire in a warring world, he was full of love and hope for a peaceful life. If he was crazy, he was also pure. The novel is not a depiction of daily life in ancient Egypt. Nor is it a suspenseful action story full of intrigue and power struggles. Instead of writing detailed descriptions of food, clothing, housing, work, and the like, Mahfouz focuses on people's good or bad memories of a unique Pharaoh who has already died before the novel begins. However, the multiplicity of biased memories and the perplexity and anxiety with which his parents and advisers and friends viewed Akhenaten are moving, as is the purity of Nefertiti's strengthening love for him and growing belief in his god. Mahfouz, Egypt's Nobel Prize-winning author, is a fine writer, and the English translation (1998) by Tareid Abu-Hassabo is fluid. There are some great descriptions: "One late afternoon, our ship passed a strange city. It was bordered by the Nile to the west, and an imposing mountain to the east. Its buildings hinted of a past grandeur that had given way to a haunting evanescence. The roads were empty, the trees were leafless, the gates and windows closed like eyelids of the dead. A city devoid of life, inert, possessed by silence, shadowed by gloom and the spirit of death." And Mahfouz evokes the sensual numinous: "I repeated the hymn and let its sweet nectar infuse my soul. Its words attracted me as a butterfly is drawn to light. And like the butterfly, I was burned by the light. I was filled with faith." Mahfouz' novel is about the nature of memory, history, faith, love, and truth. Anyone interested in those things in the context of ancient Egypt should like this book. View all my reviews
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