From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo Trilogy, comes Akhenaten , a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. In this beguiling novel, originally published in Arabic in 1985, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"--the first known monotheistic ruler--whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel ...
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From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo Trilogy, comes Akhenaten , a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. In this beguiling novel, originally published in Arabic in 1985, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"--the first known monotheistic ruler--whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh's contemporaries after his horrible death--including Akhenaten's closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti--in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten's court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, "the truth" becomes increasingly evanescent. Akhenaten encompasses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly.
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There is a Hindu saying that "a work of art has many faces." As Naguib Mafouz's short novel "Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth" 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 Pharaoh Akhenaten. As a youth, Akhenaten rejected the primary gods of Egypt and worshiped the sun. Subsequently, Akhenaten came to the concept of a single, 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. Akhenaten was removed from the throne after alienating the priests of the traditional Egyptian gods and died shortly thereafter, probably the result of assassination.
In Mafouz' novel, Akhenaten's story is told by a young Egyptian, Meriamun, who is fascinated by the story of the "heretical" Pharaoh 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 Akhenaten, including his teacher, the pagan priests, the security guard, his priest, physician, a woman from the harem, and his wife, Neferiti.
Each of these individuals has his or her own story to tell about Akhenaten. They bring their own standpoint to bear upon his religion, his leadership as the Pharaoh, his 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 Akhenaten is a weak ruler, provokes, or at least fails to discourage civil war, and, most pointedly, issues an order forbidding the worshipers of Egypt's traditional gods to worship in their own fashion.
Through all the conflicting perspectives, the sense of ethical and mystical idealism shines through the book and through the portrayal of Akhenaten.
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 spiritual seeking similar in some ways to Herman Hesse's famous novel "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.
"Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth" is a deceptively simple story worth reading.
