The Egyptian by Waltari Mika

[DennisK]

This book is an old classic that was originally written in Finnish back in the 1940's. I read that it was translated into English and brought to America during 1949 where it was condemned as being obscene. This, of course, resulted in its sale to exceed the sale of all other books that year. But it wasn't just because of the book's challenge to that period's sensibilities that made it such a great read – it was really well written. At first, I just started reading it thinking that it was an adventure story within an Egyptian setting, but the names of some of the pharaohs started to look familiar to me. I realized I was reading a historical novel; so I started to check its accuracy. For every fact I challenged, I found them to be accurate – according to what I found on the internet. This book is both an entertaining adventure story and a historical reenactment. The writing's diction and tone is similar to those stories told with biblical themes. It greatly reminded me of the old biblical movies we see, now and then, on TV.
The story's protagonist is Sinuhe - a medical doctor who lived around 1350 BC. His epic tale spanned the reign of Pharaoh Akhnaton , and his wife, Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Grand Vizier Ay , and Pharaoh Horemheb. The book starts off in first person as Sinuhe tells us of his life and travels throughout the known world of that time. This was during the bronze age though the Hittites (what is now Turkey) was just starting to make weapons from iron. Sinuhe traveled through Babylonia, Mitanni (Syria), Hittites and out upon the sea to Crete. As an adventure story, I particularly enjoy stories where the adventure involves travel, and from a pure entertainment perspective, I very much enjoyed the story. But I found that there is more to this book than just light reading. For me, I found it to be a thought provoking experience. I know very little about ancient history, but as I read further into this book, curiosity caused me to dig deeper into each new name that the story presented. The book is now closed, but I still find myself pondering religious subjects dealing with current events. This book has widened my view of this subject. For me, the book was an entertaining and also a profitable read. I give it a 4 out of 4.