The Egyptian by Mika Waltari (1949)

This review comes with a story from my youth. When I was in junior high I was already a confirmed bookworm, so I stopped by my little town's public library once or twice a week. By that time I had gone through their stock of children's books, and young adult books did not yet exist, so I read adult fiction. One day I brought home The Egyptian. My mother, who was also a dedicated reader, often read the books I brought home, and she picked this one up and read it. When I looked for the book later in the week, she told me she had taken it back to the library because it was "not appropriate" for a girl of my age. Of course I was then consumed with the desire to read it, but I knew I could not even check it out and read it in secret because the librarian might tell my mother. (This was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody, and people would actually tell your parents if they saw you misbehaving.) Imagine my excitement, then, when in my research for the best of historical fiction I found this book on several lists.

What a fine work of historical fiction this is! It is written as the autobiography of the fictional character Sinuhe, who rises from obscurity to become personal physician to the historical Pharaoh Akhnaton in the 14th century B.C. He witnesses the reigns and deaths of four Pharaohs and the near collapse of that world's greatest empire, when religious strife disrupts the country and enemies threaten the borders. He is more than just an observer of events, though, as his personal story is a journey of self-discovery, raising many philosophical questions that are pertinent today.

This is a full-bodied re-creation of a time and place--the sights, the weather, the sounds, the dress, the social habits, the customs, the religious practices, and particularly the smells. Waltari even re-recreates a battle with chariots and horses and swordsmen and archers so that it is understandable and immediate. According to all reports, professional Egyptologists have praised his efforts. Some historians have disagreed with his account as to who was related to whom, but then others agree with him and he is by-and-large considered to be historically accurate.

To my mind, Waltari sets the standard for historical fiction. This is a fascinating book, and I recommend it highly.

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So why did my mother think it to be inappropriate for her 14-year-old daughter? It includes a fair number of sexual encounters, but they are all non-descriptive and relayed in euphemistic terms, not much different from what can be found in the Bible: Sinuhe "lies with" three women he loves. The back cover of my copy of the book informs that it was "widely condemned as obscene" when it was first published. How times have changed. This would not even raise an eyebrow today.