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countessjess 's review for:
Pharaoh
by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Pharaoh was an all right book. It combined a few different elements that you wouldn’t think would necessarily work together, especially in a book that only just scrapes over the 300-page mark, but Valerio Massimo Manfredi has wound it together in a way that seems to work.
Naturally, there is the Egyptian side of things: Pharaohs, archaeology, tombs in the desert. The main character, William Blake, uses dialogue as a way to express his clear knowledge on the subject without overwhelming the reader with technical jargon or the feeling that he’s just showing off. Otherwise, he’s not that much of a notable character: he’s lost his job and wife, but this story is more plot based than anything.
He grows close while working with Sarah, who isn’t much of a stand-out character either. She seemed too two-dimensional.
Then this book throws in another element: the tension of war, nuclear weapons, terrorism. Somehow this works alongside the idea of the tombs of Pharaohs, complimenting the novel as a whole and winding together in the one plot. In addition there is some questioning of monotheistic religions in here, relating due to evidence found in the tomb and the fact that the Middle East is on the brink of another holy war. So somehow this all works together and makes the book more interesting than your standard book on either of those three general topics. That said, I think that if the author, with his obvious knowledge (he's a classical archaeologist after all), had written this book purely focussing on things like a tomb, unknown Pharaoh, and archaeological discovery, for example, it could have turned out as something very different, but potentially better.
Naturally, there is the Egyptian side of things: Pharaohs, archaeology, tombs in the desert. The main character, William Blake, uses dialogue as a way to express his clear knowledge on the subject without overwhelming the reader with technical jargon or the feeling that he’s just showing off. Otherwise, he’s not that much of a notable character: he’s lost his job and wife, but this story is more plot based than anything.
He grows close while working with Sarah, who isn’t much of a stand-out character either. She seemed too two-dimensional.
Then this book throws in another element: the tension of war, nuclear weapons, terrorism. Somehow this works alongside the idea of the tombs of Pharaohs, complimenting the novel as a whole and winding together in the one plot. In addition there is some questioning of monotheistic religions in here, relating due to evidence found in the tomb and the fact that the Middle East is on the brink of another holy war. So somehow this all works together and makes the book more interesting than your standard book on either of those three general topics. That said, I think that if the author, with his obvious knowledge (he's a classical archaeologist after all), had written this book purely focussing on things like a tomb, unknown Pharaoh, and archaeological discovery, for example, it could have turned out as something very different, but potentially better.