The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips has colorful characters, a convoluted plot, and humor to spare, although that definitely wanes toward the end. It's not a fast, easy read, however, partly because the entire story is told from journals and letters. Both of the primary puffed-up narrators think they have a book in them. One is Harold Ferrell, a former detective, now in a retirement home, who is writing to a man named Macy. Ferrell had a case in the 1920's that brought him to meet Margaret, Macy's aunt, and fell in love with her. The other, more prolific narrator and main character, is Ralph Trilipush, an inept and deluded archaeologist, who, in the 1920's, was Margaret's fiancé. Trilipush is in Egypt at the same time that King Tut's tomb is being exhumed, looking for a find of his own that will ensure his immortality. His quest is for the tomb of Atum-hadu, a possibly fictitious pharaoh with a taste for bawdy poetry. Trilipush's writings are hilarious during his early weeks in Egypt, as he sits for his portrait, orders ten tailor-made suits, and ponders which gramophone to take to the site. Phillips gives each narrator his/her own font, as there are also a few letters from Margaret and one key letter at the end from a man named Beverly Quint. I read this letter twice more after finishing the book before I finally grasped what had happened. I had to rethink the chronology and Trilipush's whereabouts after WWI.
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The People magazine reviewer, Kyle Smith, said that Phillips modeled the book on Nabokov's Pale Fire. In both books, an arrogant narrator is telling a story that is really about himself. In this case, Atum-hadu's story morphs into Trilipush's story. Our book club moderator, Greg Changnon, was discussing just this week how postmodernist novels often have an unreliable narrator, as in The Empress of Weehawken, and Smith remarked on this quality of Phillips' book as well. Carlo Wolff, writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about The Egyptologist, mentioned postmodernism and its penchant for "faux history." (See Nov. 2008 postings for Pale Fire and The Empress of Weehawken.)
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