The Egyptian
The only Finnish novel adapted into a Hollywood filmMika Waltari's 1945 novel The Egyptian was turned into a DeLuxe Color epic film by 20th Century Fox in 1954 and was nominated for an academy award a year later.A 1940s #1 Bestseller and a Historic Novel All-Time FavoriteA historic novel all-time favorite, after its translation in English from Swedish, The Egyptian topped the bestseller charts in 1949 and the years following.The protagonist of the novel is the fictional character Sinuhe, the royal physician, who tells the story in exile after Akhenaten's fall and death. Apart from incidents in Egypt, the novel charts Sinuhe's travels in then Egyptian-dominated Syria, in Mitanni, Babylon, Minoan Crete, Mitanni, and among the Hittites.The main character of the novel is named after a character in an ancient Egyptian text commonly known as The Story of Sinuhe. The original story dates to a time long before that of Akhenaten: texts are known from as early as the 12th Dynasty.Much concerned about the historical accuracy of his detailed description of ancient Egyptian life forced the author to carry out considerable research into the subject. The result has been praised not only by readers but also by Egyptologists.Waltari had long been interested in Akhenaten and wrote a play about him which was staged in Helsinki in 1938. World War II provided the final impulse for exploring the subject in a novel which, although depicting events that took place over 3,300 years ago
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60% recommend40% neutral
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What Hacker News says
- You'd be surprised, honestly. What matters is also comprehensible input size, so long works like LOTR (which has an excellent Finnish translation by Kersti Juva for anyone looking to find works to read) are a good choice. Similarly, there's a lot of Finnish literature in Finnish which Finnish people spend time reading, some of which is translated to many, many languages. The Egyptian by Mika Waltari is one of those classics. Not nearly everyone here knows English well. TV shows and movies are usually subtitled as well, save for kids' shows. Finland does however have three mandatory languages in the basic schooling, which are your native language, the other native language, and then English. A fourth one is not uncommon either, so we have a lot of German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese etc. speakers here. Hell, jag kan neljää языки.
- I think the author should read The Egyptian by Mika Waltari
- “The Egyptian” by Mika Waltari is a bit rare in English but it’s really a stupefyingly good historical novel. There is also a Hollywood film from 1954 but can’t really recommend it. The book is timeless, and describes all sorts things a person can face in a complex society (while retaining a historical context). It’s a bit like Catch-22 but without the humour, but the dark tone results in a cathartic reading experience.
The protagonist is effectively an expert professional and a fallible human rather than a Mary-sue swashbuckler - and as such is very relatable.
- The bronze age in that part of the world was around 3300 to 1200BC. Tutankhamen ruled from 1332 to 1323. From that alone we might suppose why a bit of proper iron was more valuable than gold. (the Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut)
- >Hittite secret of iron wasn't for another 275 years despite Mika Waltari's poignant novel "The Egyptian" which had the Hittites flashing their iron about the court of King Tut
I think several sources are saying that Hittites had some iron artifacts already around 1800 BC and had iron works in 1380 BC?
I don't recall that scene from the book, but anyway, Waltari wrote it during WW II using just library sources in Helsinki; he never set foot in Egypt. (He said "I have lived in Egypt although I've never been there.")
