Tut as a Telenovela

Title: The Murder of King Tut:The Plot to Kill the Child King - A Nonfiction Thriller

Author: James Patterson & Martin Dugard

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0316034043

Pages: 352

I have loved all things Egypt since I was in elementary school. I read all the school library books, did reports on mummification and the afterlife and as an adult, I've visited Egypt, the pyramids, the Valley of the Kings etc. I was in awe at the King Tut exhibit in the Cairo museum, as I think are most people. The gold death mask gleamed in the bright lights and the smooth, child-like face of the boy-king was haunting.

I was trolling through the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium Digital books and happened to stumble on Patterson's King Tut mystery. Now, I'm not much of a mystery reader, but I recognized his name. This will be good, I thought. Too bad that wasn't true. As fascinated as I am by all things Egypt, I had a tough time making it through this book.

The story takes place in three time periods – Ancient Egypt, early 1900s and Howard Carter's life, and modern times Florida in Patterson's office. Patterson book-ends Tutankhamen and Carter's stories with his own writing and research of their times, which is quite jolting. As for King Tut, he backtracks to grandfather, King Amenhotep III, who, according to Patterson, dreaded installing to the throne the “abomination” of Tut's father, Akhenaten, first known as Amenhotep IV. Akenaten, along with Nefertiti, brought a monotheistic view of religion to the Egyptian pantheon with the worship of Aten and moving the royal center to Akhetaten, at the site known today as Amarna. Patterson contends that there was great in-fighting for the throne, with many considering Akenaten a traitor to Egypt because of his lack of interest in conquest and traditional religious rites. With his death, Tutankhamen was made Pharaoh, which was cemented with his marriage to his half-sister, Ankhesenpaaten. Patterson's portrayal of the royal intrigue rivals any daytime soap-opera, with backstabbing and steamy sex included.

Carter's life is portrayed as one of unfulfilled ambition. His taste for Egypt was instilled by hanging out at the mansion of the wealthy Amherst family, Didlington Hall. Carter hired on to be a sketch artist in Egypt, a trade learned from his father. While there, Carter dreamt of finding the elusive Tut's tomb. Carter's career rose and fell with his ability to secure funding, and the whims of the British/Egyptian diplomacy, but eventually he did find the tomb. A few years after cataloging the find (which took several years), Carter died in 1939 a lonely man in English, attended by few.

Patterson boasts about the amount of research conducted by his partner,Martin Dugard, but there seems to be a lot of speculating and fictionalizing in this book. It is sub-titled “A Non-fiction Thriller” which definitely is a misnomer – it was mostly fiction and decidedly not a thriller. The short, choppy chapters were frustrating and the constant time-change was distracting.

The Postmistress

Title: The Postmistress
Author: Sarah Blake
Publisher: Berkley Trade
ISBN: 0425238695
Pages: 384

Over a year ago, NPR's All Things Considered had an interesting feature on Sarah Blake's novel, The Postmistress.  It sounded like an interesting historical fiction book - an intertwining of three women's lives through the mail and radio - the intrusion of modern communication on every day lives.   From the NPR story, I was interested in learning more about Frankie, a female American reporter living on the bombings of London and learning how to be a war correspondent from Edward R. Murrow, one of the few "real" people in this novel.  After recommending it to my mother-in-law, who bought it at a flea market and gave it to me after she finished it, I settled in for what I expected to be a gripping read.  The intertwining of stories was interesting, but the only character I really cared about was Frankie.  However, the chapters alternated between telling the story of Frankie; Iris an uptight, single, emancipated postmaster (mistress in England); and Emma a timid, un-emancipated new wife of a small town doctor. 

The story begins with a modern time Frankie titillating a cocktail party with the story of an undelivered letter. What would be the fate? Not knowing what the letter entailed.  Then the story dissolves back to WWII.  Both Emma and Iris hear Frankie's broadcasts from London.  With Murrow's tutelage, Frankie finds the voices of the streets to help the world hear and feel the war - especially a hesitant America that doesn't want to involve itself in the war "over there".  Frankie brings the names and lives of Londoners trying to survive the constant shelling, waiting, hiding and dying.  Iris, the postmistress of the small coastal town of Franklin, MA, is determined to keep order in the town through her meticulous handling of the mail.  However, the feeling that "something is coming" fills everyone.  Doctor Fitch gets his new wife Emma, an early orphan of the flu pandemic of WWI, and begins to settle into a blissful family life.  However, Frankie's constant stories of the war unsettle Dr. Fitch and his wife, and when a patient dies under his supervision, Dr. Fitch looks for redemption by volunteering as a doctor in London, leaving a pregnant Emma behind.  Like Penelope waiting for Odysseus, Emma writes and waits for him to come home.  Iris becomes involved with a local man who is convinced that the Germans will arrive in U-Boats to invade America.  She does not want her orderly life upset, so she tends to ignore both him and the reports from Europe about the severity of the war.

Frankie is in the thick of it, as she takes shelter with the rest of London underground during the bombs, but find the reality of war is told in the daily things - the suddenly missing traffic cop, the apartment building that is half blown ahead while the other half is in perfect order.  She meets Dr. Fitch one night in the shelter, where they each poke at the other's emotional soft spots.  When Dr. Fitch leaves the shelter, he is hit and killed by a taxi cab.  Frankie takes his last letter to Emma, intending to mail it, but without ID, his body is not identified and no notice is given to Emma about his death.  Her reporter flatmate is concerned with the plight of the Jewish refuges across Europe, and when she is killed, Frankie takes up the cause.  Murrow sends her into the heart of Europe to ride the trains and record the voices of the travelers(which the author admits is historically inaccurate).  What Frankie finds is chaos, death and displacement with very little hope.  She returns with several recordings of people's hopes and fears, but doesn't know what to do with them.  Murrow sends her back to the States to recuperate.

Still having the last letter in her possession, Frankie decides to give it, in person, to Emma.  However, the small town-ness envelopes her and when she realizes the Emma doesn't know her husband is dead, she refuses to hand it over.  At the same time, Iris had been hiding the initial letter from Dr. Fitch's colleagues in London saying he was missing.   When the final notice is given, Emma is surrounded by people who will take care of her, including Iris, Frankie and Otto (an Austrian Jewish man hoping for word from his wife in Europe).  That same night, Iris's lover's nightmare/prediction comes true, as a U-Boat shows up and kills him, yet with early warming, the coast is safe.

I was anticipating a really engrossing read, but I can't see this met my expectations.  The NPR pre-view sounded really good, but it felt more like getting stuck with flat soda at a movie that was so boring I noticed how much my butt went numb.  Since the character of Frankie was supposedly based on Martha Gellhorn, I think I will do some more reading about her!

Hunger Games - The Series - Better Late Than Never

 
Title: The Hunger Games - Catching Fire - Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 374, 391, 390

    Since the movie has been out, I'm not going to go into detail about the plot.  Even if you haven't seen the movie, I'm sure you know it.  In some future world, after a great civil war, the government reminds the people each year of the death and destruction of the revolution through The Hunger Games.  A boy and girl from each of the 12 districts are chosen to fight to the death in the arena and televised to all.  The main character, Katniss, takes her sister's place in the Games and incites a new revolution through her refusal to play the Game as the government intended.  As a coming of age story (across all 3 books), it includes a love triangle and search for identity, while she becomes both the most hated and loved icon in this civilization.

     Reading the series, I was transported back to my own adolescent time of struggle, persecution, wonderment, and discovery.  I read this book with the purpose of being entertained, not enlightened, and enjoyed the ride immensely.  As many others have detailed, there are some very gruesome deaths and the idea of kids killing each other is quite horrifying, but the fictional arena and competition isn't much different from Survivor, Amazing Race, and the multitude of other reality shows.  What will it take before we begin to celebrate the gladiators of modern times?

A Song I Knew By Heart - A Contempory Ruth

Title: A Song I Knew By Heart

Author: Bret Lott

Publisher: Ballantine Books

ISBN-10: 0345437756

Pages: 336

A contemporary take on the story of Ruth, this version is told by Naomi. It begins with the funeral of Ruth's husband, who was Naomi's son. Already a widow, Naomi had been living with her son and wife, but then she felt the call to go home – which means South Carolina. To her surprise, Ruth decides to move with her because “it isn't that she didn't have anything, but she had Naomi”. Both women continue to deal with the pain of widowhood, but Naomi is also feeling guilty for a one-night stand with her husband's business partner, now dying of cancer, who was the reason her son was driving on treacherous roads on the night he crashed. As the traditional story goes, Ruth finds love – a kind man who also loves Ruth's family and Naomi finds forgiveness and releases her bitterness. If you are into Nicholas Sparks novels, you might like this one, but I found myself skimming rather than reading. I think the original story has a lot more power and beauty.

The book couldn't vanish fast enough - Vanishing Acts

Title: Vanishing Acts

Author: Jodi Picoult

Publisher: Washington Square Press

Pages: 418

Maybe it was the context of reading this book – sitting in a hospital waiting for my dad to finish non-emergency surgery, but I groaned and complained all the way through this book. At first I found the main character, Delia, to be intriguing and heroic. But, then her reaction to her father's arrest and her constant whining, yet enabling of her fiancee's drinking and the love triangle got tedious and I couldn't wait for the book to end. Though, I have to admit, I was hooked on the how the fiancee was going to finagle the trial to get the father acquitted – but I could have watched any episode of Law & Order and had more fun.

Each chapter is told by a different main character in the book. Delia was “abducted” by her own father as a small child and they started a new life together, with Delia believing her mother was dead. As an adult, with a daughter of her own, Delia works with her dog as a search and rescue team to find missing children. (Yes, the irony couldn't be more obvious). With multiple successful cases, her newspaper clippings leads to the uncovering of her own abduction, for which her father is arrested. Come to find out, her mother was an alcoholic (hmmm...so Delia becomes involved with one) and Delia was possibly molested by her mother's boyfriend, which led Delia's father to taking her and starting a new life. Within this, there is an up-close and personal look of the father's life in prison (too harsh and too graphic for me), the struggle of the love triangle of Delia, her fiancee, and their best friend/reporter, and Delia rediscovering who she really is.

I enjoyed My Sister's Keeper, and had hopes for this one but found the storyline too predictable and the characters too flat.

The Revolter and the Princess - The Romanov Bride

Title: The Romanov Bride

Author: Robert Alexander

Publisher: Viking

ISBN: 978-0-670-01881-9

Pages: 306

Most people have heard of Anastasia, and her famous parents Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra, but the Romanov family was large and Alexandra's sister, Elizabeth, had married into the Imperial Family and suffered a similar fate as the rest of the family. This book is Elizabeth's story from just before the first Russian Revolution to the sweep of the Revolution of 1917. However, this story has a twist. It is told through two different view points – Elizabeth and her executioner, Pavel.

Born into a life a privilege and royalty, as the granddaughter of Queen Victioria, in the house German house of Hesse, Elizabeth's life tended to be scheduled and controlled first by her father and then by her husband. She married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the uncle of Tsar Nicholas, and was surrounded by the wealth and grandeur of Russian Imperialism. However, through the death of Sergie, she was able to forge a life of her own, by selling her properties and jewels to found the Mary and Martha convent with a mission to minister to the poor and sick. As abbess, her faith and trust in her religious calling allowed her to overcome the distrust of the common people, the envy of detractors, and the political maneuvering of the revolution. Even her execution, ordered by Lenin, was carried out in secret – as a remaining member of the Romanov family, and beloved by her community, she was a threat.

Pavel's story begins in the country-side as a peasant, doomed to a hard and short life. With hopes of better jobs, he takes his new bride to the city. However, poor and uneducated, they has few opportunities, and when a local priest begins a petition to see the Tsar, Pavel and his wife are caught up in the early stages of the Russian Revolution. When the peaceful peasants march on the Tsar's palace, the soldiers gun them down, including Pavel's wife. Thus begins his journey of revenge and life of killing. However, his various encounters with Elizabeth, as both the Grand Duchess and a nun, makes him regret some of his actions. In the end, Pavel himself is executed by the very revolutionaries he supported, but found comfort in forgiveness given by both Elizabeth and a follow condemned priest.

At first, I struggled to get into the book. The switch between narrators was distracting, and at first, I couldn't identify with either person. Pavel was to pig-headed and Elizabeth to vain. However, both characters become more fully developed and I found myself really caring about them. Elizabeth becomes a Mother Theresa, and Pavel becomes the thief on the cross. Having taught the Russian Revolution for high school history, through the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) from University of Cambridge, I had a pretty good handle on the facts of the revolution, but this book really humanized it for me.

The author provides a website for the book, including a book guide and multimedia of his book tour and documentary and photos of Elizabeth. After reading, I wondered how much was fiction or real, and did a little Internet trolling myself. The author used public documents, such as letters and diaries, to create the story of Elizabeth.

2 in 1 - The Devil in the White City

Title: Devil in the White City
Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0-965-71134-X
Pages: 447

Many years ago, I heard an interview on NPR with Erik Larson about his book The Devil in the White City.  Being a history buff, I thought it would be very interesting, but being overseas, I didn't pick up the book and had forgotten about it.  I spent the past week at my in-laws and didn't bring enough books of my own to read.  My father-in-law had bought the book after hearing the same broadcast and my mother-in-law loved the book.  She said, "I wish I had highlighted things throughout the book.  There is so much to learn and check on. You should read it!" And so I did, with much of the same feeling - it was a history lesson wrapped up in an episode of CSI.

The Devil in the White City is actually two stories in one book - both stories take place within blocks of each other in Chicago during the late 1800s.  One character is Daniel Burnham, a leading architect of the Chicago Columbian Exposition (World's Fair)in 1893, and the other is Herman Mudgett, aka, H.H. Holmes (among numerous other alias), a suave, clever serial killer who murdered between 25 and 200 people throughout the U.S. but was especially productive during the World's Fair when hundreds of young, single women came to Chicago in the hopes of an emancipated life.

Paris has just closed their World's Fair with the wonder of the Eiffel Tower fresh in everyone's mind.  The U.S. wanted to make a statement to the Old World, that the New World could be just as dazzling and innovative.  Several cities vied for the honor (and the work) of the fair, with Chicago being the least compared to the likes of New York and DC.  Chicago has just begun to recover from the Great Fire and still had the reputation of being a Stockyard city, with low-class culture.  The architectural firm of Burnham & Root was selected to build the Exposition, which would be a city in itself.  With multiple delays of money, committees, and bureaucracy, it took almost a year to decide on a location, which left less than 2 years to actually build.   Architects from around the country proposed grand Neo-Classical style buildings, but struggled to build in the swampy land of Jackson Park.  Both Burnham & Root dedicated their lives to the management of this endeavor, which eventually killed Root.  Many innovations come from the building of the White City, named because all the buildings were white washed and illuminated with electricity at night.  We use AC in our houses because Westinghouse won the bid to wired the Exposition and we have Ferris wheels because the Exposition needed something to “out Eiffel the Eiffel Tower”.  The tremendous amount of work and organization that went into the development of the Exposition is absolutely amazing, and Larson does a great job of interweaving the facts into a compelling drama.

At the same time at the rise of the Exposition, a con-man/serial killer came to town.  He adopted the name Holmes in honor of the new books with Sherlock Holmes.  With some medical training and a charming personality, he created a small empire of a pharmacy, restaurant, shops, and apartments, all at little to no cost as he invented multiple aliases and swindles to pay for it.  At the same time, he had several wives and families, but his greatest creation was his very own amusement park of gas chambers, dissection rooms, and crematorium.  He charmed and killed multiple people, just for the satisfaction of controlling them.  He was eventually caught through the work of a private investigator who was attempting to track down some missing children.  The author used Holmes’s own memoir along with many newspaper articles, biographies, and eye-witness accounts to piece together Holmes’s life.  With the World’s Fair in town, Holmes really had an ideal situation to wreak his havoc.

With all the detail the author provides, this is not a fast or beach read – but it was absolutely fascinating.  There were several parts I read aloud to whoever would listen because the revelations of history were astounding.  There is so much I take for granted in life that has its roots in the creation of this fair.   At the same time, the recognition of the tremendous feat of building a World’s Fair – without computers, automobiles and infant electricity – is admirable.

A few remnants of the fair can still be seen in Chicago, including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry.  Much of the original collection of the Field Museum also came from the World’s Fair.  The Norwegian Pavilion was moved to Wisconsin and can be toured at Little Norway.  Some believe the White City was the inspiration for Baum’s City of Oz and Disney’s theme park.



There are rumors that the book will be made into a movie, starring DiCaprio.