The Egyptian (', Sinuhe the Egyptian) is a historical novel by Mika Waltari. It was first published in Finnish in 1945, and in an abridged English translation by Naomi Walford in 1949, from Swedish rather than Finnish. About a third of the text has been omitted.|group="Note" Regarded as "one of the greatest books in Finnish literary history", which happened in 1954.
The Egyptian is the first and the most successful of Waltari's great historical novels, and that which gained him international fame. The culmination of decades of research and coloured by Waltari observing World War II, it was written by him in the span of just around three months in 1945 and promptly became an international bestseller in the aftermath of the war. It is set in Ancient Egypt, mostly during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaten of the 18th Dynasty, whom some have claimed to be the first monotheistic ruler in the world.
The novel is known for its high-level historical accuracy regarding the life and culture of the period depicted. At the same time, it also carries a pessimistic message of the essential sameness of flawed human nature throughout the ages.
Summary
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 (Levant), in Mitanni, Babylon, Minoan Crete, 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.
Supporting historical characters include the old Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his conniving favorite wife, Tiy; the wife of Akhenaten, Nefertiti; the listless young Tutankhamun (King Tut), who succeeded as Pharaoh after Akhenaten's downfall; and the two common-born successors who were, according to this author, integral parts of the rise and fall of the Amarna heresy of Akhenaten: the priest, vizier and later Pharaoh Ay and the warrior-general and then finally Pharaoh, Horemheb. Though never appearing onstage, throughout the book the Hittite King Suppiluliuma I appears as a brooding threatening figure of a completely ruthless conqueror and tyrannical ruler. Other historical figures with whom the protagonist has direct dealings are: Aziru (ruler of Amurru kingdom), Thutmose (sculptor), Burna-Buriash II (Babylonian king), and, under a different name ("Shubattu"), Zannanza, son of Suppiluliuma I. Princess Baketamon is a collage of several historical figures: herself, sister of Akhenaten; Zannanza's bride-to-be, a widow queen of Egypt; and Mutnedjmet, royal wife of Horemheb. Historical Horemheb and Mutnedjmet had no son.
Plot
<!-- This summary is based on the Finnish and other more complete versions and may contain details that are absent from the English or other abridged translations. -->
Sinuhe recounts, in his old age at his location of forced exile by the Red Sea coast, the events of his life. His tone expresses cynicism, bitterness and disappointment; he says humans are vile and will never change, and that he's writing down his story for therapeutic reasons alone and for something to do in the rugged and desolate desert landscape.
Sinuhe begins his life as a foundling discovered in a reed boat in the Nile, and grows up in the poor part of Thebes. His adoptive father Senmut is a doctor, and Sinuhe decides to walk in his footsteps. As an assistant to a royal doctor who knows his adoptive father, Sinuhe is allowed to visit the court, during a trepanation on the dying Amenhotep III – here Sinuhe, the young crown prince Akhenaten and Horemheb meet for the first time. Well educated, Sinuhe sets up a clinic and acquires the sly and eloquent slave Kaptah, who will be his companion and close friend throughout his life.
One day he gets acquainted with the gorgeous woman Nefernefernefer and is bewitched by her. Nefernefernefer gets Sinuhe to give her everything he owns – even his adoptive parents' house and grave. When the woman has realised that Sinuhe has run out of possessions, she gets rid of him. Ashamed and dishonored, Sinuhe arranges his adoptive parents to be embalmed and buries them in the Valley of the Kings (they had taken their lives before eviction), after which he decides to go to exile in the company of Kaptah to Levant, which was under Egyptian rule at the time.
In Syria, his medical skill earns him fame and wealth. During an Egyptian military operation in Syria, he re-encounters Horemheb, serving as a military commander. From this, Sinuhe is commissioned to travel at his expense in the known world to determine what military potential the established nations have.
Sinuhe, in company of Kaptah, travels first to Babylon where he engages in science and socializes with the city's scholars. One day he is summoned to the sick king Burraburiash, whom he manages to cure. Soon Kaptah is selected for the traditional day of the false king, where the city's greatest fool is king for a day and then killed. A young Cretan woman named Minea has been recently acquired to the king's harem against her will; during a feast, Sinuhe, in the process of falling in love with her, smuggles Minea and Kaptah from the palace and flees with the two to the neighboring country Mitanni. From there they proceed to Anatolia and to the fast-growing Hittite empire. Sinuhe and his companions feel unhappy about the militarism and tough rule of law that characterize the kingdom of the Hittites, and they decide to leave Anatolia and sail to Crete, Minea's homeland.
Minea has grown up with the mission to sacrifice herself as a virgin to the local bull god who lives in a mountain cave at the sea. Sinuhe is horrified by this and fears that he will not see her again. In the evening before Minea should enter the mountain cave, they marry each other unofficially. A while after Minea has been escorted into the mountain cave, Sinuhe enters the cave in search for her. He finds Minea's dead body and the remains of the Cretan god (described as a bull-headed sea serpent), and realises that she has been killed by the god's high priest Minotaurus to prevent her from returning and telling the god is dead. Sinuhe loses his mind from grief, but Kaptah eventually succeeds in calming him down and convinces him that it's best to move on and return to Syria.
In Syria, Sinuhe returns to medical profession and regains his previous status. He notices, however, that the Egyptian sovereignty in the area has now begun to be questioned and threatened. This rebellious mood is triggered not in the least by the Syrian, Hittite-friendly Prince Aziru, whom Sinuhe still befriends, among other things, through a medical assignment.
250px|thumb|Pharaoh Akhenaten with his family worshipping the solar disc [[Aten. In the novel, Akhenaten seeks to bring about a utopia with his new religion.]]
One day Sinuhe decides to return to Egypt. He sails to Thebes and opens a clinic for the poor in the same neighborhood he grew up in. He does not get rich in this, being driven by ideological motives instead. His slave Kaptah (now released by Sinuhe) instead becomes a businessman and buys a pub called "Crocodile's Tail". There Sinuhe meets a woman named Merit, who becomes Sinuhe's life partner.
In Egypt, a new king, Akhenaten, has begun to convey a monotheistic teaching centered around the sun god Aten. According to Akhenaten's doctrine, all people are equal, and in the new world order there no longer would be slaves and masters. Aspects of Akhenaten prove to be unpopular: his pacifism, among Horemheb and others concerned with the threat of Syrian and Hittite invasion; his attempts at redistributing property to the poor; and his worship of Aten at the exclusion of the old gods, among the clergy of the mighty state god Amon. Sinuhe is attracted to the teachings that the new king proclaims and, as he feels, focus on light, equality and justice, and joins Akhenaten's court.
thumb|250px|War prisoners from Horemheb's time as the commander of the army
After a particularly violent public incident, Akhenaten, fed up with opposition, leaves Thebes with Sinuhe to middle Egypt where a new capital, Akhetaten, dedicated to Aten, is built. However, the conflicts between Amon and Aten continue, and it all develops into a civil war. Aten's kingdom on Earth begins to fall, and the courtiers, one after another, abandon Aten and Akhetaten in favor of Amon and Thebes. The final battle also takes place in Thebes. Sinuhe fights for the sake of Aten and Akhenaten to the end, but ultimately the side of the Amon priesthood is victorious. During the chaos, Merit and her son Thot are killed – the latter would turn out to be Sinuhe's offspring. When defeat has become reality, Akhenaten dies after drinking a cup of poison mixed by the embittered Sinuhe. Queen Nefertite's father, Ay, takes the throne, after the boy king Tutankhamun's short reign, despite Sinuhe having realised from Tiy that he himself is of royal blood and must be the son of Amenhotep III and his Mitannic consort, and thus closer to the throne.
With Akhenaten out of the way, Horemheb gathers all fit men and conducts a full-scale war against the Hittite kingdom – Egypt's premier rival at this time. Both Sinuhe and Kaptah participate in this battle, as Sinuhe wanted to know what war is like. A peace treaty is ultimately established, and king Aziru and his royal family are captured and publicly executed. Sinuhe later succeeds with Horemheb's and Ay's mission to assassinate the Hittite prince Shubattu, secretly invited by Baketamon to marry her, preventing him from reaching Egypt and seizing the throne.
Sinuhe now goes back, afflicted by all the losses, to a simple dwelling in Thebes, bitter and disillusioned in the heart. Every now and then he is visited by his former servant Kaptah, who only becomes richer and richer, and is now Sinuhe's patron. Sinuhe begins to criticise the new regime led by his old friend Horemheb, and as a punishment for this he is exiled to the Red Sea coast.
Writing process
Research and background
thumb|[[Mika Waltari, author of The Egyptian]]
Although Waltari employed some poetic license in combining the biographies of Sinuhe and Akhenaten, he was otherwise much concerned about the historical accuracy of his detailed description of ancient Egyptian life and carried out considerable research into the subject. Waltari's fascination of ancient Egypt was sparked as a 14-year-old by the 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun, which became widely publicised and a cultural phenomenon at the time. On his trips to foreign countries he would always first visit the local egyptological exhibitions and museums. Waltari often said that the novel would have been a very different one had it not been for World War II.
The writing
In April 1945 Waltari travelled to his mother-in-law's cottage in Hartola, where he began writing in the attic. The experiences of war and 20 years of research had pushed him into a state where the novel burst out of him: The novel was written within a three and a half-month period of great inspiration, with Waltari producing as many as between 15 and 27 sheets per day.
The completed manuscript, totaling almost one thousand pages, was delivered by Waltari to WSOY in the first half of August 1945. Editor Jalmari Jäntti had typically cut risqué material from Waltari's prior works. This time, however, little to no corrections or deletions were required by the editor – it went on to be printed as it was on the same month.
|source =—excerpt encapsulating the theme of repeated history
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Central to the novel's themes is the conviction of the unchanging nature of mankind, exemplified by the recurring phrase "so there has ever been and ever will be". he writes. As examples of these cultural parallels, Envall lists: the pseudo-intellectuals exalt themselves by flaunting their usage of foreign loanwords; the language of Babylon is the common language of the learned throughout various countries (like Greek in the Hellenistic period, Latin in the medieval period, French among diplomats and English in the 20th and 21st centuries); education takes place in faculties that provide degrees for qualification in posts (European universities began in the Middle Ages); people have addresses and send mail as papyrus and clay tablets; censorship is circumvented by cloaking subjects with historical stand-ins. There are precursors to aspects of modern medicine and monetary economy as well.
Similar themes are expressed via repetition throughout the novel, such as: everything is futile, the tomorrow is unknowable, no one can know why something has always been so, all people are fundamentally the same everywhere, the world year is changing, and death is better than life.
Clash of ideologies
Markku Envall describes the work as a criticism of utopism, the advocation of an ideology or idealism while ignorant of the world where it is supposed to be realized. Idealistic and materialistic worldviews are at clash in the novel, the former represented by the pacifist pharaoh Akhenaten and latter by the cold-bloodedly realist warlord Horemheb Markku Envall finds many resemblances between phrases uttered by Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament, and those by characters in The Egyptian (especially in context of Atenism). He argues that by this Waltari anachronistically utilizes literature from after the story's setting, and that it demonstrates the parallelism of the two religions: both religions are prophetic (a single informant), noninstitutional (to experience God, the believer does not necessarily require an intermediary infrastructure), egalitarian (before God, secularly unequal people are equal) and universal (meant for all humanity). As reasons for these similarities, Envall explains that firstly, the religions of Egypt were a major influence on Judaism and hence Christianity, and secondly, that the religions share common archetypical material.
Relationship to Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes was an influence, both stylistically and thematically. A device Waltari uses to emphasise a theme is the "chorus" – the reiteration of an idea. On the first page Sinuhe states: "Everything returns to what it was, and there is nothing new under the Sun, and man never changes". Shortly afterwards, the opposite of this idea is denied: "There are also those, who say that which has happened has never before happened, but this is useless talk." This thesis is repeated by multiple other characters as well. The main thesis is borrowed from Ecclesiastes:
Like The Egyptian, Ecclesiastes strengthens the idea by denying its opposite:
Other shared themes are the futility of everything, and the suffering brought by knowledge. Conversely however, Sinuhe's preference of death over life is the antithesis of Ecclesiastes' love of life over death.
World War II allegory
thumb|350px|The geopolitical map of the Middle East during the first half of 14th century BC
The geopolitical situation of the Middle East, as depicted by the novel, is thought to represent the second world war.
First publication
The Egyptian was first published in late November 1945. Initially knowledge of the novel spread through word of mouth in Finland; WSOY hadn't advertised it due to concerns over erotic content. It gained some early notoriety through an incident by historical novelist Maila Talvio: after hearing lewd sections read out beforehand in an autumn 1945 literature event, she took offense, marched into WSOY's office and demanded that the novel's printing be stopped, even in vain offering to buy the whole edition when told the printing machines were already in full action.
Critics had been concerned that Waltari might have played fast and loose with historical events, but this article dispelled these doubts and begot a reputation of almost mythical accuracy around the novel. This lack of errors was also confirmed by the egyptological congress of Cairo, and egyptologist Rostislav Holthoer also has since then noted that later research has confirmed some of Waltari's speculations.
The Egyptian saw an English release in August 1949. Putnam had asked a Swedish woman of culture (coincidentally the wife of an editor who'd previously rejected the novel) for input, and she had urged them to publish it. About a third Gladys Schmitt, writing for The New York Times, commented on the unresolved philosophical dilemma posed between Ekhnaton's generosity for bettering the world and Horemheb's pragmatic belligerence for stability, and praised the vibrancy and historical research evident in the characterisation of countries and social classes; however, she criticised social struggles surrounding Akhenaton as obscured, and found events oversensational and the characters composed of predictable types. Kirkus Reviews wrote: "He [Sinuhe] observes- and remembers- and in his old age writes it down, – the world as he knew it. It's a rich book, a bawdy book, a book that carries one to distant shores and makes one feel an onlooker as was Sinuhe. The plot is tenuous, a slender thread never wholly resolved. But the book opens one's eyes to an ancient world, nearer to ours than we think."
thumb|right|Ad for the 1954 Hollywood film adaptation
Soon after its release in the USA, it was selected book of the month in September 1949, and then entered the bestseller lists in October 1949, where it remained the unparalleled two years – 550 000 copies were sold in that time. Overall the reception was highly positive and some predicted Waltari as being a Nobel prize candidate. and not conforming to the "Great Tradition" of Finnish literature (patriotic, realistic depiction of the struggles of poor yet courageous Finns with nature and society) favoured by critics at the time. Despite its popularity and acclaim, the novel was denied the 1946 state literature award, largely due to the efforts of vocal Waltari critic and ideological opponent Raoul Palmgren. Even the overseas success was denounced in Finland as a popular novel's success. has described the literary discourse of the time as having been dominated by indifference and jealousy towards Waltari. Waltari finally gained appreciation in Finland in the 1980s, after his historical novels had made appearances in French bestseller lists one after another.]]
The Egyptian has since secured the place as a classic and masterpiece of Finnish literature. It came at first place in a 1988 Finnish reader poll, and in a 2017 poll it was selected as the Finnish book of the century. When Finnish writer and scholar was in 2017 asked by Ilta-Sanomat to select the 10 best books from Finland's period of independence, The Egyptian was one of them and he commented:
As a result of its use in the novel, the name Minea remains in occasional use in Finland. Likewise, named in Finland after the novel's protagonist are Sinuhe Wallinheimo and a café chain. Finnish presidential candidates have mentioned The Egyptian and other Waltari novels as favourites during elections.
International reputation
By the 1990s, Waltari was regarded in foreign countries not as a specifically Finnish author but as a master of historical fiction in world literature.
Among Czechs, The Egyptian and Waltari's oeuvre enjoy immense, "cult-like" popularity. When 's Waltari biography was released in 2007, a review in Hospodářské noviny likened it to the Czechs' own 200-page version of a monument to Waltari.
- The Egyptian, 1954 American film
- Sinuhe, 1953 Finnish ballet on the piano
- Sinuhe, 1965 Finnish ballet
- ', 1982 Finnish radio drama
- Sinuhe, 2006 Finnish sonata for solo oboe or flute
See also
- Amarna period
- List of historical novels
- Moses and Monotheism