The Egyptologist
Arthur Phillips, 2004
Random House
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812972597
Summary
From the bestselling author of Prague comes a witty, inventive, brilliantly constructed novel about an Egyptologist obsessed with finding the tomb of an apocryphal king. This darkly comic labyrinth of a story opens on the desert plains of Egypt in 1922, then winds its way from the slums of Australia to the ballrooms of Boston by way of Oxford, the battlefields of the First World War, and a royal court in turmoil.
Just as Howard Carter unveils the tomb of Tutankhamun, making the most dazzling find in the history of archaeology, Oxford-educated Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush is digging himself into trouble, having staked his professional reputation and his fiancée’s fortune on a scrap of hieroglyphic pornography.
Meanwhile, a relentless Australian detective sets off on the case of his career, spanning the globe in search of a murderer. And another murderer. And possibly another murderer. The confluence of these seemingly separate stories results in an explosive ending, at once inevitable and utterly unpredictable.
Arthur Phillips leads this expedition to its unforgettable climax with all the wit and narrative bravado that made Prague one of the most critically acclaimed novels of 2002. Exploring issues of class, greed, ambition, and the very human hunger for eternal life, this staggering second novel gives us a glimpse of Phillips’s range and maturity–and is sure to earn him further acclaim as one of the most exciting authors of his generation. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 23, 1969
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard
• Currently—lives in New York City
Arthur Phillips is an American novelist active in the 21st century. His novels include Prague (2002), The Egyptologist (2004), Angelica (2007), The Song Is You (2009), and The Tragedy of Arthur (2011).
Phillips was born in Minneapolis and received a BA in history from Harvard (1986–90). After spending two years in Budapest (1990–1992), he then studied jazz saxophone for four semesters at Berklee College of Music (1992–93).[2] In his author biography and several interviews he claims to have been a child actor, a jazz musician, a five-time Jeopardy! champion, a speechwriter, and an advertising copywriter for medical devices, and a "dismally failed entrepreneur." He lived in Budapest from 1990 to 1992 and in Paris from 2001 to 2003, and now lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
Before becoming a best-selling novelist, Phillips was (in fact) a five-time champion on Jeopardy! in 1997. In 2005, he competed in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions. He won his opening-round game but lost in the second round.
Books
• Prague (2002)
Despite its title, Prague is set almost entirely in Budapest, Hungary, primarily in 1990, with an interlude detailing several previous generations of Hungarian history, from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy through the First and Second World Wars.
The main line of the novel follows a group of young Western expatriates through their lives in Budapest. Interwoven tales produce an ensemble portrait of the expats and their adopted city, just recovering from decades of Communism, fascism, and war. The novel's recurring themes include nostalgia, sincerity and authenticity, and young people's first search for meaning in life. The novel was well received commercially and critically, winning Phillips the 2003 Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for Best First Fiction, as well as other honors.
• The Egyptologist (2004)
The novel is structured as journals, letters, telegrams, and drawings, from several different points of view. The main story is set in 1922 and follows a hopeful explorer who, working near Howard Carter (the man who discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun), risks more and more of his life and savings on an apparently quixotic effort to find the tomb of an apocryphal Egyptian king.
The book was an international bestseller and critical success in more than two dozen countries. US critics noted Phillips's versatility in producing a book so different from his first, and fans of the book included Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Elizabeth Peters, and Stephen King. Others, however, most notably Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, found the book overlong and confusing.
• Angelica (2007)
Superficially a Victorian ghost story, Angelica won Phillips comparisons to Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Stephen King. King himself praised the book, and the Washington Post opined that it cemented Phillips's reputation as "one of the best writers in America."
In the novel, the same events are retold four times from four different perspectives, each section casting doubt on the version that came before, until the reader is left to sort truth from fantasy on his or her own. Although the novel received extensive critical praise, it was a commercial disappointment.
• The Song Is You (2009)
Phillips's fourth novel tells the story of a middle-aged man's pursuit of a young woman, an Irish pop singer he sees performing in a bar. Kirkus Reviews said, "Phillips still looks like the best American novelist to have emerged during the present decade."
• The Tragedy of Arthur (2011)
This fifth book was shortlisted for the IMPAC International Literary Prize. A faux memoir, the story revolves around a con-man father who convinces his son to sell a hitherto unknown Shakespeare play. Publishers Weekly called it "a tricky project, funny and brazen, smart and playful." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
The book is a tour de force of plotting and narrative technique; the intertwining storylines lead with mounting inevitability to one of the most horrendously, hideously humorous endings in modern fiction. It isn't an ending for the faint of heart, but if you appreciated Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief, this one will knock you out.
Barbara Mertz - The Washington Post
Ralph M. Trilipush—an obscure Egyptologist who claims to have discovered the tomb of an unknown yet visionary Pharaoh—is off his rocker. The fun comes in the way his megalomania mirrors the temperament of supposedly levelheaded scholars.... Phillips is nearly as deft as Nabokov at parodying the academic mind.... Unfortunately, he tricks up his plot by adding a dull detective who labors to expose Trilipush’s lies, and by stealing a twist from The Talented Mr. Ripley. The result is pastiche overload.
The New Yorker
Where does fact end and imagination, illusion and wishful thinking begin? Phillips is a master manipulator, able to assume a dozen convincingly different voices at will, and his book is vastly entertaining. It's apparent that something dire is afoot, but the reader, while apprehensive, can never quite figure out what. The ending, which cannot be revealed, is shocking and cleverly contrived.
Publishers Weekly
Ralph M. Trilipush, the eponymous Egyptologist—a war hero who attended Oxford but never served in the military, with no record of his attendance at the venerable British institution? A sheltered, society heroine who drinks to oblivion and takes opium? These are but two central mysteries of this potpourri of intrigue, subterfuge, and deception concocted by Phillips.... [Q]uite tongue in cheek, a tableau of action and adventure in a 1920s setting. —Edward Cone, New York
Library Journal
A secretive archaeologist's obsession with an obscure Egyptian king uncovers several concealed histories—in Phillips's clever, labyrinthine successor to his prizewinning debut (Prague, 2002).... This is a suave, elegant novel, replete with sinuously composed sentences and delicious wordplay.... Alas, it's also intermittently labored and redundant.... Nonetheless, Phillips's formidable research and witty prose make this one well worth your time. He's que possibly a major novelist in the making.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think Arthur Phillips used an epistolary structure for The Egyptologist? Would it have been possible for him to structure it differently? What effect do the letters and journal entries have on the voice of the novel?
2. Early in the novel, Trilipush writes to Margaret, stating "These writings are the story of my discovery, my truncating of doubters and self-doubt. I am entrusting to you nothing less than my immortality.... If something should happen to my body, then you are now responsible ... to ensure that my name and the name of Atum-hadu never perish" (5-6). What drives his obsession with immortality? Explore Ferrell's similar preoccupation with his own lasting fame, and how this theme pervades the novel as a whole.
3. What does Atum-hadu symbolize? How does Trilipush relate to him?
4. In his journal, Trilipush relays three drastically different translations of hieroglyphs written by Atum-hadu—he writes, "Clenched and trembling men like Harriman and Vassal cannot restrain themselves from spilling educated and less educated guesses over barren, tattered evidence, producing great, pregnant speculations" (90). What point is Phillips making here about history and truth?
5. Describe Trilipush and Margaret's relationship. Are they really in love? Do they have other motives for carrying on their love affair? How does their relationship change throughout the course of the novel?
6. Explain the effect of unreliable narrators in The Egyptologist. At which points did you find yourself trusting Trilipush or Ferrell? What are each of their motives?
7.Trilipush wonders, "How did [Atum-hadu] know that his authority would endure to the last crucial minute, and that his world would then disappear a moment later, under the onslaught, before anyone who knew enough thought to disturb his peace? Somehow he did it, setting for us the most brilliant Tomb Paradox in the history of Egyptian immortality and preparing, for only the most brilliant and deserving, a discovery like no other" (160). What is the Tomb Paradox, and what significance does it have? What is its equivalent in Trilipush's life?
8. Explore the issue of self-delusion in The Egyptologist. What have each of the characters—Trilipush, Ferrell, Margaret—deluded themselves into believing? At what point does each of them come to their definition of truth, and what effects do their versions of clarity have on them?
9. Trilipush writes, "Despite my easy childhood, the men whom I admire most in this world are self-made men, a description which seems to fit the king" (265). What does he mean by this? Has his own evolution followed that of a "self-made" man?
10. On page 267, Trilipush explores the concept of three births. Explore the significance of this cycle and how it relates to the novel.
11. Were you surprised by the ending of The Egyptologist? How does the tone of the novel change in the final scenes? How does your perception of Trilipush and what he has achieved changed?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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