Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #582301 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-31
• Released on: 2004-08-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

From Publishers Weekly
How was Phillips to follow up a debut as startlingly brilliant as Prague? By doing something completely different. His story, set mostly in Egypt in the early 1920s, stars Ralph Trilipush, an obsessive Egyptologist. Trilipush is more than a little odd. He is pinning his hopes on purported king Atum-hadu, whose erotic verses he has discovered and translated; now he must locate his tomb and its expected riches. Meanwhile, an Australian detective, for reasons too complicated to go into, is seeking to unmask Trilipush, who may have had some relationship with a young Australian Egyptologist who died mysteriously. Trilipush and the detective are two quite unreliable narrators, and the effect is that of a hall of mirrors. 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.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
This witty second novel plays with fire—"Pale Fire," that is—by daring to appropriate the scheme of Nabokov's cleverest novel. In both books, a deranged scholar, laying out a putatively brilliant yet comically improbable thesis, gradually reveals his own bitterness and delusions of grandeur. It's immediately obvious that 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. (He engages in hilariously pedantic combat with the man who found King Tut's tomb.) Phillips is nearly as deft as Nabokov at parodying the academic mind, and understands that his work must transcend mere homage. 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.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From The Washington Post
In 1922 Howard Carter made arguably the most exciting archeological discovery of all time: the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun, with its fabulous grave goods relatively undisturbed. The objects from the tomb have traveled from continent to continent and been endlessly photographed, discussed and reproduced.

The Egyptologist who is the title character in Arthur Phillips's second novel isn't Howard Carter, though Carter does appear in the book. Ralph Trilipush is an anti-Carter, a caricature, a Carter from another planet. Like Carter, he is in search of the tomb of an ephemeral pharaoh. Trilipush's missing pharaoh is named Atum-hadu, which he translates as "Atum is aroused." ("Hadu" is derived from a perfectly good Egyptian word; the reference is to one of the many creation myths the Egyptians came up with. In this particular myth, the sole, original god Atum, rising from the primeval waters, created the first pair of male and female gods by masturbating. The fact that no Egyptian pharaoh would have such a name is just the first of many little jokes.)

We meet Trilipush in the very first pages of the book, in a letter he writes from Cairo to his fiancée back in Boston, and it doesn't take more than three pages to alert the reader to Trilipush's character -- egotistical, hypocritical, more than a little paranoid (like many other Egyptologists?). His letters and diary form part of the narrative. His scholarly reputation, such as it is, rests primarily on his translation of Atum-hadu's erotic poetry. (These translations, quoted in extenso, constitute another of the author's little jokes; Trilipush's ribald versions contrast entertainingly with the prim Victorian euphemisms employed by earlier translations of the material.) Using his academic background as leverage, Trilipush has gotten engaged to a Boston beauty named Margaret Finneran, whose daddy is a millionaire snob. With daddy's help, Trilipush forms a company (The Hand of Atum Inc. -- get it?) to finance his search for the lost tomb. It's left to the reader to decide to what extent Trilipush is motivated by chicanery rather than self-delusion.

A soured, retired Australian P.I., Harold Ferrell, writes a second, parallel narrative, reporting on a case he investigated 30 years earlier. Ferrell doesn't suffer from false modesty either; in fact, it would be difficult to find a single character in the book who isn't self-serving or cynical or miserable. The case Ferrell investigated was on behalf of a millionaire brewer, Barnabas Davies, who, having learned he had only a few months to live, decided to leave part of his estate to offspring he might have produced in temporary liaisons during his busy youth (38 and still counting, according to Ferrell). Ferrell's assignment is to trace one of the potential mothers, who is living in Sydney. He finds her, broken-down and repulsive, and learns that she did indeed produce a Davies son, Paul Caldwell. Ferrell's search for the boy leads him from circus to library to prison, and finally to the Australian Expeditionary Force in Egypt, in which Caldwell served during World War I. Unfortunately for Ferrell, who is making a killing on expense accounts, Caldwell disappeared in 1918 and is presumed dead.

Well, mystery readers can spot clues like that a mile away. I won't spoil the fun by further exposition, since the mystery is not so much about what happened as how and especially why it happened. The Egyptologist can be viewed as a penetrating study of human frustration and obsession, and, since we're talking about ancient Egypt here, man's quest for immortality. However, Trilipush's quest takes him so far beyond the bounds of normal lunacy that it becomes black comedy rather than tragedy. The reader who is uninformed about Egyptology may miss some of the humor, but there is plenty of it; the most entertaining arises from the unwitting self-exposure of Ferrell and Trilipush -- one of the challenges of a first-person narrative, which Phillips pulls off triumphantly.

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.

Reviewed by Barbara Mertz
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Eh- Overrated.
Negative reviews usually get dinged in the "helpfulness' department. I'll risk it anyway...At the very least I hope to be helpful even if you still want to read it- I'd at least like to adjust your expectations so you aren't as disappointed as I was/am.

I read the review for this in People magazine- I love books set among the pyramids, and the mystery/plot sounded intriguing. The review was really a rave, and seemed to imply that there might be some sort of a twist at the end...

Eh. There is. Well, there's supposed to be. But you figure it out pretty early on. An earlier reviewer here was generous and said you figure it out 1/2 through... but I don't think it takes that long. The book has a "get on w/ it" feel to it b/c you have it all figured out (even if you weren't really trying).

I don't think the intention is for you to figure it out. Instead, I think the dramatic tension is supposed to stem from the idea that you aren't (supposed to be) sure what happened to the missing (assumed murdered) people. But you are. So you are sorta bored.

This is a side note, but there isn't a single likable character in the entire story. This doesn't necessarily kill a story, but w/ a relatively nonmysterious mystery, little depth of Egypt in the 20s, and unlikable people... there's not much to root for. I had to force myself to finish it to see if I was missing something.

I wasn't.

If you want mysteries w/ some pretty good details of Egyptology, the Amelia Peabody series is amusing. It's certainly not high art (more light reading), but more interesting than this book.

A Clever Tangle
Letters, diaries, and journal entries are used to winning effect in Arthur Phillips' second novel following the much-praised "Prague." Let's get this over with-I hated "Prague". Really hated it. But "The Egyptologist" could not be more different. This is a delightful book, full of complex, flawed, unreliable characters who keep you glued to the page as you try to figure out what in heaven's name they're up to. Add lots of interesting archeological and ancient Egyptian lore, good 1920's period settings, and a great ending, and you have quite a treat in store.

As Howard Carter is discovering King Tut's fabulous tomb, Ralph Trilipush is over the next sand dune digging for the tomb of King Atum-hadu, whose hieroglyphic [slick stuff] (translated with great vigor) obsesses him. Ralph is staking his professional reputation and his fiancée's considerable fortune on finding this tomb, and in fact, may have knocked several people off to get to it. At least, that's the belief of an intrepid Australian detective who is traveling the world looking for a murderer, or maybe a serial murder, or maybe even Ralph Trilipush. The layered construction gives Phillips plenty of opportunity for narrative shenanigans and he relishes them all.

I try to avoid comparing books, but the satisfaction I got from "The Egyptologist" reminded of the pleasure of reading A. S. Byatt's "Possession." No, the books are not similar and no, this is not another "Possession", but Phillips has the same respect for his readers' intelligence and he expects you to be able to hang on for the hairpin turns. The result is a smart, teasing, clever, and highly enjoyable novel.

slows greatly in middle, somewhat predictable but good close
The Egyptologist was heading straight for a two rating until the last 40 pages or so and while I'm not sure I can recommend the book just to get to that ending, I will say the writing (if not the plot outcome which was a bit predictable) redeemed the book, though only to a point. The story is told through several layering devices: diaries, journals, and letters by the Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush and letters by the Australian detective Harold Ferrell who is trying to prove Trilipush to be at best a fraud and at worst a murderer. Neither narrator is reliable, adding some more layers of complexity to the story, as well as some humor.
The basic story is that Trilipush has convinced his fiancee's father to bankroll (at some risk to himself) his amateur dig in Egypt to find the tomb of Atum-hadu, the king-pornographic poet who may or may not have existed. Round the corner from his own dig and working on his own relatively minor and sure to be disappointing excavation (according to Trilipush) is Howard Carter (the tomb is King Tut's). Meanwhile, in a more complicated side-story, Ferrel is digging up (sorry) Trilipush's own past, or at least trying to, both for his own reasons and for various clients who have differing reasons of their own. Mixed into this are several strange disappearances, missing or falsified records, professional jealousies, etc.
The book starts of quite well, an enjoyable and interesting ride, both for the characters and the egyptology. But it slows greatly through the middle and there were several times I debated whether it was worth picking up and continuing. Events and characterizations start to become repetitive without moving the story along, outcomes start to become pretty predictable, and one begins to think simply reading every fifth page or so would get you to the same place with no great loss. The close of the book is not particularly surprising or rewarding in terms of plot or character, but the writing surges forward to new heights. On one level this is a problem as one of the more beautiful passages is hard to accept coming from the narrator as he's been portrayed. On the other hand, it's such great writing that you're willing to ignore the messenger. It would have been nice to have gotten to that point much more quickly, but good as that section is with regard to the writing, I'm not sure I can say it's worth reading the whole book. I would rather the author had kept that writing and saved it for another work.
The settings, for such exotic placement, are surprisingly flat (part of that is the narrative voice). Plot, as mentioned, is a bit repetitive and predictable. The true enjoyment comes from the narrative voice, especially that of Trillipush, though it loses its appeal after running in the same tone for so long. Outside of the two main narrators, other characters are pretty two-dimensional.
Overall, it's an interestingly constructed book with characters that are fun at first, but it just didn't hold interest for much of it. I wouldn't recommend it personally, but if you do pick it up, before putting it down at least check out the last 20 pages or so.