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The Scribe's Daughter ReviewLet me first say that it is important to me that a book leave me with something substantial. I don't typically read fiction because after the book is over I usually feel like I have just wasted hours of my life on escapism. So, I will focus here on some of the things I "took away" from a reading of the Scribe's Daughter.
First of all, I feel like I received a well-researched, up-close-and-personal presentation of the mythology of the Egyptian underworld. You could, of course, read about Egyptian mythology on Wikipedia instead, but that isn't going to transport the reader to the Egyptian's mythical land of the dead like The Scribe's Daughter. This is mythology to us, but it was religion to the ancient Egyptians, and Pettit captures the essence of that religion. Her writing is engaging, and she creates characters that the reader can identify with and root for. So, when her characters interact with the ancient Egyptian deities, we vicariously experience the awe and the terror and the confusion of those meetings. The Egyptians built those huge pyramids because they really, really believed that a world like what is described in this book was going to await them at their death, and it was exciting to catch a glimpse of that world.
Secondly, I feel like I got a bit of education about modern Egypt as well. This would be good reading for someone who is about to take a sight-seeing trip to Egypt, and it might also serve as good reading material for a home-school unit on Egypt. (As a word of caution, though, there is a lot of sex in the book. It is never erotic or graphic, and it is always used as a plot device, but parents should definitely read the book before handing to their teens.) Some plot twists seem to have been introduced for the sole purpose of taking the reader on a tour of Egypt, and although they were a minor interruption to the flow of the narrative, they did whet my appetite to visit that country.
There are some spiritual "take-aways" as well, although not as many as I had hoped for. There is some description of Maria's own internal spiritual confusion, and she seems pulled in several different directions by the various religious influences in her life. I think I would have liked to have seen more discussion of this and perhaps some resolution, but I am grateful that this dimension of the lead character was somewhat explored. The themes of worship, sacrifice, and surrender in relation to a deity are prominent toward the end of the book, although the Egyptian deities didn't really seem worthy of such devotion. At several points in the book when the Egyptian gods were portrayed I had the thought "I'm so thankful that my God is good."
I particularly appreciated the way the various characters in the book responded differently to the revelation of Egyptian gods, some responding with more faith and some with more skepticism. And I don't know whether or not this Christian imagery was intentional but there is one place in the story where a covenant made between two people is sealed by the blood of only one of them. There is also some imagery of the sacrifice of a child for the life of others.
On the whole, The Scribe's Daughter is well-written and engaging. It's a fairly lengthy book, but the author successfully held my attention through all of it (and I'm not even a fan of fiction). Pettit is an excellent story-teller and avoids the temptation of indulging her writing style at the expense of the narrative. The dialog flows well and feels natural.
Also, there are multiple story-lines that take place in different centuries, and the book jumps back and forth between them. This is a literary device that is usually very difficult to implement without frustrating the reader, but the jumps in The Scribe's Daughter are well-timed so that the bits and pieces of the ancient story-line are revealed at just the right places in the modern story-line. The jumps between the stories felt natural and the ancient story serves to complement the modern story rather than to distract the reader.
I would particularly recommend The Scribe's Daughter to anyone who has a fascination with Egyptian mythology, but it is a good fiction read for anyone.
The Scribe's Daughter OverviewEgypt, 2640 B.C.: A dissatisfied queen has an affair with the palace scribe, and when a little ink spill threatens to expose the lovers, the queen's betrayal becomes cataclysmic, her actions reaching beyond the centuries and into the lives of Paul Pena and his family. Texas, 2007: The pharaohs no longer rule Egypt, but when an Egyptian god appears in Paul's house, summoning him to the world of the dead to pay for a crime he didn't commit, he needs answers. As he embarks on a frantic but fruitless quest for a solution, his daughter Maria is negotiating with Bastet, the cat-headed goddess of secrets, to take his place. But the world of the dead isn't what anyone expected, and if Maria is to make up for the past, she may have to sacrifice much more than she can give.
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