The Egyptologist

Summary: Ralph Trilipush, a British archaeologist, sets out in 1922 to search for the tomb of King Atum-hadu, whose very existence is doubted by most scholars, but who Ralph believes is the author of a scroll of erotic poetry that he translated several years previously. Ralph is not particularly honest, scrupulous, or trustworthy, and to complicate matters, there is an investigator poking around his background and stirring up doubts in the mind of his fiancée, Margaret, and her father, Ralph's financial backer. The entire book is in an epistolary format; a combination of Ralph's journals and notes for his book about the discovery of Atum-hadu's tomb, letters from the investigator to Margaret's nephew thirty years after the fact, and show more miscellaneous correspondence between other characters.

Review: This book is not quite like anything I've ever read before. It's a unique experience to read a book where the story is never - never - told straight-out, and the only way to get at the truth of the events is to look at the distorted reflections of it filtered through various unreliable narrators, each with their own unique biases. The reader has to guess what really happened through detective work of their own, but unlike most mystery novels, those guesses are never really confirmed one way or another. The skill of writing involved to pull this off is incredible; each of the narrators has a clear voice, and a particularly unique way of lying, of bending the truth, so that as the book progresses and we become more familiar with them, we can see the underlying reality more and more clearly. There's also a wonderful black humor running underneath everything, as we watch the narrators descend further and further into ambition, jealousy, and above all else, self-deception as they variously seek immortality.

Recommendation: Requires a fair bit of attention from the reader, so it's not an easy-going, kicked-back kind of book, but the unique and masterfully crafted characters, story, and tone make it well worth the effort. show less

With just the right kind of ironic humor, Arthur Phillps tries to capture the life of a fictional Egyptologist, Ralph M. Trlipush, in the latter part of the year 1922.

An eccentric old man named Barnabas Davies dies, with the intent to find, and compensate, illegitimate children he has scattered all over the world. The investigation leads to one Paul Caldwell of Sydney, Australia, born in the early 1890s and vanished mysteriously in the Egyptian dessert in the First World War. Who was Paul Caldwell? And who is (or was) Ralph Trilipush, the supposed English professor of Egyptology at Harvard University and engaged to the American heiress, Margaret Finneran? Through diary entries and letters, the author follows two stories: Trilipush's, as show more he prepares to uncover the tomb of an ancient Egyptian pharoah named Atum-hadu; and that of an Australian detective, Harold Ferrell as he recounts his story from a retiring home in the 1950s. The various perspectives each of these two narrators have on the events contained herein are fascinating. Personal bias really and truly does have an effect on the way we view the world.

"Just how secret is secret enough?" is a question Trilipush poses on the matter of Atum-hadu and his buried tomb; but that same question might easily be asked of Trilipush's own life. Ralph gives us marvelous, self-centered accounts of growing up in Trilipush Hall in Kent, which, as the reader will find, are untrue; might also his account of discovering the tomb prove to be a fabrication? There are also mixed accounts of Trilipush's education, as well as his sexuality. The more one plunges into the story line, the more one finds that the stories of Ralph Trilipush and his Egyptian king are remarkably similar. Both seek to achieve immortality through a "third birth." This book is filled with Egyptian lore and trivia, as well as the fictional account of the life of Atum-hadu.

On the flip side is the story of Trilipush's fiancée, Margaret Finneran, and her father, who owns a department store chain in Boston. Both of these characters keep secrets from Trilipush which threaten to destroy the relationship between the Egyptologist and the American girl.
What I thought was marvelous was the deprecating way in which Trilipush describes Howard Carter, who at the moment this narrative takes place uncovers the tomb of Tutankhamen. Lord Carnarvon is secretly called "Lord Cashbags." I also loved the comments Trilipush makes about American tourists and the Egyptian natives. There is, of course, the highly-touted "mystery," which can easily be solved. But the mystery is NOT the point of this novel. This excellent book is a detailed account of a man struggling with his own identity. show less

With the exception of J. K. Rowling, I cannot think of another occasion when I have read two books in a row by the same author and been blown away by both of them. Until now. I finished Arthur Phillips' The Egyptologist last night. There is very little similarity between Angelica and The Egyptologist, the main one being in the excellence of the writing. Arthur Phillips needs to stay off Jeopardy and concentrate on his writing. I haven't been excited about an American novelist since Alice Sebold published The Lovely Bones.

The Egyptologist takes place predominantly in the nineteen-twenties in Egypt (duh). It follows the circuituous, not to say murderous, path of a young man obsessed with ancient Egypt. The story is told through the show more journals and correspondence of said young man, along with the later (1954) memories of a detective who was on his trail almost from the beginning. So the book is a murder mystery, an adventure tale and a dark descent into the madness of one mind. In the latter case it is quite sad. Mr. Phillips seems to be able to get into the mindset of past eras with uncanny believability. In Angelica he gave a brilliant portrait of the sexual difficulties of the Victorian era and in The Egyptologist we are allowed to feel the class inequalities of the period, not to mention the problems of being gay back in the early Twentieth Century.

Phillips allows the mystery to solve itself with the telling of the tale and it only slowly dawns on the reader what is happening. You can feel like a detective yourself, depending on how quickly you catch on to what is occurring. It is quite a clever and unique way to tell a story and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I am saving Prague for some future time when I need another really good read. show less

Just who is Ralph M. Trilipush? He appears to be a highly educated, super intelligent Egyptologist, author of "Desire and Deceit in Ancient Egypt," a questionable translation of papyri found in the Egypt desert with pornographic quatrains supposedly written by King Atum-hadu, the last true king of Egypt. But none of the other archaeologists and historians think Atum-hadu ever existed. When Trilipush approaches Chester C. Finneran (wealthy owner of Finneran's Finer Finery of Boston) for funding of his latest dig (to find the golden tomb of Atum-hadu), he becomes engaged to Mr. F's lovely daughter, Margaret, and accepts funding from a group of partners including Mr. F and at least two unsavory men who have made their fortunes in the show more Boston underground economy. The year is 1922.

Enter Mr. Harold Ferrell, a private detective from Sydney, Australia. Ferrell has been hired by one Barnabas Davies, a dying brewery magnate of London, who spent his youth as a hugely prolific philanderer and member of the Merchant Navy, to help track down one of his many bastard children scattered across the globe (he reckons there are at least 42, possibly 44 of them) before he dies. Ferrell's job is to locate one Eulalie Caldwell in the Sydney slums and track down her oldest son, Paul, one of the likely heirs to the Davies fortune. But the trail he finds is complex and serpentine and brings him hot onto the trail of Trilipush for information.
> From Sydney to London, Boston to Luxor, Ferrell finds and interviews
everybody who has ever met or spoke with Paul Caldwell. He discovers that, regardless of his claims, Trilipush never attended Oxford, was never in the British military at Gallipolli, and indeed, doesn't seem to have existed at all before his appearance in Boston. So, just who is he? Ferrell's infatuation with Margaret only fuels his desire to prove Trilipush is a fraud and a phony.

This book has more twists and turns than a snake's trail. It's told solely through correspondence and "journals" that spans 30 years. It's written with such a razor sharp wit and such subtlety that it was a sheer delight to read, and forced me to actually take notes so I wouldn't lose the clues! LOL Full of dark humor and irony, this is a tale to savor and enjoy. I cannot say this book is humorous because it is a dark and complex tale, but it's written with such flair and talent and wit that I was smiling through the whole thing. Arthur Phillips is a new writer, this being only his second novel, but his talent is huge. The correspondence is from at least five different people, and each one is written in a distinctly different voice. I really cannot say enough good things about this novel of deception, intrigue, adventure and ambition. This is easily the best book I've read this year.

Can I give it a 10? LOL show less

One of the strangest pieces of fiction I've ever read, but enjoyable. This epistolary novel moves back and forth from 1922 Egypt and America and 1954 Sydney, Australia. It consists of entries in a journal of an archaeologist, Ralph Trilipush, on the track on the tomb of an obscure king, Atum hadu [Atum-is-Aroused] who has written erotic verse; letters and cables to and from his [Ralph's] betrothed; and correspondence from a retired detective, Ferrell, in an old folks' home in Sydney to a certain Mr. Macy, who wishes to fill in gaps in his family history, mostly relating to events surrounding a great-aunt. 1922 is the year Howard Carter astonished the world with the discovery of King Tut's tomb. Our archaeologist wishes to outshine show more Carter, with a greater discovery. There are 4 murders involved. The novel traces the feckless archaeologist and his bumbling as well as giving us Ferrell's memories. Early on, I figured out NONE of the narrators was reliable. What was true and what was false in their telling? There were certainly questions in Ralph's background and he revealed himself as a confidence trickster. How much of what we hear or read should we believe? How much do we delude ourselves? I took the book as a wicked satire on archaeologists and their funding. Note: I played around with the letters in our hero's name; it's an anagram for the author's name. show less

The Egyptologist is a fascinating look at the trust we, as readers, place in our narrators. The novel spins a tale of intrigue in Egypt around the 1920s, led by our trusty Egyptologist, Ralph M. Trillipush. But as we soon come to learn, he may not be as trustworthy as we first though. But then, neither is our second narrator, or rather, letter writer, as Arthur Phillips unwinds the story through correspondences sent by the two. It's an approach that was vaguely similar to The Historian's, but executed much more effectively. The second narrator is an aging Australian detective who recounts his version of the events, often in stark contrast with Ralph's version. From the opening pages of the book, especially the mysterious Egyptian King's show more cartouche, you realize that something is amiss, and the story wonderfully unfolds to a fascinating ending. Many readers may figure out the mystery about midway through the book, but it was well worth seeing through to the end. show less

I listened to this on audio a couple of years ago and absolutely loved it, and I've been meaning to read it in hard copy but just hadn't gotten around to it. So, in April 2008, when I had a chance to buy it in book form (trade paperback) at the L.A. Times Festival of Books and have the author sign it, I jumped at the chance. Mr. Phillips is a delightful man, very polite and soft-spoken, with the most beautiful azure blue eyes I've ever seen. I told him how much I enjoyed The Egyptologist, and he admitted with a shy smile that it is probably his secret favorite too. :) Anyway, The Egyptologist is a darkly funny novel mostly told by utterly unreliable narrators about the way the truth can be twisted to make reality unrecognizable. All of show more the characters ~ from the brilliant and ambitious but ultimately pathetic Ralph Trilipush & the wily but slimy detective to Egypt of the early 1900s ~ are well-drawn and spot-on. The Egyptologist reminded me of The Great Gatsby in some ways ~ the writing is fabulous, the narrators unreliable, their quests for immortality and their reinventions of themselves very reminiscent of Fitzgerald's masterpiece, yet it's also great adventure with undertones of horror a la H. Rider Haggard. show less