I
'm going to try and be as quick and short as possible and I'm still wrapping my head around the whole thing, so I apologize, if I don't give the book enough credit/give it too much credit. Let me start off with the fact that I'm a huge ancient history and ancient mythology nerd, I've read countless pieces on the greek mythology, ancient egyptian culture and customs etc.
Recently I stumbled across Sinuhe the Egyptian, a historical fiction novel, and my father backed the book up by claiming this was his favorite novel, when he was my age. So I got up to reading it.
And it was glorious! The story consists of the biography of Sinuhe, a fictional character, based on a real persona in a later Egyptian timeline, and he describes his entire life throughout the reign of six pharaohs (all real historical figures naturally). The writing style is therefore purposefully archaic and relatively simple and that only adds to the immersion factor. There's also this lethargic/melancholic emotion that dominates throughout the entire story. All this contributed to immersing me in the culture and life of the ancient egyptian and also added to my enjoyment.
So as I stated in the title, I think Sinuhe doesn't get enough credit around here. I hope that with this post we can at least discuss what you guys think of it (if someone has hopefully read it) and also hopefully give other history fiction readers a chance to look at a relatively not so popular book.
I loved how it offered such a rich exploration of the late Byzantine era (itβs rare enough to find Byzantine HF, itβs even rarer to find some set in the Palaegeous period)! It even offered some new fascinating insight into the Ottomans which really surprised me!
I remember our history teacher telling us that the novel depicted life in ancient Egypt very realistically, but that was a long time ago. It's a brick of a book so I haven't dared approach it until now that I'm a bit older.
Is there something outdated or outright wrong in it that we now know better? It was written in 1945 after all and times have changed and I'm sure Egyptology has progressed too.
The Roman - Mika Waltari
As the title suggest, I am currently reading a Historical Fiction piece by none other than Mika Waltari. This book takes place during the reign of Emperor Cladius. Starts off with the son of a former Esquestrian living in Antioch. Father and son return to Rome to bring back the nobility to the family, and then the plot gets good. The first 50 pages are a bit slow, yet when they arrive in Rome. It really starts off.
If you enjoy Roman mythology mixed with politics, religion, different cultures, art, sex, violence.... Pretty much everything that makes Roman history great you should read this book.
Mika Waltari was a well-known Finnish author (I'm told he was once also moderately well-known outside Finland). Many of his books take place in the classical period or in the early middle ages. I love these books especially because reading them feels like I'm actually reading a diary of a person who lived thousands of years ago. I would like to know, how historically accurate are these books? I'm most interested in how well the customs and ethics of people in his books reflect the behavior of actual people from that age? I.e., is it plausible that an actual person from that age would have written a similar account of his/her life? How much is the sentiment of the time when the books were written (early 20th century, the time of nationalism, etc.) projected in the books?
I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.
Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.
Do your worst!
I'm surprised it hasn't decade.
For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies π
It really does, I swear!
Theyβre on standbi
As the title said, I'm looking for books suggestions that take place in ancient or medieval times - bonus points for a non-European setting. I'm more interested in stories that don't centre around war. Some books that I've read and really enjoyed were Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell and The First Man in Rome by Colleen Mccullough.
Pilot on me!!
Nothing, he was gladiator.
I'm going to try and be as quick and short as possible and I'm still wrapping my head around the whole thing, so I apologize, if I don't give the book enough credit/give it too much credit. Let me start off with the fact that I'm a huge ancient history and ancient mythology nerd, I've read countless pieces on the greek mythology, ancient egyptian culture and customs etc.
Recently I stumbled across Sinuhe the Egyptian, a historical fiction novel, and my father backed the book up by claiming this was his favorite novel, when he was my age. So I got up to reading it.
And it was glorious! The story consists of the biography of Sinuhe, a fictional character, based on a real persona in a later Egyptian timeline, and he describes his entire life throughout the reign of six pharaohs (all real historical figures naturally). The writing style is therefore purposefully archaic and relatively simple and that only adds to the immersion factor. There's also this lethargic/melancholic emotion that dominates throughout the entire story. All this contributed to immersing me in the culture and life of the ancient egyptian and also added to my enjoyment.
So as I stated in the title, I think Sinuhe doesn't get enough credit around here. I hope that with this post we can at least discuss what you guys think of it (if someone has hopefully read it) and also hopefully give other history fiction readers a chance to look at a relatively not so popular book.
Cheers!
