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Our Assessment:
B : quite effective, if limited in scope and reach See our review for fuller assessment.
From the Reviews: - Return to top of the page - The complete review's Review:
Dorothy Porter lets Akhenaten tells his own story in Akhenaten -- and he does so in verse.
The work is divided into four parts -- each titled after stations in his life (the childhood (palace-)home of Malkata, the Thebes where he began his rule, and then twice Akhet-Aten, the new capital) -- each of which then collects poems, most only a few lines or a page or two in length, about that period.
The poems in Akhenaten then aren't quite a continuous sequence but rather more a series of episodes and impressions (though chronologically presented, and with some sense of continuity).
I've always knownHe finds salvation in Aten, the sun-god that he would come to make the center of his religious practice: "I gorged on my God", and finds enormous strength in that/him. Porter's focus is much more on the personal than ideological or theological -- though Akhenaten's Aten-devotion certainly figures prominently in that as well. Childhood memories include those of his cat, and his budding friendship with cousin Nefertiti. In youth, politics are mostly distant and of little interest: "My mother is a politician", he acknowledges, but it's simply an observation, and he shows little interest in specifics, understanding simply: Mummy playsHis scorn for Amun, and embrace of Aten manifest themselves more fully once he comes to power; an early episode from his reign concludes: There, Ay,But, from the first time he sleeps with Nefertiti, Akhenaten is also a man who takes great pleasure in sex -- and, while Nefertiti long satisfies him he ultimately descends into increasingly perverse debauchery. His harem affords him some pleasure -- "When Nefertiti / is sick of me // I spend the night / with Kiya" -- but even here he fails to sire a son: he has six daughter with Nefertiti but has a sense of obligation, because: "my kingdom /prefers boys". In the novel's most disturbing scenes, Akhenaten looks way too close to home to satisfy both pleasure and obligation: I have six daughtersIt gets very incestuous, as he also takes to bedding his younger brother, Smenkhkare, who is then married off to Akhenaten's eldest daughter, Meri -- who, when he asks her whether she is happy with the arrangement, tells him off: 'I don't like fuckingAkhenaten's reaction -- "Only twice ! / Little girls / have such vicious memories" -- is one of the work's strongest and most shocking bits, but also typical of the general tenor, Akhenaten both transgressive ("in sex and art / I'm like a Hittite army / I don't recognise borders") and blind to how others see his often deeply hurtful actions. So also, of course, with his imposition of Aten on a population that isn't necessarily as blinded by that hot, bright light as he is. Porter does use historical figures and events in her story -- including, for example, Akhenaten's teacher Ay and the sculptor Bek -- but much is very freely (and intimately) imagined. Her Akhenaten is profligate and a true --if very limited -- believer; her story deeply personal, giving only a very limited impression of the world over which Akhenaten ruled, and how it reacted to that rule. The contrast to the Akhenaten of Naguib Mahfouz's novel is fascinating, as are the very different approaches the authors take to presenting the historical figure. The poetry -- very free verse -- is crisp, at times almost terse, and deliberately exposing; Akhenaten's pleasures are conveyed as both indulgent and raw, a full gamut of the erotic, from the joyous (such as his first experience with Nefertiti) to the guilty (sleeping with his brother) to the unconscionable (his lust for his daughters) The poetry in Akhenaten is very plain-spoken -- effectively so, but also disturbing. Overall, it makes for n interesting take on a historical figure. - M.A.Orthofer, 27 January 2020 - Return to top of the page - Akhenaten:
- Return to top of the page - Australian author Dorothy Porter lived 1954 to 2008. - Return to top of the page -
© 2020-2021 the complete review
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