The Twice Born

Does Pauline Gedge listen to Nile? She might well like the lyrical content, if not the aural delivery. The Twice Born is all about ancient Egypt. This is my first Gedge book and it is very good in its recounting of the minutiae of ancient Egypt. Now, I’m the average sort of aficionado of Egyptology. I know about Howard Carter, Nefertiti, Rameses, the Sphinx and all that other arcana. Gedge is an Egyptophile from another dimension. In her books, you can smell the flowers, even if you can’t pronounce their names. You can hear the voices, even if you can’t understand their tongue.

In this book, the first of a trilogy (a posteriori knowledge to yours truly), the protagonist Huy is the son of a peasant who gets that luckiest of breaks: an education in one of the better schools in the land. The education is overtly religious, of course, but there’s no getting around that in any ancient culture. Huy is a quick learner, until an unfortunate run-in with a snobbish noble’s son leaves him unconscious and presumed dead for five days. While awaiting ritual dismemberment in the morgue, he meets the mighty Atum and Anubis and several other deities in the Egyptian pantheon. It is his lower class that saves him in the morgue, relegating him to the end of the queue and giving him time to awake from his unfortunate coma. Of course, he is treated with suspicion on coming to, and has the titular eponym bestowed on him.

The gods do not return the dead to life lightly, and much is asked of Huy after his figurative rebirth. He is forced to remain celibate, while Atum plans his destiny. Predictably, Huy rebels but doesn’t get very far. After all, these aren’t weak, modern gods with a penchant for forgiveness but older, pagan gods who very much believe in sparing the rod and spoiling the child. Huy returns to the fold and is appointed the Seer to the King. Such talent may not be wasted on the common folk, after all. The book ends here and picks up in the second part, I assume. That review to follow shortly, after I read it.

ISBN: 978-0-14-305291-3