Catching Up With a Favorite Author
Sat., October 18, 05:03 PM
Last month I wrote about Elizabeth Peters’ The Serpent on the Crown and how I was looking forward to the next book in the series, The Tomb of the Golden Bird. I was planning to look for it on the bookmobile but, to my great surprise, a copy arrived in the mail just a few days later. I am torn between wanting to thank my friend publicly — it was so very sweet of her — and not wanting to announce her generosity, making other people expect gifts as well. You know that our buddies are wonderful!
I must have been reading the Amelia Peabody books for nearly thirty years. In the first book I read, young Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson were still archaeological rivals; it wasn’t until later that she became Mrs. Emerson!
In this, the eighteenth novel, they are not only parents but grandparents, still living mainly in Luxor in Egypt and part of the community of professional excavators. I think this is the first book that had such a complete explanation of who all the characters were. I had suspicions of what would take place, as the appearance of Howard Carter — a real historical person — as well as the timeline, suggested that the tomb of Tutankhamun was soon to be found.
Now, most of what I know, or thought I knew, about the Boy King came from a play by Agatha Christie, of all people, whose husband was an archaeologist. (“Archaeologists make good husbands,” she said, “because the older you get, the more interested they are in you.”) Well, some things were not the same, and I went web-searching, only to find some really bad sources. What kind of foolishness is this, for example: “…King Tut’s tomb was a major discovery of the 19th century. It was discovered November 4, 1922.” Other sources turned me off because of misspellings and grammar errors.
Anyway, I was under the impression that Tutankhamun, originally named Tutankhaton, was the younger brother of Akhenaten, while other sources think he was the son of Akhenaten. However, between the strange marriages and relationships of ancient Egypt, and the customs of naming a child, he could have been both.
I was running to reference works and the computer a lot, because there was so much I didn’t know. Were those real people? I know Professor Breasted was, because I’ve handled his book. (Not read it, you understand, but I checked it out to other people a lot.) Gertrude Bell?? Kings before Farouk, whom I actually remember. What about all those little sub-plots — did they really take place? That was really fun.
So Professor Emerson had a falling out with Howard Carter, not to mention Lord Carnarvon. That meant that the Emerson family did not get to do any of the excavating, though they did get to see the treasure. Did anyone manage to steal anything before Carter got it catalogued? No one will ever know; there were all sorts of unsavory characters in the area.
The final chapter reminded me of Jo’s Boys, in which Louisa May Alcott tidied up all the loose ends and washed her hands of the March family forever. If you aren’t familiar with that, think of the epilogue in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Amelia used her self-proclaimed match-making skills to do the same thing. In other words, it seems that this series has come to an end.
It was a satisfactory ending, and yet I’m sad to think there will be no more, except… The children, and especially the grandchildren, are interesting enough to make a good series of their own. I’ll keep hoping.
