Summary Of Akhenaten: Dweller In Truth

Akhenaten In Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth, Naguib Mahfouz writes about a young man named Meriamun, who seeks a true and accurate record of the events surrounding the exile and death of the “heretic pharaoh.” He accomplishes this by interviewing all of Akhenaten’s living contemporaries, friends, and political figures. The effect on the reader through this method is the reading of a story through fourteen different points of view. This type of narration almost makes the book a mystery novel, a who-done-it of truth. Shortly after reading the first couple of narratives I began to wonder how truthful the speakers were being, because Meriamun begins with the very people who isolated and fought against Akhenaten, yet they try their best to paint
To the average “peasant” the Pharaoh was a demigod, but to the various officers and political figures surrounding him he was no more than a man with power, and not even supreme power. This is immediately evident in the first narrative with the high priest of Amun, who from the very beginning (since Akhenaten was young) disdained the prince due to his physical appearance. As Akhenaten grew older and continued to stray from the required religious traditions the high priest had multiple meetings with Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye to chastise the prince’s upbringing, which displays the high priest’s view of the Pharaoh: not as an infallible demigod, but as merely a man who makes mistakes when raising his son. Likewise, this displays a “weakness” in the power of the Pharaoh; though he is king, he is still subject to the rule of Amun and the high priests. The various individuals Meriamun interviews themselves represent the different positions surrounding the Pharaoh: chief of police, general of the army, minister of the state, sculptor/architect, high priest (Amun and the One God), etc. Every narration includes brief descriptions of how they performed their duties, and in this manner Mahfouz gives the reader an idea of the day to day functions of the Egyptian
Very few of the individuals that Meriamun interviewed were guiltless enough to tell the blunt truth, and none of them told stories without any bias. An example of this is the story of Ay, where “the sage,” as he is known, consistently paints himself in an innocent and loyal light, but yet completely lacks the devotion and reverence held by others. Ay describes his faith in Akhenaten’s One God such that he “believed in the new God as a deity to be worshipped along with all the other deities.” Since Akhenaten described his deity as the One and Only God, this statement by Ay, though it sounds like he believed, actually means that he didn’t believe in Akhenaten’s God at all. Ay reveals at the end of his story that he “cannot deny the woes he (Akhenaten) brought upon the country. But I must admit I cannot rid my heart of his love, nor can I stop admiring him.” Reading deeply into Ay’s testimony the reader sees a very intelligent, but hard to grasp, political narrative. It is later that several other people that Meriamun interviews admit that Ay desired to have the throne after Akhenaten, one of these being Ay’s own daughter Nefertiti. Most every interview, with a few exceptions, has this treacherous element to it. Additionally, each narrator has something derisive or condemning to say about one or more of the other speakers. This backstabbing, power struggle is meant