The Mummy

Or, Ramses the Damned... sexy, that is!



Broom_Service recommended this book to me, and I'm really happy she did. I enjoyed it; but at the same time, I feel totally dissatisfied with the ending and as if I never connected with the characters.

I've read Anne Rice before (you know how I love the books about the vampires), but I didn't like her. Her world view is extremely... how do I put it... depressing. It's like her books want to be about good and evil and life after death, but she doesn't really believe in any of those things, so it doesn't work out. And by the way, I did think that about her writing long before I knew she was an atheist (back when she was an atheist... she changed her mind, didn't she?).

The book begins with a Howard Carter-like discovery in Egypt. Lawrence Stratford, a wealthy English businessman and amateur archaeologist, has made a brilliant discovery: an intact tomb from the time of Cleopatra. Only, the writing on the tomb is from the time of Ramses II and, as Lawrence finds out when he opens it up, it's not a tomb. Instead, it appears to be a study with scrolls containing the autobiography of Ramses the Great, telling of how he fell in love with Cleopatra about 1000 after he should have been dead.

Oh, and the tomb/study also contains the mummy of Ramses II.

Except, just like the tomb, the mummy isn't a really a mummy. As Ramses writes in the scrolls, he took an elixir to make himself immortal. After centuries of wandering all over the ancient world, Ramses decided to put himself into an endless sleep, from which a ruler of Egypt could awaken him if they needed his help. Cleopatra woke him, they fell in love, and you probably know how the rest of Cleopatra's story worked out. Broken-hearted by her death and her refusal to become immortal, Ramses put himself into another sleep, from which he planned never to awaken.

Lawrence is not as incredulous of this story as one might think. But before he can investigate further, he's murdered. The not-a-mummy is shipped back to England and placed in the possession of his daughter, Julie. Struck by sunlight, Ramses awakens, just in time to save Julie from being killed by the same person who killed her father. Naturally, Julie is shocked; but by the end of the day she's head-over-heels in love with Ramses. OF COURSE SHE IS. He's handsome, charismatic, he saved her life, and he's probably the only lusty heterosexual male she's ever encountered (seriously, there seems to be a surplus of bisexual men in her life, which is kinda weird, and the one who's not bisexual--that we know of--is sort of a push-over).

Meeeeanwhile, Ramses is in love with Julie, too. Hmm, am I sensing a pattern here? He wakes up, gloms onto the first woman he sees, and pretty soon he's in lurv! Whatever. That doesn't mean he's over his ex, Cleopatra, though. So when Julie and Ramses decide they need to go to Egypt so he can put his past to rest, you can already guess what's going to happen: somehow, some way, Ramses is going to come across Cleopatra's mummy and bring her to life with his elixir of immortality. And yes, he did make more even though he knows it is bad news.

Well, that is exactly what happens, kids! Ramses sees Cleopatra in the Cairo Museum and brings her un-rotting corpse back to rotting state, and consciousness, with his elixir. This is when the book really starts to get interesting. Horrified by what he has done, Ramses backs away from the walking mummy, and then is arrested by museum guards. Like Dr. Frankenstein, Ramses has created life with something that doesn't know its own strengths and is not prepared to handle the real world. Cleopatra, who is the real mummy of the story, immediately starts killing people.

There are several themes running through the book, one of which is the idea of modernity. This is the Edwardian era, well after the start of the Industrial Revolution, and both Cleopatra and Ramses are shocked and disoriented by the noise and speed of the modern world--Ramses pleasantly, Cleopatra not so much. The characters are constantly talking about "modernity," the modern world, etc. I think this is because the elixir is a metaphor for modernity or technology. Ramses has possibly the greatest technological advance of all time--something that can be produced cheaply and easily, with common ingredients, make anything indestructable, and bring people back from the dead. Even though he knows from experience that the elixir is not merely dangerous but "is the secret to the end of the world itself [p. 152]," he cannot stop experimenting with it. Even though he knows what he's doing is horrible and morally reprehensible, he can't stop himself from taking the next step in seeing whether or not it will bring a 1,000-years-dead corpse back to life. And he can't stop producing the stuff because the knowledge is in his head. That's his only excuse--he knows it, and he can't unknow it. The same might be said of modern technology, from the Victorians to today; technology keeps advancing, even though what it's capable of becomes more and more dangerous. Once the technology has been created, there're no re-do's--it's out there, and people are going to use it. Ramses is damned not because he's immortal, but because he's incapable of learning from his mistakes. Oh, he may gain some impulse control for a while, but pretty soon his memory starts to fade and then there he is, pouring the elixir on plants again; in that sense, Ramses is a metaphor for all of humanity.

Another motif running through the book is the opera, Aïda. Both Ramses and Cleopatra are totally obsessed with listening to the opera on their amazing new gramophones; and a performance of the opera at Shepherd's Hotel ("the hotel") provides the scene for the climax of the book. The opera is about an Ancient Egyptian commander, Radames, who falls in love with an Ethopian princess named Aïda (an Arabic name meaning "visitor" or "returning," according to Wikipedia). Unfortunately for him, the pharoh's daughter, Amneris, is also in love with Radames and she doesn't take well to being rejected. To put it lightly. Eventually, Radames is convicted of being a traitor and sentenced to be buried alived. Aïda locks herself up in the tomb with Radames, chosing to die with her beloved, while Amneris simply stands outside the tomb and cries.

It's no wonder Ramses and Cleopatra love this opera so much, because it basically tells the story of their relationship in Ancient Egypt. I know you're thinking Ramses is Radames in this metaphor, but he's not--he's Amneris. He loved Cleopatra more than she could ever love him, and in the end she chose to die with Mark Anthony rather than face eternity (or any length of time, for that matter) with Ramses.

As I mentioned before, I did not like the end of this book. Even though the actions of the characters make sense if my theory that the elixir as a metaphor for modern technology is correct, I felt like there were a lot of questions and issues left hanging. There wasn't much of an emotional resolution to the story at all, and the only character who got shafted was Julie's ex-fiance, Alex, who in all honesty was the only character who didn't deserve it. The others walked away from their actions with little to no consequences. I can understand the impulse not to moralize, but I feel cheated that Rice didn't give me something to frame the story into a wider context. Give it meaning, if you will.

Despite that, however, I did really enjoy the book as a whole. It was entertaining and fun to read (although I wouldn't call it scary), and would recommend it to just about anyone.

Technorati Tags: the mummy, ramses the damned, ramses II, ramses the great, ramses, egypt, ancient egypt, anne rice, cleopatra, mark anthony, howard carter, modernity, technology, frankenstein, aida

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Bookish Ruth: Book Giveaway: Drood by Dan Simmons

Bookish Ruth: Book Giveaway: Drood by Dan Simmons#comment-form#comment-form#comment-form#comment-form

The Best Books Remain Unread

A question from Booking Through Thursday:

We've all seen the lists, we've all thought, "I should really read that someday," but for all of us, there are still books on "The List" that we haven't actually gotten around to reading. Even though we know they're fabulous. Even though we know that we'll like them. Or that we'll learn from them. Or just that they're supposed to be worthy. We just … haven't gotten around to them yet.

What's the best book that YOU haven't read yet?

I suppose everyone has books they feel they should read, for whatever reason; but there are always newer, funner books out there to read, so they never get to it. In all honesty, I usually don't feel the pressure to read a certain book… except for these books:

Byron, Don Juan

I bought this book at Barnes & Noble… one of my more foolish purchases. I had just read a great romance novel (Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase) where this book played a major role, and I read a snippet and it seemed funny. Haha, not so much. Now I feel like I have to read the thing. Uhg.

Tanith Lee, Faces Under Water

Do you have a book lying around that you always take on vacation, thinking to yourself, "Surely, deprived of any other form of entertainment and absolutely desperate from boredom, I will read this novel"? But then you never read it because you do somehow manage to find something else to do (stare out the window) or read—the newspaper, for example. Or the map.

This book has accompanied me all over the US and Europe. No joke. It's been to Venice twice; it should have its own passport. I didn't take it on our last vacation, though, because I finally admitted to myself that I'm simply not going to start reading it on vacation.

It's not a bad book. The author, Tanith Lee, is a great science fiction writer that I've read several times before and really liked. My favorite book of hers is The Silver Metal Lover. I did manage to start this book, and it was actually pretty good. It's about a guy in a Venice-like setting who finds a dead body in the canal. I just had no idea what was going on, and I could tell it was going to be one of those books where I would have no idea what was going on most of the time. *sigh* I don't know, maybe it's just too smart for me.

I really need to read this book. Someday.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

I know so many people who have read this series and loved it—my mother and little brother, just to start off with. I really should try to read it again. I did try once a few years ago, but the last thing I need in my life is a sixty-page treatise on hobbits. Where are the swords? Where's Viggo Mortensen? Hobbits are not sexy. Anyway, I got bored and said, "Nope, not going to go there," but there are times when I think I might be missing something.

Bookish Survey

Book Corner Wednesday | buckeyegirl31's Xanga Site - Weblog

What can I say... I really, really like books. I can't stop talking about them. So I love pointless quizes about what I love about books! Buckeyegirl31 pointed me to Booking Through Thursday (which, from what I've seen so far, looks like a really great website for you bibliophiles) and their book survey.

Hardcover? Or paperback?

Paperbacks are cheaper and much easier to carry around, so I prefer paperbacks. That being said, if I really like a book, I'll generally spend the money to re-buy it in hardcover.

Illustrations? Or just text?

Ha. Illustrations are way too distracting for me. When a book has illustrations, I spend most of my time staring at them and not reading. So I suppose I would prefer a book without illustrations… unless it's an art history book we're talking about, then I want as many illustrations as humanly possible.

First editions? Or you don't care?

This kind of thing isn't really on my radar, although I do really love old books. But I can look at them in a library. lol ;-)

Signed by the author? Or not?

Oooh, I love getting books signed by authors! It doesn't happen very often because, you know, I live in the middle of nowheres; but talking to writers is fun.

The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter—a Review

I had this book hidden in my TBR for the longest time… a year, at least. Then Buckeyegirl31 reminded me that I had it when she did a review of it… um, a while ago. What can I say, I get caught up in things. Anyway, I decided I needed to dig it out and give it a try, since she and several others had told me they liked it.

The Lords of the Underworld (as they're called) are a group of warriors who used to protect Zeus. Then Zeus let Pandora take care of his most prized possession, a box made out of bones that contained all the demons meant to torment humanity. This pissed the Lords of the Underworld off because they thought they should be able to guard the box; so they hatched a half-assed plan to steal the box from Pandora and let the demons loose—just for a little bit, just so Zeus learned his lesson that he shouldn't trust anyone but them with such an important task. Predictably, this plan went horribly awry, and the demons all escaped before the Lords could capture them. To punish them, Zeus cursed them to have one of the demons trapped inside their bodies for all eternity.

Maddox, the main character of the first book the series, The Darkest Night, is doubly cursed: while under the influence of his demon, Violence, he killed Pandora. So now every night, he dies exactly as she did, with six stab wounds to his stomach, and then spends the rest of the night being tortured in hell.

Then Ashley walks into his life. Ashley is a psychic who can hear every conversation that went on in any specific spot. She's constantly bombarded by other people's words and thoughts, and she hates it. Searching for some way to stop the voices, she finds herself in Budapest, climbing up the hill up to the Lords' fortress.

The Lords are very suspicious of Ashley because they think she's Bait, a female seductress used by Hunters (human baddies who want to rid the world of all evil, re: the Lords of the Underworld) to lure the Lords out into the open and kill them. However, as soon as she and Maddox meet, she stops hearing voices. Relief at last! So she gloms onto him like a barnacle and refuses to let go. Also she thinks he's kinda cute, in a "GRR MAN ANGRY," sort of way.

Meanwhile, there's a bunch of other stuff happening. There's been a coup d'état on Mt. Olympus and the Titans have retaken control from the Olympian gods. They've ordered another one of the Lords, Aeron (possessed of the demon Wrath) to kill a young woman and her family. He doesn't want to do it (because underneath their demonic rages, they're really just nice guys, dontcha know), but he knows that the Titans are going to force it on him. Of course, one of the other Lords starts crushing on one of Aeron's future victims; and with Hunters running about Budapest like it's the party capital of Europe, the Lords are moving from one crisis to the next.

But who really cares about that. We care about Maddox (whom I keep wanting to call Maddie, for some reason) and Ashley! How will they ever have a future if Maddox can't control the beasty inside him that wants to smash things, like people's faces? Will Ashley be able to tame the beast?? OH I THINK SHE WILL.

In all honesty, I didn't like this book as much as buckeyegirl31 did, although it was really fun and a quick read. The beginning was sort of slow because it was inundated with a lot of back story that could (and should) have been revealed gradually over the course of the opening scene. The beginning also felt really derivative to me, of both the Dark Hunter series by Sherrilyn Kenyon, and the "Dark" series by Christine Feehan, although the book went in its own direction early on.

There are also some inconsistencies in the narrative and world-building. In one scene, for example, Maddox says he won't die if he touches Tornin (possessed by Disease), but that the next human he touched would die. Then later he says he can touch a human who's been infected by Disease, but if he touches Tornin he'll die. Okay?

But now I'm getting nitpicky. Overall, this book is just fun and silly. It's obviously derived from the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast (even Maddox calls Ashley "Beauty"), and there are a lot of references to fairy tales in the book, which is always fun. I like Beauty and the Beast stories. The romance between Maddox and Ashley is very sweet, even though it's one of those Romancelandia relationships where he looks at her once and immediately wants to bang her. All the other Lords look like promising subjects for torture-by-womankind in their own books as the series progresses, and the non-romantic part of the plotline was pretty much non-stop action.

In all honesty, I'm confused as to why I didn't like this book moar. It's exactly the type of book I usually really enjoy, but for some reason I wasn't really feeling it. At some point (3 AM last night), a part of me concluded that I pretty much knew what was going to happen. Actually, that part of me was proved wrong, but I still feel kind of borderline about the book. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood or something.

Anyway, I guess my point is, if you like these kinds of books, you should try the Lords of the Underworld. You'll probably enjoy it a lot more than I did.

The Vampire Diaries

The Vampire Diaries is a YA trilogy released many years ago, when I was twelve (yes, I was twelve once… a terrible year, fyi). My mom got the first book for me because she knows I love the tales of blood-sucking creatures of darkness.

I looooved
The Vampire Diaries! I seriously thought I was going to die when the bookstore didn't get the second volume in on the day they said they would. After the last book was released, I re-read the whole series five times just in that year. I still re-read it sometimes, and while my reactions to the characters varies depending on what mood I'm in, and I occasionally even notice new things, I always fall completely into the world of the books and can't put them down. To me they have definitely withstood the test of time. I know the big "teen vampire romance" these days is Twilight, and I really like Twilight, too—but to me The Vampire Diaries is grounded in more solid mythology, has a much richer plot, and the love triangle is intense.

The Vampire Diaries is about a high school senior named Elena, who is the prettiest and most popular girl at her school in Fell's Church, Virginia. Every guy wants to date her (as she knows from experience), and every girl wants to be her. Elena is pretty sure she can get anything she wants, and on the first day of her senior year, she sees something she definitely wants: Stefan Salvatore, the sexy new foreign exchange student from Italy, pulling up in his sah-weet Lamborghini. Tall, dark, handsome, and rich: ka-ching. To Elena's utter shock, however, he doesn't instantly become her panting, drooling sex slave as soon as she bats her heavily-lashed eyes at him. Hrm, what to do? First, she breaks up with her current bf, Matt, the captain of the football team. Then she hatches several schemes to make Stefan realize he's madly in love with her, all of which fail epically. What is up with that guy… and why doesn't he lunch? The questions mount.

Meanwhile, Elena and her friends, Bonnie and Meredith (and Caroline, who's more of a frenemy, and also trying to go out with Stefan on the DL), need to keep doing things like cheering and heading up the Homecoming committee, and all that other stuff that popular girls do in movies. While they're doing all this, Elena starts to notice there's something weird going on in Fell's Church—and that there's a mysterious stranger who keeps hanging around and staring hungrily at her neck (haha, he doesn't really do that… well, maybe). This mysterious stranger's visits are usually followed by the discovery of bodies in the Old Wood on the edge of town, mauled by some unknown animal.

Well, I don't want to give too much of the series away, but in the first book, Elena eventually convinces Stefan to go out with her. Then she discovers he's a 500-year-old vampire, and they have metaphorical sex. (Kids, I just want you to know—it's okay to have metaphorical sex.) But things become complicated for our noble hero and feisty heroine: it turns out that the mysterious stranger is Stefan's brother, Damon, who's been out to get Stefan ever since they killed each other in Renaissance Italy. Unlike Stefan, who's noble and self-sacrificing and never, ever drinks blood from humans (except, of course, in cases of metaphorical sex), Damon loves being a vampire, having Power, and drinking human blood. He's a bad boy, in other words.

In the second book, Elena and Stefan spend a lot of time trying to stop Damon from doing the evil deeds he does and causing trouble. However, the more time Elena spends with Damon, the more she thinks he's not so bad after all. Does this have anything to do with the fact that he's handsome and sucking the blood from her? Hmmmmm….

Then Elena drives too fast over a bridge, crashes into the river, and drowns. Fortunately, she's been drinking the blood of two vampires; so instead of dying, she rises again as one of the undead.

The third book is mainly about Elena realizing she has a second chance at life (so to speak), and that she should use it to make peace with her friends and family, and herself. While she's in soul search mode, the baddies are still running around Fell's Church. Elena and her friends finally realize that Damon isn't responsible for some—well, most—of the weird things that have been happening. Bonnie (who decided she was a witch in book two) goes into a trance state where Elena and Meredith can communicated with Honoria Bell, one of the founders of Fell's Church. It turns out the town has a looooong history of strange things going on in it; Honoria herself was a witch, and a few of the other founders were also pretty sketchy. With her help, Elena, Stefan, and Damon are able to find the source of the malignant power that killed Elena. In the final battle, Elena sacrifices herself to save Damon and Stefan. The brothers, uneasily reconciled, leave Fell's Church.

Then there's the fourth book. Fourth book, you say? I know, I said it was a trilogy; but the fourth book is so bad, I try to pretend it doesn't exist. In it, Stefan and Damon are called back to Fell's Church because there is yet another baddie on the premises that demands to be vanquished. Elena communicates sporadically from beyond the grave, and then at the very end is returned to her human form for no logical or narrative reason, thus recounting (in my mind, anyway) all the good she did dying in the first place. Stay dead, damn you!

About four weeks ago, the fifth book in the series was released, The Return: Nightfall. It's been 17-ish years since The Vampire Diaries were first published, and nearly ten years since L. J. Smith has published anything. In all honesty, especially after book four and reading one of her new short stories, my expectations were kind of low. The new book wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it did have significant problems.

In one of her sporadic letters to rabid fans over the last ten years (and she does have a lot of them, trust me—or just check out the reviews for some of her older books on Amazon), L. J. Smith stated that she wanted to rewrite The Vampire Diaries, but in the way she originally envisioned the series and not the way she was pressured to write it by the publishing company. I think this explains a lot about The Return: Nightfall. Although the story takes off where book four ended, it feels as if Smith has hit the reset button on the development of all the characters. The brothers are back to hating on one another, Elena's friends are back to hating Damon (poor Damon), and Matt is back to crushing on Elena. It really is as if Smith has started the series over again, only she didn't have the guts to completely rewrite it, so she kept the narrative elements continuous.

There are other strange inconsistencies in the book—technology, for one. Even though the narrative takes off from book four (c. 1992), the kids have laptops and cell phones. But they don't use the technology in a logical way. For example, when Matt, Meredith, and Bonnie are trapped in a car and being attacked by a tree (killer trees! noooooo!), Bonnie tries to communicate telepathically with Damon and Stefan to save them. Um, why didn't she just text them for help? "Attakd by treez pls help! bonnie." Much simpler. Also, there are Japanese spirits (I'm thinking oni) running around Fell's Church now. How did Japanese demons get to Virginia, one wonders? If I know anything about Shintoism, they should really be sticking to the Japanese islands.

Anyway, these things don't really bother me. The main thing is that the plot is way too meandery. The pacing is jarring and the events that befall the characters don't seem to have a point within the context of a larger storyline. I just don't have the patience to deal with that. But in all honesty, I think this book is much more successful at reviving the series than The Laughter of Dead Kings by Elizabeth Peters, which came out a few months ago and was also meant to be the next installment in a long-standing series, the last volume of which came out in 1993. That book felt anachronistic in the extreme, and the characters were just flat. Even though the characters of The Vampire Diaries had regressed in The Return: Nightfall, I still recognized them as the characters; and the book didn't feel out of place and time, just in need of more consistent editing. So even though this book was a dud, I haven't given up on Smith yet.