Moses : Prince of Egypt

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Novel
Review: How might a boy raised as a prince in the palace of Ramses II become the Moses who led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt? That is the question addressed by Howard Fast in this extraordinarily rich novelization of Moses' early life. The answer is through patient nurturing and love from friends and through hard personal lessons learned from adventure, love, loss, hate and war.

Being the great writer he is, Mr. Fast make the friends of Moses' youth - his mother, a priest, a builder, an old soldier, a doctor, and a great Egyptian general - real people, each with his or her own strengths, weaknesses and ambitions. These are people who themselves have been shaped by the struggle to survive in the imperial court of Ramses - and often by unfulfilled hopes which almost died upon the death of a previous Egyptian Pharaoh. That Pharaoh was the historical heretic Akh-en-ton, who had tried to overthrow the old polytheistic Egyptian religion that focused on death and afterlife, and replace it with a simpler religion worshiping one God who honored life and knowledge. Many of his friends - who are not all without selfishness - see Moses both as a possible successor to Ramses and a restorer of the wise rule of Akh-en-ton.

And again, because this a Howard Fast novel, the adversaries the young Moses must deal with are themselves complex people, each compelled to act out their own mixture of ambitions, strengths, fears and weaknesses. At the head of the list is the great Ramses himself, who can order the death of anyone and has wives and children without number, but in fact both fears Moses and wants his friendship. A man who Moses recognizes as "the loneliest man in Egypt."

In the background is a vivid evocation of ancient Egyptian life, from the hushed throne room of Ramses, to the harsh and beautiful desert facing an Egyptian army marching along the upper Nile on a expedition to the land of Kush, to the pitiful homes of the enslaved Bedouins, the Children of Israel, in the Land of Goshen, in the Nile delta.

I strongly recommend this novel to anyone. Certainly this is not the way Moses grew up, but some similar remarkable happenings must have made the man we are told about in the Bible

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Novel
Review: How might a boy raised as a prince in the palace of Ramses II become the Moses who led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt? That is the question addressed by Howard Fast in this extraordinarily rich novelization of Moses' early life. The answer is through patient nurturing and love from friends and through hard personal lessons learned from adventure, love, loss, hate and war.

Being the great writer he is, Mr. Fast make the friends of Moses' youth - his mother, a priest, a builder, an old soldier, a doctor, and a great Egyptian general - real people, each with his or her own strengths, weaknesses and ambitions. These are people who themselves have been shaped by the struggle to survive in the imperial court of Ramses - and often by unfulfilled hopes which almost died upon the death of a previous Egyptian Pharaoh. That Pharaoh was the historical heretic Akh-en-ton, who had tried to overthrow the old polytheistic Egyptian religion that focused on death and afterlife, and replace it with a simpler religion worshiping one God who honored life and knowledge. Many of his friends - who are not all without selfishness - see Moses both as a possible successor to Ramses and a restorer of the wise rule of Akh-en-ton.

And again, because this a Howard Fast novel, the adversaries the young Moses must deal with are themselves complex people, each compelled to act out their own mixture of ambitions, strengths, fears and weaknesses. At the head of the list is the great Ramses himself, who can order the death of anyone and has wives and children without number, but in fact both fears Moses and wants his friendship. A man who Moses recognizes as "the loneliest man in Egypt."

In the background is a vivid evocation of ancient Egyptian life, from the hushed throne room of Ramses, to the harsh and beautiful desert facing an Egyptian army marching along the upper Nile on a expedition to the land of Kush, to the pitiful homes of the enslaved Bedouins, the Children of Israel, in the Land of Goshen, in the Nile delta.

I strongly recommend this novel to anyone. Certainly this is not the way Moses grew up, but some similar remarkable happenings must have made the man we are told about in the Bible

Rating:
Summary: what a suprise!
Review: I had assumed Fast was just one of those historical novelists with no prose style or imagination. In fact he writes a good deal better than Upton Sinclair here, (although he is also rather often somewhat worse). This novel is so little known and yet is better than 'Frontier' or 'The American', or really any of the more popular. This is a novel you should read. You could compare it to Orwell without being silly.

Rating:
Summary: Magnifficent Epic marred by one major flaw
Review: This work by Howard Fast tries to present the early life of Moses, growing up in the palace of the Royal House of Ancient Egypt.

It is certainly a magnificently written work. The setting and people are vividly brought to life, and Howard Fast shows an extensive and imaginative understanding of Ancient Egypt.

The sights and sound, the smells and passions jump out from the page, and it is hard to put down. From the Great House of Pharaoh Ramses II to the slave pens international bazaar of the Egyptian capital, where slaves where sold from every corner of the known world, and deep into the heart of Kush (Sudan) and Ethiopia, this is a rich and richly sensuous novel.

And yet there where parts which I found extremely aggravating. It seems Fast has some sort of agenda to deny the existence of the Hebrew people as a distinct nation in Egypt, and his departure not only from Biblical accounts and from the works of Jewish historians like Josephus, but also of Egyptian and accounts of other ancient peoples, go's beyond artistic license. Where does Howard Fast get his facts on the early history of the Hebrew people in Goshen? He does not refer to them as Hebrews or Israelites but as Bedouins, amongst whom he narrates there was clan known as the Levites.

He completely ignores the other 11 tribes of Israel, and also ignores some basic facts, corroborated by non-Hebrew ancient sources, that the Hebrew where a deeply monotheistic people, worshiping the G-D, Yahweh. He is completely off the rails asserting that Moses' people worshipped a snake god called Nehushtan, and that Moses was put in the river as a sacrifice to this entity, Nehushtan. He even writes of the Hebrew boys as being uncircumcised.
I don't know why he negates Hebrew national consciousness and worship of Yahweh, in the Egyptian exile.
Because if he had not done so, it would have in no way taken away from the rhythm or narrative of the novel. And this is not a matter of artistic license. Very annoying to say the least.
Ignoring the fact that Moses was always from birth in touch with his real Jewish family is forgivable. Obscuring the history of the Hebrew people is not.

And yet, there are definitely some intriguing and inspiring elements in this novel. Moses, as a commander in the Egyptian army, sickens of the genocide perpetrated by the Egyptians against the Black tribesman of Irgebayn Southern Kush (Sudan) , which is chillingly similar to the holocaust today carried out by the Arab Moslems against the Black Christians and Animists of Southern Sudan.
Colour is added to the novel by the wisdom of the Ethiopian witchdoctor Doogana, and the love that Moses learns for his people is beautiful to read (Even if Howard Fast has somewhat misread the nature of the early Nation of Israel, and their deep routed faith in the one and only G-D).
We read of the little Israelite children gathering about Moses, which beautifully complements the saga of Moses and Israel. Now look at such beautiful and compassionate righting which really brings the saga of Moses and of Israel to life as it must have been: " They came to an old well with a few palm trees growing around it, and there they paused to rest and shelter a moment from the heat of the sun. Three naked children, very small and thin, perhaps six or seven years of age, played in the sun , and they looked up and saw Nun before they saw the man behind him. He spoke to them in the tongue of the Levites, and their eyes widened, fixed upon the silver bracelets that circled each arm above the elbow. They did not reply, but stared at him wide-eyed and immobile, as children do when curiosity struggles against timidity. Then they saw behind him the tall figure of Moses, the clean -shaven face and the neck length cropped hair, and their curiosity turned to panic as they fled, whimpering and running as fast as their skinny little legs could carry them...Skinny and scabious they where, but also beautiful, with their long brown eyes, and silken black hair "
What beautiful writing!
I also liked the way the incident where Moses killed the Egyptian slavemaster (who beat the Hebrew slave).
If Fast hadn't have partly spoiled the novel with silly and baseless theory about origins of the Israelites, Moses Prince of Egypt would have been one of the very best pieces of literature ever.