Customer Reviews

Egypt: The Eternal Smile : Reflections on a Journey

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I'm amazed to be the first reviewer of this marvelous coffee-table book, available to readers of every stripe for 27 years!

The Pulitzer Prize winning author (for Advise And Consent) and his distinguished photographer friend have teamed up to produce an informative, sensitive and eye-popping account of Egypt ancient and modern that, like Egypt itself, refuses to be an also-ran; it will deserve a place on an Egyptophile's shelf no matter how many flashy coffee table books turn up over the next few dynasties.

Concerning the title: the authors' metaphor for the Ka, or spiritual alter-ego, of Egypt is the smile nearly always present on the statues of the great and near-great throughout the ages.

Good times, bad times, the mind-numbing succesion of Dynasties certainly had their share -- but I'd be amiss to try and paraphrase the authors' astute and engaging appraisal of the enduring spirit of a culture so permanently identified with the timeless beneficence of a divine River and diviner-yet Sun.

The history has been told before, and many fine photos have depicted the major and second-tier wonders of the Two Lands (though with perhaps less attention to revealing details). But the sensibilities of both observers coalesce around their central motif to create a palpable sense of a near-mythic past that goes well beyond simple nostalgia.

The cover is golden yellow and glorious; the book is heavy, the pages thick and shiny; and the front and back endpapers display a closeup of the lower part of a royal face, carved in enduring pink granite, bearing a classically beautiful and enigmatic smile....