Customer Reviews

Pharaoh (Kleopatra, Volume II)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

PHARAOH is, in a word, breathtaking. In more than a word: barbaric, sensual, entrancing, romantic, tender and cruel, with a lusty cast of characters. Karen Essex presents her vision of the great queen of Egypt in this captivating novel rich in detail and, if anything, filled with more historical minutiae than the first volume, KLEOPATRA. It is a kaleidoscope of Roman and Greek trivia.

With a familiar cast of characters, including Cicero, Cato, Octavian, and of course, Marcus Brutus, comes a fresh slant on this timeless tragedy. Kleopatra is not painted as the philandering vixen of the movies. Her fabled charms surface in small ways throughout the story, but Ms. Essex focuses on Kleoptra's political cunning and war tactics in her efforts to forestall takeover by the greedy Roman empire.

PHARAOH continues the mystique of KLEOPATRA, published last year. It begins in the 20th year of Kleopatra's reign as she is trying to rejuvenate a listless Marc Antony. Within a few pages, we are back in the third year of her reign. We join her at age 22 as she returns from exile, devising a clever ploy to evade her brother's army and seduce her way into an alliance with the great Julius Caesar. The book tells her life story from then on and only occasionally do we get a sense of foreboding in the chapters that jump ahead to the 21st year of her rule.

I won't bore you with a synopsis of the plot, for the story has been told many times. We all know of the betrayal of Caesar and the disastrous end Antony and Kleopatra came to. Yet Ms. Essex managed to grip and hold onto my attention from the very first page.

The author's ability to mesmerize her audience is showcased in myriad scenes, one of the best being Ceasar's murder. She personalized it for me by putting me right there beside him in the Senate, facing his assassins. The scene is not shortened in an effort to spare the bloody gruesomeness. Each blow of the dagger brought an empathic sort of pain. Caesar's thoughts as he lay dying --- imagined, by necessity --- ran through my head, leaving behind seeds of ideas and philosophical musings to mull over later.

But Kleopatra's horror at the realization of her predicament snapped me out of the reverie created by Caesar's joining with the gods. The serious position his death placed her in stole my attention and I could do nothing but read on, spellbound, anxious to see how the gods would favor her escape.

Sex pervades the story's atmosphere. This was an era when sex was used to further political strategies. But Kleopatra's best advice from her Prime Minister takes precedence more than once: "In matters of state, let your blood run cold." For a woman of her intense passion, this proves to be very difficult.

Although a highly engrossing read, I could not bring myself to move through the story with any speed, choosing instead to savor each of Ms. Essex's exquisite words. The last 30 pages or so took a couple hours to read, for the beauty of the writing mixed with the tragedy of the lovers' last days kept me running for Kleenex and tracing the keenly detailed events again and again.

...Reviewed by Kate Ayers

This is great second book in the Kleopatra series. Ms. Essex does a wonderful job bringing the thoughts, actions, and mystery of Kleopatra to life. The book begins with her concerns about Antony's depression and self-degredation after the battle at Actium. She well knows what brings him to life and has summoned the most beautiful harlots in the kingdom and rallies their support as though they were an army to bring him to his senses. Then the story jumps back to her beginnings with Caesar and jumps back to Antony again. The switch in story line is well placed and doesn't detract at all from the seamless flow of the book. A well written, in-depth story that keeps you turning pages and makes you feel like you are there experiencing it all along with each character. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is an arm-chair Egyptologist and enjoys the lives and tribulations of the ancients.

Ok, so I have to admit I kind of liked this one. After I had read the first in the series (KLEOPATRA), I didn't hope for much. I was pleasantly surprised. Even though it seems as if a lot of events were crammed into PHARAOH's modest size (perhaps Essex should have included more history and less far-fetched bunk in the inferior KLEOPATRA????), it works. Kleopatra's relationships are beautifully crafted and I will admit that I fell for Antony as well! I wish that Essex would have paid more attention to Kleopatra's role as a mother as well, because when the children do pop up, it seems a bit random. Also, I was angry that Kleopatra's loyal servant Iras was turned into a cross-dressing eunuch-- I found that a bit hard to believe. Although I still- and probably always will- favor Margaret George's incomparable MEMOIRS OF CLEOPATRA, Karen Essex's PHARAOH was powerful, moving, and fluid in its own right. Read both and learn something.

Kleopatra as a clever und highly intelligent Queen, who wanted to keep her country independent from the Roman Empire. The prose is beautiful and the well known story convincingly told. The historical trivia is entertaining and keeps to the well accepted facts. For the history and the research she deserves 5 stars.

However, from the point of a reader of historic novels, I feel somewhat disappointed. The reason I bought this book (and the prequel "Kleopatra") was not to get a precise biography of the late Roman Republic. For this you might as well read good biographies, like that by Michael Grant. A historical novel should contain a bit more fiction, a bit more speculation, and a bit of controversy, which may not be approved by the history professor next door, but fits into the storyline or is expected by the reader. Somehow I got bored in the middle of this sequel, since I knew the history well and was not offered something "new" to keep me hooked. Minus 1 star.

Another point irritated me. You notice through most parts of the book, that it is written by a female American writer. The book is a women's book for a female audience. In both volumes you get just about a hint of sexuality at the beginning as a teaser, the violence is modest, the characters sometimes very politically correct. I accept the author's intention to describe Kleopatra in a different way than the wanton seducer of all men around her. This is historically correct and not my point. But Kleopatra was not a woman following Christian moral in a Hellenistic time half a century before the birth of Christ. For a book dealing with a time period of war, conquest, male dominance and brutality the setting is simply to sterile and clean to be convincing. And Kleopatra could be transferred directly to modern day America, where she could apply for an office in your local church or charity. I got the impression the author (or the publisher) did not want to alienate mainstream female book club members, therefore Kleopatra was described as any woman's best girl friend. I understand that, but it costs another star from a male reader.

I read the first volume of this story years ago, so I thought it was time to tackle the second one. Of course I thought the second one was better, because the romance between Kleopatra and Antony is always the best part, along with their tragic demise. The author is descriptive and thorough in her writing, yet something was lacking for me which made it have a four star rating. My favorite book of all time is "The Memoirs of Cleopatra" by Margaret George, a very lengthy book that covers every aspect of the ancient queen's life. Because I was used to the story of Cleopatra from that tremendous author, I was a little upset that this novel skipped a year, even two of the queen's life in-between chapters. Though the novel had this empty space, I still found it enjoyable and was unable to put it aside during some parts. I will definitely read more from this author.

The book was a really great read and did its job as a historical fiction to take you to another time and place. I greatly enjoyed it but it really was not a good as the first...

BUT on its own, I would have probably given it a 4.5 star rating. However, as a sequel, it just didn't live up.

My wife and I both read and enjoyed Kleopatra, and wanted to read Pharaoh. Well, my wife wasn't able to finish it, but I stuck it out to see what happens. The writing isn't nearly as good as in Kleopatra. There is much better fiction about this period by Collen McCullough.

I will say that I was very dissapointed in this book. After reading "Kleopatra" (and before that "Leonardo's Swans"), I was excited to read yet another Karen Essex book. While I thought the first book, "Kleopatra," was well-written and captivated me from beginning to end, this book just didn't do it for me. I found it hard to plough through, and thought it definately is not as good as the first book written. Obviously, you should read this book if you read "Kleopatra" and would like to finish the story, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. This book was just OK for me.

The sequel to "Kleopatra" starts out entertaining enough, but it soon gets so bogged down by historical detail and retellings that it becomes difficult to get through it.

We see Kleopatra, newly restored to her throne, emerge as a powerful and intelligent figure. The first half of the book centers around her relationship with Ceaser, and I thought this was well done. Both characters are scripted in a captivating manner, and their dialogues and scenes together flow very easily. The reader is shown both a genuine warmth in their interaction and a subtle interplay of political maneuvering. From Kleopatra, we also see her struggle believably through the dilemna she now faces: how to appease Rome without becoming a subject kingdom.

The characters themselves are very likeable. The historical detail is, as with the previous novel, thorough and well-researched. In the first half of the novel, it serves as a nice complement to the plot and adds a rich backdrop with which to better understand the characters' motivations. Right up through the assassination of Ceaser, the pace of the novel is very fluid. It's after this point, however, that things begin to go downhill.

With Ceaser dead, Kleopatra is returned to dealing with her grief and her kingdom alone. She soon allies herself with Antony, who she admits early on she is extemely attracted to, and falls in love with him. Unfortunately the affection in their relationship seemed less believable to me than in her relationship with Ceaser. It was too rushed, and felt more dependent upon the sex between the two characters than anything else. It is also around this time that the author seems to start using history as a filler, rather than to add depth to the novel.

As the conflict between Octavian and Rome on the one hand and Antony and Kleopatra on the other escalates, the reader is bombarded with chapter after chapter of repetition: how Octavian has maligned Kleopatra in the eyes of the world, how Antony loses battle after battle as his men turn traitor. In the end, the poignancy and tragedy of the final days of Antony and Kleopatra's lives are marred by the excessive and rather boring details of the battles, which boils so far down as to discuss the armor the soldiers are wearing. While this can be useful in some cases, I found myself wanting to read more about the people who drove this book than about the historical facts. It was annoying, and I ended up skipping whole pages just to get to a scene that had any emotional weight at all. After all was said and done, I was not moved by the deaths of the characters and felt a little cheated by the entire build-up.

To sum up, this is still an enjoyable book, but be prepared to get bored when it counts.