Translators who simply translate from language to language often produce rather jarring versions that do no honor to the original author; one senses the off-key notes, the apparently missed nuances of meaning, the grating word choices that do not feel right. Better translators are highly in touch with the original's language and are capable of immersing themselves accurately in the culture, the milieu, the feelings and thoughts of the author. But the best translators are also gifted writers in their own right with the capacity to breathe life into a translation, to convey its heart, its original power, and its literary beauty. Normandi Ellis is one of those rare, gifted translators, and it seems she has given this Egyptian masterwork the translation it has so long deserved.
She has channeled through her own heart the original texts' emotion, its sensitivity, its ability to take us deep into the heart of being alive and shake from us for a time our habituated thought processes. Her translation conveys so well the original writers' insight and concision - their ability to express their lives with the delicate accuracy of the scalpel and the power of the sledgehammer. I find myself deeply affected by the focused beauty of their poetry... its tactile sense of the physical, its phrasing, its fire, its awareness... the thoughts, images, and metaphors are at times so profound I cannot shake them from my mind. Nor would I want to.
Finally readers of English can feel the beating heart of Egypt, embrace and cherish the Egyptians' uniquely beautiful rendering of what we also know our lives to be. The Egyptian soul is the soul of us all - and Awakening Osiris is a gift because this writer has been able to convey those sensory images chosen from lives lived fully... the profound understandings and metaphors derived from lives considered deeply... joys, griefs, beauties, reactions, realizations, all expressed so simply and symbolically... This book has gripped my heart, lifted me into a surprisingly deep sense of unity with the Egyptian heart, and even carried me up onto new pinnacles of insight. This is rare; it is golden.
Awakening Osiris is so deep, so wise, so beautiful and moving, I already keep it by and hold it dear. It is one of two books I would now grab (the other being Fool's Crow: Wisdom and Power) were fire to approach. I find it uniquely profound and all the more powerful for its memorable symbolic phrasing. The words and images are so beautiful and so deep they can arrest my habitual thinking and rivet me uncharacteristically for long moments of appreciation and remembrances of my own. How rare! And how amazing, to find so much of my own heart expressed by writers living perhaps 3000 years ago.
Not knowing your nature or where you are in your life journey, I do not presume to know how you yourself will perceive the book. I can only share my experience. So as with all things involving opinion I add that perpetual caveat: Your mileage may vary.
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Awakening Osiris: The Spiritual Keys to the Egyptian Book of the Dead
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Top reviews from the United States
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Normandi Ellis Resurrects The Soul of Egypt: Its Deep Wisdom, Fire, Sensitivity, and Profound Beauty
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 28, 2013Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 13, 2012
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 10, 2023
Top reviews from other countries
L13
Possibly the most important book I have ever read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 7, 2023DavidRobert73
Beautiful poetic prose rendering of the Egyptian Book Of The Dead
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 14, 2015
D. Thompson
"take time to be silent in the Temple of the world"
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 5, 2017
