A God Against the Gods (42 page)

Akhenaten
(life, health, prosperity!)

We glide on through the magical night, chanting as we go. All we have left behind are forgotten: it is as though they had never been.

I have never known the world to be filled with such happiness, for I am with the One who understands and loves me, and we worship you, O Aten, as one body, one heart, one mind.

Now all things will at last come right for your son Akhenaten. His sad, unhappy days will end. Now Kemet and all will finally worship you, my Father Aten, and your son Akhenaten, whom you have directed in all things, to your greater glory, and to his.…

I smile at Smenkhkara and he smiles at me, strong and beautiful in the flaring torchlight as we speed over the swift dark river.

Together we will be happy and together we will make Kemet happy. I so decree it and it will be so:

For I am Akhenaten, he who has lived long, and I will live in truth forever and ever, for millions and millions of years.

October 1974–August 1975

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For Further Reading

Aldred, Cyril.
Akhenaten and Nefertiti.
New York: Brooklyn Museum and Viking Press, 1973.
Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt.
London: Abacus, Sphere Books Ltd., 1968.
Egypt: The Amarna Period and the End of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. II, Chapter XIX. Cambridge University Press, 1971.

Breasted, James H.
Ancient Records of Egypt,
Vol. 2;
The Eighteenth Dynasty.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906.
A History of Egypt.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.

Budge, E. A. Wallis.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead.
New York: Dover Publications, 1967.
The Mummy.
New York: Collier Books, 1972.

Carter, Michael.
Tutankhamun.
New York: David McKay Co., Inc., 1972.

Champollion, Jacques.
The World of the Egyptians.
Geneva: Editions Minerva, 1971.

Cottrell, Leonard.
The Lost Pharaohs.
London: Pan Books, 1956.

Desroches-Noblecourt, Christiane.
Tutankhamen.
London: Michael Joseph, Ltd., 1963.

Erman, Adolf.
The Ancient Egyptians: A Sourcebook of Their Writings.
New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1966.
Life in Ancient Egypt.
New York: Dover Publications, 1971.

Forman, Werner, and Kischewitz, Hannelore.
Egyptian Drawings.
London, New York: Octopus Books, 1972.

Frankfort, Henri.
Ancient Egyptian Religion.
New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Grayson, A. K., and Redford, Donald B.
Papyrus and Tablet.
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1973.

Harris, James E., and Weeks, Kent R.
X-Raying the Pharaohs.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973.

Hawkes, Jacquetta.
The First Great Civilizations.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1973.

Hayes, William C.
The Scepter of Egypt, Part II: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom.
New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1959.

James, T. G. H.
Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt.
New York: Bantam Books, 1972.

Johnson, Irving and Electa.
Yankee Sails the Nile.
New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1966.

Kaster, Joseph.
Wings of the Falcon.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.

Lons, Victoria.
Egyptian Mythology.
London: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1963.

Meade, N. F. Mansfield.
Egypt: A Compact Guide.
Luxor: Gaddis, 1973.

Mertz, Barbara.
Red Land, Black Land.
London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1966.

Murray, Margaret A.
The Splendor That Was Egypt.
New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1963.

Niebuhr, Carl.
The Tell el Amarna Period.
London: David Nutt, 1910.

Petrie, Flinders.
Wisdom of the Egyptians,
Vol. LXIL New York: Rinehart and Winston, 1968.

Steindorff, George, and Seele, Keith C.
When Egypt Ruled the East.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957.

Weigall, Arthur.
The Life and Times of Akhnaton.
London: Thornton Butterworth, Ltd., 1910.

White, Jon Manchip.
Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt.
New York: Capricorn Books, 1967.

Wilson, John A.
The Culture of Ancient Egypt.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.

Zayed, Dr. Abd el Hamid.
The Antiquities of El Minia.
The Society for the Promotion of Tourism in El Minia.

Two other books deserve mention. It was through Evelyn Wells’
Nefertiti
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1964), picked up casually some years ago for idle reading, that I first became intrigued with the period and decided to read further. In her version both Akhenaten and Nefertiti emerge as superhuman beings perfect in every respect—which Akhenaten in particular certainly was not—but it is an entertaining and enjoyable account. And to that eternally amusing gentleman, Immanuel Velikovsky—who on Egyptology, as on all other subjects, jumps on his horse and rides wildly off in all directions—we owe
Oedipus and Akhnaton
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1960). Like all his books, it contains just enough of a shred of possibility so that it makes the reader stop and think. And this, it seems to me, is sufficient to warrant its inclusion on anybody’s list.

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Appendix

On Writing:
Can It Be Taught?

Speech given at Rollins University, November 12, 1970

Ladies and gentlemen

I think you will find, among people who participate in writers’ conferences on the administrative side, a certain skepticism about whether writing—the actual guts of it, which comes out of you and is something you either have or you don’t—can be taught.

But you will also find, I think, a considerable willingness to share with those who ask, their experiences and their methods and the things that they have found to be helpful in getting life, insofar as one can know it, out of the mind and onto paper for other people to read.

Thus I expect—or at least I know we all hope—that you will take away from here some ideas about techniques of writing, and some ideas also about marketing the writing once you have produced it.

It has been the intention, I think, to make this a practical writers’ conference, as well as, hopefully a stimulating one. To that end we offer you not only a group of practicing writers in the fields of poetry, play-writing, business writing, television scripting, the novel—but also such glittering but pragmatic luminaries as my own editor at Doubleday, Mr. Ken McCormick, the editor in chief, and Mr. Bill Berger, literary agent and guide to the mysteries of pleasing publishers.

The best way to please them is to make money, and hopefully you’ll get a few hints on that here, too.

No one, when all is said and done, can tell you exactly how to write; but there are, perhaps, some pointers and suggestions that may be helpful. Professional writers come to whatever success they may achieve through a number of different pathways, but I think that probably for all of us there are certain basic guidelines we follow.

The first, if one had to sum them up, would probably be—

Observe.

Look—listen—think—speculate—analyze. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open. The proper study of mankind is man, and for no group of people is this truer than it is for writers, a fortunate crew who go about the world eavesdropping on their fellows and presently, if they have the urge and the skill to express it, tell everyone all about it.

The second thing, I think, is to experience things yourselves, and to bear in mind the truism that is not only the great assurance of the writer but also can be a very happy escape-valve in times of stress—namely, that everything is grist for your mill.

Do you pause just on the verge of shooting some obnoxious neighbor whose dog has been mangling your hydrangeas, held back by some last, self-preservative caution? The impulse, though stillborn, isn’t wasted. Instantly your mind leaps forward: the shooting, the cover-up, discovery, trial, publicity, ruination—vindication. The whole sequence is there, relieving that cautious frustration, begging to be used someday in fictional form.

Are you engaged in the greatest romance of the century and does it end suddenly amid anguish and tears? There’s a little voice somewhere that says: Don’t despair. This is really all right. It may hurt like hell right now, but someday I’m going to get it down on paper and it’ll sell a million.

So—keep yourself open to life’s experiences. Welcome them when they come to you, invite them when a reasonable prudence tells you it’s safe to do so: don’t say Nay.

You need as broad a knowledge of other people, and of yourself as you can possibly get. Don’t be afraid of it. It all adds up.

Other things, too, might be guidelines.

The most obvious, so obvious it is the great cliché of writing, is: write about something you know about. This does not necessarily mean, however, write about something you know about
as of this moment
, without any other qualification than that you just
know about it
. There are degrees of knowing about things, and too often this cliché is taken to mean that you, right here, with just what you know at this pristine moment in time, should start writing about it. This is not necessarily true.

Mr. Hailey, for instance, knew a little bit about hotels and airports, and I knew a little about the space program. But before he wrote
Hotel
and
Airport
, and before I wrote
The Throne of Saturn
, we both did plenty of homework.

It is possible, in other words, to increase your knowing; and if it is a kind of knowing that is not so obviously based upon fact, but the kind of knowing that is based upon the heart’s experiences, you can increase that knowing too.

You start with a scrap of knowing, in other words, and then you build upon it. What you know about is simply the take-off point. Much work and much study and much understanding follow.

And there are other guidelines. For instance:

Be tolerant.

Be compassionate.

Don’t judge.

Try to understand.

Don’t be surprised.

Expect anything, of human beings: They’re like the weather, if something hasn’t happened already in human living, wait a minute: it will.

Store it away.

Bring it out.

Think about it.

Use it.

Your ways are not others’ ways, and theirs are not yours. But all are human. Accept them, understand them, use them.

Another thing might be: don’t be afraid to put your own feelings and your own opinions into your writing. Everybody does, either directly or indirectly. If you aren’t a vegetable, you’re aware that we live in rather interesting times, to put it mildly. If you aren’t a vegetable, you have opinions about them. Don’t be afraid to get in your licks. It is, to my mind, one of the legitimate duties of the responsible writer. It is also one of the legitimate pleasures.

You do have ideas, obviously, otherwise you wouldn’t be writing. You want to express them, and you should. You will find that this sometimes draws down the wrath of those who disagree, but in the long run, you will have the last word, as you should. Criticism comes and goes, but what you write remains. So don’t be afraid to speak up, if you have a particular slant on things. If you believe it sincerely it will be worth saying and it will command its own audience.

Another guideline might be: read copiously and in all areas when you first start to write, more selectively when you narrow your interests down to the particular areas you have marked out for your own. Certain elements of emphasis and style, certain ways of developing character and situation, you can acquire from other writers. What doesn’t come to you by conscious analysis may come be osmosis: reading helps—until, I find, one really decides what one wants to write about. At that point, I would suggest you continue to read for relaxation everything else, but skip other writers in your own area. You could be affected, even if not consciously, in some way that would not be good for you as a writer.

Finally, having observed, having studies, having experienced, having read, having discovered you have the urge to say something and having acquired the confidence that you know how to do it, the final piece of advice I think all professional writers would give you is, simply—
write
.

Sit down and get to it.

Have plenty of paper and plenty of pencils, or a typewriter if that’s your habit, as it is mine—and then set yourself a definite time—and sit down—and do it.

Don’t wait until inspiration comes: the initial inspiration is what sends you to the desk in the beginning. Once you have it, it becomes a matter of working it out from there. You can’t do it wandering around the house or talking to your friends on the telephone or relaxing over the newspaper with one more cup of coffee, or playing any of the other games the mind can devise with a devilish ingenuity for wasting time. You’ve got to get down to work. Nobody else is going to do it for you, and if you don’t, it just doesn’t get done.

You will find in most cases, I think, that the initial inspiration that sends you to the desk is productive of others as you go along. In a sense, the writing becomes a game with yourself that generates its own excitement and its own discipline. In a sense, you never know what’s going to come next. You get the basic inspiration and the others follow. If your characters have any hold upon you at all—and if they don’t you can be sure they won’t have any on the reader, and you’re licked before you start—but if you do, you can be sure they will provide plenty of inspirations as you go along.

Certain things will come to you just because it is logical for those people to do them. Certain twists and turns of plot will spring quite easily and naturally to your mind, if your relationship with your characters is natural and easy. And perhaps that is the greatest secret of all: certainly it is the greatest secret of novel writing—to find characters who are real to you, and who in turn become real to the writer. Long after one has forgotten the intricate details of a good novel, the characters will still be walking around in the reader’s mind. They will still be alive to him as they are to the writer. They will have moved off the page into life, from which they originally came.

So then: Set yourself a time—a definite time—and sit yourself down—and write. It doesn’t have to be a definite time to the very moment, but it does, I think, have to be a definite time in the day. With me, as with many, it’s morning, because most people are fresher then. Also, it’s nice to sit down at the desk at 8:30 or 9 and get up at 1 and know that, usually, you’re through for the day—at least, through with the physical writing, because while you’re on a book, it never really leaves you at any time until it’s done.

But to get a book done, you have to do this—not just from 8:30 to 1 on one day or two days or three days or four, but on one hundred or two hundred or three hundred or four. You have to acquire discipline, and one of the surest ways to acquire it is to get on some sort of internal time-clock so that you know that on most working mornings between now and your tentative date for completion, you’re going to be right there, pounding away.

One other suggestion before I close: if you run into a temporary block,
don’t panic
. Get up—go out—do something else—forget it. Let it rest for a day or two. You can trust your mind a lot more than you think you can, once you’ve got it conditioned to a book. Come back in a day or two and go at it again, and most times you’ll find that your sub-conscious has been working for you, and the problem is straightening itself out. But just remember—don’t panic, because that can be fatal. Just say to yourself calmly, “It will come to me”—and relax—and you will be surprised at how often it does.

There are, of course, other guidelines, other hints, other suggestions that will come to you from many sources in these four days.

Hopefully, professional writers, editors, publishers, agents can give you pointers and sound advice.

Hopefully, they can give you encouragement.

And hopefully you will also give it to one another, for that too is one of the things that can be gained from writers’ conferences—the nice, warm, comforting feeling that it isn’t so lonely, after all—that many others are working along, as you are, in the pursuit of some vision of life that they, like you, feel they must get down on paper—and that when you open the window on the darkness and call out, “Who’s there?” many more than you perhaps imagine are going to call back, “I am.”

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