Pillar of Fire (novel)

Pillar of Fire is a 1995 historical fantasy novel by Judith Tarr. It deals with the reigns of Egyptian pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamun and the Exodus from the perspective of a Hittite slave girl of Ankhesenpaaten.[1] It draws heavily on Ahmed Osman's suggestion that Moses and Akhenaten were the same person.[2]

This article is about the Judith Tarr novel. For the Ken Follet novel, see A Column of Fire.
Pillar of Fire
AuthorJudith Tarr
LanguageEnglish
SubjectEgypt--History--Eighteenth dynasty
GenreHistorical fiction
PublisherForge
Publication date
1995
Pages448
ISBN0-312-85542-7
OCLC32088557
813/.54 20
LC ClassPS3570.A655 P55 1995

The idea of Akhenaten as the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars starting with Sigmund Freud's views in Moses and Monotheism.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Tarr comments in the endnotes that she was surprised at how little she had to tweak historical fact to write the story.

The audiobook version, published in 1998, ran for approximately 22 hours and was read by Anna Fields.[9]

Synopsis

Set in ancient Egypt the narrative is based on the notion that Moses and the Pharaoh Akhenaten were one and the same. Narrated in the third person from the viewpoint of a Hittite slave girl, the novel juxtaposes the Exodus story with the events in the Egyptian court.[10] Sholars generally do not recognize the biblical portrayal of the Exodus as an actual historical event,[11]

Awards

The novel was a NESFA 1995 Hugo Recommendation.[12]

Reviews

Publishers Weekly said With her usual skill, Tarr (Throne of Isis) combines fact and fiction to create yet another remarkably solid historical novel set in ancient Egypt... This is a highly entertaining blend of romance, drama and historical detail."[13]

Kirkus Reviews said that "The small but telling details of society and everyday life, the heart's-blood of historical fiction, are all too often absent here. Tarr's hard-to-swallow revisionist Exodus ends up neither engaging nor persuasive."[14]

According to Brian M. Britt, who revers to Akhenaten as "quasi-monotheistic, "Tarr's novel represents the most dramatic connection between the Amarna phase of Egyptian history and Hebrew monotheism."[15]

References
  1. "Pillar of Fire: A book review by Mark L. Olson". NESFA Members' Reviews. New England Science Fiction Association. Retrieved 2009-04-08.
  2. Scott, Whitney (1995-06-01). "Pillar of Fire, by Judith Tarr (REVIEW)". Booklist. American Library Association. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
  3. Freud, S. (1939). Moses and Monotheism: Three Essays.
  4. Gunther Siegmund Stent, Paradoxes of Free Will. American Philosophical Society, DIANE, 2002. 284 pages. Pages 34 - 38. ISBN 0-87169-926-5
  5. Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Harvard University Press, 1997. 288 pages. ISBN 978-0-674-58739-7
  6. N. Shupak, The Monotheism of Moses and the Monotheism of Akhenaten. Sevivot, 1995.
  7. Montserrat, (2000)
  8. William F. Albright, From the Patriarchs to Moses II. Moses out of Egypt. The Biblical Archaeologist, Vol. 36, No. 2 (May, 1973), pp. 48-76. doi 10.2307/3211050
  9. "Pillar of Fire". Blackstone Audio. Archived from the original on 2005-04-05. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
  10. "Pillar Of Fire, Pillar Of Truth". Retrieved 2009-04-16.
  11. Grabbe, Lester (2014). "Exodus and History". In Dozeman, Thomas; Evans, Craig A.; Lohr, Joel N. (eds.). The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation. BRILL. pp. 61–87. ISBN 9789004282667.
  12. "NESFA 1995 Hugo Recommendations". Archived from the original on 2005-12-24.
  13. Tarr, Judith (15 December 1997). Pillar of Fire. ISBN 0812539036.
  14. "PILLAR OF FIRE". Kirkus. Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
  15. Brian M. Britt (2004). Rewriting Moses. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-567-08087-5.
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