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September 2008: The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran

A monthly discussion on varying themes guided by our members. (Book of the Month discussions through December 2011 can be found in this section too.)
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Kailana
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Post by Kailana » Sat September 20th, 2008, 5:36 pm

I used to hate first person POV, but it is growing on me. I find I am also a fan of books that change back and forth with each chapter, so that sometimes it is first-person and other times it is third. The only first-person POV I have not got over is when it is young kids narrating their own stories. I find it drives me crazy in a lot of cases and I end up not so much hating the book, but I would've liked it a lot better if it was told differently!

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LCW
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Post by LCW » Sat September 20th, 2008, 5:51 pm

[quote=""Kailana""]I used to hate first person POV, but it is growing on me. [/quote]

Same here! I used to think it was too limiting to tell a well rounded story but I've read so many good books recently that were first person so my opinion has changed.
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them. --Arnold Lobel

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michellemoran
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Post by michellemoran » Sat September 20th, 2008, 6:24 pm

Susan,

I am so glad to hear you are enjoying the book! A 1 AM read is high compliments indeed!
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michellemoran
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Post by michellemoran » Sat September 20th, 2008, 8:10 pm

One of the forum members had a great question she PMed me today and I thought I would share it. She wanted to know whether a woman's virginity was necessary for marriage in ancient Egypt, since Nefertari loses her virginity to Ramesses before they marry. The short answer is no. In fact, if Nefertari had lost her virginity to someone else, she would still have been considered a suitable wife for Ramesses. Sometimes Pharaohs even took women who already had children. Quite a few things were reversed in ancient Egypt. The historian Herodotus (who admittedly lived after Nefertari) wrote:

The Egyptians appear to have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind. Women attend markets and are employed in trade, while men stay at home and do the weaving! Men in Egypt carry loads on their head, women on their shoulder. Women pass water standing up, men sitting down. To ease themselves, they go indoors, but eat outside on the streets, on the theory that what is unseemly, but necessary, should be done in private, and what is not unseemly should be done openly.
(Herodotus II: 33-37)
Last edited by michellemoran on Sat September 20th, 2008, 8:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Divia
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Post by Divia » Sat September 20th, 2008, 8:50 pm

Great question! I never would have thought about it because I foolishly thought that Egyptian practice was much like European!
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Kailana
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Post by Kailana » Sat September 20th, 2008, 10:52 pm

See how backwards we have become! Even if men marry women that are not virgins or have children already, there are always those people in the background whispering about the scandal of it all! We think we are a more advanced society, but in many ways civilizations were better off. You can't do anything without people talking, it's crazy! Another big thing is age. Once upon a time it was common for a man to be older than his wife, and now it is frowned upon. We live in a very restrictive society...

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Vanessa
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Post by Vanessa » Sat September 20th, 2008, 11:06 pm

I love books written in the first person, I feel that the character is talking to me. It's one of the reasons why I enjoyed The Heretic Queen so much.
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Post by Tanzanite » Sun September 21st, 2008, 12:25 am

I finished it in two evenings and I loved it! And even though Ramesses is described as having red hair, I kept seeing Yul Brenner's face (he didn't have much hair in the movie - just a braid I think).

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michellemoran
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Post by michellemoran » Sun September 21st, 2008, 12:29 am

I'm so glad you and Vanessa both liked it! I have to admit, it was hard to getting used to a red-haired hero. If I hadn't seen the mummy myself, or the microscopic analysis on the roots proving it wasn't just dye or henna, I would have had a hard time believing it. But as I said in one of my guest-blog posts, Ginger, the oldest mummy discovered in Egypt, had red hair, and so did the Egyptian god Set. The diversity of ancient Egypt must really have been quite something.
Last edited by michellemoran on Sun September 21st, 2008, 1:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Telynor
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Post by Telynor » Sun September 21st, 2008, 2:14 am

Ramesses' family is very closely allied to the god Set, who seems to be primarily worshiped in the Delta region. In the book The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt there's a photograph of the Year 400 Stela, made during the reign of Horemheb, and modified during the reign of Seti I. The book also has a list of all those sons and daughters of Ramesses II, along with some bits and pieces about all the various wives.

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