The Third Translation: A Novel

by Matt Bondurant

Overview

An ancient mystery, a hidden language, and the secrets of a bizarre Egyptian sect collide in modern-day London in this ingenious novel of seduction, conspiracy, and betrayal alter Rothschild is an American Egyptologist living in London and charged by the British Museum with the task of unlocking the ancient riddle of the Stela of Paser, one of the last remaining real-life hieroglyphic mysteries in existence today. The secrets of the stela-a centuries-old funerary stone-have evaded scholars for thousands of years due to the stela's cryptic reference to a third translation:

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781401382865
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	04/06/2005
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	720
File size:	394 KB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Matt Bondurant began working on this novel while living and working in London, and finished it while employed at the British Museum, where he first saw the actual Stela of Paser and learned of its elusive and mysterious third translation. A professor at George Mason University and two-time Bread Loaf scholarship winner, his short stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, the New England Review, and numerous other publications. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

"An impressive first novel about life and death and how we interpret each."

Washington Post

"A luminous debut...an ingeniously literate and incandescent historical thriller that mixes linguistic cryptology and translation with gripping success."
—Washington Examiner

Matt Bondurant

Walter Rothschild, a middle-aged Egyptologist at the British Museum, has abandoned his wife and child to spend his time obsessively poring over the dusty inscriptions of a dead civilization. He is forced to reconnect with life when he is seduced by a mysterious woman who then steals an ancient papyrus containing the key to the enigmatic hieroglyphics of the Stela of Paser. The conspiracy trail leads Walter to a modern-day cult of the Egyptian sun god, Aten, protected by a menacing team of pro wrestlers. In Bondurant's ambitious debut, a sprawling picaresque is infused with mythic resonance by linking it to ancient Egyptian literature and mythology and to concepts in avant-garde physics, including black holes, general relativity and string theory. The author has an inventive imagination and an ardent feel for place; much of the book is a prose poem to London's squalid demimonde. Though some may feel that Bondurant's erudition and philosophical engagement ("the only way... to make sense of the magnitude of the time and the space and the span of humanity on earth is to grasp onto the one thing that gives you a clear look") slow the pace of his mystery, the success of previous literary novels of suspense bodes very well for this one. Agent, Alex Glass. (Apr. 6) Forecast: A big push by Hyperion should give this a shot at major sales, though it's not the only mysteries-of-the-ancient-world thriller in the running (in this issue, see also The Geographer's Library, p. 222). Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

With time running out on his contract to decode an ancient Egyptian tablet, an obsessed scholar is seduced and seemingly abandoned by others with equal but less pure interest in the deep past. Bondurant's debut entry in the growing genre of academic crypto-thrillers considers the real-life Stela of Paser, an Egyptian relic held by the British Museum (and viewed there by the author). Cracked in two and missing critical pieces, the Stela has mystified scholars with its internal suggestion that its hieroglyphics, which can be read in two directions like some sort of early New York Times Sunday teaser, may have a third message for those clever enough to decode it. If anyone in the small and decidedly weird world of Egyptology is able to tease out the hidden meaning, it would have to be Walter Rothschild, an American scholar in his 40s whose facility with languages, monstrously huge intellect, and encyclopedic knowledge of ancient Egypt has led him to abandon his family for a life of nearly monastic scholarship in the deserts and museum basements where his passions lie. But the Stela has him stumped. With little time left to solve the riddle before being kicked out of his ratty but free digs in Bloomsbury, Rothschild lets himself be distracted by a friend who drags him to a druggy debauch. There, he's snagged by a pretty young thing who is so fascinated by his description of his work that she insists on being taken to his laboratory, where she slips into nearby historic duds, has spectacular but rather creepy sex with Walter, and makes off with a priceless bit of papyrus. To recover the purloined paper, Walter enlists the help of an attractive Sorbonne scholar in the employ of the NationalLibrary and follows leads all the way to Cambridge, where a rich madman has enlisted the assistance of murderous professional wrestlers in his search for sublime, ancient, divine experience. Then it's back to London for a lot of boff, bang, and pow. Archaeology outshines the action.

Kirkus Reviews