Quote:
Originally Posted by Marie Monday
That made me think of the Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, even though dystopian is not really the right way to describe that book. Have you ever tried it?
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I read that book years ago, Marie, attracted by the great title and its mysterious-looking cover art. I enjoyed it, as I recall, but I never felt any need to reread it tbh. That's partly because I favour non-fiction these days, and a book of fantasy has to be really exceptional to attract me now.
Today, for example, I just finished a short account:
The Rosetta Stone by Richard Parkinson. As with any book of Egyptian history, it is punctuated with the phrase "now in the British Museum", which gives the account a kind of added, guilty pride to Londoners like me. We took so many artifacts from that poor country, but London's "Cleopatra's Needle", to my surprise, wasn't actually one of them:
"It was presented to the United Kingdom in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt and Sudan Muhammad Ali, in commemoration of the victories of Lord Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and Sir Ralph Abercromby at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801." Also, it had nothing to do with any Cleopatra: it dates from 1450 BCE and should more properly be called Thutmoses III's Needle. (The famous Cleopatra was on the throne of Egypt about 1300 years after the construction of the Needle: she probably saw it as some ghastly old piece of junk! )
Thanks to wikipedia for making me sound smart, and here's the link with various nerdy but curious details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopa...Needle,_London