The Third Translation

Amazon.com
This is the latest novel trying to capitalize on the amazing success of The Da Vinci Code by positing an ancient mystery, contemporary scholars, rare documents, greedy collectors, and a quasi-academic protagonist. In this case he's an American Egyptologist living in London who's got less than a week to unlock the secrets of the Stela of Paser, a funerary stone whose references to a "third way" of deciphering the hieroglyphics inscribed on the stone have teased, tempted and eluded would-be translators for centuries.

Walter Rothschild has sacrificed a wife, a child, and many of the other things that make life worth living to pursue a passion cultivated in childhood and encouraged by his own father. Less than a week before his grant runs out and the Stela of Paser returns to its dusty basement in the British Museum, Walter is seduced and drugged by a mysterious young woman who steals a precious document from the Museum; in search of her and the papyrus scroll, Rothschild encounters a cult of would-be mystics who will stop at nothing to get him to decipher the Stela and reveal its secrets--especially those that promise a "third way" between life and death, "the endless quest of the ancient kings." While Walter's efforts are admirable, he is basically a boring, fretful, and regretful man who fails to engage the reader. That's too bad, for otherwise this is a beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and finely detailed novel based somewhat on the author's own obsession with the Stela. But if you share his passion for Egyptology, and want a more learned discourse on its arcana than the Amelia Peabody mysteries provide, The Third Translation is well worth reading. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly
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. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
A real-life relic rests at the heart of this astute fictional debut set in modern-day England. The British Museum has hired American Egyptologist William Rothschild to solve the riddle of the Stela of Paser, an ancient Egyptian funerary stone whose inscriptions have baffled scholars for centuries. Rothschild has only a handful of days remaining to complete his assignment (to render the mysterious third translation alluded to on the actual artifact) when a risky romantic rendezvous puts his scholarly pursuit on hold. After the passionate interlude--which takes place after-hours in a museum gallery housing Egyptian antiquities--Rothschild's lover steals an ancient papyrus document and disappears. His quest for the missing document, which could prove pivotal in his research, leads to a curious cult replete with professional wrestlers; solemn, saffron-robed men; and a sexually ambiguous revolutionary in high-heeled boots. First-time novelist Bondurant became fascinated by the Stela of Paser while working at the British Museum. His extensive research has paid off in a literary page-turner whose characters are as compelling and complex as the Stela itself. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
". . . provides a thrilling reading experience and it marks the beginning of a brilliant new literary career . . ."

Bob Shacochis, National Book Award Winner for Easy in the Islands
". . . a young writer whose first steps press so deep and leave . . . lasting footprints on the literary landscape."

Book Description
A literary page-turner that plunges the reader headlong into a modern quest to solve one of the last remaining riddles of ancient Egypt. 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. Walter 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: As for this writing, it is to be read three times. Its like has not been seen before, or heard since the time of the god. --inscription on the Stela of Paser Drawn into its mystery, Rothschild becomes the dupe of a seduction, robbery, and conspiracy engineered by a cult devoted to ancient Egyptian mysticism. With no one to trust and nothing as it appears, he must fight an elusive enemy to save his livelihood -- and his very life. As enlightening as it is entertaining, The Third Translation is a magnificent blend of fact and fiction. Bondurant masterfully weaves a wealth of fascinating, arcane information into a thrilling debut novel. Engagingly plotted, extensively researched, and utterly original, this well-crafted literary suspense novel takes you from the fast-paced streets of modern London into a lost world of sacred antiquities and ancient mysteries.

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.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

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.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices