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The First-Born of Egypt #1
Morning Star
Morning Star A Novel (The First Born of Volume I One 1)
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Simon Raven
62 books30 followersSimon Arthur Noël Raven (28 December 1927 – 12 May 2001) was an English novelist, essayist, dramatist and raconteur who, in a writing career of forty years, caused controversy, amusement and offence. His obituary in The Guardian noted that, "he combined elements of Flashman, Waugh's Captain Grimes and the Earl of Rochester", and that he reminded Noel Annan, his Cambridge tutor, of the young Guy Burgess.
Among the many things said about him, perhaps the most quoted was that he had "the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel". E W Swanton called Raven's cricket memoir Shadows on the Grass "the filthiest cricket book ever written". He has also been called "cynical" and "cold-blooded", his characters "guaranteed to behave badly under pressure; most of them are vile without any pressure at all". His unashamed credo was "a robust eighteenth-century paganism....allied to a deep contempt for the egalitarian code of post-war England"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_R...
Among the many things said about him, perhaps the most quoted was that he had "the mind of a cad and the pen of an angel". E W Swanton called Raven's cricket memoir Shadows on the Grass "the filthiest cricket book ever written". He has also been called "cynical" and "cold-blooded", his characters "guaranteed to behave badly under pressure; most of them are vile without any pressure at all". His unashamed credo was "a robust eighteenth-century paganism....allied to a deep contempt for the egalitarian code of post-war England"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_R...
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 7, 2025
4.5, rounded down.
Eight years passed between Raven finishing his 10-volume opus 'Alms for Oblivion' and his returning to the same characters in this semi-sequel series, 'The First-Born of Egypt' - in which time he wrote two standalone novels and some non-fiction. This series begins 5 years from the last of the first series, and most of the surviving characters of that tome, The Survivors, are picked up where we left off.
The consensus on this second series is that it isn't nearly as adroit as the first, and the author even asserted he wrote it primarily for the money - but I can't really see any substantial diminution in quality, and it was great fun to catch up with Raven's scallywags and reprobates in fresh adventures.
Now that most of these are in their 50s and 60s, this necessarily also introduces the next generation, who have their own quirks and foibles. My only quibble is that several strands are left dangling, which I am sure will be satisfactorily completed in subsequent volumes.
The plot of this concerns new character Ptoly Tunne's experiments on the mind/body/soul connection, and primarily with one of his subjects, 12-year-old Marius Stern, who is convinced his body is being taken over by an evil entity - the conclusion of which is merely that he is addicted to masturbation due to both his pubescence and the effects of being uncircumcised! Meanwhile, his Jewish father is kidnapped by pro-Palestinian radicals and forced to write tracts condemning Israel - which is just as relevant today, 40 years on from the writing of this tome. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
PS: I originally had indicated I hadn't a clue what the title referred to - as that was ALSO the case with the second volume, I Googled and Morning Star refers to Lucifer, in particular his fall from heaven - which sorta makes sense here, I suppose. And the overall title of the series refers to the 10th plague God sent - killing all the first-born of Egypt as punishment for Pharoah not letting the Israelites worship their God.
Eight years passed between Raven finishing his 10-volume opus 'Alms for Oblivion' and his returning to the same characters in this semi-sequel series, 'The First-Born of Egypt' - in which time he wrote two standalone novels and some non-fiction. This series begins 5 years from the last of the first series, and most of the surviving characters of that tome, The Survivors, are picked up where we left off.
The consensus on this second series is that it isn't nearly as adroit as the first, and the author even asserted he wrote it primarily for the money - but I can't really see any substantial diminution in quality, and it was great fun to catch up with Raven's scallywags and reprobates in fresh adventures.
Now that most of these are in their 50s and 60s, this necessarily also introduces the next generation, who have their own quirks and foibles. My only quibble is that several strands are left dangling, which I am sure will be satisfactorily completed in subsequent volumes.
The plot of this concerns new character Ptoly Tunne's experiments on the mind/body/soul connection, and primarily with one of his subjects, 12-year-old Marius Stern, who is convinced his body is being taken over by an evil entity - the conclusion of which is merely that he is addicted to masturbation due to both his pubescence and the effects of being uncircumcised! Meanwhile, his Jewish father is kidnapped by pro-Palestinian radicals and forced to write tracts condemning Israel - which is just as relevant today, 40 years on from the writing of this tome. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
PS: I originally had indicated I hadn't a clue what the title referred to - as that was ALSO the case with the second volume, I Googled and Morning Star refers to Lucifer, in particular his fall from heaven - which sorta makes sense here, I suppose. And the overall title of the series refers to the 10th plague God sent - killing all the first-born of Egypt as punishment for Pharoah not letting the Israelites worship their God.
July 27, 2022
Hmm, well, yeah.
Let's start with the good; I don't think Simon Raven can write an unreadable novel, and I finished this in about three days, so buts of it where unputdownable, even in the dark of night.
But.
I am an enormous fan of/ love love loved The Alms to Oblivion series, and this is a first book of the continuing series, The First Born of Egypt, containing some of the characters from Alms, and their children.
Two problems: the Alms characters are now in their fifties, which means the (unnatural) lusts they had had in the earlier books are dampened, in the way all out unnatural lusts tend to be in our fifties. The characters have turned nice: Fielding Grey, who was a cad and a bounder, who would always let you (and himself) down if the chance for some illicit sex came along, is now ferrying children around from party to party. Well, I can get all that at home.
One of the characters has a long set-piece about the Greek concept of ATE, the desire that destroys. In the Alms books, ATE destroyed all the characters, but it was normally when their conscience kicked in that they were really screwed. In this, one of the characters (who is up to then a thoroughly reprehensible young exploiter of all around him) turns kind. In vintage Raven, that would be the cause of his damnation. Here, not so much.
And this is the second problem: I believed Raven's 1940s teenagers; I don't believe his 1970s one. I was at Cambridge less than ten years after the events of this book take place, and I knew no one who was like any of the undergraduates here. Yes, there is a character who is a chancer, a son of a mildly successful Tory politician who sexually or financially exploits everyone around him, who lies to everyone and is only interested in people who can benefit him, and who, incidentally, wins a prize for Classics by plagiarising other people's work (so, in so many ways, unlike our current Prime Minister - though he went to Oxford, and about five years later, so it can't possibly be based on him).
Wikipedia says he wrote the whole First Born of Egypt series "for the money" (and why not?). But how I interpret that is that he wrote it at speed: this would be a fabulous novel with another couple of redrafts to tighten the plot, and to punish the good deeds more. At the moment, this doesn't have the pizzazz of classic Raven. I shall read the next one (if I can get it second hand - they seem to be out of print at the mo), but probably (if it's no better) I shall leave it at that.
Let's start with the good; I don't think Simon Raven can write an unreadable novel, and I finished this in about three days, so buts of it where unputdownable, even in the dark of night.
But.
I am an enormous fan of/ love love loved The Alms to Oblivion series, and this is a first book of the continuing series, The First Born of Egypt, containing some of the characters from Alms, and their children.
Two problems: the Alms characters are now in their fifties, which means the (unnatural) lusts they had had in the earlier books are dampened, in the way all out unnatural lusts tend to be in our fifties. The characters have turned nice: Fielding Grey, who was a cad and a bounder, who would always let you (and himself) down if the chance for some illicit sex came along, is now ferrying children around from party to party. Well, I can get all that at home.
One of the characters has a long set-piece about the Greek concept of ATE, the desire that destroys. In the Alms books, ATE destroyed all the characters, but it was normally when their conscience kicked in that they were really screwed. In this, one of the characters (who is up to then a thoroughly reprehensible young exploiter of all around him) turns kind. In vintage Raven, that would be the cause of his damnation. Here, not so much.
And this is the second problem: I believed Raven's 1940s teenagers; I don't believe his 1970s one. I was at Cambridge less than ten years after the events of this book take place, and I knew no one who was like any of the undergraduates here. Yes, there is a character who is a chancer, a son of a mildly successful Tory politician who sexually or financially exploits everyone around him, who lies to everyone and is only interested in people who can benefit him, and who, incidentally, wins a prize for Classics by plagiarising other people's work (so, in so many ways, unlike our current Prime Minister - though he went to Oxford, and about five years later, so it can't possibly be based on him).
Wikipedia says he wrote the whole First Born of Egypt series "for the money" (and why not?). But how I interpret that is that he wrote it at speed: this would be a fabulous novel with another couple of redrafts to tighten the plot, and to punish the good deeds more. At the moment, this doesn't have the pizzazz of classic Raven. I shall read the next one (if I can get it second hand - they seem to be out of print at the mo), but probably (if it's no better) I shall leave it at that.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews