People of the Sea: A Novel of the Promised Land - Softcover

Dempsey, Jack

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582188831 ISBN 13: 9781582188836

Publisher: Digital Scanning, 2017

Synopsis

Ancient Minoan families flee the devastation and conquest of Crete, and migrate via Cyprus to multicultural Palestine, among wild but advanced Sea Peoples. Defeated in war and put to work by Pharaoh, these new “Philistines” have a real-world promised land: to keep their new homes, they must rebuild Canaan and keep order on roads of trade from Egypt to Babylon---and if they fail, Pharaoh will return in wrath. So, how do the Philistines’ families build new lives from farms to cities and far-flung trade, and how do their new children meet the Canaanites and Hebrews? More, they are meeting the inland mountains’ rising Israelites, whose promise from their own god lays claim on all these lands. What social ways promise early peace, and what aggressions lead to open war? If Philistines cannot find a way to marry in (in their ancient customs) with the “separatist”

Israelites and keep trade flowing, Pharaoh will return again to devastate them all. The lives of the Philistines’ island-born women, men and children take shape in a turbulent new land, built from their powers of memory---from their pride in the advanced but lost world of their Minoan ancestors, from their sufferings in horrifying wanderings and wars, and from their Earth-religion’s unconquerable will and joy to live again. They will survive this new thing “history” and “keep their honey.” Based in new archaeology and multicultural myth, the adventurous human stories in People of the Sea take us beyond the one-sided Old Testament accounts, whose ethnocentrism has limited and damaged understanding; and into a new old world where we can recover deep memory of our real archaeological ancestors, with their long-successful human ways of life.

About this title

About the Author:

Jack Dempsey (b. 1955) grew up north of Boston, Massachusetts USA. He began writing freelance in New York City, and then many stays in Greece led to Ariadne's Brother: A Novel on the Fall of Bronze Age Crete (Athens: Kalendis 1996). Earning his Ph.D. in Native and Early American Studies at Brown University, Jack wrote, edited and produced four books and two films in those fields, including New English Canaan by Thomas Morton of Merrymount; Mystic Fiasco: How the Indians Won The Pequot War, and Nani: A Native New England Story. As a professor for 22 years he also focused on college students' public speaking. With appearances from National Public Radio to Crete-TV, he publishes short works at his blog jackdempseywriter.wordpress.com. Working on People of the Sea through the 1990s, Jack created the collaborative multimedia website Ancientlights.org, and revealed ancient Western astronomy with Calendar House: Clues to Minoan Time from Knossos Labyrinth. Residing in Crete since 2015 with Angela his wife, he has published a short biography of the late feminist historian and poet Barbara Mor, and his 2016 book based on public forums is The Knossos Calendar: Minoan Cycles of the Sun, the Moon, the Soul & Political Power (Iraklion: Mystis Editions, also in Greek).

Review:

Author Jack Dempsey provides a different perspective on The Promised Land in his latest novel.

"Look your family in the eyes, and say
why, in this fight before us,
your courage will endure your blood upon a blade--
why moon and sun shall see
an end of wandering, people of the sea."

A perfect sequel to his 1996 work, Ariadne's Brother: A Novel on the Fall of Bronze Age Crete, Dempsey's People of the Sea opens with a rather lengthy prologue called "Out of Djahi."

Dempsey sets the tenor of his narrative with first-person accounts using fictionalized names. The prologue's stories articulate, for the first time, why each tribe of Sea Peoples--who for the most part lived in peace and worshipped Mother Earth--will join in the actual great attack (c. 1177 BCE) on the powerful but fading Egyptian empire under Pharaoh Ramses III.

For Bible and ancient history buffs, this prologue alone should be eye-opening,since the Sea Peoples were the original Palestinians, or in Bible terms, "Philistines." The Old Testament depicts the Philistines as nothing but a brutish pagan group that had to be annihilated. Dempsey paints a different picture.

Dempsey groups his plot into three sections,continuing in first person narrative, but this time using an old Minoan priest-chief as narrator. He tells of various factors (i.e., volcanic eruption, battles, brutal occupation) that lead not only to the destruction of Minoan Knossos--considered the oldest European city--but also to the determination of a people to survive oppression and build proud lives again.

Readers may find themselves adjusting to Dempsey's writing style from the get-go. Very atypical of work of ancient history, Dempsey has chosen a different design that may seem format-free: "free verse" that evokes these peoples' love of music and ceremony, dialogue free of quotation marks that reduces the sense of authorial intrusion, and storytelling free of periods between paragraphs--as, for the Sea Peoples, one reality or point of view keeps melting into another.

Dempsey's attempt through his lilting narrative to capture the heart of peoples who have been significantly misunderstood and mislabeled is spot-on. Indeed,while he does not identify ancient Philistines with modern Arabs, this represents the foundational first episode of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--driven by a wish to "separate" from other peoples and so become exclusive heirs to a multicultural land.

"Based on new archaeology and multicultural myth," People of the Sea takes readers through fascinating adventures that change our perspective on the ethnocentric and damning Old Testament accounts. They also lead to discoveries of a new old world--in the hope of recovering buried memories "of our real archaeological ancestors, with their long-successful human ways of life."

Dempsey's latest may not garner broad reader appeal, but for those who want to understand the humanizing heritage hidden behind a wall of long-standing tradition, look no further than People of the Sea.

PUBLISHERS DAILY REVIEWS..

About this edition

• Publisher: Digital Scanning
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1582188831
• ISBN 13: 9781582188836
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416