The critics there aren't the 'highbrow' and 'jaded' sort, they are average readers. "Self indulgent garbage" is the average consensus. Others say that if you're willing to wade through the garbage, there is a rewarding conclusion.

Another reader more knowledgable about Egypt explains, "Mailer seemingly captures Egypt during a period that could be easily considered antithetically decadent to its many periods of great glory like the First Dynasty's uniting of the "The Two Lands," the Pyramid Age, the 12th Dynasty or the famous 18th..."

Yet another clarifies what the first reader calls 'decadent', "Full of characters who eat the excrement, flesh or [body parts] of a variety of animals in order to gain the wisdom and strength that they offer. Ancient Evenings journeys a path into a world of Ancient Egypt that I have never known. Nor frankly, for that matter, care to."

I'd wondered about that. In the "Book of the Dead", the newly deceased makes his 42 negative confessions. In nearly all versions, there is an insistence he did not eat poop. I'd rather gathered from this that there had been some bizarre group which had done so. The knowledgable reader declares, "My faith in Ancient Egypt as a whole and its actual traditions is restored by Mailer, however, by the conclusion of this work but not before I have been thoroughly disgusted by a variety of acts described by the protagonist Menehetet."

I'm just not so interested in running out and buying the thing, after that. However, your mileage might vary. You might like feeling like a voyeur to weird shit, the general gross out factor.

But apparently, he shows an evolution there. I was grossed out by something in the present when I read in the Smithsonian about the sorry state of the Ganges River. "toxic runoff", "untreated domestic sewage", "Dead bodies...dumped into the river by the hundreds every week," it is nearly unbelievable how horrible it is.

Mostly, they don't pay any mind to floating carcasses and filth. The Hindus still bathe in it and sip it. As the article explains, "Man becomes pure by the touch of the water, or by consuming it, or by expressing its name," Lord Vishnu, the four-armed "All Pervading One," proclaims in the Ramayana, the Sanskrit epic poem composed four centuries before Christ." Somebody needs to have a new relevation from Vishnu. Four centuries before Christ no doubt it was very pure. Clean it up, people! Some are aware, "they say, 'this is disrespect done to our mother, and it must be stopped.'"

Not all of the disrespect is from raw sewage, toxic runoff and the like. Some of its abuse comes from 'good intentions', " Each day thousands of pilgrims drop flowers in polyethylene bags into the river as offerings to Goddess Ganga." Another explains, "It's really sad," Vipin Sharma, who runs a rafting and trekking company (Red Chili Adventures), told me. "All of our Hindus come with this feeling that they want to give something to the Ganga, and they've turned it into a sea of plastic."

I'm hoping the international attention to this situation will give strength to the clean up efforts.

As I read there how some of the abuse is coming from religious practices, enlightenment must come internationally that all religious/magical events need to be ecologically sound. Perhaps the deities aren't as pleased with rituals done as in olden times if those rituals meant some animal had to suffer for it.

Certainly, I am a 'troublemaker' to suggest that. Just being a vegetarian, oh what an unintentional troublemaker I have become! Last night Julia and I went to a wine tasting. All the wine selections were perfect, all 'crowd pleasers' as they say. However, the meal wasn't. Uniform plates of crab cake, kobe burger and a sauced piece of toast were passed out. I asked, "Could we have instead two crab cakes and no meat?" They at first looked at me like I was strange, "This is just the plate everyone gets." It's not the plate everyone wants! They advised to make trades, and Julia went about seeking trades. She did find two people willing to trade their crab cakes for our burgers.

The assumptions meat eaters make are many and aggressively thoughtless. I tire of the radio commercial concerning a 'hamburger helper', "the meal everyone loves". NO! NO! and NO!

However, not so many years ago, I also didn't understand. I didn't go so far as to think vegetarians were killjoy repressives regarding others' meat feasts. I hope I don't come across as that now. I think everyone should answer to their own conscience in these matters.

Meanwhile, a world grows more and more out of balance as animals go extinct, crowded out of their habitats. The oceans are in danger, too. The waters are overfished, and the fish cannot replenish themselves. Seaweb declares, "Callum Roberts can tell you what the oceans looked like hundreds of years ago. The story-one of vibrant coral reefs, abundant fish leaping in the surf, and open waters teeming with sea turtles and big predators-might leave you in disbelief. It is an image that stands in stark contrast to the relatively empty seas of today."

Let's envision what it once was and hopefully what it can be again.
For love of the animals
For love of the earth
For love of Ma'at