Napoleon’s Mirage
Cameron’s first installment in this saga set at the end of the 18th century, Beyond the Ghetto Gates, celebrated Napoleon’s benefits for Jews, including French citizenship, emancipation throughout Europe, and opening the centuries-old ghetto gates in Italy. This present installment, which is meant to be the conclusion, follows our characters—young French soldier Daniel, his love Mirelle, and Ethan, a gifted spy and linguist—as Napoleon invades Egypt. This ill-fated expedition, which is remembered in metro stops across Paris, resulted in the discovery, among other things, of the Rosetta stone.
The first third of the present book left me very impatient with poorly rendered battles, trite descriptions, and stereotypical yet improbable long-distance lover problems. This may be due to the fact that I haven’t read volume one, and getting up to speed in a case like that is never easy.
Battle descriptions didn’t perk up later, but Daniel’s disillusion with the commander he’d idealized seemed more real, and important for today’s world. In fact, in her Author’s Note, Cameron cites “a certain American president’s term” as impetus for her work. The arrogance and brutality of the Egyptian campaign—which, besides the rape and pillage of a native population, included the great leader seducing his generals’ wives, abandoning and even murdering his own soldiers, and the promise of a Jewish homeland never meant to be fulfilled—present plenty of thought for a modern reader.
