37 pages • 1 hour read
Michael CrichtonEaters Of The Dead
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Introduction”
A brief introduction by an unnamed Editor tells that Eaters of the Dead is based on a historical eyewitness account by Ahmad ibn Fadlan. A thousand years ago, Ahmad travelled from his native Baghdad to Europe. There, he encountered a band of Vikings. Ahmad’s manuscript documenting his time with the Vikings is not intact and his story has a history of its own.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Provenance of the Manuscript”
The Editor continues to contextualize Ahmad’s story. In June 921, Ahmad ibn Fadlan became the Caliph of Baghdad’s ambassador to the King of the Bulgars, a kingdom in modern-day western Russia. However, Ahmad never reached his destination. He spent three years travelling before he met a company of Vikings—called Norsemen by Ahmad—and “had many adventures among them” (7). Ahmad returned to Baghdad and documented his strange adventures. His manuscript was lost, but fragments have been preserved in later sources. Attempts have been made to reconcile the inconsistencies, errors, and omissions in these later sources to reassemble Ahmad’s original work.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Vikings”
The Editor explains that Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s portrayal of the Norsemen “differs markedly from the traditional European view” (8) of Vikings, who were viewed as pagan monsters by Christian Europeans. Modern scholars laud Viking culture but hesitate to label Vikings a civilization as they lacked “a sense of permanence” (9). These scholars may be guilty of a European bias which dismisses the Vikings’ achievements. Ahmad’s manuscript provides insight into the Vikings’ cultural attitudes and influences which continue into the modern day.
Chapter 4 Summary: “About The Author”
The unnamed Editor says that little is known about Ahmad ibn Fadlan beyond his travel writings. However, Baghdad was one of the most established cities on the planet in the 10th century and home to more than a million people. Many of these inhabitants were Muslims and had much interaction with other peoples and cultures. This familiarity with the unknown allows Ahmad to write as “an anthropologist, not a dramatist” (11). The fantastical nature of Ahmad’s story means that the reader must judge for themselves how much is true.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Although Ahmad ibn Fadlan is the first-person narrator of the majority of Eaters of the Dead, a secondary narrator opens the novel by contextualizing the story that will follow. Throughout the book, the unnamed Editor curates Ahmad’s narration and provides context and supplementary materials to improve the reader’s understanding of Ahmad’s story. Crichton’s use of dual narrators is metafictional; it maintains the reader’s awareness of Ahmad’s account as a written work and complicates the story’s historical nature. Ahmad presents his story as a true depiction of events, though the Editor of the novel casts doubts on a number of the more fantastical elements. According to the Editor, Ahmad is not necessarily lying, but he lacks an understanding of the depths of Norse culture or the exact science behind certain aspects of his experiences. The Editor takes part in a unilateral conversation with Ahmad’s historical account, shaping Ahmad’s story to fit modern preferences while maintaining the possibility that the stranger, more magical parts of Ahmad’s story may have occurred. The Editor provides Ahmad with plausible deniability, allowing the reader to invest his account with a greater degree of trust.
The Editor is a fictionalized version of Crichton himself, who has abstracted the actual, historical figure of Ahmad ibn Fadlan into a literary character to facilitate his retelling of the epic poem Beowulf. The Editor is presented as a dry, technical academic who charges themselves with guiding the reader through the truth of Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s story, even as Crichton takes artistic license with both historical record and literary legend. The Editor’s use of footnotes, academic referencing, and discussions of the debates among scholars create the sense that Eaters of the Dead is a typical non-fiction book rather than a fictional interpretation of several different historical sources. While Ahmad ibn Fadlan was a real person, the version of his story presented in Eaters of the Dead is not entirely accurate. Ahmad was a historical ambassador from Baghdad who spent time among the Norsemen, but his actual manuscript is significantly different from the novel. Therefore, the opening chapters establish the false reality of Ahmad’s work and assure the reader that the entire story is true, which is not the case. The use of Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s detailed descriptions of Norse culture allows the novel to create a sense of authenticity in the reader’s mind. The opening chapters establish this sense of unreality and function as a character reference for Ahmad ibn Fadlan.
The narrative strategy of presenting fictionalized or wholly invented events as possible fact is often used in adventure stories. Crichton creates intrigue and excitement by suggesting that the dramatic events narrated by Ahmad actually took place, while playfully calling Ahmad’s account into question and referencing his own intervention in history via the Editor.
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