2.5 stars: 12th century Sicily after the 2nd crusade. Interesting setting, I liked the female protagonist a lot and her racial background is now particularly poignant after the atrocities done to her people in our time but, apologies I think this should have been better. A bit pat for me.

Entertaining

FBC review below:

INTRODUCTION: "The Ruby in Her Navel" is a 2006 (Booker longlisted) historical fiction novel by Booker prize winner Barry Unsworth that showcases why fantasy lovers should try the genre. Like last year's Father of Locks, "The Ruby in Her Navel" transports one into a familiar but also exotic milieu that is exquisitely rendered. This time it is the multiethnic and multireligious Norman Kingdom of Sicily at its apogee in 1149 under King Roger II. The blurb below gives a flavor of the novel's subject:

"It is 1149, and all is not well in Norman Sicily. The Second Crusade's disastrous failure has turned opinion against Palermo's Muslims, but King Roger's magnanimity toward his multicultural populace keeps the land in harmony--or so it seems. Thurstan Beauchamp, a Norman Christian, works at the government office overseeing finances, accounting, and bribes. Still smarting at the loss of his inheritance, he jumps at the chance to reconnect with Alicia, his noble childhood sweetheart. But what of Nesrin, the Anatolian belly dancer who stirs his lust? The undercurrents of political and romantic intrigue prove too much for naive, idealistic Thurstan, whose chivalrous inner core begins to crack as he travels on missions for his king..."

FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: "The Ruby in Her Navel" stands at about 400 pages divided into 30 numbered chapters and is narrated by Thurstan Beauchamp. "The Ruby in Her Navel" is an adventure novel of intrigue, introspection, conspiracies and love, all in a superbly rendered atmosphere of a long lost culture that is both familiar and exotic.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Instead of a lengthy overview, the first page of the novel which hooked me on the story tells it better:

"When Nesrin the dancer became famous in the courts of Europe, many were the stories told about the ruby that glowed in her navel as she danced. Some said it had been stolen by a lover of hers - who had gone to the stake for it - from the crown of King Roger of Sicily, others that it had been a bribe from Conrad Hohenstaufen for her help in a plot to kill that same king. The plot had failed, they said, but she had kept the ruby and paid for it in a way that contented Conrad even more than the death of his enemy, vindictive as he was.

As time passed the stories ranged further and grew wilder: the gem was a gift from the Caliph of Bagdad, it was sent her by secret courier from the Great Khan of the Mongols with promises of more wealth if she would only come and dance for him and share his bed. And of course there were those who said that Nesrin was a shameless woman and the ruby was the reward of her pledge with the Devil. The troubadour who accompanied her made songs about the ruby, some happy, some sad, and this confused people even more. Neither of these two ever told the truth of it, no matter who asked, whether prince or peasant. I am the only one who knows the whole story, I, Thurstan.

Any human life lies in the future as well as the past, of however short duration that future may prove to be; they are hinged together like a door that swings, and that swinging is the present moment. To begin a story one must choose a time when the door swings wide, and this came for me on a day late in the April of 1149 when Yusuf Ibn Mansur asked me to remain with him at the end of what we called the majlis, the gathering of officials that was held twice-monthly in the royal palace of Palermo.


He asked me quite openly, rather carelessly, as if it were an afterthought, something that might easily been overlooked. But it was rare indeed that Yusuf overlooked anything. What better way of disarming suspicion than to speak in the hearing of all? There was nothing strange about my remaining there, about our having things to say in private: he was the Lord of the Diwan of Control and I was his subordinate in the same chancery. But secrecy was ingrained in him; and he knew, as I knew - indeed it was one of the things he had striven to teach me in the years I had served under him - that secrecy is best served by an appearance of openness.


The majlis itself has stayed in my memory because it was enlivened by a quarrel. I had only recently returned from Naples, where I had made an attempt to bribe the Count's jester, a dwarf named Leo, to return with me to Palermo as a gift to the King. He had refused, though much tempted, being afraid of the Count's wrath, of being followed and strangled. This mission I had undertaken in my capacity as Purveyor of Pleasures and Shows, my official title in the Diwan of Control, a resounding one, but in fact there were only myself and my clerk and bookkeeper Stefanos and the doorman. I did not speak of this failure at the majlis; it was my practice in any case to say as little as possible at these meetings.


I was distrusted as a man who belonged nowhere. I worked for a Moslem lord, I was not a Norman of France, being born in Northern England of a Saxon mother and a landless Norman knight. My father brought us to Italy in the year of Our Lord 1128, when I was still a child. He hoped to find advancement under the Norman rule, and he did so. My mother died some years later, struggling to give me a brother. My father… But more of my father later."


So if the excerpt above does not hook you on the story, why read the novel?


While Thurstan's voice is absolutely compelling to the end, the story itself is quite interesting, full of twists of turns and with foreshadowing that is quite subtle since while it gives a hint of where the story goes, the path is not straightforward.


The novel is immersive and it is hard to put down until the end with the last 100 pages being non-stop suspense. The secondary characters shine throughout: the most notable is Yusuf the Moslem lord who plucked the 17 year old Thurstan whose life has just spun out of control and away from his knighthood path that he seemed firmly set on from literally childhood, out of obscurity as a King's bodyguard. Despite cultural and religious differences, Yusuf is almost like a father to Thurstan and the relationship between the two is key to the novel.


Dreams die hard though and the novel illustrates this brilliantly when rich and widowed - so more or less free to choose a new husband - Thurstan's teenage flame Alicia appears seemingly out of nowhere and the old longings of the hero are resurrected to conflict with his desire of succeeding Yusuf as Diwan leader when the later ascends in the court hierarchy as well as with his infatuation with the free spirited Nesrin of the cover...


The title is a bit of a red herring and the first several lines quoted above embody this misdirection, but I leave to the reader to find out why. The novel has dastardly conspirators with nefarious plots, deadly assassins, rebels and loyalists and the action interweaves seamlessly in the rich tapestry of world building and medieval discourse.


"The Ruby in Her Navel" (A+) is another novel that came out of nowhere for me; opened by chance I just got hooked from the first page and could not stop reading it until finished, so I definitely plan to try more by the author, including his most celebrated novel the 1992 Booker winning novel Sacred Hunger that moves the scene to the 18th century and the slave trade.

Uma história muito interessante mas com uma narrativa por vezes demasiado descritiva (cansativa). O enredo é lento e a ação está concentrada nas últimas páginas. O final é previsível e desilude. Reconheço o grande talento do autor, mas talvez não seja o meu tipo de livro.

A very interesting story but with a narrative that is sometimes too descriptive (tiring). The plot is slow and the action is concentrated in the last pages. The ending is predictable and disappoints. I recognize the great talent of the author, but maybe it's not my kind of book.

i really like the way barry unsworth writes historical fiction. his research never overwhelms his story, and threads into the ideas he explores through the backdrop of another time: in this novel, the beauty of the mosaic art, the blend of multiple indistinguishable stones coming together in a particular shape to create beauty, is as the diverse populace of sicily in the twelfth century: some identifying as muslim, christian, others as greek, norman, german all contribute to the culture, all people, and all vie for ascendancy under the crown. the novel follows the royal purveyor, thurstan who has lost his chance at knighthood, and flounders as he attempts to find some kind of future, juggling loyalties and he narrates the story as his past to reveal the secret of the ruby.

i can't give the novel the four stars that i had originally hoped. eventually i found that the repeated and clunky foreshadowing got to me (please people, stop using multiple variations of "had i only spoken then, it might all have been different" -- i get it, you're telling the story in the future, and you want me to feel anxiety but you do this too much and all i want to do is punch the book in the face.) the pacing is a little off -- the book takes a while to unfold, and then there's a lovely mid-section, and then unsworth seems to feel an urgent need to wrap things up quickly -- the ending felt a little abrupt.

this isn't a perfect novel, but it's quite enjoyable, and i will be reading more unsworth.

This is my 4th Barry Unsworth novel (Sacred Hunger, Losing Nelson, After Hannibal) and it did not disappoint. There are few authors I have found who can move around in such a variety of historical settings and create credible stories and characters to inhabit them. This setting is mid-12th century Palermo and this might be a good book to read if you were planning a trip to Sicily (I wish I was!). The complexity and variety of Sicilian history is on full display with the Normans (King Roger) now ruling the island for some time after having supplanted the Saracens (Muslims) in 1130 but now mired in their own conflicts with the Byzantine Empire (Comnenus), Holy Roman Empire (Conrad) and Papal forces under Pope Eugene III. Larger events, mainly the disastrous (from the Christian standpoint) failure of the Second Crusade (1145-1149) roil the fragile Sicilian political landscape with the defeated forces of Louis exiting the Holy Land and some ending up in Sicily. Pressure on the fragile ruling structure of Sicily is intense amidst the shifting geopolitical landscape and the plot is likewise somewhat convoluted. I won't say it is the greatest story ever told but the characters are interesting and there are many insights into the Medieval world with references to theological and political debates of the time as well as mundane concerns such as survival and even love! 3.5 stars rounded up for some really interesting historical insights.

This book is interesting, but very hard to get into. Once you do get to the meat, though, the story is intriguing and very well written.

As afirmações contidas na capa do livro interessaram-me de imediato; os termos do título estimularam a minha imaginação; a imagem de um cavaleiro de outros tempos, em pose guerreira, transportou-me, sem querer, para a atmosfera de outros séculos, incitando-me a ler a contracapa... de seguida, tudo o resto ...
E o resto é a história de Thurstan Beauchamp, provedor e pagador real, na corte de Rogério, rei da Sicília do século XII.
A narrativa retrata o ambiente de um período agitado da história da região, em plena Idade Média, recém-conquistada pelos normandos e habitada por uma sociedade multiétnica constituída por sarracenos, gregos, bizantinos, italianos e franceses.
Depois da derrota dos cristãos na Terra Santa e do fracasso da 2ª cruzada, a tensão torna-se crescente e o conflito vai agudizar-se entre as várias raças e credos que constituem o tecido humano do reino.
O texto, escrito na primeira pessoa, relata a vida passada desse jovem funcionário real, nascido católico, de pai normando e mãe inglesa.
Thurstan trabalhava, então, sob a tutela de um chefe muçulmano, numa chancelaria importante do reino. O cargo oficial que desempenhava tinha uma feição dupla e é por aí que dele se vão servir.
Com um objetivo muito definido para a sua vida, este jovem aspirante a cavaleiro não se apercebe das intrigas que, à sua volta, o vão enredar, tornando-o num peão de um jogo perigoso e de consequências funestas.
É que, depois de um período de pacificação, conseguida pela habilidade e justeza da ação real, os normandos vão aproveitar a instabilidade do meio físico e social para cobrar a derrota, conspirando na sombra; para isso vão servir-se da juventude, cegueira amorosa, postura transparente e pureza de alma deste crente e fiel servidor, subordinado do camareiro árabe do rei.
Com o desenrolar das jogadas das partes em confronto, vamo-nos também apercebendo de como as consequências de situações, cada vez mais complicadas e sinuosas, vão influenciar a sua vida, a sua maneira de pensar, o seu modo de sentir, a sua moralidade ...
As suas tormentas e angústias vão captando a simpatia do leitor, à medida que Thurstan vai aprendendo a escolher os melhores momentos para agir e vai discernindo em quem confiar para revelar o que sabe.
A lição que retira do que sucedeu é contemporânea; infelizmente, os bodes expiatórios são, ainda hoje, figuras bem presentes no momento de atribuição de culpas.
O texto está repleto de belas recriações históricas que quase nos fazem mergulhar nesse passado longínquo das cidades medievas de então, revivendo, como autênticos, os planos do paço real, a organização das caçadas dos nobres, a movimentação das peregrinações a lugares santos, os detalhes das danças da corte, os diversos aspetos do mundo dos cavaleiros medievais e do amor cortês.
Simultaneamente, vão desfilando perante os nossos olhos toda uma panóplia de usos e costumes dos vários povos dessa época, bem como uma apreciação a comportamentos e manifestações de estados de alma.
Ao longo das páginas, percecionamos um mundo de enganos e traições, mistérios e intolerâncias sem fundamento, mortes e choques entre culturas, envoltos numa atmosfera de conspiração, mas de um suspense moderado.
Esta é uma história agradável de ler, até porque ela não deixa de constituir uma lição elucidativa e esclarecedora para uma melhor compreensão das lutas de tempos mais recentes e de conflitos que se arrastam até aos nossos dias.


Eva Laginha

Apesar de na capa se ler que o The Times considerou este livro como "Tão intenso como O Nome da Rosa", eu tenho de o negar pela simples razão que apesar do filme "O nome da rosa" ser um dos meus filmes favoritos, o livro que lhe deu origem já lhe peguei pelo menos 2 vezes e não consigo acabar de o ler; e sinceramente este livro do Barry Unsworth lê-se bastante bem.

Este livro é um romance histórico na sua mais pura forma. É um livro que nos transporta para o século XII e que facilmente compreendemos os usos e costumes dos vários povos daquela altura.

Numa Sicília dividida entre Cristãos e Muçulmanos, Thurstan Beauchamp é o provedor real de prazeres e espectáculos. Um jovem católico que trabalha para muçulmanos. Ora nesta época de tensão e conflitos religiosos, tal situação não poderia nunca levar alguém a um final feliz, ainda para mais sendo tão inocente e ignorante das verdadeiras jogadas que os outros realizam à sua volta como Thurstan parece ser.

Graças a esta sua característica, Thurstan vai-se encontrando em situações cada vez mais complicadas ao ponto da sua vida ser quase arruinada. É ao longo destas atribulações que vamos simpatizando cada vez mais com este jovem adulto e compreendendo o ambiente volátil em que a alta sociedade se movimentava. As traições, essas vão ser muitas e os mistérios e mortes também, mas Thurstan vai aprendendo em quem deve confiar e em que momento é melhor para revelar a as suas verdadeiras intenções de modo a evitar a sua própria ruína e consequente morte. Pois uma das mais importantes lições que Thurstan aprende é que todos têm uma intenção mais ou menos perversa, mas no momento das culpas serem atribuídas há sempre algum inocente que se torna o bode espiatório.



Mas voltando ao enredo... Numa das suas muitas viagens para comprar os mais variados e exóticos artigos para a corte, Thustan é enviado para Calabria para tratar da compra de pássaros destinados à caça. Numa incursão pelos variados mercados da zona, Thurstan encontra uma trupe de dançarinos que viajam da Anatólia oriental e logo começa a negociar com estes para que possam actuar na corte do Rei Rogério. Após todas as negociações, Thurstan consegue o que queria e um pouco mais - a admiração de uma das dançarinas. Mas nesta viagem Thurstan encontra a mulher que amou e não esqueceu, Lady Alicia. Só que Lady Alicia tem outros planos para Thurstan que envolvem o assassínio de uma das mais proeminentes figuras muçulmanas da Sicília. E o resto é para ser lido...

Apesar deste livro ter um início um pouco confuso, este livrinho é uma boa aposta para acrescentar à lista do "A comprar" na próxima Feira do Livro. Ainda mais porque a editora está a comercializá-lo a 5 euros (ver aqui).

Já agora, tenho de admitir que apesar da editora Civilização ter optado pelo mesmo design da publicação da Penguin, gostava muito mais que tivessem optado por uma destas versões mais atraentes e cativantes:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/024...
Editora: Hamish Hamilton

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I...
Editora: Nan A. Talese

This historical novel revives beautifully a largely forgotten period of History: Palermo in the 12th century when the Normans had recently invaded the island and society was still divided between the previous governing class (the Arabs) and the new one (Norman-led). A story of intrigue and passion, it delivers many moments of pleasure for the reader - unfortunately, it's a little too 19th century-like in its long, overwrought descriptions and one would wish for the action to speed up. Also, when it does speed up at the end of the novel, the intrigue becomes so complex that it (nearly) defies understanding...Hence, regretfully, the 4 star rating. Regrestfully, because this is a truly talented writer.

During the Middle Ages in Italy, Thurstan Beauchamp, a Christian Yusuf, an Arab, in the palace's finance office. Thurstan not only deals with the King's money, but also gets sent on errands that involve bribes and blackmail. On one of these errands, Thurstan meets his childhood sweetheart, whose husband has recently died. Thurstan believes that at last he will have everything he ever wanted, but there are dark times approaching for the kingdom of Sicily, and things are not as they appear.

Every now and then I like to read an adult book. You know, just to prove I can. Oh, and I can. I just chose not to most of the time. My mother had given me this one. When I was almost done with it she informed me she didn't think it was that great. To which I said, "Why are you giving me bad books to read? Don't you know my to-read list is a million books long?" But at that point I was almost finished. And I guess I didn't hate it enough to give up part way through. Although, to be honest, there was some skimming.

Despite the cover, this book is not racy. Like, at all. What was most interesting about the story was the time it was set in. Sicily was quite interesting during the Middle Ages. It had that period where many different religions were living fairly peacefully together under the king. Keep in mind that this was a time when the Crusades were going on, so that was a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, this period didn't last forever. This story is being told right at the time when everything was beginning to deteriorate, and there were emerging feelings of hatred toward the Arab population.

Thurstan is a naive little twit who thought he was much cleverer than he actually was and for most of the book I just felt sorry for him, because it was pretty clear to me from fairly early on where things were going. I wanted to cry, "You're being played for a fool! Obviously." But he didn't listen. Sigh. They never listen. So I was hardly at the edge of my seat as there wasn't much of a mystery. I did keep reading to see how everything would wrap up, and it got wrapped up awfully tidily.

There's a side plot with some dancers that Thurstan finds and brings to court and his relationship with one of them. That's where the title comes from. It seemed an odd choice. Perhaps something that sounded kind of racy was wanted? Even though it wasn't?

So it was fine. The romance wasn't all that romancy, the intrigue wasn't all that intriguing, and the mystery wasn't all that mysterious. So...yeah. It was fine. It was no Mistress of the Art of Death. Or Brother Cadfael. But nothing ever could be.

The conundrum for the writer of historical novels, especially ones set centuries ago, is that people did things very differently then. When Dickens wrote of Revolutionary Paris or Tolstoy of Napoleon's march on Moscow, they were writing about people who relatively close to them in time and customs; those events had shaped the lives of the readers, whose grandparents had lived through them. The task that a novelist like Barry Unsworth sets for himself in writing about the brief period when the Normans ruled medieval Southern Italy is in many ways much more difficult. Norman Sicily far remote even from those who are conversant with Italian history. The people who lived through it are much further removed from our consciousness than the Romans who preceded them by a millennium or the Renaissance artists and princes who followed them. It was a time when Sicily, which we now know as a poverty- and crime-sricken island off the toe of Italy, was a glittering court where Latins, Byzantine Greeks and Arabs traded and even governed together. Palermo was a cosmopolitan, polyglot mercantile city with a public building and artistic program. Unsworth does very well with this, particularly with the Muslim head of a government bureau. He also seeds the plot, less successfully, with the owner of the navel of the title, dancer of the Yazidi religion (here I pause to remember the plight of the Yazidis besieged by ISIL, and fervently hope that their travail ends soon). The plot of the novel sort of lumbers along with a kind of a mystery that enmeshes the hero, Thurstan Beaumont, but the principal character is not engaging enough to make it suspenseful. In the end, Unsworth is defeated by this problem: in a time and place so radically different from our time and place, how does one create a central character who is both accessible and credible? Unsworth leans -- overmuch, in my estimation -- toward the former. Thurstan thinks and sounds relatively modern, which is to say not very medieval. In action, he is a bit truer to his time, but that is a function of the situations and decisions that Unsworth sets out for him. And perhaps the problem -- given such a remote time and place -- is insoluble, that a relatively modern-sounding narrator is inevitable. After all, Unsworth could probably not have mimicked the formality of language and religious, political and romantic ideas that appear in writing from the period and written an appealing novel at all. The example that is most galling occurs when Thurstan's king travels to meet the French Louis VII, returning from the disastrous Second Crusade with his then-wife, the very famous Eleanor of Aquitaine. An informant reliably fills Thurstan in on the travails of the crumbling marriage; Unsworth's understanding of the sacrality of medieval kingship prevents any closer proximity to the royal couple. A treatment of Eleanor was likely farther than Unsworth felt he could go, and he is probably right. But it sticks with me as the kind of opportunity lost when opening the door to such a poorly-known yet fascinating period but leaving so much unexplored.