This was my second time reading The Ruby in Her Navel and my enjoyment of it did not diminish. Barry Unsworth has a gift for creating historical fiction with a strong resonance to our present times. Set in a brief period in Sicily when a multicultural tolerant regime allowed various nationalities and religions to coexist peaceably, I could not help but see the parallels to current politics where people try to exploit racism and religious biases to create cracks in society for their own gain. This fragile society is the backdrop for the story of Thurstan, an ambitious bureaucrat, who labors faithfully in a role he hates for the promise of future prestige and the belief in the nobility of service. As beautiful and seductive as the description of 12th century Sicily is, Thurstan could just as easily be working within the present day civil service or a corporation while we watch him buffeted by sinister machinations, intrigue, and romance. His own ambitions soon amesh him in conspiracies, power plays, and even a bit of a murder mystery, but don’t expect a boilerplate thriller here. This is a human level drama rich in period detail. It still stands as one of my favorite Unsworth works (although admittedly that’s a long list).

Although the language and setting were beautiful I found the pace quite slow. I never finished it, because I got bogged down waiting for the final climax and picked up other stuff and finally had to return it to my friend. I still want to finish it but it is not a pressing issue.

Interesting, well written, entertaining. I have read a couple of books situated more or less at the same epoch, and this one is the only one that gives insight to the non christian people living in Europe at that time and giving them the importance they deserve.

Well-crafted, good twists. Atmospheric, of the era and place.so much felt very current though about the multicultural kingdom - amazing the history repeats this. Felt very true and real because this is certainly true now and was most likely so, all that time ago. Crusades probably the beginning of it all.

Intelligent historical novel

Here is well written historical fiction by an author in command of his creative abilities and his craft. This is an entertaining story involving political intrigue, religious rivalry, foreign espionage, all occurring in Sicily in approximately 1135.

Set in the year 1149 in Palermo, Sicily during the reign of King Roger, protagonist Thurstan Beauchamp is a young man working in the Diwan of Control, the financial arm of the palace. Thurstan is the son of a Norman knight and a Saxon mother. His father donated all his wealth to the church, leaving Thurstan to bemoan his loss of status. He works under Yusuf Ibn Mansur, the leader of the Diwan of Control, who becomes a mentor to young Thurstan. The Pope and Bishop of Rome have refused to recognize King Roger. Both the ruler of the West, Conrad Hohenstaufen, and the ruler of the East, Manuel Comnenus, are threatening to invade. Palermo has always been tolerant to ethnic communities, but these recent power struggles have led to conflicts among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others. The storyline is a complex combination of power struggles, deceits, betrayals, and coming-of-age.

Narrator Thurstan tells the tale of how the woman with the ruby in her navel became a legend. He alone knows the full story. It is obvious that Thurstan is a young man who values integrity; however, circumstances and machinations of others will put him into moral dilemmas. His mentor, Yusuf, is willing to help Thurstan become a man of substance and influence, but this relationship is also placed in jeopardy. One of Thurstan’s roles is to travel through Europe finding entertainments. He also acquires various supplies for the kingdom. While seeking herons to be used in hunting games, he discovers a group of five dancers, including Nesrin, a belly dancer of prodigious talent, and hires them to travel back to Palermo to perform for the King. He is attracted to Nesrin, but this attraction is sidelined when he meets his former great love, Lady Alicia, while on these travels. She has recently become a widow and is interested in renewing their relationship.

Obviously, it is difficult to succinctly summarize this book. It is a story of the idealism of youth shattered by power struggles that find Thurstan caught in the middle. It is beautifully written and provides a wonderful sense of time and place in 12th century Palermo. Thurstan is a likeable narrator, and the reader will want to warn him before he takes rash actions. It is a mystery with many threads, and requires close attention to follow them all. I found myself completely engrossed in it. I had previously read Unsworth's Morality Play, which motivated me to pick this one up, and I am very glad I did.

4.5

This book took place in Palermo, Sicily in the 1100's. The book was hard to get into but once I got into the book it was more interesting. The main chacter is Thurstan Beauchamp, a Christian who works in the palace for a Muslin Arab. The story revolves around his loyalty then encounters the woman of his childhood love and a new mysterious dancing girl with a ruby in her navel. You learn of the differences between religions.

Although a winner of a Booker Prize (for the excellent Sacred Hunger), Barry Unsworth seems little known and under-appreciated. This may be because some are 'sniffy' about 'historical novels'. But Unsworth lifts the genre to a higher plane. There is the attention to historical detail that you would expect. But his central character always has a complex inner life; time and place are vividly described; and story lines are strong. All this is true of The Ruby in her Navel, a tale of 12th century duty, love and betrayal.

This book was long on historical detail and very short on plot. The first part was intriguing, but the promised exciting story about just who "Her" was and just how she got that ruby was sort of a no-brainer. I liked the main character well enough, and I have to admit I fell for the intrigue as much as he did, and I was as shocked by that intrigue's result as I was supposed to be, but the revelation of the mystery was kind of duh. It was part Cinderella story, part The Graduate. Gee, a poor girl with no background makes good in the big city. Gee, an establishment boy with a bright future gives it all up for the romance of the bohemian lifestyle!

I think the author really wanted to write a spy novel but knew too much about the 13th century to place it in an appropriate context or to leave the knowledge-pounding out of it.

I wound up really enjoying this but to quote a friend, "he [Unsworth] made you work for it."

We are currently revisiting the 2006 Booker prize in the Mookse group, and this was one of the books I was most looking forward to - my fifth Unsworth and all of them have been interesting in different ways. Like most of them it is a historical narrator, with a setting that was not familiar to me - the 12th century Sicily of the Norman King Roger.

The narrator Thurstan Beauchamp is the son of a Norman knight who relinquished his land to become a monk, and an English/Saxon mother. He works in the Diwan (loosely a civil service) under a wise Arab Yusuf, and his role involves finding entertainers for the King and other state missions.

In the first part of the book he travels to mainland Italy (Calabria) to buy birds for the king and then to a clandestine meeting with a Serb in Bari. On the way he meets a group of Anatolian musicians and belly dancers, and arranges for them to come to Sicily. In Bari he also meets his first love Alicia, a Norman knight's daughter who he has not seen since she was married off as a teenager. He also falls under the spell of the youngest of the dancers, Nesrin, who gives the book its title.

For much of the book this appears to be a simple tale of chivalrous quest, but darker forces are at play - the fragile cosmopolitan society of Sicily in which Arabs, Greeks, Normans, Jews and Lombards coexist is increasingly threatened by plots of various kinds.

The denouement is rather cleverly constructed and the whole thing is rather impressive.

To start, I had to check out this time period and place in Wikipedia to give me the schema to make sense of the book. Then it mostly fell into place. TBH, I saw parts of myself in the main (male) character, in his inability to be suspicious and see the big picture, and saw the ways this harmed him and others. There were moments when big hints were set out for the reader, hints that the protagonist failed to note. It strained disbelief. Interesting historical moment, stilted writing trying to sound place- and time-based, and unsatisfying character development.