Monday,
September 11, 2006
Book: "The Ruby in her Navel: Love and
Intrigue in 12th Century
The
ANNOTICO Report
THE
RUBY IN HER NAVEL
Talese/Doubleday
July 15, 2006
By Unsworth, Barry
A richly imagined novel of the Middle Ages, filled
with questions of race, God and fidelity.
It
is 1149, and all is not well in Norman Sicily. The Second Crusade's disastrous
failure has turned opinion against
King Roger wrestled
Praised
for his shrewdness in keeping this cultural mix in harmonious balance, King
Roger is now bending to a certain pressure, one that is demanding a singularly
Christian Sicily.
Moslems
are losing land grants and becoming serfs on their own property; Jewish
cemeteries are being desecrated; and the sovereign's Greek mosaic artisans are
being replaced by inferior
But
in the beginning, this is all beyond the scope of Thurstan
Beauchamp, assistant to Yosuf Ibn
Mansur, chief financial officer to the King. Thurstan,
had his dreams of knighthood crushed when his father
entered a monastery, taking with him all of Thurstan's
inheritance. Thankfully, Thurstan, adept at
languages, was plucked from the King's guard by Yosuf,
who is grooming Thurstan for a career of back-room
power.
Sinister
forces, humiliated by their defeat in the last crusade, have plans for Thurstan and his potential to betray Yosuf
in the name of Christendom. In the various intrigues of state (negotiating with
revolutionary Serbs, delivering money to an assassin, spying for Yosuf), Thurstan encounters his
childhood sweetheart Alicia, now a rich widow back from Jerusalem and promising
Thurstan marriage, a knighthood and a place in
society. While he dreams of the pure Alicia, he beds the beautiful Nesrin, an incomparable dancer he procured for the King. Yosuf tutors Thurstan on the
necessity of suspicionbut too late, for soon, Thurstan
becomes an expendable pawn in an international power struggle. Told that Alicia
has been kidnapped, Thurstan is asked to sign a declaration
of treason against Yosuf, forced to choose between
his own faith and ideals, and another's.
Unsworth's luscious
history is ripe territory for a dialogue on the ever-present struggle against
intolerance, a seemingly inevitable human frailty.
The
ANNOTICO Reports
Can
be Viewed, and are Archived at:
Italia
Italia Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com
Annotico
Email: annotico@earthlink.net