Monday,
December 18, 2006
Book:Political
Intrigue in Medieval
The
ANNOTICO Report
Totally
engaging, BUT you must ignore the novel's weird title, "The Ruby in
Her Navel," whose meaning only becomes apparent in the final pages.
It
is
Protagonist Thurstan Beauchamp a loyal staffer at the palace's central
finance office is caught between
warring political factions as ethnic and religious tensions are rising to a
dangerous level and threaten the king's reign.
THE
SATURDAY READ
The
Ruby in Her Navel A Novel of Love and Intrigue in the 12th Century
Author:Barry Unsworth
Publisher:
By
Carmela Ciuraru, Special to The
Times
December 16, 2006
LEAVE
it to British author Barry Unsworth who has brought ancient
Pay no attention to the novel's weird title, "The Ruby in Her Navel,"
whose meaning becomes apparent only in the final pages (and still seems
awkward). This is a tale that engages the reader from the get-go. And you
needn't be a history buff to be drawn in.
The story opens in northwestern
Protagonist Thurstan Beauchamp a loyal staffer at the palace's central
finance office is caught between
warring political factions as ethnic and religious tensions are rising to a
dangerous level and threaten the king's reign.
When Thurstan is accosted one day by a mysterious
stranger, Maurice Biroul, he is informed that
"the great threat to our Church is the existence among us of a militant
faith hostile to our own," Biroul says.
"These Moslems are allowed to live and breed among us, and their blood is
corrupted they will corrupt the blood
of
Thurstan is a likable narrator for this exotic saga
of political intrigue, revenge and clashing faiths. He's a sort of James Bond
of the Middle Ages, a droll outsider detached from his
own life through no design of his own.
"I was distrusted as a man who belonged nowhere," Thurstan
tells us. "I worked for a Moslem lord, I was not
a Norman of France, being born in northern
His boss, a brilliant Muslim Arab named Yusuf Ibn Mansur, enjoys teasing his subordinate about his
"extravagance in dress." (It seems that Thurstan
is the 12th century version of a metrosexual.)
"I like to be clean and neat and make a good figure," he explains,
taking "much care with my appearance, shaving twice every week and
spending a good part of my stipend on clothes and scent and oil for my hair,
which is very light in color ! and reaches to my
shoulders."
Thurstan's priorities change when Yusuf
orders him on a mission, ostensibly to protect the king's interests, and he
discovers the darker side of otherwise mundane civil servant duties. It seems
that the central finance office, though it mostly functions as an
administrative center processing government documents and routine financial
matters (including corrupt ones), "is also concerned with the more secret
operations of money, the management of blackmail and bribes and the gathering of certain sorts of
information, regularly reported by Yusuf in private
audience with the King."
Although Thurstan is about to be played as a pawn, he
must obey Yusuf's imperative. He knows that Yusuf is grooming him for a more ambitious career path, but
he wants little part of the back-room jostling and international power
struggles his mentor seems to savor. But as Thurstan
embarks on his journey, he has an inchoate sense of dread: "I felt my life
n! arrowing too, and the
knowledge of loss constricted my heart."
Meanwhile, other forces within the palace are trying to exploit the heightening
tensions among Christians, Jews and Muslims, and to use Thurstan
to betray Yusuf. That includes Thurstan's
first love, the beautiful Lady Alicia, who reappears in his life. This time
around, the seduction is tainted, and Thurstan is
pushed toward an act of betrayal.
His redemption may be the love of Nesrin, a stunning
gypsy belly dancer with the jeweled navel of the title. ("She was so
beautiful to me that I could barely sustain the light of it," Thurstan says.)
What's remarkable about "The Ruby in Her Navel" is not simply the
ways in which it makes the sounds, textures and sights of the Middle Ages authentic. (At its most basic level, it's hugely
entertaining.) The author of "The Songs of the Kings," "Pascali's Island" and "Sacred Hunger," a
tale of the 18th century slave trade, makes this story resonate for ou r! times. There's the obvious
religious conflicts (with their terrifying implications), but the crime,
corruption and questionable political ethics Unsworth
has set in the Middle Ages seem all too familiar.
Carmela
Ciuraru is the editor of six anthologies of poetry,
including "Solitude" and "Motherhood."
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