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The Daily Telegraph (LONDON)
September 16, 2006 Saturday
The man of pleasure, the aristocrat and the belly-dancer
by Jane Stevenson
The Ruby in her Navel
by Barry Unsworth
336pp, Hamish Hamilton, pounds 17.99
T pounds 15.99 (plus pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4112
This lushly written novel is set in one of the most extraordinary
cultures ever to have existed, 12th-century Sicily. When the Normans,
those austere Christian descendants of the Vikings, went native in
the Mediterranean, they created a dazzlingly sophisticated hybrid
civilisation. Barry Unsworth's evocation of this exquisite world of
perfumed silk, mosaics and tinkling fountains is a brilliant example
of the historical novelist's art. Every detail carries conviction
but, far more importantly, what is going on in Thurstan Beauchamps's
head is also perfectly realised. He is a product of a world in which
loyalty is a central virtue, knighthood is not a joke and the code of
courtly love still rules. He finds himself poised between two women,
the Norman aristocrat he has worshipped since childhood, and an
independent-minded Armenian belly-dancer; spiritual versus fleshly
love.
Or so he thinks. I do not want to give away the twists and turns of
this eminently well-plotted story, but in the course of the
narrative, all his faiths are tested, including his beliefs about
women. The novel is entirely successful as a romance, or a story
about growing up and growing out of unexamined assumptions. But
beneath the surface, some serious ideas are moving. Thurstan is the
king's Purveyor of Pleasures. It is his job to find new sources of
entertainment and bring them to Palermo: a job that lends itself to
being combined with espionage and undercover activity. He works under
Yusuf ibn Mansur in the finance department, or diwan of control, for
Norman Sicily is a mixed culture of Normans, Byzantines, Arabs and
Jews.
In the 12th century, Western and Eastern Christendom had a heritage
of mutual suspicion, which arose partly from ideology and politics,
partly from fundamental cultural differences but, beyond that, Norman
Sicily was an experiment in Christian and Muslim coexistence. For
various reasons, Thurstan's world was an irritant to both Eastern and
Western emperors, an experiment that many people wanted to see fail.
This was the era of the crusades, and King Roger's realm was a direct
affront to the Christian fundamentalists from the West, who insisted
that Christians and Arabs were inescapably opposed, and any attempt
at dialogue was not only doomed, but damned.
There are lessons here for our own time, but Unsworth is not in the
business of big statements. He addresses the problem of a genuinely
multicultural society with subtlety, and asks the crucial question:
can people whose cultural heritage is completely different ever
really trust one another? Trust, not love, is at the heart of this
novel. Thurstan is trusted by Yusuf, and proud to be so trusted, but
Yusuf's mind proceeds along different tracks from Thurstan's; they
understand one another up to a point, but only by a continuous effort
of imagination, and there is much that Thurstan sees only when it is
too late. Content to serve his king, he fails to see the depths of
treachery and bad faith that surround the court at Palermo.
When the novel opens, Thurstan sees the royal household as something
that has risen above the petty strivings of ordinary mortals. To him,
King Roger is a remote and glorious figure. By the time his story
comes to an end, he has looked the king in the eye, and has come to
understand that the strife between nations is larger and more cruel
than that between factions within a society, but not intrinsically
different.
In an attempt to balance his various loyalties, Thurstan is driven to
commit gross injustice and to betray one of the people he holds most
dear. Ultimately, he has no choice but to walk away from everything
he has ever valued - though in the process, he must make another leap
of faith, in an unexpected direction. Love, trust and honour exist,
he finds; but not where he has been taught to look for them.
September 16, 2006 Saturday
The man of pleasure, the aristocrat and the belly-dancer
by Jane Stevenson
The Ruby in her Navel
by Barry Unsworth
336pp, Hamish Hamilton, pounds 17.99
T pounds 15.99 (plus pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870 428 4112
This lushly written novel is set in one of the most extraordinary
cultures ever to have existed, 12th-century Sicily. When the Normans,
those austere Christian descendants of the Vikings, went native in
the Mediterranean, they created a dazzlingly sophisticated hybrid
civilisation. Barry Unsworth's evocation of this exquisite world of
perfumed silk, mosaics and tinkling fountains is a brilliant example
of the historical novelist's art. Every detail carries conviction
but, far more importantly, what is going on in Thurstan Beauchamps's
head is also perfectly realised. He is a product of a world in which
loyalty is a central virtue, knighthood is not a joke and the code of
courtly love still rules. He finds himself poised between two women,
the Norman aristocrat he has worshipped since childhood, and an
independent-minded Armenian belly-dancer; spiritual versus fleshly
love.
Or so he thinks. I do not want to give away the twists and turns of
this eminently well-plotted story, but in the course of the
narrative, all his faiths are tested, including his beliefs about
women. The novel is entirely successful as a romance, or a story
about growing up and growing out of unexamined assumptions. But
beneath the surface, some serious ideas are moving. Thurstan is the
king's Purveyor of Pleasures. It is his job to find new sources of
entertainment and bring them to Palermo: a job that lends itself to
being combined with espionage and undercover activity. He works under
Yusuf ibn Mansur in the finance department, or diwan of control, for
Norman Sicily is a mixed culture of Normans, Byzantines, Arabs and
Jews.
In the 12th century, Western and Eastern Christendom had a heritage
of mutual suspicion, which arose partly from ideology and politics,
partly from fundamental cultural differences but, beyond that, Norman
Sicily was an experiment in Christian and Muslim coexistence. For
various reasons, Thurstan's world was an irritant to both Eastern and
Western emperors, an experiment that many people wanted to see fail.
This was the era of the crusades, and King Roger's realm was a direct
affront to the Christian fundamentalists from the West, who insisted
that Christians and Arabs were inescapably opposed, and any attempt
at dialogue was not only doomed, but damned.
There are lessons here for our own time, but Unsworth is not in the
business of big statements. He addresses the problem of a genuinely
multicultural society with subtlety, and asks the crucial question:
can people whose cultural heritage is completely different ever
really trust one another? Trust, not love, is at the heart of this
novel. Thurstan is trusted by Yusuf, and proud to be so trusted, but
Yusuf's mind proceeds along different tracks from Thurstan's; they
understand one another up to a point, but only by a continuous effort
of imagination, and there is much that Thurstan sees only when it is
too late. Content to serve his king, he fails to see the depths of
treachery and bad faith that surround the court at Palermo.
When the novel opens, Thurstan sees the royal household as something
that has risen above the petty strivings of ordinary mortals. To him,
King Roger is a remote and glorious figure. By the time his story
comes to an end, he has looked the king in the eye, and has come to
understand that the strife between nations is larger and more cruel
than that between factions within a society, but not intrinsically
different.
In an attempt to balance his various loyalties, Thurstan is driven to
commit gross injustice and to betray one of the people he holds most
dear. Ultimately, he has no choice but to walk away from everything
he has ever valued - though in the process, he must make another leap
of faith, in an unexpected direction. Love, trust and honour exist,
he finds; but not where he has been taught to look for them.