Out came a thought and then another...

So the shortlist came out and The Ruby in her Navel did not make it.
So it is no longer a thriller-like excitement to look at longlisted ones that did not make the Booker 2006 shortlist. Yes? No!
We are curious readers. Barry Unsworth is a wonderful writer. So discovering the buzz about a new book is always exciting. No? Yes!

Right. So let us get on with the books we left off then (yes, three sentences that start with So)

In the Independent's review, The Ruby in her Navel does not sound like a potential award winner.

Meet Thurstan, Purveyor of Pleasures and Shows in the Diwan al-tahqiq al-ma'mur of King Roger of Sicily: a blond-haired Norman who cares about clothes and girls, enjoys singing and getting laid. He is the narrator of Barry Unsworth's 15th novel, born to knighthood but compelled by circumstance to the altogether sissier occupation of royal talent scout. The year is 1149. Sicily is threatened by the rulers of the Western and Eastern empires, "the two most powerful men in the world", and Christians and Muslims are vying for King Roger's favour.
...
The writer of a first-person narrative faces many challenges, which multiply if the setting is historical. One is the need to convey information to the reader which the narrator knows. Another is the narrator's choice of diction - should the novelist be consciously archaic, or write in a manner more accessible to modern readers?

Unsworth adopts a curious register, sometimes "medieval" in its word order but essentially modern. This can lead to occasional moments of jarring dialogue.
...
Unsworth does not, perhaps, succeed in taking us vividly and with realism into the past, as Mary Renault's novels of classical civilisation do - but how much does that matter? To some it will matter a great deal. Others will find an entertaining story of sexual temptation, forbidden love, crazy monks and treacherous Christians: a riotous period soap opera.

The Observer review, however has another take:

Such is the compelling vision of the mid-12th century conjured by Barry Unsworth in The Ruby in Her Navel, a novel set at a redefining moment in European history. As he has demonstrated so often in the past, the chronometer of his time machine is a sensitive instrument and precisely calibrated. Here, he lands us on the front line of the ideological struggle, in the Kingdom of Sicily, and offers as narrator a young Norman from the arriviste ruling ethnic group, whose position renders him an appetising dupe for the rival factions at court.
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A historical romance shorn of medieval flummery, a conspiracy thriller to shame lesser talents, The Ruby in Her Navel is far more than either. Delicately intricate in its construction and psychology, morally resonant and hugely satisfying, it is the work of a novelist at the height of his powers.

In the Scotsman review, Unsworth is quoted:

"The crusade in 1147, nearly a thousand years ago, had the same arrogance, greed and expediency masked as morality that we see today. It reinforced what I feel about the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, and it was one of my motives in writing the book. As I write, I become aware of the way the present and past reinforce one another."

When Unsworth began researching and writing The Ruby in Her Navel some three years ago, the attack on the Twin Towers was fresh in his mind, President Bush had recently named Iraq as part of the Axis of Evil, and then, in the spring of 2003, war was declared on Iraq. To Unsworth it didn't seem so far removed from the uneasy peace of Sicily in the 1140s, when the fall-out from war led to severe racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.

The point that the past, very distant or merely few decades, invariably returns in the guise of the present just goes to show that man and his ego have stayed the same! For that interesting exploration, The Ruby in her Navel sounds like a promising read.

Posted by Echo/Lavanya on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 6:30 PM | Permalink