Customer Reviews

The Sheen on the Silk

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I've been a fan of the writings of Anne Perry for a long time now. I enjoy her Victorian mystery series, especially the Thomas Pitt books, because she has so much talent for taking me into another time period and making me see the lives of her characters. Even though this particular book was set in a completely different time and place I had expected to enjoy it just as much. Sadly for me, that was not the case. This was a book that I struggled to read, in fact I pushed myself to finish it because I kept hoping I would find that Anne Perry spark that I recognized.

Anna Zarides has made her way to Constantinople to find her twin brother Justinian. Once there she discovered that Justinian had been involved in a plot to kill the emperor and has been banished to the Sinai desert. Was he guilty of the crime? If so, why banishment instead of death? Is he still alive? Sound like a good mystery? Well, it might have been if this book could have decided that it wanted to be a mystery. Instead it wavered back and forth between mystery and historical fiction epic with the fate of her brother definitely taking a back seat for most of the novel. In order to investigate his whereabouts it was necessary for Anna to disguise herself as the eunuch Anastasius. It seems Anna could use her skills as a physician only if she were a eunuch, not a female. I thought that the author set herself up for some very difficult storytelling by using that device, but maybe it would have worked if I had ever felt really passionate about Anna or Anastasius. Frankly, I didn't care for either of them because they seemed almost bland, as if they were the background and the story was taking place in spite of them being there. Anna had the most incredible luck to settle in a city where she knew absolutely no other person and yet become personal physician to every important personage in that city. Quite an accomplishment. And months and months pass while Anna/Anastasius is establishing her medical practice and becoming embroiled with religious politics with no progress being made on finding out anything about her brother. There are plots within plots and sub-plots within those plots also. And many, many characters.

The novel probably will be enjoyed more by readers of historical fiction because the main emphasis of the story is always centered on the political wranglings between the rulers of Constantinople and Rome. Between the Roman Catholic Church represented by the Pope then in power and the emperor of the Byzantine empire. Between the different factions in Constantinople who all have their own agendas and are willing to do any kind of malicious act to arrive at their hoped for result. It was just too much of a departure from previous books I've read by this author for me to enjoy it. Plus I honestly found it dull.

The Sheen on the Silk is a very ambitious novel. It tells the dramatic tale of Constantinople in the 1200's, which is on the brink of being invaded once again by Crusaders. When done well, historical fiction is perhaps my favorite genre to read, because it gives me the sense that I've got a window into the events of the past. However, historical fiction is also a genre that can be something of a minefield because there is a delicate balance that must be struck. Unfortunately, I don't think that Anne Perry was able to strike that balance.

The first thing I notice about a book of this genre is whether the author is able to capture what life was like during the particular time period in which events take place. I felt that Perry did a nice job in this respect. I could imagine what the city must have looked like, what the Hagia Sophia was like, the scents and sounds of the markets, etc. This was one strong point of the novel for me, my sense that Perry enabled me to really step into the shoes of a 13th century Byzantine citizen.

The events of the novel are fairly epic, spanning everything from a woman's quest for revenge to crises of faith on both the parts of the Byzantine Orthodox and Roman Catholic characters. It seemed to me that Perry was trying to capture a pivotal period in time, when the once flourishing culture of Byzantium was beginning to die out, the unfortunate victim of a jealous and avaricious Europe. However, I found the broad scope working to the detriment of the novel. Perry leaps over significant chunks of time with transitions that are quite awkward. Because of this, I occasionally found the novel hard to follow.

However, the biggest disappointment of the book was, for me, the use of the characters. The novel is told from multiple points of view--too many points of view, in my opinion. I felt that too much time was devoted to characters who were less interesting or about whom the reader could have learned just as much through the observations of other characters. This meant that less time was given to the more interesting characters. There were long passages told from Constantine's point of view that seemed as though they could have been cut without sacrificing anything of the narrative thread. Anna makes many observations about him that would have given the reader just as good a sense of his character.

The most underdeveloped character of all was that of Anna. By the end of the book, I felt as if I knew barely anything about her. The book seems to define her mostly within the confines of her determination to bring about justice for her brother, but it never really tells us anything about Anna, herself. The author alludes to Anna's past without giving the reader any real detail about it at all. When Anna's big secret finally is revealed, it is almost anticlimactic, and I felt that the author could have done more with Anna by revealing her secret earlier in the novel and using this to really flesh out the character. Out of all the characters, Anna just didn't ring true for me. The reader is never really given enough information about what makes Anna who she is, and this makes her seem a little too perfect in her reactions to other characters.

On the other hand, I felt Perry did an excellent job of fleshing out the character of Giuliano. He is given a lot of internal dialog and I found his to be the best-drawn character arc. He grows a lot during the course of the novel, and I found him to be very sympathetic. Out of all the characters he was, by far, my favorite.

This is a very uneven novel that I feel would have benefited from some additional editing. The beginning was particularly repetitive at times, with the metaphor of silk being stated so explicitly over and over, it was nearly being pounded into the reader's head. There were passages that simply didn't need to be in the novel, because they didn't advance the plot and provided the reader with no real insight into the characters. I simply couldn't understand why passages like these were included at the expense of some further insight into a character as central to the novel as Anna was.

This is a quite good book of its type. If you enjoy well-written historical mysteries with characters developed as human beings (in addition to their plot roles), you will enjoy this. The historical setting seemed realistic, although I don't know enough about Byzantium to be sure -- let's just say that I didn't see any obvious anachronisms. The city itself is almost as well-developed a character as any of the people in the story. The bibliography suggests that it's at least well-grounded fiction.

The plot is satisfyingly twisty and turny, with alliances shifting in ways that create an almost kaleidoscope effect. The shifting alliances (and seeming alliances) are handled quite deftly. The author sometimes slips in amongst all the action a haunting scene that evokes this very different time and place.

The mystery is sufficiently, uh, mysterious not to be obviously solvable in the first 100 pages. There's a faint religious overtone to the novel that I found both interesting and bit off-putting. The book is by no means a religious tract, or even a philosophical one, but there is something there that tugged at the back of my mind and distracted me a bit. On the whole, I call this a very good novel and a decent mystery.

This is Anne Perry's first foray into historical fiction and it is a winner. Anastasius/Anna goes to Constantinople to find out about her brother's fate. She is a physician but pretends to be a eunuch. Her skill is much sought after and she finds herself ministering to persons high and low. Her inquiries must be both subtle and fruitful, lest her true identity be revealed. We follow her to Jerusalem,the Sinai desert,and various ports along the Mediteranean coast. We meet a score of interesting, finely etched personalities whom she befriends. She also learns that her enemies wish her downfall, and she has to outwit them. The background period is 13th century Byzantium, Venice and Rome, with French rulers all eager to exercise power over one another. Anastasius is repelled by the thoughts and actions of those drunk with power and influence.She longs for a world where people accept one another and are gentle and tolerant. As a physician she seeks to heal and make whole.Her own sad personal struggles are also part of the mix. These influence her decision to seek safety in being a eunuch.Though she loathes the power of Venice and Rome, she nonetheless finds that she is not the only one repulsed by thinly disguised greed for power and influence. Perry builds the story skillfully and develops her characters satisfactorily. You won't lose with this very satisfying and impressive novel.

In The Sheen in the Silk, Anne Perry enters different territory than with her Victorian-era mysteries. Set in Constantinople in the 1270s and `80s, it features the adventures of Anna Zarides, a young woman who goes to the city to investigate a murder supposedly committed by her brother. Anna dresses as a eunuch and poses as a physician, so that she may better conduct her inquiries. All of this is set against a larger struggle between the Eastern Orthodox church and western Christianity.

Oh, dear. I really wanted to like this book. A beautiful setting, an intriguing plot--I thought, how could you go wrong with that? Well, a lot of things. It's not that Anne Perry is a bad writer; it's just that this particular novel wasn't interesting or intriguing enough to make me want to read on. From the get-go, the premise of the book isn't entirely clear; for the first two hundred pages or so, I had a hard time sorting out the characters and what had happened to whom. There also wasn't enough back story to any of the characters from the start, so I was confused for a long time before things began to make some sense.

Another one of the book's problem is that it's a mix of genres, both mystery and epic historical fiction, if you want to call it that. This confused and confusing mix of genres ultimately works against the novel; because it frequently becomes a convoluted mess.

Another thing I didn't like about this book were the characters, especially the main one; it seems as though the author pulled out all the clichés to describe here. How many times before have we seen the enlightened female physician in historical fiction? Also, I thought that Anna was extremely difficult to like as a character, simply because we never got to see her as anything other than cold and clinical. In fact, Anna spends so much time with her patients and not enough time investigating the murder that I began to get bored after a while. Her search is conducted over a number of years, too, which lessened the sense of urgency that make you as the reader want to read on. Anne Perry's descriptions of 13th century Constantinople are gorgeous, and her writing style is very straightforward; but I simply did not connect to any of the characters or the implausible plot for me to continue reading after page 200. It's a shame, because, having read some of her Thomas Pitt novels, I was expecting something much better.

The most amazing thing about this book is that I finished it. A good editor could have taken 100-150 pages out of this too long book of 515 pages. I kept reading in desperation, thinking that this book must get better. Not only did it not get better, the ending was an even bigger disappointment. I enjoy Perry's series on the Pitt and Monk characters and kept hoping for the best. Boy, was I disappointed. You know a book is in trouble when the main character doesn't come alive and isn't believable. That was the first of many misses the author had. I recommend that you give this book a pass and read someting more enjoyable.

I have been a fan for ever, but Anne Perry's latest has been a huge pain to get thru. I hate giving up 1/2 way in but I feel I'm wasting good summer reading time on this bomb. Too many plots, characters with names you can not pronounce...and the main character remains completly flat. Big investment of trying to, wanting to, like a book.

I haven't finished this book yet, but so far I think Ms. Perry does better writing about events closer to us in time, such as World War I, than medieval Constantinople. All of her evident research doesn't make me feel that I'm there, or that she's there. Also, I just stumbled on a perhaps small but to me glaring anachronism, the sort of thing a good editor should catch. Perry has a pilgrim en route to Jerusalem circa 1276 saying that she's been to all the holy places"...Canterbury, Walsingham, Lourdes, Compostela,"Oops! Lourdes didn't become a venerated site until 1858, when Bernadette Soubirous announced her first vision. Glitches like this really destroy the mood and the illusion.

...but since I wasn't hooked, despite desperately wanting to be, I gave up. I haven't read any Anne Perry, but I am a big fan of off-the-beaten-path historical novels, so my expectations were high. The writing is rich; the world is evocative; but I was left utterly cold by the characters and what they were doing. When you don't want to know what happens next, despite an incredible amount of work on the author's part to create a time and place and a story, then the whole thing falls flat. I feel a bit badly giving this book one star, but I must be honest and say the last time I put it down I didn't care if I ever picked it up again, which is telling.

The year is 1272 A.D. and the setting is Byzantium during the twilight years of its existence. Sixty-eight years earlier, the city was sacked and has since worked itself back into prominence. Byzantium is once again in danger as they are surrounded on all sides by the Ottomans, Saladin and his infidels, a horde of barbarian tribes, and the mighty Venetian Empire.

Amid this stressful situation is a murder that is featured in the novel's prologue. A respected man named Bessarion is killed, allegedly by two young men named Antoninus and Justinian. What makes this so shocking is the fact that all three were extremely adverse to any talk of a proposed union between the Byzantine Empire and Rome. With heavy pressure being placed upon them from all religious sectors -- particularly the Papal seat of His Holiness, the Pope, in Rome --- Byzantium is in a perilous situation where any decision could mark their doom.

Entering into the early chapters of this novel is the character of Anna "Anastasius" Zarides, who has traveled to Constantinople to investigate Bessarion's murder. She has much vested interest in finding out the killer's identity as her brother, Justinian, has been accused of the crime. Passing herself off as a eunuch male and making herself a physician to the wealthy and powerful is no easy task, and one slip-up may cost Anna her life.

With Justinian banished to a distant monastery, Anastasius is flying blind as she traverses the homes of the influential, passing off her herbal remedies in an effort to gain a reputation as a unique healer of those afflicted with different ailments. She eventually has an audience with various local dignitaries, including Bishop Constantine and Emperor Michael. However, there is much strife going on within the church and the state of this empire as Byzantium must decide whether or not to accept proposed changes to the Greek Orthodox faith in order to save itself from invasion and the threatening religious crusade that is rising up from all corners.

With THE SHEEN ON THE SILK, even the most studious reader will require a scorecard as Anne Perry introduces many people from all the different factions and countries. Thankfully, a cast of characters broken down by location is given at the beginning of the book. Be sure to dog-ear this page as you will be referring to it often. Sprinkled throughout are some terrific historical references that include a string of untimely deaths in the Papal lineage and the politics and dealings that come into play when deciding who should next take the heralded Vatican throne. One terrific character introduced along the way is Giuliano, whose journey takes him deep within both sides of the Byzantium/Rome battle. His story is just as engaging as the underlying murder mystery that drives the plot forward.

As the novel progresses, you find that both the fictional and historical characters become equally interesting, and you will forget that you are reading historical fiction. There is so much wheeling-dealing and random plot twists that the scorecard I mentioned earlier will become illegible by the end of the book. Rest assured, though, in the hands of a master plotter like Anne Perry, all will be tied up by the denouement and the outcome should satisfy most readers.

Fans of Perry's Victorian mystery series (which includes both the Monk and Pitt books) may find this stand-alone effort difficult to get into at first. However, with historical fiction at an unprecedented high in the current world of publishing, Perry and her distinctive writing style make a welcome addition to this genre. As for the book's unique title, there is a passage early on where a character's garb is described: "...to make the silk of her robe flutter and shine in the light. The sheen changed color from russet to gold and back again, deceiving the eye, firing the imagination." I found this a fairly prophetic description of the many alliances and relationships placed within this ambitious novel.