Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed feelings, October 9, 2001
Anna of Byzantium tells the story of the rising and falling fortunes of Anna Comnena, a princess of the Byzantine Empire, and heir to the throne. The plot includes friendship, betrayal, power struggles, an assassination attempt, love, manipulation, and sibling rivalry, and is a fascinating glimpse into the political and family turmoil that Anna may have been caught up in. There were a lot of things about this book that were wonderful. I really enjoyed the author taking on the challenge of writing a book about the Byzantine Empire. I don't know of any other children's or teens' authors who have used this setting, and it's a unique and interesting glimpse into life in this era. The plot twists kept me reading to see how everything would turn out. I had very mixed feelings about the characterization, though. Some of the characters were really well drawn and elaborated, and I really appreciated the author's ability to portray the ways that both positive and negative character traits could be intertwined in the same person. On the other hand, though, there were several characters that were key to the plot but were not well characterized at all. For example, John, Anna's younger brother, appears as a pretty flat, inept, selfish, weak, and spoiled character throughout most of the book, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of nuancing of his character. At one point in the book however (won't give too much away) his behavior seems pretty strongly contradictory to this, and the historical note at the end of the book describes him in a way that seems inconsistent with both presentations of him. In other words, he seems almost like three different characters in three different times of his life, and there doesn't seem to be any attempt to harmonize these three or portray characteristics that would tie them together or demonstrate gradual development that might have led in that direction eventually. Instead, it feels like he fairly abruptly changed several times, and the reason for these changes are unclear. This is the case for several other characters in the book as well. This left me confused about why some of the events in the plot turned out the way they did. It seemed that the character traits of the key players that might have directed them to act as they did had not been sufficiently developed to support some of their actions. I was left asking, "but why did he do that?" or "what is his motivation here?" and commenting, "it doesn't seem like he would have done that." It seemed that a more thorough and complex characterization of the mixed traits of those characters might have helped the plot fit together more cleanly. Overall an excellent book and a fascinating look at court life in Byzantium. The unique and interesting aspects of this book definitely override its faults, and I can recommend it to anyone looking for a unique read.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anna of Byzantium, April 24, 2000
Born in the royal purple chamber of the palace, Anna Comnena was the first born of Byzantine Emperor Alexius, and therefore his heir. She was a princess, and had maids who waited on her hand and foot. As she grew up and matured, she was taught the art of diplomacy by her grandmother. She was also taught how to battle when diplomacy didn't work and how to compromise when she was tired of battling. Her grandmother was a very manipulating woman who wanted power for herself. Anna, though, was not the type of puppet her grandmother wanted her to be. The Emperor always listened to his mother, and she, Anna's grandmother, had complete power over him. One of the most important moments in Anna's story is when her grandmother makes the Emperor change his mind about who should be the future ruler of the empire... She was very beautiful, but behind her beauty there was determination. Perhaps, if she hadn't been so determined in trying to show her independence, she would have been become Empress of Byzantium.There was a stormy relationship between Anna and her grandmother. Because of their equally strong determination, they both ended up hating each other. Anna hated her grandmother because she was always manipulating and conspiring, and all she wanted to do was to take over the Empire for herself. Her grandmother hated Anna for exactly the opposite reason, because she always told the truth, and would not let herself be turned into her puppet. This relationship was extremely tense, and gave me goose bumps any time both of them were together. The conflict throughout the whole book was thus between Anna and her grandmother. With all the hatred between them, they were always trying to find ways to humiliate to each other... As you read the book you are both anxious and frightened just by thinking of their next move. The author keeps the story constantly moving forward with many different exciting plots. Anna's grandmother teaches her how to be the ruler of an Empire while her father is away at war. Anna then realizes that her grandmother wants power for herself, and is only using Anna as her puppet. When Anna's father comes back from the war, the grandmother makes him change his mind about who should be the heir. When Anna's father dies, the throne is passed on to her little brother, with his grandmother at his side. Anna makes an attempt to kill her brother, but is betrayed and banished to a convent in the faraway mountains from where she will never be able to take revenge. Anna is visited by friends, who make her finally forget the misery of the past years and open a whole new world to her eyes. I learned from the book that you have to resist being hypocritical, untrustworthy and unjust, because it only increases your problems. Even if it makes you happy at that moment, sooner or later it will come back to you, and you will pay for it. I thought that the entire book was thrilling because something unexpected happened at the end of each chapter that made you want to keep on reading. The relationship between Anna and her grandmother was the main intrigue. The way the story was written made me feel as if I were Anna, rebelling against an outrageously unfair treatment. I sometimes felt like I wanted to go up to the grandmother and strangle her. At other times, I felt terribly sorry for Anna as, for example, the time she was betrayed by her tutor and was banished. The ending was perhaps a happier one then in reality, with Anna meeting her friends and getting one of her most cherished belongings - the book about her father -- back. Tracy Barrett is a great author. By her descriptions you can imagine what she is describing almost perfectly. The way she describes every person's character makes it seem as if they are alive. Out of all of her great writing skills, I like best the way she describes Anna's emotions and makes you share them. She makes everything have a purpose, and have its own story, every move seems as if to teach a lesson. With all the descriptions, she makes the reader feel love and hate, sadness and confusion. Tracy Barrett is a truly good writer. I loved the book, it was full of interesting events that made me either laugh or cry. The book made me feel many emotions. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a really good book!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A peek into an obscure corner of history, January 7, 2008
Anna Comnena thought she would achieve immortality as Empress of Byzantium, but when her father named her younger brother, John as his heir, she was forced to change her career plans.
This fictional biography casts light on a profoundly neglected corner of our past: the history of the Eastern Roman Empire, founded by Constantine the Great in 330 AD and finally brought to an end by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
The heroine of this book, born in 1083 AD, was the eldest child of the Emperor Alexius I, and received an education as befitted a future empress. As a child, Anna was bethrothed to Constantine Ducas, a distant relative of her mother. When he died, she eventually married Nikephoros Bryennios and they had four children together (not in this book, though.)
Anna's paternal grandmother, Anna Dalassena was the effective administrator of the Empire during the long absences of Alexius I in war campaigns. The old woman was constantly at odds with her daughter-in-law Irene (Anna Comnena's mother) and assumed total responsibility for the upbringing and education of her granddaughter.
This book characterizes the grandmother as a ruthless, tyrannical, paranoid old woman who had a falling out with her ambitious, rather unlikeable granddaughter and caused her to be disinherited.
The `real' Anna Comnena says this of her grandmother in her "Alexiad:" "My father reserved for himself the waging of wars against the barbarians, while he entrusted to his mother the administration of state affairs, the choosing of civil servants, and the fiscal management of the empire's revenues and expenses. One might perhaps, in reading this, blame my father's decision to entrust the imperial government to the gyneceum [women's quarters]. But once you understood the ability of this woman, her excellence, her good sense, and her remarkable capacity for hard work, you would turn from criticism to admiration."
This leads me to believe that "Anna of Byzantium" might be mischaracterizing the old woman, and misleading its readers as to the real cause of Anna's disinheritance--if indeed, she was even in line to inherit the throne after her brother, John was born (she was actually the eldest of nine children).
Nevertheless, this is an interesting look at the Byzantine court and its politics, through the eyes of an intelligent, curious teen-ager, and Anna really did plot with her mother, Irene to either disinherit or murder her brother, John. I hope this book sparks interest in the "Alexiad," Anna Comnena's fascinating history of her father's reign.
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