Then picture it again. Turn the page and picture it more. End a chapter and imagine it still…and that’s all you’re gonna do. Because nothing ever happens in this book. This sadly is a case of an old cliché coming home: I can’t judge a book by its cover. If I do, I will be teased, seduced and ultimately punished by the mean demi-gods in charge of a book’s POTENTIAL. When I reviewed the 2006 Booker long list, this was the work that immediately stuck out. Because of its…title…and…its cover. I waited anxiously for its US printing. I reserved it at my library before it was even in the stacks. I just KNEW I was gonna love this book. I triumphantly read the blurb as I waited in the checkout line and just KNEW I was in for a monumental reading experience. That’s when I should have known it would all end in tears.

Of the titular ruby in a navel, I will say…it appears in the book, and really has nothing to do with anything. They might as well have entitled this book the heron’s feather for the import both objects have to the plot. But then I guess there would be no excuse for the odalisque in the American version’s cover art if another title was used: score another one for the marketing team. Of the “love” and “intrigue” promised (also on the cover) there were scant traces. All the ingredients of THE MOST SPLENDID HISTORICAL NOVEL EVER were there, the characters poised, just waiting to be put to some use (ANY USE!) besides a pretty thinly veiled “allegory on our times”. You know the rhetoric: Western Christianity evil, Muslims noble. Mr. Unsworth was so wrapped up in demonstrating his estimable knowledge of the political and cultural ambiance of this 12th century Mediterranean crossroad (and indicting the state of current world affairs—I SO should have seen that coming!) that he just forgot about moving the plot. By page 300 out of 400 I was still waiting for something even approaching a conspiracy to happen. By page 350, when the “conspiracy” had been finally revealed, I was beyond caring. I couldn’t be bothered to finish the book.