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Anna of Byzantium
by Tracy Barrett
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Laurel Leaf (2000-10-10)
ISBN: 0440415365
EAN: 9780440415367
Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: 2000-10-10
SKU: 02215
Condition: Collectible: Very Go
Comments: First Edition October 2000 with full number line. Book in great condition, but does have name label on inside, and two numbers written on inside front cover
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Anna Comnena has every reason to feel entitled. She's a princess, her father's firstborn and his chosen successor. Someday she expects to sit on the throne and rule the vast Byzantine Empire. So the birth of a baby brother doesn't perturb her. Nor do the "barbarians" from foreign lands, who think only a son should ascend to power. Anna is as dismissive of them as are her father and his most trusted adviser--his mother, a manipulative woman with whom Anna studies the art of diplomacy. Anna relishes her lessons, proving adept at checkmating opponents in swift moves of mental chess. But as she matures into a young woman, her arrogance and intelligence threaten her grandmother. Anna will be no one's puppet. Almost overnight, Anna sees her dreams of power wrenched from her and bestowed on her little brother. Bitter at the betrayal, Anna waits to avenge herself, and to seize what is rightfully hers.
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Customer Reviews
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A peek into an obscure corner of history
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-01-07
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
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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a typical teenager in an atypical position
Rating (4)
Date: 2007-06-10
Anna is the heir to the Byzantium throne, which is quite the tough job for a teenager. Soon, though, Anna finds herself torn between her kind-hearted mother and her harsh and powerful grandmother. She faces all the difficulties of fighting parents, annoying siblings, boyfriends, and growing up (that is, moving from the selfishness of childhood into the selflessness of adulthood, moving from the weakness of dependence on adults to the independence of adulthood), but all in the sphere of royalty and in the Byzantium Empire. This is a beautiful, complex, dramatic, emotional, and thoroughly clever historical fiction. Grade: A
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A skewed view of Byzantium for children
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-03-19
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This story by Ms. Barrett is a good, but seriously flawed fictional account of the life of Anna Comnenus, a Byzantine princess during the medieval era. For those who like fiction with no connection to reality, (and the plethora of fantasy titles, sci-fi and other `historical fiction' tampering with the past on the market today, is a pretty good indication of such!) this is a noble effort, that comes very close to the real thing, but fails at the very point at which it could have made a good novel, a great one. The author's very good pacing of her storyline, her evocation of some of the elements of a Greco-Roman society, are all well executed- it is clear she is a respected writer (the American Library Association gave it awards, as did Booklist and Bulletin).
But the reality of an [Greek] Orthodox culture and the suffusing of that faith in an overtly Christian realm that endured for over 1000 years, are completely missing in Barrett's novel- as are the realities of how deeply intertwined the Christianity of the Apostles and the Greek culture's dependence on them would have more than deeply influenced not only a royal such as Princess Comnena, but the entire court, far more than Barrett envisioned.
The plot strikes me more as a `junior Lucretia Borgia' than a Byzantine monarch's first-born heir. What I mean is this: the intricacies of plotting, revenge, murder, poisoning and all the rest that were a hallmark of the Borgias- and Italian, Papal culture (including some Popes whose offices were bought and paid for by Borgia money!) are in far shorter supply in the Byzantine records, and are by and large totally foreign to an Orthodox phronema [mindset]. Not that they did not exist, mind you! But Barrett's confusion of Roman Catholic and Orthodox prayers, sacramentals, liturgy, and Weltanschauung are apparent to an informed reader, and all of this is tacitly glossed over, downplayed, or clearly absent [by omission rather than commission in the book?] which confuses an Orthodox reader seeking material for his children to have them learn their own history, and points out how such organizations such as the ALA and Booklist are woefully ignorant of world cultures, even though they preach `multiculturalism.' Such obfuscation is made even more obfuscated because of the cover art on the paperback edition, which alludes to some `inner sanctity' of the Princess, showing her with an iconic nimbus of sainthood, that NEVER appears in her actions, or in the pages of the book, nor can be gleaned from the history of the real ruler!
Not once that I recall, is anyone found praying before an iconostasis, a foundational element of ANY truly Orthodox culture, nor are icons even mentioned! Nor is there any mention, allusion, or talk of one of the most astounding events of this era, namely the actions of the Roman schismatics, when Cardinal Humbert, acting as the Pope's henchman, came to Byzantium (Constantinople) with the `anathema' for the Orthodox, over their non-use of the `filioque' [`and the son'] clause in the Nicene Creed - an addition which the West inserted without canonical authority, and then accused the Byzantines of `omitting'- and it is this ONE event, which started the entire break between East and West Rome, which has yet to be healed, over one thousand years later!!! This is not a minor point in dealing with a fictionalized account of Byzance in the year 1100- it would be as if one were to write a fictional story of Lincoln, and not mention the fact that, under his rule, the Civil War took place! This is an example of pure Western hubris, and wilfull ignorance of another, equally valid culture!
Modern writers are all seemingly afflicted with a skewed, adolescent, egotistical temperocentric view of history, [one that is stuck in only THIS century, and THIS era, as `normative' for all of history] and this is increasingly apparent in children's fiction- see my reviews of other historical fiction. Barrett's book is a good look into ego, pride, lack of Christian charity, and the machinations of power, but as a historical novel of either an Orthodox princess, land, or culture, it is severely lacking. Orthodox parents would especially need to do some `caveat emptor' before giving this novel to their children as a `good look' at their own culture.
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Truly excellent historical fiction
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-03-19
4 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a fascinating and well written book. Set in the closing decades of the 11th century, in the legendary city of Constantinople, this book covers the life of the Byzantine princess, Anna Comnena. Named as heir to the throne from an early age, she grows up conceited, self-centred and ambitious but not without compassion and a strong sense of moral duty. She is loved by both her parents, but her father, the Emperor Alexius, is a distant figure, ideolised by Anna, but away on campaign so often that her true father figure becomes, subconsiously, her tutor, the eunuch, Simon. Simon is one of the best characters of this book, an intellegent, kind man deeply concerned with the other influences acting on Anna.
And other influences there are. From a young age, her ruthless grandmother, Anna Dalassena, takes Anna (Comnena) on as her pupil in the arts of statecraft. Anna Dalassena is an interesting character, one that the reader despises and yet admires, mirroring Anna's emotions. Anna (Comnena) is a willing, and to her grandmother, perhaps a little too able pupil. Some reveiwers have commented that Anna (Comnena)behaves too ambitiously to be a likeable character. I think that this is completely unfair and untrue; we know the real Anna, the compassionate girl that lies behind the princess, and the fact that she makes ruthless decisions makes us familiarise with how she developes as a human being all the more.
Anna has two siblings (in real life she had several but they were "cut" for simplicity's sake; the book looses nothing from it), a beautiful, kind, fairly intellegent but generally childish sister and a much younger brother. The brother, John, appears to be weak, spiteful and capricous, and Anna views him as naught but a minor annoyance, but in fact, John Comnenus is the greatest deciever of all the nobility.
As Anna grows up, both Simon and her mother become worried as to how Anna Dalassena is corrupting her with her cruelty and dishonesty. However, in the rigid, protocal obsessed Byzantine court, it is difficult for Anna Comnena to change arangements. Her grandmother has had the ear of the Emperor for too many years to be easily detatched. Her only confident is another of the book's best character, her maid, a Turkish slave called (by the Greeks) Sophia. One of Anna's rare moments of compassion is called into play when she rescues Sophia's illicit lover from execution, thus aquiring Sophia's eternal gratitude and friendship, something she will need as the years draw on.
As Anna grows older, she begins to hate her younger brother for his spitefullness and her grandmother for her cruelty. Unfortunately, while she expresses these emotions (admitedly rather vehemently) to Simon, she is overheard by her younger brother, John. Her grandmother, realising that Anna will be no ones puppet when she takes the throne, and believing John will be hers, sides with John, and Alexius is persuaded to promise the throne to John, not Anna, leaving Anna bitter. As time goes on, Alexius falls into illness and John and Anna Dalassena come to dominate the palace. Anna's claustrophobic life becomes ever more unbearable; her betrothed is killed in war (she is then betrothed to another man, a historian Anna does neither dislike nor love) and she is shut out from the library by her brother in a particularly malicous mood and the throne room, left with nothing to do but plan her revenge on the child that has ruined her life...
The book is difficult to do justice to in a review. The characterisation is remarkable, with some characters being truly... for a lack of a better word, lovable, while others are utterely hideous. A lesser writer might have made the enemies of Anna so pathetic that they inspire contempt rather than dislike, but Barrett successfuly gives them enough depth, and success, to be threatening and unpleasant. John's character, critised in some reviews, I actually think was very strong, (I won't give anything away, but remember John is a master manipulator, greater than even Anna Comnena, and, as we find out, the master of the Great Game of politics herself, Anna Dalassena.
The culture of Byzantium is reflected well in this novel, particularly the attitudes to women (which I understand the author has some knoledge in). This adds another layer of depth to the storyline.
I have some small qualms about the historical distortions of this book. There are several; there were actually many more than three Comneni children, Anna actually married Nikephorous Byrrenius and had several children by him, and here assasination attempt on John was actually made when she was around 35, not 15. However, these changes are in fact almost irrelevant; Anna's life as a married woman would have really been remarkably similar - claustrophobic and limited. The one more dubious change is that of John's personality; while I think John's behaviour in the book is perfectly consistent, the fact he was actually a benevolent and kind ruler somewhat belies his behaviour in this book. Barrett is a historian herself, rather than a novelist (you wouldn't guess from the book's quality) so I don't dispute that she knows her stuff, and I accept that it will have been almost impossible to streamline John's character with reality, but it still strikes something of a sour chord. This is, however, my only irritation with Anna of Byzantium, an otherwise fascinating story set in a neglected time period.
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Just Read It
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-03-04
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Although having been caught in the attempt of murder of her little brother, having her love killed in war, and have been kicked from being the first heir to the throne, Anna of Byzantium stood strong as her life took these nasty turns. She had been the first born of King Alexander III, and despite her parents bearing a son, her father had kept her as the heir to the empire's throne. But when her grandmother Anna Dalassena gets finds out that she won't be able to rule through Anna like she could rule through Alexander, she went out of her way to remove Anna from the succession list and place Anna's brother as the heir of the throne. Putting you in the 11th century, Anna of Byzantium, a historical fiction, will have you experience what the times were like back then.
What was extravagant about this historical fiction was that it was based on one of the few women historians of that time. Many in those centuries thought women were to dumb to write, although Anna proved them wrong. Anna Comnena wrote about her father's legacy as emperor of Byzantium, which also gave historians detail about her life. Anna faced many rigorous times throughout her life. She had to always watch what she did in her life, lest she be exiled. In the end she was banished though for the attempted murder of her brother. She lived in a place in the hills surrounded by nuns. Her courage to keep on going simply baffles you and shows that we are spoiled in our times.
The additions to this historical fiction, Simon and Sophia, were brilliant characters. Although they never existed, the write hoped that Anna had had somebody like them in her life. Sophia had been a Turk, a prisoner of the war Anna's father was fighting, and been made Anna's personal friend and confident. Sophia never was an obedient maid, and Anna soon discovered that she like this "infidel" and they became great friends. Simon was said to be Anna's tutor. In this novel he was the one to rat her out in the attempted murder. He believed still in the great Greek Gods, and despite Anna's loath for him for betraying her, she realized that he had done it only to save her from herself. Simon and Sophia were marvelous additions to the story, for they helped give it the more "real feel" to your mind.
How Tracy Barrett portrayed Anna Dalassena was exquisite. She perfectly showed that Anna Dalassena was the type of person who only though of herself and her bloodline, and anybody not of it was lower in the food chain. Barrett made Anna Dalassena that person that you just want to scream and yell at, and had her fit perfectly in the plot of the novel. When Anna Dalassena took Anna for lessons, her real personality was shown to Anna. Anna saw that her Grandmother was indeed a ferocious liar and plain evil. Anna Dalassena told Anna about how to make treaties and break them, how war was a "glorious" thing, and that to conquer all should always be a goal. Anna Dalassena can be easily thought of as an old and bald female Hitler.
Anna of Byzantium can show you that it wasn't all gold and silver being in a royal family. Your father would be your ruler, and could sentence you to death. You had to watch everything you said and how you acted. You always had to be on guard to make it in the royal court. A novel that gets you reading about a time before America, before Columbus, and before the reign of the English ruler King Henry VIII, you can enjoy a jaw-dropping story that actually gives you a bit of knowledge about the 11th century.
A.Johnson
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