Evidently
not one to dodge the thick of things, Hight eschews adding some imagined
character and instead centers things on Giovanni Giustiniani Longo, one of the
siege's most important figures. Longo, as he's referred to in the book, was an
Italian nobleman who came to Constantinople with seven hundred of his own men
to add what he could to the city's defense. Upon his arrival, he was placed in
charge of the land defenses. In the novel, his role's rather more feisty still.
Here he's an escaped Janissary who lives to get vengeance for his family, slain
by the Turks. Towards this end he's created a ragtag band of fighters, including
the bawdy "huge bear of a man" (p. 17) Tristo and the young former
slave of the Turks, rescued in the novel's opening chapters by Longo himself, William,
whose role in the group can be pretty safely summed up by mentioning that
Tristo calls him "young pup" (p. 286).
As for the decision
making abilities of this historically brilliant leader, well, those can
probably be shown by his actions in the prologue. After joining a crusade to
kill a single, specific Turk on the other side, Longo notices that his side
starts losing. Instead of helping out, he decides that the logical thing to do
is to "play dead" (p. 2) and, once the fight's over, take on the
entire Turkish camp by himself. He tries this, but after killing multiple men
in close combat, barely escapes with his life. Just to make things more
amusing, we hear that the leader who just faked a heart attack so he could enact
his personal revenge in the most illogical way possible "blamed
himself" (p. 17) for the men of his who died in the battle. Yep, Longo,
that sounds pretty damn warranted.
The arc at
the novel's center is Longo's, for, much as Siege
is the tale of Constantinople's fall, it's also the story of Longo learning
to live again. The reason? Love, of course. In the course of defending the
city, Longo falls for the Princess Sofia, and their romance is tenderly foreshadowed
by him repeatedly noticing "the soft curves of her cleavage" (p.
238). Come the novel's end, he's realized that "There were things more
important than revenge" (p. 326).
Sofia is
also one of the novel's viewpoint characters, described by the jacket as a
"stubborn princess," a reader of philosophy, a swordfighter to rival
many of the men around her, and fond of utterances like: "Princess is a pretty title, but I would gladly trade it for a
chance to choose my own destiny, to do as I wished, love who I…" she cut
herself short. (p. 242) As you've no doubt surmised, Sofia's not going to
win any contests in originality; she's a tad too filled with Disney Princess
spunk for that, a bit too reminiscent of Arya Stark before Martin pushed the
cliché to fascinating and terrifying conclusions. Still, Sofia's not dislikable.
I know that sounds like damning with the faintest praise, and maybe it is, but she
has her endearing moments.
Of course, she
and Longo's beautiful love is taking place in a city upon the brink of
destruction, and it's time for us to turn to those destroyers and besiegers,
the Ottoman Turks and their Sultan Mehmed II, the third of our central
characters (the three people that the jacket informs us will "decide the
fate of an empire"). It is, alas, with the Turks that many of the novel's problems
arise. Mehmed's a young Sultan desperate to prove himself after gaining the
throne, then having his pop take it back, and now being given one last chance. So
far, so good. Unfortunately, Hight pushes the (quite interesting) relationship
between Mehmed II and his father, Murad II, into realms of needless inaccuracies.
The opening chapters give Mehmed credit for a whole slew of victories that
were, in actuality, his dad's. Then there's the quite amusing moment when,
after hearing that Mehmed's acclaimed conqueror
by the people, Murad asks him, "What have you conquered?" (p. 41)
Seeing as Mehmed didn't get that title until after he'd taken Constantinople
(and so, you know, conquered
something) the question's really quite a good one.
The problems
with the Turks go beyond historicity, though. We stay at a respectable distance
from the Byzantine Emperor Constantine, and the lovemaking of Longo and Sofia's
quite a beautiful thing, but the narrative never stops dwelling on Mehmed's
depravity. It's rather telling, I think, that the two main words we get in
their original tongue are sword (yatağan
(p. 4)) and penis (sik (p. 46)), even
if we thankfully don't get the same word for both. Speaking of cocks, or rather
the lack thereof, we've the harem politics to deal with, where two unlikable women
scheme against one another without, with one exception, ever accomplishing
much. The main problem of all that is that, as it just about never reaches back
and actually effects the main story, it's just a detour, and one the reader
will probably rather speed through to get back to you the whole Constantinople
thing we're in this for.
The harem
politics, though, does rather lead to the treachery at the novel's center.
Though center doesn't really cover it. There is treachery everywhere within this novel, one huge scheme that seems to have
little idea of its goal and a thousand players, each of which often acts in
totally incomprehensible ways, assassinating the people they themselves have
put in place and so forth. The highlight of all that is when one official goes
to speak to the Sultan in order to tell him about a secret way into the city. It's
a trap, though, and he tries to kill the Sultan. But his secret way in was
perfectly good, for some unimaginably nonsensical reason, so, once his
assassination attempt fails, the city's doomed. Nice going. Key to the general
theme of treachery, though, is Isa the poisoner. We're told that "poison
dealers like Isa […] existed" (p. 406) in the historical note that ends
the novel, and that's all well and good, but I can't help but think that those
poisoners probably weren't much like this. Isa is a fifteenth century secret
agent, well able to slaughter his way into the heart of the sultan's court and
to defeat anyone at all who stands against him.
The rest of
the cast, unaware of the treachery deciding just about everything behind their
backs, takes a brief break from their love interests to defend the walls on the
final day. The battle scenes here and elsewhere in the book are competently
done, if not excellent. Hight gives us some sense of the strategic overview,
but most of our time is spent in the close up, behind our heroes as they hold
the line. Really, the worst part about the combat is the amount of it; random battles
against poorly tied in Spanish assassins serve to dull the fights that count.
Then again, battle really is what holds this book together, fight scenes the moderately
adrenaline-pumping glue that propels the not particularly deep or original
characters into the reader's mind.
Every part
of Siege that tries to rise above the simple existence and grandeur of the city
and then its destruction is forgettable, shallow, or has been seen innumerable
times before. The action is adequate but not exemplary, a phrase that could
describe most of the book and would suffice if it did have one excellent
element to make it worthwhile. It doesn't.
Nothing about Siege is incredible
but the history it's immersed in, and, much as Constantinople's a great story, Hight
has nothing much to add to it.
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