Seraglio : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Totally disappointing
Review: I continued reading and hoping that the book would get better. It didn't! The characters were really one-dimensional and I never "cared" about any of them. The premise is very much like Bertrice Small's book "The Kadin, " but Small's book has richer imagery, more developed characters, and a much more interesting conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: A Thoroughly Enjoyable Read
Review: I really enjoyed reading Seraglio. The descriptions of the Turkish palaces and people were very well done - very colorful - and felt like it transported me back in time.

I feel as though it was well written, and liked that Tulip, Nakshidil's eunich, was narrating the story. It brings the reader through practically her entire life and the many changes that took place during the Ottoman Empire.

This is a book well worth reading!

Rating:
Summary: This Book Rates Zero Stars
Review: I very much enjoyed this book and unlike previous reviewers I did care about the characters. The story centers around a very young french girl who is kidnapped by pirates and given to the Sultan on the Ottoman empire. Aimee is renamed Nakshidil, forced to become a muslim and to have sex with an aged and decrepit sultan. Aimee is befriended by a palace eunuch named Tulip and as we learn about Aimee's future in the Seraglio (harem) we learn about Tulip's past. This is an engrossing tale of two misfits whose friendship sustains and nutures them through the good times and bad.

Rating:
Summary: Thoroughly Entertaining Story Of The Seraglio
Review: I very much enjoyed this book and unlike previous reviewers I did care about the characters. The story centers around a very young french girl who is kidnapped by pirates and given to the Sultan on the Ottoman empire. Aimee is renamed Nakshidil, forced to become a muslim and to have sex with an aged and decrepit sultan. Aimee is befriended by a palace eunuch named Tulip and as we learn about Aimee's future in the Seraglio (harem) we learn about Tulip's past. This is an engrossing tale of two misfits whose friendship sustains and nutures them through the good times and bad.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible.
Review: I would give this book negative stars if such an option were possible. Do NOT waste your money. If you must read this poorly written snooze-fest, wait a week--the REMAINDER BIN at your local B&N will be overflowing with barely cracked copies of this dreadful book.

Rating:
Summary: Totally disappointing
Review: Janet Wallach's Seraglio is an enjoyable, engaging read--the story of a young woman, 13 year old Aimee, who is kidnapped and becomes a slave in the Turkish sultan's seraglio. She befriends Tulip, the eunuch who serves as the novel's narrator, and ultimately works her way up in the seraglio over the course of many years. The story of the novel is an interesting, easy read. The choice of Tulip as the narrator is a curious one. In certain parts of the novel, he essentially must spy on Aimee to get events into the narrative, which can be clunky. The natural narrator for the novel would have been Aimee--but for whatever reason, Wallach chose Tulip. All in all, this is a nice, interesting, easy read. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable, yet Flawed Read
Review: Janet Wallach's Seraglio is an enjoyable, engaging read--the story of a young woman, 13 year old Aimee, who is kidnapped and becomes a slave in the Turkish sultan's seraglio. She befriends Tulip, the eunuch who serves as the novel's narrator, and ultimately works her way up in the seraglio over the course of many years. The story of the novel is an interesting, easy read. The choice of Tulip as the narrator is a curious one. In certain parts of the novel, he essentially must spy on Aimee to get events into the narrative, which can be clunky. The natural narrator for the novel would have been Aimee--but for whatever reason, Wallach chose Tulip. All in all, this is a nice, interesting, easy read. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Look into A Most Influential Woman
Review: Judging from the reviews for this book here on amazon.com, my expectations for this book weren't very high. However, last week I needed something to read and got this book from my library, not expecting a wonderful read but at least something to get me through the next few days or weeks. Was I wrong.
Seraglio is an excellent book. The story centers on Aimee du Buc de Rivery, a refined young lady on her way home to Martinique from France whose ship is plundered by pirates. The thirteen-year-old fair beauty is presented to the bey of Algiers, who presents Aimee to the Ottoman sultan. Refined and educated in the ways of the Western world Aimee is renamed Nakshidil and enters her golden prison. The Seraglio. At first, Aimee is stubborn and refuses to follow the rhythms and rules that operate the harem, a world within itself. However, she soon learns that if she behaves that way longer, she will meet a horrible fate. And so Nakshidil sets out to be educated in the ways of the harem and Islam, mastering the many forms of dance and seduction and how to please the sultan both sexually and through cooking and charm. The narrator of the story is Nakshidil's closest friend, the black eunuch, Tulip. Eventually, Nakshidil is called to the sultan's bed but soon enough, the sultan is dead and Nakshidil must set out for the Old Palace, a miserable palace set-aside for the harem girls after their sultan dies and a new sultan moves in with his own harem. Nakshidil believes her career is over but the new sultan, Selim III, is enthralled and enchanted with Nakshidil's French ways, her French ideas, and her French cooking. Instead of bedding Nakshidil, the two converse for hours on end each night about Western ideas. However, the idea of Western ideas entering the Ottoman Empire strikes fear into the hearts of many of the Turkish people, endangering both Selim and Nakshidil. And so the story unfolds, an epic of danger, deceit, murder, and a glitzy and extravagant life showered in satin and jewels. I enjoyed reading Tulip's account of his closest friend and the only harem girl who showed him compassion, Nakshidil.
There were some glitches in the plot. Sometimes the huge gaps were puzzling, sometimes years at a time were skipped over which meant we lost that much of Nakshidil's life. Sometimes characters arrived and disappeared quickly and often characters could be confused do to their infrequent mentioning and their titles they were known by. Their were other little things, such as Nakshidil corresponding with her cousin, Rose de Beauharnais (the later Josephine Bonaparte), which probably would not have happened but it lended to the plot of the story and depicted a more sneaky and secretive side of Nakshidil.
But overall, the story was wonderful. You really did feel for the characters. You can't help but feel sad at the point of Peretsu's shocking and barbaric death or hate the despicable Aysha, Nakshidil's lifetime rival in the harem. You feel for the characters and their losses and loves and emotions. Also, the descriptions were wonderful. Everything down to the tiling of the harem floors was described and most extravagantly Nakshidil's outfits were described from her emerald earrings to her blue kaftans to her high-heeled bath shoes. The settings and the language also made the book enjoyable. The exotic and sultry harem and the new Turkish vocabulary all made the story more cultural and enjoyable.
I liked this book a lot and was happy I did get it after all. I finished it in only six days...I couldn't put it down!

Rating:
Summary: exotic, enticing
Review: Must read! history comes to life: lush, sensuous, exotic, enticing

Rating:
Summary: Winds down to a flat conclusion
Review: Not really a romance, not much of an historical novel, because there is not enough made clear about the history. We don't get any depth of characters or even any sensuality. By the time we get to the last part of the book we don't get any interaction with the characters at all, just broad sweeping narrative. Tulip the eunuch as the narrator is just not exciting enough. By the end of the book there is so little detail it is like it was in note form. Don't let the sexy looking cover fool you into thinking you are going to learn about her in any depth. A biography gone wrong, with no real narrative drive. She had hoped to find stuff to support hr research, didn't so passed it off as a novel.
Even the fact that she was a cousin of Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, is not very exciting (and a lot more could have been made out of it). She has no depth and is far too haughty and self-centred to be interesting.