Murder in Byzantium: A Novel

by Julia Kristeva, C. Jon Delogu (Translator)

In this absorbing, suspenseful novel Julia Kristeva combines social satire, medieval history, philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, and autobiography within a gruesome murder mystery. Murder in Byzantium deftly moves from eleventh-century Europe, wracked by the turbulence of the First Crusade, to the sun-dappled, cultural wasteland of present-day Santa Varvara, threatened by religious cults, gangs, and a serial killer on the loose.

This killer is murdering members of a dubious religious sect, the New Pantheon, and leaving a mysterious figure eight drawn on their corpses. Meanwhile, Sebastian Chrest-Jones, a noted professor of human migrations, clandestinely writing a novel about the Byzantine princess-historian Anna Comnena, disappears on a quest to learn more about an ancestor who roamed across Europe to Byzantium during the First Crusade. Kristeva's recurring characters, detective Northrop Rilsky and the French journalist Stephanie Delacour, step in and desperately try to piece together the two-part mystery in the midst of their unexpected love affair.

In the tradition of Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, and Ian McEwan, Kristeva skillfully weaves philosophical and critical ideas into her fiction. Peering into the mores, obsessions, and excesses of contemporary society, Kristeva offers an engrossing portrait of Santa Varvara, a paradoxical place of sunshine and pollution where skeletons lurk in the closets of politicians and oil company executives. Her descriptions of the First Crusade and the Byzantine Empire vividly evoke a distant past while speaking to such contemporary concerns as immigration, fundamentalism, terrorism, and the East-West divide. Murder in Byzantium is also the only work in which Kristeva explores her Bulgarian roots. In the midst of this rich, multilayered historical novel, Kristeva also presents three stunning, closely observed, and interlocking portraits of characters struggling with loss and emptiness in their personal histories and day-to-day lives.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 2004

About the author

Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII and author of many acclaimed works. Her Columbia University Press books include Hatred and Forgiveness (2012); The Severed Head: Capital Visions (2014); and, with Philippe Sollers, Marriage as a Fine Art (2016).

Reviews

[John Yeoman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to read this book, having been impressed by Kristeva's literary criticism. Alas, she illustrates the adage that a critic - with distinguished exceptions like Forster and Lodge - is incapable of creative writing. It seems inconceivable to me that a lady who can deconstruct language with a Sybillic wit could not even reverse-engineer the genre of the pulp thriller sufficiently to make her own efforts readable.

[Nastja · Rating 1 out of 5]

Simulacrum.

Это тут в русском переводе появляются "наушники Валькмана".

[Jennifer]

Anna Komnene!

Update: never finished. The description of the book in the library catalogue was HIGHLY misleading and I got bored, and then the library wanted it back. The end.

[Kate Feline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Я в жизни не читала ещё никого, кто бы до такой степени любил себя и так презрительно относился к читателю. Три раза ссылка на себя, любимую - знаете, это ещё не каждому великому писателю можно простить, тут же от величия - только мания. Может, Кристева и в самом деле неплохой учёный, но как детективщик она ниже плинтуса. Линия детектива невнятная, линия исторического расследования затухает где-то к середине и больше не возникает, характеры прописаны отвратительно, над всем этим сияет превосходство альтер-эго автора, которая мало того, что просто типичная Мери-Сью, так ещё и попутно макает читателя в болото, обращаясь к нему, дословно, как к "пятидесятилетней домохозяйке". Сверху все украшено псевдофилософскими разговорами на квазиреалистичные темы.

ПС. Десять раз встречается слово "феминизм", я считала.

[Roger King · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author recently came to my attention when she was outted as a former undercover spy for Bulgaria. As a philosopher, psychiatrist, historian, and feminist, she has a long shelf of scholarly works and a few novels on one end. This novel is actually a deep historical dive into the First Crusade marching through Bulgaria, only marginally about murder (solved of course by the author’s alter ego) with too much psychobabble. However if you want that slice of the First Crusade, this is your book.

[Larry · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is smart, literate, and thematically interesting--and dreadful. Kristeva is probably one of the top ten smartest people in the world, but, apparently, genius is no guarantor that you can write fiction. MiB has loads of cool, weird pomo stuff--stuff I normally love--but the characters are flat and lifeless, a fact that made reading every page a mind-numbing chore.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides]

Can't help being mildly intrigued by something its author calls "an The Da Vinci Code."

[RickyTicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Не смогла...

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

Murder mysteries are not a genre I frequently read. Another author I read and liked mentioned this book, so I decided to try it. I got about 90 pages into the story but still nothing had hooked my interest yet, so I decided to abandon it. The author made occasional interesting observations or metaphorical analyses, but these still weren't enough to keep me engaged. I never developed much interest in the main characters and the writing style which some may really like left me feeling that the story was just dragging.

[Özlem · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst thing I've had the displeasure of eyeballing in a while.* The way it's going, I don't even know if I'll be able to finish it, but I've endured it for 90 miserable pages and I deserve compensation for this feat. On the off chance this becomes a literary legend of some sort in the future: my condolences to the students who'll have to read it.

*Not only is it postmodern, it's also extra meandering, irrelevantly infodumpy, self-referential (fictional character talking about Kristeva's lectures? Buddy. Pal), insufferably arrogant for no good reason, also somehow fucking racist?

[Nick Popa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Am citit cartea asta foarte pe sarite, cautand doar pasajele despre Ana Comnena, autoarea Alexiadei, un fel de jurnal al printesei bizantine. Ma asteptam sa gasesc si niste detalii despre Caderea Constantinopolelui, dar Ana a trait cu 300 de ani inainte de acest eveniment asa ca ... tough luck. La capitolul historical fiction, Yourcenar este mult mai iscusita decat Kristeva.

[Charles Whittaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frustrating. Kristeva is a truly spellbinding writer, but these passages are buried in obtuse blocks of text devoted to tracing historical threads down to tedious detail. There are many self aware jabs at the detective genre. They are often thoughtful, but leave the impression of being ridiculed for entertaining the spectacle.

[Scope · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some Julia's experience in detective story.

[Yokusun Basi]

Bizans'ta Cinayet by Julia Kristeva (2015)

[Tom Sheridan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m sure there was a good story in here somewhere.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's a mistake to judge a book by its cover. Don't waste your time.

[Red · Rating 2 out of 5]

Эта книжка окончательно ткнула меня носом в мою проблему: читать "тошноту" вместо "бытие и ничто", читать мандаринки вместо второго пола, читать этот детектив вместо уяснения понятия интертекстуальности. Выбирать простое и развлекательное и откладывать чуть более основательное на потом-потом-потом.
---
"и даже присутствовала на докладке иностранки Кристевой о новых душевных расстройствах, которыми по преимуществу страдают приезжие."
"Так вот, согласно этой Кристевой"
"Кто-то писал — кажется, Кристева, — что женская гомосексуальность эндогенна. Что бы это значило?"
---
"Что лучше, когда с тобой обращаются как со скотиной, чем вообще никак."

"Уж кому, как не ей — женщине и психоаналитику, — было знать, что вербальный оргазм фригидной истерички неизлечим, потому она и взирала на неё насмешливо и умиленно."

"пятнадцать томов «Алексиады»"

"Может, он слишком начитался Сартра и возомнил себя ангажированным интеллектуалом, сидя в своей асбестовой башне. И все равно мне его нисколько не жаль!"

"Бес и тот сдох, остались только опиум и кокаин, эра масс-медиа — эра наркоманов."

"Я наливаю себе джину. Мне нравится само название напитка из фиалки и хинина и его горечь и цвет." Однако. Фиалки.

"Это в порядке вещей, русские ищут зло вовне (в Чечне, например), а что уж может быть более внешним для этих жителей занесенных снегом меланхолических просторов, чем моя Византия, за которую они принимают роковую Аравию?"

"Что поделаешь, тошнота правит бал в области философской традиции в наше время."

[Liubomir Topaloff · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretentious, naive, and self-indulging. In my scale, the book is "throw it in the garbage / don't let it grow" kind of a work.

Unwanted advice: Please, stay with the so-called structuralism, perhaps with the strain of feminism you endorse, etc. The book was a total drag, full of glorifying images of the author herself, a pitiful attempt to merge Eco's Name of the Rose and Brown's DaVinci's Code, and a naive 'mystery' mixed with ultra-left philosophical musings. The characters were naive, the plot - translucent, and the already mentioned philosophical musings in-between, a dreadful loss of paper.

[Eli Jacobs · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book does not deserve even one star.

[Michael]

the longest 250 page book I've ever read

[Ailbhe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was exceptionally written. The historian and linguist characters kept my attention and informed me, but the thriller plot still drove on--I still wanted to know how it all connected as I read. The characters are modern and developed, the changing narratives kept the pace of the book high--like the Da Vinci Code, but more sophisticated and philosophical. Of course, if you don't like history or linguistics, this book is not for you. If you liked Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this is just for you.