BEYOND THE GATES OF ANI

A historical novel set in the 11th century chronicles the plight of Roman Catholic Armenians under siege by warring Turks. 

In 1064, Arman Chakalian’s home in Ani—located in Turkey, on the Armenian border—is overrun by Turkish soldiers. Arman is Armenian and his father is killed in the invasion. Because Arman’s mother died in childbirth, he is left all alone. He manages to escape Ani with his best friend, Tovmas Valenian, and they decide to travel to Cilicia to find Arman’s grandparents. Then they discover that both of them are dead. The duo resolves to join the Byzantine army as mercenaries in order to fight the Turks, though Tovmas longs to return home to see whether his parents are still alive. Tovmas is entrusted with an ancient religious relic, the Cross of Noah, and asked to secretly shuttle it to Constantinople, where it can be safeguarded until a new Armenian state is established. Both friends travel to Constantinople by sea, and Arman is asked to safely transport Erica, a beautiful young girl, back to her father. He saves her from a vicious attack by a lecherous sailor, and the two fall in love. But they are briefly captured and made slaves by pirates in Cairo. Later, Arman and Tovmas fight courageously against the Turks. Tovmas finally returns home to convince his parents to leave Ani—now under the oppressive thumb of a Turkish ruler—and move to Cilicia, where they can safely begin a new life. Arman marries Erica, but feels shiftless in her native town, Sredets, and the two separate painfully. He pledges to return to Constantinople and rejoin what increasingly seems like a lost cause, defending not only Armenian independence, but also the continued existence of Christianity.  Knott (Beyond the Bitter Sea, 2014) masterfully captures the historical period, and the perilous circumstances into which Armenian Christians were forced. His research is as painstaking as it is wide-ranging—he displays an expert grasp of the era’s political struggles and religious divisions as well as the ancient geography and economy. The principal selling point of the novel is its epochal authenticity—it is hard to imagine an academic treatise providing as full and vivid a picture of the time. In addition, Arman is drawn with fine, nuanced authorial strokes. The character expresses not only the rage Armenians must have felt in the face of their ruthless debasement, but also an ambivalence many had about the religious crusade birthed in response to it, capable of its own merciless savagery: “ ‘I question the morality of this war,’ said Arman. ‘Already it seems that the crusaders are only interested in plunder and killing innocent Jews and even other Christians who fall in their path.’ ” But the plot moves lethargically and has a tendency to meander without narrative discipline. In addition, the story’s dramatic facets aren’t always as persuasive as its historical ones. For example, Arman recovers far too quickly and fully from a personal tragedy to be emotionally believable.

A historically exceptional tale with some uneven dramatic elements.