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Theodora by Stella Duffy5/28/2023 ![]() ![]() It was during this phase that the novel raised questions for me that were not completely answered. ![]() We follow her through misadventure into a slow conversion to Christianity. Her fortunes reverse when she follows her heart, and leaves the city. So well taught has she been that Theodora acts every role that is required of her. As with many actresses, apparently, during that period, she is also expected to act as a prostitute. Through force of will and a determination not to submit, our heroine survives and flourishes, becoming the main attraction. ![]() ![]() Their education is harsh, involving terrible physical punishment, the reading of which set me squirming in my chair. When Theodora is a small child, she witnesses her father killed by the bear he trained for the circus his death plunges the family even deeper into poverty, and Theodora and her sisters are effectively sold to train as performers. For this novel set in Constantinople during the Byzantine period, Stella Duffy takes the scandalous stories written by Procopious about Theodora the wife of the Roman Emperor Justinian, throws in the spice of more contemporary historical interpretations, whisks in a novelist’s invention, and turns them into a narrative of an extraordinary woman who rose from the bottom of the heap to the highest of ranks.įrom the beginning, it’s a romping good read, throwing us into the world of the circus and performance, into a city bursting with people and animals and all the aromas and sensations that those will bring in combination. ![]()
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