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Title: Sacred Hunger (Norton Paperback Fiction) by Barry Unsworth ISBN: 0-393-31114-7 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: November, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.76 (29 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Stunned ....
Comment: Sacred Hunger is a powerful book set during the years 1752-1765. The story revolves around the merchant familly Kemp that enters into the slave trade - allowing passage on the slaver "The Liverpool Merchant" to the cousin Mathew Paris, a doctor recently released from prison. Unsworths book explores the slave trade, highlighting the rationale, in painful detail - and paints a sordid picture of the merchant mind of the time. "The Sacred Hunger" is allowed to emcompass everything, even human life.
For anyone interested in history in general, and Africa in particular "The Sacred Hunger" is an essential but painful read. It leaves you touched, deeply, on behalf of the millions of life lost to the inhuman trade.
Rating: 5
Summary: Magnificently compelling, beautifully drawn
Comment: Barry Unsworth's novel Sacred Hunger is an exquisitely crafted tale of commerce and corruption set in 18th century England, at the heart of which lies the tension between the moral characters of two cousins. Erasmus Kemp is the intense, arrogant son of a slave ship owner, who holds the prevailing opinion of the day that the lawful accumulation of wealth is the only way a man should live his life. Mathew Paris is the ship's doctor recently rescued from prison by his uncle for publishing blasphemous and seditious views on evolution. Their relationship is set against the backdrop of the Liverpool Merchant's ill-fated voyage to Africa to buy slaves, and the mutiny that follows.
Paris is a thoughtful and troubled man whose constant battle against pride enriches him with a humanity and compassion that are beyond his cousin's reach or understanding. The respective self awareness of the two characters is fascinating: while Kemp has no conscious doubt whatsoever that right is on his side, Paris is plagued by self-doubt and guilt at his wife's death while he was in prison. Kemp's hatred for Paris is a deep-rooted one, possibly founded on the sub-conscious knowledge that it is in fact his cousin who is the better man, despite what society would have him believe. Kemp possesses power and wealth, but these aren't enough to combat the monomania of his hatred for Paris and its tragic consequences. Unsworth portrays vividly the moral bankruptcy that festers at the heart of 18th century English society, where the kidnapping and trading of human beings is seen as a lawful enterprise while the mere expression of views contrary to the current religious ones is seen as unlawful and pernicious. Sacred Hunger attempts a formidable examination of human nature and what man can be driven to inflict on man for the sake of power and wealth, and the author succeeds in what he sets out to do with admirable assurance. The quality of Unworth's prose is astonishing. He writes with an economy and grace that no other contemporary author (that I know of) can match. The period detail is beautifully drawn and the style spare and evocative.
Sacred Hunger is a magnificent book: it really does rival the great Victorian novels in terms of its scope of ambition, moral exploration, convincing characterisation and marvellous scene setting. I cannot believe that there has been a better historical novel published in the last twenty years.
Rating: 5
Summary: Buy this book, but not the Norton version !
Comment: What MORON at Norton decided that they should give away the whole plot on the book's back side ?! As if it wasn't enough to give away the beginning, the middle and the end of the story on the book's back side, they have made certain to take away any thrill the reader might get by giving away the outcome of the story also on the front page. What was wrong with the first edition ? The front page illustration was also a lot better on the first edition. Luckily I had already read this book, I just ordered it for a friend, thus I could warn him about the idiot cover. When it comes to the content of the book, it's brilliant, -to a degree where you end up ordering it from Amazon if you can't find your old copy, in order to lend it to someone who has just praised "Master and Commander".
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Title: Morality Play by Barry Unsworth ISBN: 0393315606 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth ISBN: 0385501145 Publisher: Nan A. Talese Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth ISBN: 0393321177 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Rage of the Vulture (Norton Paperback Fiction) by Barry Unsworth ISBN: 0393313085 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman ISBN: 0385315600 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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