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Reviews
Editorial Reviews
New York Times Book Review
Wonderful and heartbreaking....It is a book of grace and meditative elegance, and of great moral seriousness. Washington Post
Utterly magnificent....By its last page, you will be close to weeping. From Kirkus Reviews , May 15, 1992
A masterful, thoroughly engrossing tale from acclaimed historical novelist Unsworth (Pascali's Island, 1980; Stone Virgin, 1986)--about the British slave trade in the mid-18th century and a shipboard mutiny from which arose a community based on racial equality. Through the perspectives of Erasmus Kemp, son of the shipowner and an obsessive, insensitive youth; and Matthew Paris--his cousin, a doctor (and ship's physician) recently imprisoned for publishing his seditious views in favor of evolution--Unsworth contrasts imagery of a genteel life in England with an increasingly brutal, barbaric existence under the command of the maniacal Captain Thurso. As slaves are collected from traders ... read more Synopsis
In this Booker Prize-winning work set in colonial America, Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son, who needs his father's fortune; and his nephew, who sails on the ill-fated ship. Synopsis
En route to America with a cargo of African slaves, the crew of the Liverpool Merchant, enraged at the captain's impotence in the face of disease, carry out a mutiny that pits two cousins against each other. National ad/promo. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Customer Reviews
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Fflawed but worth reading
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Reviewer:
A reader
from Iowa
November 27, 1999
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I read this because it won, with The English Patient, the Booker prize for 1992. Some parts were boring. All the detail about practicing a play seemed pointless to me, and at the end the pidgin English really turned me off because there was so much of it. I was curious about the end, and decided that the end was neither unsatisfactory nor totally satisfactory. I feel my time could have been better spent.
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2 people found this review helpful.
0 did not.
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Gets to the heart of slavery and soul murder
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Reviewer:
A reader
from Arlington, MA
July 28, 1999
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I have little but praise for this remarkable novel;in every way - prose, pacing and characterizations and fidelity to history - this is a stupendous achievement. I read that Unsworth suffered from a protracted bout of writer's block and depression in the course of bringing this story into the world, but it's impossible to guess that from the fluency, clarity and power of the final result. _Sacred Hunger_ is the work of a visionary and subtle moralist. Unsworth has performed one of those feats of which gifted artists are capable: like Bruce Beresford's film _Black Robe_ or Wynton Marsalis's "Blood in the Fields", Unworth has put a human face,etched in pathos, on an entire body of history. Historians have recently begun exploring the history of New World Slavery, the slave trade, and the so-called Atlantic world in depth again (Ira Berlin, Robin Blackburn, John Thornton, Philip Morgan, Wilma King to name just a few of them). By and large, the historians in this field are exceptionally good ones, remarkably free of cant and jargon, but it is a sad truth that -- barring some instance of pop cultural sychronicity -- even the most lucidly presented histories will almost never find a mass public audience. Yet, discussion of slavery, the original sin at the heart of the American errand into the wilderness, continues to languish beneath the withering rays of national denial and indifference. Unsworth rehydrates this vital discussion, by imagining a fictional, but utterly compelling and convincing, world. The narrative grid he constructs is virtually untarnished by unearned sentiment despite the Dickensian aspect. Unsworth gives readers so much to savor and ponder. The soul murder inherent in every aspect of Atlantic slavery is embodied here: the sexual economy of the slave trade (in the form of Erasmus Kemp and his pursuit of a bride), the catastrophic bleeding away of an entire continent to service the luxuries of another, the corruption engendered by this unacknowledged equation,and the reduction of slavers and enslaved alike in to mere commodities, mired in mutual fear, contempt and self-hatred. In the face of all this, occasional lapses in characterizations or voice (I wish that many of the African characters, particularly Kireku and Tabikali had been explored in greater depth) in the text are entirely immaterial. To paraphrase Ferlingetti: like Goya, in Unworth's greatest scenes we seem to see the people of the world at precisely the moment they first attained the title of "Suffering Humanity." The final page will break your heart.
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1 people found this review helpful.
0 did not.
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A harsh and wonderful journey!
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Reviewer:
Brian Ogle (me@brianogle.com)
from Boston
May 5, 1999
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If you want to become absorbed in a novel, this is one that will sweep you away! From the first page to the very last, the reader is surrounded by images and thought. You will feel as if you're crossing the ocean on your way to a brave, new world.
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A trip back in time revealing deep truths of human nature.
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Reviewer:
A reader
from Ottawa, Canada
November 10, 1998
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This is one of the best historical novels I have ever read. The vivid description brings the 18th century world to life in the mind of the reader. The story is fantastic, and filled with deep insight into the human condition and hunger for wealth. A book to be read, shared and discussed.
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2 people found this review helpful.
0 did not.
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