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Sacred Hunger
Sacred Hunger is a stunning and engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed. Filled with the "sacred hunger" to expand its empire and its profits, England entered full into the slave trade and spread the trade throughout its colonies. In this Booker Prize-winning work, Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.
630 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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About the author
Barry Unsworth
56 books186 followersBarry Unsworth was an English writer known for his historical fiction. He published 17 novels, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 664 reviews
February 16, 2018
Another bloated Booker prize winner. Shared the prize with the infinitely more sophisticated and innovative The English Patient. Another baffling decision on the part of the judges. The English Patient is a torchbearer of how nimble and ironically self-regarding historical fiction will become in the 21st century - I'm thinking of Hilary Mantel and David Mitchell.
This on the other hand, is old school historical fiction. No irony, no mischief, no architectural sleights of hand. Unsworth goes for authenticity of tone which unfortunately often creates a rather leaden feel, most damningly represented by the journal the doctor on the slave ship writes. Here, we're treated to lots of Victorian soul searching which might have been realistic but to me was also dreary and meant I had little sympathy for the hero of this novel. In fact, I was more attracted to the baddie, Erasmus, without question the best character in the novel. His inept courting of a girl during the rehearsals for an amateur performance of The Tempest was the best part of the whole novel for me. In fact, that was the only relationship in the entire novel that interested me. Life on board the slave ship should have been highly charged and gripping; instead, because of the nature of the journal, the telling instead of showing, and the wholly predictable relationships between the goodies and baddies it was dull. There was also the problem that the characters of most interest were the slaves themselves but we learn nothing about them. Instead we get detailed intimate accounts of many of the rather dreary motley crew of sailors. In fact, Unsworth spends way too much time focusing on minor characters who indulge in pages of pointless chit-chat - I soon learned one could skip these pages without losing a shred of significance to the book's plot which begs the question, why are they there? The novel repeatedly went out of focus for me.
The novel's fulcrum is the lifelong enmity Erasmus feels towards his cousin, the surgeon. It never made much sense to me. Was Erasmus gay? That's the only explanation I can come up with why a man would hate another man because he felt slighted by him when they were children.
On the good side, Unsworth clearly wrote this novel with lots of love (this actually becomes a problem because it causes him to get carried away with all his minor characters who might be vivid to him but were often vague to me because there were so many of them and all with similar names). And he can write well. And it was excellently researched. He does a good job of evoking the base mercantile spirit of Empire but failed to dramatise it effectively for me.
This on the other hand, is old school historical fiction. No irony, no mischief, no architectural sleights of hand. Unsworth goes for authenticity of tone which unfortunately often creates a rather leaden feel, most damningly represented by the journal the doctor on the slave ship writes. Here, we're treated to lots of Victorian soul searching which might have been realistic but to me was also dreary and meant I had little sympathy for the hero of this novel. In fact, I was more attracted to the baddie, Erasmus, without question the best character in the novel. His inept courting of a girl during the rehearsals for an amateur performance of The Tempest was the best part of the whole novel for me. In fact, that was the only relationship in the entire novel that interested me. Life on board the slave ship should have been highly charged and gripping; instead, because of the nature of the journal, the telling instead of showing, and the wholly predictable relationships between the goodies and baddies it was dull. There was also the problem that the characters of most interest were the slaves themselves but we learn nothing about them. Instead we get detailed intimate accounts of many of the rather dreary motley crew of sailors. In fact, Unsworth spends way too much time focusing on minor characters who indulge in pages of pointless chit-chat - I soon learned one could skip these pages without losing a shred of significance to the book's plot which begs the question, why are they there? The novel repeatedly went out of focus for me.
The novel's fulcrum is the lifelong enmity Erasmus feels towards his cousin, the surgeon. It never made much sense to me. Was Erasmus gay? That's the only explanation I can come up with why a man would hate another man because he felt slighted by him when they were children.
On the good side, Unsworth clearly wrote this novel with lots of love (this actually becomes a problem because it causes him to get carried away with all his minor characters who might be vivid to him but were often vague to me because there were so many of them and all with similar names). And he can write well. And it was excellently researched. He does a good job of evoking the base mercantile spirit of Empire but failed to dramatise it effectively for me.
July 15, 2012
Historical novels are "a somewhat gimcrack genre not exactly jammed with greatness" according to James Wood in the New Yorker. (Where he is, however, exceeding polite to Ms Mantel.)
I can only imagine that this is one of those rarities whose existence he grudgingly allows. It is magnificent. It was magnificent the first time I read it all those years ago when it shared the Booker prize with The English Patient, and it retains its magnificence now.
A re-read is always a new experience: this time round I knew exactly where we were going so my attention was better directed on how we were getting there. The structure is an object lesson in plotting, with a breathtaking hiatus at the highest point of tension and strife on board the ship. The exquisite torture of what-happened-next is drawn out to the almost (but not quite) unbearable. Even more wondrous is the way that the whole action is entirely grounded in character, and not a single false note among those myriad lives.
But perhaps the most impressive aspect is how such a story of the appalling past can illuminate our oh so much more civilised present. As a moral tale of the depredations of greed - the sacred hunger of the title - it was first written in the immediate aftermath of the Thatcher years.
As I wrote I began to see more strongly that there were inescapable analogies. You couldn't really live through the Eighties without feeling how crass and distasteful some of the economic doctrines were. The slave trade is a perfect model for that kind of total devotion to the profit motive without reckoning the human consequences. (Quote taken from his obituary in The Independent)
How much more relevant now, as we see the fallout from another case of total devotion to the profit motive without reckoning the human consequences?
Mr Unsworth died just last month from lung cancer.
December 4, 2019
In 1992 the Man Booker prize was shared for the first time. Now everybody remembers “The English Patient” but fewer remember the book that tied with it, which is a shame because it is a wonderful book.
Sacred Hunger opens with Erasmus Kemp’s father showing him the construction of his ship, the LIVERPOOL MERCHANT. His father loves watching over the building of the ship and explaining techniques and parts to his son. However, due to the war with France, and the economy, his father is badly in debt, but he firmly believes the ship to be his salvation. The ship will be a slaver and trade slaves on the market. Erasmus, however, thinks that this ship will be the instrument of his doom.
His cousin Mathew Paris, unbeknownst to most, has been recently released from prison and is to be the ship’s surgeon. An important and vital job. Erasmus and Paris do not get along. The captain of the ship, Saul Thurso, a man who cannot control his anger and fits of rage, is upset with Paris’ inclusion in the ship’s crew. Even more so when he finds out that he is the nephew of William Kemp. He believes that Kemp does not trust his experience in the selection of slaves, and has added Paris, to oversee this job.
Orphaned at four, born and raised by the sea, Captain Thurso is such a character. Every passage that he is involved in is a delight to read, predominantly because of his dialogue and manner. He oozes this undercurrent of potential violence, seemingly ready to draw his sword and spill your guts at the slightest provocation. I cannot envision a better Captain for the Liverpool Merchant and this story.
Along with Captain Thurso, Unsworth fleshes out the cast with some wonderful characters who make up the rest of the crew. Billy Blair just back from a voyage is looking to spend his earnings in the local tavern with rum and women, when he falls prey to the dreaded press gang, who add him to the crew violently. No violence Is needed with Daniel Calley. Calley is none too bright, and the promise of an Africa filled with adventure, women, fruit you just pick off the trees, is easily enough to convince him to join the crew. Jim Deaken is a runaway from the navy who is turned in by his friend’s wife for the money.
Slavery plays a large role in this book, and its abolishment is the goal of Paris after he leads a mutiny and establishes a settlement on the coast of Florida, hidden away from the rest of the world. Paris envisions a utopia where everybody is treated equally and held accountable for their actions. He desires for every man, woman and child of this fledgling settlement to live in harmony and peace. An environment where none of the inhabitants burn with the “sacred hunger” for power, money and class.
Unsworth’s writing is highly descriptive and captures the squalid, horrible, claustrophobic conditions of what it must have been like for the slaves and crew travelling these trade routes. The navigation, the food, the endless monotony and boredom faced when not trying to paradoxically survive a storm very capable of sinking the ship.
Everything about this novel, the narrative, the characters, the prose is stellar and deserving of sharing the Man Booker prize of 1992. For me, it’s a shame that it seems to spend its life in “The English Patients” shadow, because it deserves more. 5 Stars!
Sacred Hunger opens with Erasmus Kemp’s father showing him the construction of his ship, the LIVERPOOL MERCHANT. His father loves watching over the building of the ship and explaining techniques and parts to his son. However, due to the war with France, and the economy, his father is badly in debt, but he firmly believes the ship to be his salvation. The ship will be a slaver and trade slaves on the market. Erasmus, however, thinks that this ship will be the instrument of his doom.
His cousin Mathew Paris, unbeknownst to most, has been recently released from prison and is to be the ship’s surgeon. An important and vital job. Erasmus and Paris do not get along. The captain of the ship, Saul Thurso, a man who cannot control his anger and fits of rage, is upset with Paris’ inclusion in the ship’s crew. Even more so when he finds out that he is the nephew of William Kemp. He believes that Kemp does not trust his experience in the selection of slaves, and has added Paris, to oversee this job.
Orphaned at four, born and raised by the sea, Captain Thurso is such a character. Every passage that he is involved in is a delight to read, predominantly because of his dialogue and manner. He oozes this undercurrent of potential violence, seemingly ready to draw his sword and spill your guts at the slightest provocation. I cannot envision a better Captain for the Liverpool Merchant and this story.
Along with Captain Thurso, Unsworth fleshes out the cast with some wonderful characters who make up the rest of the crew. Billy Blair just back from a voyage is looking to spend his earnings in the local tavern with rum and women, when he falls prey to the dreaded press gang, who add him to the crew violently. No violence Is needed with Daniel Calley. Calley is none too bright, and the promise of an Africa filled with adventure, women, fruit you just pick off the trees, is easily enough to convince him to join the crew. Jim Deaken is a runaway from the navy who is turned in by his friend’s wife for the money.
Slavery plays a large role in this book, and its abolishment is the goal of Paris after he leads a mutiny and establishes a settlement on the coast of Florida, hidden away from the rest of the world. Paris envisions a utopia where everybody is treated equally and held accountable for their actions. He desires for every man, woman and child of this fledgling settlement to live in harmony and peace. An environment where none of the inhabitants burn with the “sacred hunger” for power, money and class.
Unsworth’s writing is highly descriptive and captures the squalid, horrible, claustrophobic conditions of what it must have been like for the slaves and crew travelling these trade routes. The navigation, the food, the endless monotony and boredom faced when not trying to paradoxically survive a storm very capable of sinking the ship.
Everything about this novel, the narrative, the characters, the prose is stellar and deserving of sharing the Man Booker prize of 1992. For me, it’s a shame that it seems to spend its life in “The English Patients” shadow, because it deserves more. 5 Stars!
August 31, 2016
Here's another 5 star novel I never reviewed. Barry Unsworth was an English guy, son of a miner (something he has in common with DH Lawrence, and more importantly, with me). He knocked out all kinds of interesting novels and this is a real pearl, all about slavery, so of course it's a historical horror story. In the middle of the story there's a ship that finds itself randomly beached on the coast of pre-Miami Florida and the slaves and sailors then get busy and create for themselves a nearly utopian settlement.
And the novel turns into a very extreme exercise in authorial ventriloquism. Barry Unsworth is imagining himself into the minds of characters who are
- from the 18th century
- from Africa
- female
Yes - a couple of the main characters are patois-speaking African women from the 17th century. That's quite a breath-taking daring leap of imagination for a Durham miner's lad. And he does it with elan, I was quite convinced.
So, a Booker Prize winner which is well worth reading. You know, it's mathematically impossible for them to get it wrong all the time.
And the novel turns into a very extreme exercise in authorial ventriloquism. Barry Unsworth is imagining himself into the minds of characters who are
- from the 18th century
- from Africa
- female
Yes - a couple of the main characters are patois-speaking African women from the 17th century. That's quite a breath-taking daring leap of imagination for a Durham miner's lad. And he does it with elan, I was quite convinced.
So, a Booker Prize winner which is well worth reading. You know, it's mathematically impossible for them to get it wrong all the time.
May 12, 2011
Such an unsettling book. One that demanded more from my senses, emotions, thoughts than I ever expected it would. It preoccupied me, it made me feel sick, it taught me, it even entertained me at times, but rarely. It was not that kind of book, not the kind you can read for entertainment or enlightment alone. Rather it is a book that demands, that contorts, that expands and contracts your heart til it cracks. A book where the author demands the reader pay the price of turning the page.
In Ethan Canin's review on NPR he said: "I like my masterpieces straight up. It's 640 pages without a literary trick. NO experimentation with prose. No stream of consciousness. Just page after page of the most harrowing and vivid writing . . . I first came upon this book nearly a decade ago; it moved me as deeply as anything I'd ever read."
How many books make that claim on the reader? This one does.
In Ethan Canin's review on NPR he said: "I like my masterpieces straight up. It's 640 pages without a literary trick. NO experimentation with prose. No stream of consciousness. Just page after page of the most harrowing and vivid writing . . . I first came upon this book nearly a decade ago; it moved me as deeply as anything I'd ever read."
How many books make that claim on the reader? This one does.
February 19, 2018
A fascinating and earnest piece of historical fiction. It doesn't possess the layered ironies of some of Unsworth's other work, and I did miss that, but overall, it's very well done.
December 10, 2020
[3.7] This powerful novel about greed and the horrors of the slave trade unfolds at a leisurely pace, over 22 hours on audio. I loved the first few hundred pages but when the slave ship veers off course, the novel loses steam.
January 10, 2012
This review was written in the late nineties (for my eyes only), and it was buried in amongst my things until recently when I uncovered the journal in which it was written. I have transcribed it verbatim from all those years ago (although square brackets may indicate some additional information for the sake of readability or some sort of commentary from now). This is one of my lost reviews.
"...the sky took on a look of readiness for the dark, that depthless clarity which is no colour and the womb of all colours."
For me this is one of the most powerful descriptions of twilight I've ever read. Yet Unsworth's book is much more than rich language. In the characters of Matthew Paris and Erasmus Kemp, he captures the opposing forces of my own soul.
The slave trading vessels of our history are a perfect stage for this battle to play out, and the paradise of Kenku-Stardust is a perfect stage for its culmination.
Slavery is my home country's greatest personal tragedy, and the more I know of it the more I take on the shame of it myself. I wish there was something I could do to wipe away that shame and repay those who suffered. There's blood on our hands even though we didn't sail on those ships.
"...the sky took on a look of readiness for the dark, that depthless clarity which is no colour and the womb of all colours."
For me this is one of the most powerful descriptions of twilight I've ever read. Yet Unsworth's book is much more than rich language. In the characters of Matthew Paris and Erasmus Kemp, he captures the opposing forces of my own soul.
The slave trading vessels of our history are a perfect stage for this battle to play out, and the paradise of Kenku-Stardust is a perfect stage for its culmination.
Slavery is my home country's greatest personal tragedy, and the more I know of it the more I take on the shame of it myself. I wish there was something I could do to wipe away that shame and repay those who suffered. There's blood on our hands even though we didn't sail on those ships.
January 14, 2013
This book is about England and her role in the slave trade. It is also about how men and women thought in the mid-1700s, how they viewed justice and freedom and success, and those of the opposite sex. In its accurate depiction of these times, it is an excellent work of historical fiction.
Here follows a quote from chapter 40, so you can judge how you may react. It is a diary entry written by Paris, the surgeon on the Liverpool Merchant slave ship:
April 26: I continue, in spite of these terrible conditions, to hold long conversations with Delblanc, and they are a solace to me, though I consider him not enough of a realist. He maintains there could be a world, a society without victims and without injustice, where the weakness of one was not an invitation to the strength of another, except to succor or protect. I go so far with him as to believe it true that the moral character of man is formed by what happens to him in the world and that our nature originates in external circumstances. Why then do we languish under wars and tyrannies? Delblanc would say it is due to the harmful effect of government upon us….
Such philosophical thoughts would certainly be typical of the times, 1752, with the Enlightenment in full swing. The writing perfectly mirrors those times. Nevertheless, I found parts quite tedious. It is hard today to put yourself back into that mindset. We do not see the world as they did then! The book describes what is happening in different milieux, for example, a drama performance being planned for a birthday celebration in London, life aboard a slave ship, life in a new British colony and in a renegade “settlement”. Each is done with precision. Unsworthy is depicting different worlds coexisting side by side. The contrast is alarming.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by David Rintoul. It was easy to follow. He expertly switched between different dialects - the speech of blacks, Native Americans, Europeans, the upper-class and the poorest of the English, the Irish and the Scottish! He did not over-emphasize the Pidgin English found in the text. He simply read what was written there in the lines without adding any additional degrading undertone. This I appreciated. For me it is very hard to listen to or read Pidgin English. It gives so little nuance to what the characters are saying or meaning. It is just plain boring!
What I am trying to say is that although the lines perfectly depicted each situation, I still did not enjoy the reading experience. Some authors are able to make another way of thinking so understandable that it is not repulsive. Was it that the author failed to make me empathize with the characters? Was it that there is little humor? Was it that I dislike reading Pidgin English? An excellent work of historical fiction, but not enjoyable to read or listen to. I am not saying it isn’t worth reading.
Here follows a quote from chapter 40, so you can judge how you may react. It is a diary entry written by Paris, the surgeon on the Liverpool Merchant slave ship:
April 26: I continue, in spite of these terrible conditions, to hold long conversations with Delblanc, and they are a solace to me, though I consider him not enough of a realist. He maintains there could be a world, a society without victims and without injustice, where the weakness of one was not an invitation to the strength of another, except to succor or protect. I go so far with him as to believe it true that the moral character of man is formed by what happens to him in the world and that our nature originates in external circumstances. Why then do we languish under wars and tyrannies? Delblanc would say it is due to the harmful effect of government upon us….
Such philosophical thoughts would certainly be typical of the times, 1752, with the Enlightenment in full swing. The writing perfectly mirrors those times. Nevertheless, I found parts quite tedious. It is hard today to put yourself back into that mindset. We do not see the world as they did then! The book describes what is happening in different milieux, for example, a drama performance being planned for a birthday celebration in London, life aboard a slave ship, life in a new British colony and in a renegade “settlement”. Each is done with precision. Unsworthy is depicting different worlds coexisting side by side. The contrast is alarming.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by David Rintoul. It was easy to follow. He expertly switched between different dialects - the speech of blacks, Native Americans, Europeans, the upper-class and the poorest of the English, the Irish and the Scottish! He did not over-emphasize the Pidgin English found in the text. He simply read what was written there in the lines without adding any additional degrading undertone. This I appreciated. For me it is very hard to listen to or read Pidgin English. It gives so little nuance to what the characters are saying or meaning. It is just plain boring!
What I am trying to say is that although the lines perfectly depicted each situation, I still did not enjoy the reading experience. Some authors are able to make another way of thinking so understandable that it is not repulsive. Was it that the author failed to make me empathize with the characters? Was it that there is little humor? Was it that I dislike reading Pidgin English? An excellent work of historical fiction, but not enjoyable to read or listen to. I am not saying it isn’t worth reading.
April 14, 2013
I once had a dream where I saw myself in a mirror and looked myself directly in the eyes. It was one of the most disconcerting dreams I've ever had since most of my dreams aren't quite that direct.
Reading this book gave me a similar feeling. Unsworth wrote not just about slaves on a slave ship. He wrote about humans looking me, another human, directly in the eyes. I felt the same thing that I felt in that dream.
And that's amazing.
This book broke my heart.
Reading this book gave me a similar feeling. Unsworth wrote not just about slaves on a slave ship. He wrote about humans looking me, another human, directly in the eyes. I felt the same thing that I felt in that dream.
And that's amazing.
This book broke my heart.
November 2, 2018
After reading Sacred Hunger, I've now made it half way through the fifty-three novels that make up the Man Booker Prize winners. Many five star books in the mix and some four star books like this one.
This largely historical novel has a lot going for it, if you can get past a painfully slow middle of the book. I think a 600+ page tome is too fat for the story told here. Sacred Hunger perhaps would have been five star material if presented as a short novel of 200 to 300 pages.
The story is set in the mid 18th century and involves an English merchant family, the Kemps, who build a ship christened as the Liverpool Merchant. The elder Kemp deploys the ship in the trans-Atlantic trade by sailing from Liverpool to pick up slaves in West Africa, selling them in America and returning home with sugar to complete the triangle. The father and his son Erasmus have their entire economic livelihood tied up in this single ship and venture. The elder Kemp has some notions that there should be a doctor on board to keep the captured slaves healthy, so appoints his nephew Matthew Paris as the doctor, and Paris has recently been released from prison. The beginning of the story portrays Erasmus, the son, as virtuous and Paris as a possible scoundrel. We learn later that their actual virtues, are flip-flopped.
After purchasing the slaves on the West coast of Africa and while transiting to the Caribbean, there are a large number of slaves dying from rampant diseases and conditions while chained in the cargo hold. The captain decides, in order to at least recover some of the insurance money, to throw sick slaves overboard and claim that they were mutinous. This did not go over so well with Paris but we know little else until the last chapters of the book fill in the blanks for us.
*Spoiler here*
Ten years later, the elder Kemp has passed away a wrecked man. His son Erasmus, assumes large debts from the loss of the ship and takes ten years to dig out of the economic hole. He is very bitter. He sails to America and meets with the governor of Florida and requests forces to capture and try the mutineers (white and African) who have been living in a settlement near St. Augustine Florida. The plan after capture involves selling off the escaped slaves and seeking retribution against his cousin and other mates. After some chapters describing their ten years of living in the settlement in the woods, the search party captures Paris and he is wounded in the process. Before he can be hanged at the behest of his cousin, he dies of an infection and through reason and humane words is able to further inflict humiliation on a still vengeful Erasmus. It seems in the epilogue that one of the mulatto children is left to reflect.
*End of spoiler*
The story started strong, lagged considerably in the middle and finished strong. In addition to shortening the book as previously mentioned, the author could have accentuated the drama more. In other areas, the detail specific to this pre-Revolutionary period was top notch. Also, a good third of the book is set in Colonial Florida. I don't recall any widely read book that has covered this setting so some extra points here too.
A solid four stars with the caveats mentioned above.
This largely historical novel has a lot going for it, if you can get past a painfully slow middle of the book. I think a 600+ page tome is too fat for the story told here. Sacred Hunger perhaps would have been five star material if presented as a short novel of 200 to 300 pages.
The story is set in the mid 18th century and involves an English merchant family, the Kemps, who build a ship christened as the Liverpool Merchant. The elder Kemp deploys the ship in the trans-Atlantic trade by sailing from Liverpool to pick up slaves in West Africa, selling them in America and returning home with sugar to complete the triangle. The father and his son Erasmus have their entire economic livelihood tied up in this single ship and venture. The elder Kemp has some notions that there should be a doctor on board to keep the captured slaves healthy, so appoints his nephew Matthew Paris as the doctor, and Paris has recently been released from prison. The beginning of the story portrays Erasmus, the son, as virtuous and Paris as a possible scoundrel. We learn later that their actual virtues, are flip-flopped.
After purchasing the slaves on the West coast of Africa and while transiting to the Caribbean, there are a large number of slaves dying from rampant diseases and conditions while chained in the cargo hold. The captain decides, in order to at least recover some of the insurance money, to throw sick slaves overboard and claim that they were mutinous. This did not go over so well with Paris but we know little else until the last chapters of the book fill in the blanks for us.
*Spoiler here*
Ten years later, the elder Kemp has passed away a wrecked man. His son Erasmus, assumes large debts from the loss of the ship and takes ten years to dig out of the economic hole. He is very bitter. He sails to America and meets with the governor of Florida and requests forces to capture and try the mutineers (white and African) who have been living in a settlement near St. Augustine Florida. The plan after capture involves selling off the escaped slaves and seeking retribution against his cousin and other mates. After some chapters describing their ten years of living in the settlement in the woods, the search party captures Paris and he is wounded in the process. Before he can be hanged at the behest of his cousin, he dies of an infection and through reason and humane words is able to further inflict humiliation on a still vengeful Erasmus. It seems in the epilogue that one of the mulatto children is left to reflect.
*End of spoiler*
The story started strong, lagged considerably in the middle and finished strong. In addition to shortening the book as previously mentioned, the author could have accentuated the drama more. In other areas, the detail specific to this pre-Revolutionary period was top notch. Also, a good third of the book is set in Colonial Florida. I don't recall any widely read book that has covered this setting so some extra points here too.
A solid four stars with the caveats mentioned above.
July 5, 2016
"Soon after midnight the first of the land breeze began making along the river and Thurso ordered sail to be got up and all to be made ready for purchasing anchor. At two they weighed an got out to sea, the wind by this time giving a good offing. In the ocver of darkness, as quietly as possible, the Liverpool Merchant began to steer a course south-eastward. but when the ship met the deep sea well, the rhythm of her movement changed and the people in the cramped and fetid darkness of the hold, understanding that they had lost all hope of returning to their homes set up a great cry of desolation and despair that carried over the water to the other ships in the road and the slaves in the holds of the ships heard it and answered with wild shouts and screams, so that for people lying awake in village in villages along the shore and solitary fishermen up before dawn, there was a period when the night resounded with the echoes of lamentation."
Sacred Hunger is a difficult read--passages like this one are piercing, painful to really digest and admit. But this is an important book. Unsworth's insight into the complex motives behind greed, dominion, mercy, and kindness make this much more than a simple story about a slave ship in the mid-1700s. In fact, in this book we see these emotions and attributes come up in almost all relationships: between man and woman, between captain and sailor, between English and Native-American, between one tribe and another, between parents and children. Its a complex world, but Unsworth makes it flow smoothly. Also, even though there are many relationships which all are used to further themes, this book is far from contrived. The characters and their relationships are real and familiar--that's what's scary.
In Sacred Hunger there is mutiny aboard a slave ship. The whites and blacks begin their own community in south Florida. Meanwhile, the ship owner's son single-mindedly seeks revenge against the crew, particularly against his cousin, the ship's doctor. But it is not that simple. Even while the new community is attempting to grow into a free society, where there are no distinctions between blacks and whites, Unsworth shows just how difficult such a task is.
In the dialogue, Unsworth has the ability to show the feelings of the slave traders while instilling pure irony:
"'Tis a terrible trade, them not in it will never know the hardships, to see your profits dribblin' in the sea an' nothin' you can do."
Such passages are amusing at the same time they evoke reprehension. But in a frightening way they made me think about how many awful things we do today without quite understanding how ridiculous our position is. Then there are the illuminating, yet discouraging passages:
"Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others."
This book recognizes the difficulties inherent in trying to live in an equal society. In fact, some of its interesting passages deal with building a community through rhetorical strategy. While I didn't feel like it was a fully-fleshed theme, story-telling and legend-making definitely are important, especially since the story is based on the ramblings of an old mulatto many years after the story has ended:
"But mainly he talked--of a Liverpool ship, of a white father who had been a doctor aboard her and had never died, a childhood of wonders in a place of eternal sunshine, jungle hummocks, great flocks of white birds rising from flooded savannahs, a settlement where white and black lived together in perfect accord."
This is a great contender for the Best of the Booker over the last forty years. I wish it had more attention, especially considering this anniversary year for the US and last year's for the UK--200 years since the abolition of the slave-trade across the Atlantic. If only it had truly ended then--but Unsworth's book offers some bitter insight into why it didn't.
You can read my full review on my blog, The Mookse and the Gripes.
Sacred Hunger is a difficult read--passages like this one are piercing, painful to really digest and admit. But this is an important book. Unsworth's insight into the complex motives behind greed, dominion, mercy, and kindness make this much more than a simple story about a slave ship in the mid-1700s. In fact, in this book we see these emotions and attributes come up in almost all relationships: between man and woman, between captain and sailor, between English and Native-American, between one tribe and another, between parents and children. Its a complex world, but Unsworth makes it flow smoothly. Also, even though there are many relationships which all are used to further themes, this book is far from contrived. The characters and their relationships are real and familiar--that's what's scary.
In Sacred Hunger there is mutiny aboard a slave ship. The whites and blacks begin their own community in south Florida. Meanwhile, the ship owner's son single-mindedly seeks revenge against the crew, particularly against his cousin, the ship's doctor. But it is not that simple. Even while the new community is attempting to grow into a free society, where there are no distinctions between blacks and whites, Unsworth shows just how difficult such a task is.
In the dialogue, Unsworth has the ability to show the feelings of the slave traders while instilling pure irony:
"'Tis a terrible trade, them not in it will never know the hardships, to see your profits dribblin' in the sea an' nothin' you can do."
Such passages are amusing at the same time they evoke reprehension. But in a frightening way they made me think about how many awful things we do today without quite understanding how ridiculous our position is. Then there are the illuminating, yet discouraging passages:
"Nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others."
This book recognizes the difficulties inherent in trying to live in an equal society. In fact, some of its interesting passages deal with building a community through rhetorical strategy. While I didn't feel like it was a fully-fleshed theme, story-telling and legend-making definitely are important, especially since the story is based on the ramblings of an old mulatto many years after the story has ended:
"But mainly he talked--of a Liverpool ship, of a white father who had been a doctor aboard her and had never died, a childhood of wonders in a place of eternal sunshine, jungle hummocks, great flocks of white birds rising from flooded savannahs, a settlement where white and black lived together in perfect accord."
This is a great contender for the Best of the Booker over the last forty years. I wish it had more attention, especially considering this anniversary year for the US and last year's for the UK--200 years since the abolition of the slave-trade across the Atlantic. If only it had truly ended then--but Unsworth's book offers some bitter insight into why it didn't.
You can read my full review on my blog, The Mookse and the Gripes.
March 3, 2013
Sacred Hunger was a 1992 Booker Prize winner. This epic tale is compelling even though it isn’t pared down, which can be off putting for me. Except for Matthew Paris, a physician aboard the slave ship, most of the main characters are detestable…mostly because they viewed the horror of buying and selling Africans as a great way to achieve that “sacred hunger”…that hunger for profit and societal status that is engrained in some of our fellow men. The timeline is the 18th century when slave trading was in full swing. The slave merchants were in it for the huge profits and they weren't inclined toward a lot of soul-searching of their deeds. It was very hard (for this 21st century reader) to fathom why they didn’t consider their actions morally repugnant. This novel is powerful, precisely because those brutal and horrific conditions aboard the slave ship, unconceivable to my mind, were justifiable ways to feed their insatiable hunger for profit without consideration of those costs to humanity. The book is thought provoking, at times appalling and mostly fascinating.
March 6, 2014
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 21, 2009
(don't worry: no spoilers here)
I would recommend it to anyone, but a) it is a difficult read sometimes, both in terms of subject matter & in terms of readability. A lot of the book has the characters speaking in a "pidgin" English, a necessity (imho) to the story at times. This was slow going but at least for me, didn't detract from the reading experience. I could see where some readers may find it difficult and off-putting; b) it's definitely not what I call a "fast-food" read...you have to really put some thought into what you are reading & what the author is trying to tell you, the reader. So if you want clear-cut, easy to read story line a-to-b type reading experience, I would definitely skip this one. I mean face it...there are just some readers who don't like this kind of thing because they like the linear movement of plot, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you don't get that here.
Okay. On to my impressions & a brief synopsis:
On page 325, two of the characters are having a discussion as follows:
"One sees the sacredness of money...Money is sacred, as everyone knows,....So then must be the hunger for it and the means we use to obtain it." And indeed, this is probably the major theme running throughout this novel. Again on page 328 (re the slave trade:)"The ships come and trade on the edges. You may think only the edges are fouled with this trade but it is not so. The flood of cheap manufactures, for which the people have no need, destroys their industries. They become dependent on this trade and the demand for goods can only be met by enslaving their fellows. To do this they need muskets in ever increasing quantities--which we supply. And so we spread death everywhere. But that sacred hunger we spoke of justifies it all."
If you examine this book closely, you will find that these words are apropos not only to the capitalists engaged in the slave trade, but to the very system of capitalism itself. The examples of this theme flow throughout the novel -- they are difficult to miss, in fact. It is also about the struggle for power, which as Unsworth notes, occurs even in paradise. There is nowhere left untouched by the evils of imperialism and greed, least of all by those who are its originators. The "oppressors" thus become as enslaved as those they oppress. How true!
The brief synopsis is this: The senior Mr. Kemp is a businessman who has made some poor investments recently in the British business world & now has decided that what will save him is to build a ship, have it go to Africa, pick up a load of slaves etc, sell the cargo & return back to England with profits. He hires a captain, Capt. Thurso, who is described by the author as "an incarnation, really, of the profit motive..." (382) Before the ship can leave England, Thurso needs a few extra ship hands, so he leaves it to some of his mates to go out and "press" a few, because it is noted that no one volunteers to go on a slaver, and when the crew members are pressed, they can virtually expect very little if any pay after expenses are deducted. After a while they set sail for Africa, reach their destination, take on slaves and then everything starts to go wrong.
One of the expedition members is a Matthew Paris, who is Kemp's nephew and is signed on as ship's physician. Paris has his own ghosts to deal with & signs on for all of the wrong reasons. Paris will become a central figure not only in a physical sense, but will stand as a symbol of revenge and "justice" for Erasmus Kemp, the junior Kemp, for whom life does not turn out the way he planned & he chalks all of this up to his cousin.
There is a LOT more to this book than I can deal with here. Another couple of themes played upon were the notions of justice, the hollow victory of conquest, and extremes in human life. The characters were outstandingly portrayed and leaped off of the page. I cannot find one negative thing to say about this book -- it was simply superb.
I would recommend it to anyone, but a) it is a difficult read sometimes, both in terms of subject matter & in terms of readability. A lot of the book has the characters speaking in a "pidgin" English, a necessity (imho) to the story at times. This was slow going but at least for me, didn't detract from the reading experience. I could see where some readers may find it difficult and off-putting; b) it's definitely not what I call a "fast-food" read...you have to really put some thought into what you are reading & what the author is trying to tell you, the reader. So if you want clear-cut, easy to read story line a-to-b type reading experience, I would definitely skip this one. I mean face it...there are just some readers who don't like this kind of thing because they like the linear movement of plot, and there's nothing wrong with that, but you don't get that here.
Okay. On to my impressions & a brief synopsis:
On page 325, two of the characters are having a discussion as follows:
"One sees the sacredness of money...Money is sacred, as everyone knows,....So then must be the hunger for it and the means we use to obtain it." And indeed, this is probably the major theme running throughout this novel. Again on page 328 (re the slave trade:)"The ships come and trade on the edges. You may think only the edges are fouled with this trade but it is not so. The flood of cheap manufactures, for which the people have no need, destroys their industries. They become dependent on this trade and the demand for goods can only be met by enslaving their fellows. To do this they need muskets in ever increasing quantities--which we supply. And so we spread death everywhere. But that sacred hunger we spoke of justifies it all."
If you examine this book closely, you will find that these words are apropos not only to the capitalists engaged in the slave trade, but to the very system of capitalism itself. The examples of this theme flow throughout the novel -- they are difficult to miss, in fact. It is also about the struggle for power, which as Unsworth notes, occurs even in paradise. There is nowhere left untouched by the evils of imperialism and greed, least of all by those who are its originators. The "oppressors" thus become as enslaved as those they oppress. How true!
The brief synopsis is this: The senior Mr. Kemp is a businessman who has made some poor investments recently in the British business world & now has decided that what will save him is to build a ship, have it go to Africa, pick up a load of slaves etc, sell the cargo & return back to England with profits. He hires a captain, Capt. Thurso, who is described by the author as "an incarnation, really, of the profit motive..." (382) Before the ship can leave England, Thurso needs a few extra ship hands, so he leaves it to some of his mates to go out and "press" a few, because it is noted that no one volunteers to go on a slaver, and when the crew members are pressed, they can virtually expect very little if any pay after expenses are deducted. After a while they set sail for Africa, reach their destination, take on slaves and then everything starts to go wrong.
One of the expedition members is a Matthew Paris, who is Kemp's nephew and is signed on as ship's physician. Paris has his own ghosts to deal with & signs on for all of the wrong reasons. Paris will become a central figure not only in a physical sense, but will stand as a symbol of revenge and "justice" for Erasmus Kemp, the junior Kemp, for whom life does not turn out the way he planned & he chalks all of this up to his cousin.
There is a LOT more to this book than I can deal with here. Another couple of themes played upon were the notions of justice, the hollow victory of conquest, and extremes in human life. The characters were outstandingly portrayed and leaped off of the page. I cannot find one negative thing to say about this book -- it was simply superb.
Read
August 2, 20188.0/10
🤸🏻♀️ (This is me, doing cartwheels, because I finally finished the thing! The chap was a bit long-winded on this one.) Review to follow. But it may take me as long to get to a review, as it did to read it.
🤸🏻♀️ (This is me, doing cartwheels, because I finally finished the thing! The chap was a bit long-winded on this one.) Review to follow. But it may take me as long to get to a review, as it did to read it.
December 1, 2018
I teetered between 1 and 2 stars for this Booker Prize winner. The fact of its winning has no effect on my thinking that the book isn't all that great. The problem with so many works of historical fiction is the tendency of authors to show off their exhaustive research by dumping swaths of information into the narrative that ultimately makes the story dusty and stale.
The big message of the story is pretty straightforward: the slave trade being written off as a means to an end, a pursuit of profit, and therefore unaffected by questions of moralilty and bearing no weight on the consciences of the men involved. As a black man, I don't need to be told how horrible these white people were, or how brutal the "business" was for everyone involved, and especially for those millions of people captured and enslaved. It pisses me off just to think about it slavery's effects are still very much evident in 2018, no matter how many times racists want to yell about slavery being too long ago for us to still be talking about. No sis.
Anyway, the musty old language and detail (the author showing off his research) made the story drag on for hundreds of pages that I truly struggled through.
Special mention must be made of the main character, Erasmus Kemp, who is sort of a sociopath but moreso a character whose motivations for revenge are based on pretty much nothing and so his actions throughout the story end up being totally unbelievable, exhausting, and annoying.
Lastly, the 2 stars were earned from the passages of natural description (which I'm a sucker for!) that were, at times, sublimely written.
(...also, whether the story be set in the present day or the past, white writers are SHIT at writing black characters!!)
The big message of the story is pretty straightforward: the slave trade being written off as a means to an end, a pursuit of profit, and therefore unaffected by questions of moralilty and bearing no weight on the consciences of the men involved. As a black man, I don't need to be told how horrible these white people were, or how brutal the "business" was for everyone involved, and especially for those millions of people captured and enslaved. It pisses me off just to think about it slavery's effects are still very much evident in 2018, no matter how many times racists want to yell about slavery being too long ago for us to still be talking about. No sis.
Anyway, the musty old language and detail (the author showing off his research) made the story drag on for hundreds of pages that I truly struggled through.
Special mention must be made of the main character, Erasmus Kemp, who is sort of a sociopath but moreso a character whose motivations for revenge are based on pretty much nothing and so his actions throughout the story end up being totally unbelievable, exhausting, and annoying.
Lastly, the 2 stars were earned from the passages of natural description (which I'm a sucker for!) that were, at times, sublimely written.
(...also, whether the story be set in the present day or the past, white writers are SHIT at writing black characters!!)
February 6, 2019
060717: took a few days to think of this. the two cousins followed in alternating plots are perhaps representatives of the English society of their times: one cousin rather blinkered, focused on wealth and power and convinced of his correctness despite the reality of any other, such as his fiancée, later wife. the other cousin is close to admirable and modern in his role as doctor but also, despite his ideals, enables the 'sacred hunger' of the slave trade...
this is a historical novel such as i wish i could write. this is on the ground, gifted with detailed, convincing images, with credible thinking of this character and that character, with no very anachronistic morality, no awareness of the difference between slave and conscience, no conflicts against the usual way of business/life, love and fate, power and dreams, which we can only look at from our oh so enlightened century...
at first i find the book annoying, as it is about the empowered imperialists, the men for whom other men are 'natural' slaves, rather than about these slaves- but in time, in the structure of the narrative, it becomes clear that the intent is not celebration but condemnation. the cousin who is a handsome, admired, intense man, is only too revealed as childish and in the end unable to even recognize his faults. he is as close the book gets to a villain, though there is compassion for him as well. he is a prig. he is self-righteous. he is conservative. but he is only part of the world of his time...
the doctor cousin is perhaps more initially sympathetic but in the end he too is bound by his times. he wants in some way to step out of his times and enact an egalitarian society but these are the dreams of a sort of Rousseau character, and shows that history of individual and people cannot be easily overcome. when once enslaved the world even when freed, will never be that of the enslaver. but this long paradise section reveals the honest attempt at ideal society is not so simple. violence, power, myths, are all needed to give coherence to exiled group...
and the times. this is a story of people rather than kings, queens, generals- the official history that remembers these heroes of imperialism, the various individuals, politics, capitalists, that enable the proud and the confessing exploiters. there is an awareness or enlightenment that comes to the reader through the doctor cousin. this remains beyond the other and only pity can be given...
this is a historical novel such as i wish i could write. this is on the ground, gifted with detailed, convincing images, with credible thinking of this character and that character, with no very anachronistic morality, no awareness of the difference between slave and conscience, no conflicts against the usual way of business/life, love and fate, power and dreams, which we can only look at from our oh so enlightened century...
at first i find the book annoying, as it is about the empowered imperialists, the men for whom other men are 'natural' slaves, rather than about these slaves- but in time, in the structure of the narrative, it becomes clear that the intent is not celebration but condemnation. the cousin who is a handsome, admired, intense man, is only too revealed as childish and in the end unable to even recognize his faults. he is as close the book gets to a villain, though there is compassion for him as well. he is a prig. he is self-righteous. he is conservative. but he is only part of the world of his time...
the doctor cousin is perhaps more initially sympathetic but in the end he too is bound by his times. he wants in some way to step out of his times and enact an egalitarian society but these are the dreams of a sort of Rousseau character, and shows that history of individual and people cannot be easily overcome. when once enslaved the world even when freed, will never be that of the enslaver. but this long paradise section reveals the honest attempt at ideal society is not so simple. violence, power, myths, are all needed to give coherence to exiled group...
and the times. this is a story of people rather than kings, queens, generals- the official history that remembers these heroes of imperialism, the various individuals, politics, capitalists, that enable the proud and the confessing exploiters. there is an awareness or enlightenment that comes to the reader through the doctor cousin. this remains beyond the other and only pity can be given...
December 8, 2015
10/10 . Ένα βιβλίο για τα πάντα : την ελευθερία τη φρέναπατη , το άγνωστο τους άλλους τρόπους διακυβέρνησης τις αντανακλάσεις μας , τη ναυτική ζωή , τη ζωή στην εξοχή , την ενηλικίωση , την εκδίκηση , τα πάθη και τα λάθη .
May 10, 2017
I can't do justice to this one without reading it again, a worthy Booker winner and a fine book.
November 26, 2011
This is a beautiful book about the contradictory nature of man: his nobility, his violent aggression, his gross appetites, his generosity, his drive for power and dominance, and his humility. All is explored in epic scale through the journey of a slave ship, The Liverpool Merchant, as it makes its befouled way along the trans-Atlantic triangular route mapped by previous “traders.” Sugar, tea, trinkets for human beings. Huge profits on human flesh. History books can give you the facts, but Barry Unsworth can show you the deeper truths about the will to power.
The author’s point of view is well chosen. The story is in third-person omniscient, so that the mindset of even the lowliest, rummiest Liverpool dock-fly is understood. Unsworth lays bare the 18th century perceptions of the Englishmen manning the slaver – the captain, the bo ‘sun, the deckhands, the cook. There is a cast so large that it takes careful reading to keep them straight; and each is so different, so markedly interesting (sometimes frightening in their brutality, ignorance, or sensitivity to insult) that I came away from the book feeling as if I’d time traveled. The minor characters are, as one reviewer wrote, “fully realized.” But the majority of the narrative is told through the perspectives of two cousins who are so contradictory in nature as to represent the binary oppositions of the human heart. Matthew Paris, a surgeon, has lost everything as a result of a prison term for sedition, and Erasmus Kemp, the son of a Liverpool merchant (the one who owns the slaver) are the men who tell most of the story.
Paris takes the job of ship’s surgeon, a bone thrown to him by his uncle after his shame. And it is through his eyes that the reader sees the heart-thumping brutality and unbelievable disgrace of the Middle Passage. I cannot summarize it. I do not even want to. Just thinking about it makes me despair. What happens to Paris and the ship is a wondrous mystery.
Erasmus’s losses, even his emotional ones, are pretty much all about profit. Even his romantic life has much to do with his righteous views about power, money, and superior class. I worried horribly about the girl he fell in “love” with. Early on, fixing his hair before he visits Sarah Wolpert, Unsworth gives this description: “Worn thus, it softened his looks, reduced the impression of fanaticism. In the smoothness of his face the eyes were extraordinary: long, narrow, very dark, with a gaze of singular intensity.” This says much, but it is early in the book. He gets worse. Erasmus is a frightening example of how the activity of profit-making has been made into a “sacred hunger.” A more timely point, I cannot think of. Hail the almighty dollar/pound/euro. Who cares about what’s happening below deck? Hell, who cares about what happens above deck? We can just turn a rheumy eye to the abuses perpetrated on our sad-eyed stricken fellows because, come on, we can’t deny our nature to be successful! Barton, the Captain’s First Mate, argues as much to Paris. “’We have got to reach out for something’,’ he said virtuously. ‘Take a bebby now, what is the first thing you will see a bebby do? He sees somethin’ before his eyes, he reaches for it. He don’t know what it is, might be a lump of shit, might be a di’mond. He has got to learn for hisself. When we stops reachin’ out, we are done for.’” How can you argue against this?
Well, Paris tries.
The author’s point of view is well chosen. The story is in third-person omniscient, so that the mindset of even the lowliest, rummiest Liverpool dock-fly is understood. Unsworth lays bare the 18th century perceptions of the Englishmen manning the slaver – the captain, the bo ‘sun, the deckhands, the cook. There is a cast so large that it takes careful reading to keep them straight; and each is so different, so markedly interesting (sometimes frightening in their brutality, ignorance, or sensitivity to insult) that I came away from the book feeling as if I’d time traveled. The minor characters are, as one reviewer wrote, “fully realized.” But the majority of the narrative is told through the perspectives of two cousins who are so contradictory in nature as to represent the binary oppositions of the human heart. Matthew Paris, a surgeon, has lost everything as a result of a prison term for sedition, and Erasmus Kemp, the son of a Liverpool merchant (the one who owns the slaver) are the men who tell most of the story.
Paris takes the job of ship’s surgeon, a bone thrown to him by his uncle after his shame. And it is through his eyes that the reader sees the heart-thumping brutality and unbelievable disgrace of the Middle Passage. I cannot summarize it. I do not even want to. Just thinking about it makes me despair. What happens to Paris and the ship is a wondrous mystery.
Erasmus’s losses, even his emotional ones, are pretty much all about profit. Even his romantic life has much to do with his righteous views about power, money, and superior class. I worried horribly about the girl he fell in “love” with. Early on, fixing his hair before he visits Sarah Wolpert, Unsworth gives this description: “Worn thus, it softened his looks, reduced the impression of fanaticism. In the smoothness of his face the eyes were extraordinary: long, narrow, very dark, with a gaze of singular intensity.” This says much, but it is early in the book. He gets worse. Erasmus is a frightening example of how the activity of profit-making has been made into a “sacred hunger.” A more timely point, I cannot think of. Hail the almighty dollar/pound/euro. Who cares about what’s happening below deck? Hell, who cares about what happens above deck? We can just turn a rheumy eye to the abuses perpetrated on our sad-eyed stricken fellows because, come on, we can’t deny our nature to be successful! Barton, the Captain’s First Mate, argues as much to Paris. “’We have got to reach out for something’,’ he said virtuously. ‘Take a bebby now, what is the first thing you will see a bebby do? He sees somethin’ before his eyes, he reaches for it. He don’t know what it is, might be a lump of shit, might be a di’mond. He has got to learn for hisself. When we stops reachin’ out, we are done for.’” How can you argue against this?
Well, Paris tries.
September 14, 2008
This was one of the best books I have ever read. Beautiful, rich, full of adventure and sadness. Set in the mid 1700's it tracks the final business venture (a slave ship) of a well to do Liverpudlian merchant. The melancholy tone of the book works extremely well with the cruel methodical life aboard a slave ship. This is set against the merchants family back in Liverpool. Although written in third person, Sacred Hunger is told mainly from the viewpoint of the ships surgeon who happens to be the owners nephew. A doctors oath versus cruel the brutality of the slave trade.Senseless commerce juxtaposed against hearts desires with a crazy ships captain to boot. Read it now!
August 1, 2011
I just finished this book this morning after spending the last week or two completely engrossed in it. I was moved and disturbed on so many levels that I don't think I'm even ready to talk about yet. Maybe I need to let it "marinate" for a few days before I try to write a review. Like so many others I picked this book up after hearing a review of it on NPR. That was two years ago! And it has sat on my bookshelf all this time. I'm a believer that things come into our lives sometimes only when we're ready for them or we need them for some reason or another. Reading this masterfully crafted epic about an 18th century slave ship with the fortunes of so many people bound to her, I couldn't help relating it to the world as it is today. I am glad to have read this book this year because I think I appreciated it more than I would have earlier.
Admittedly, during the course of the 630 pages I got lost or felt bogged down by the amount of detail pertaining to things such as ship-building and later by the nautical jargon; also as many other reviewers noted, the Pidgin English was irritating until I began "listening" to it rather than trying to merely read it. There were many moments as I read that I found myself with my jaw dropped and mouth wide open in astonishment at what the characters were doing and/or saying.
There was one character in particular that I disliked from beginning to end, and that was Erasmus Kemp who reminded me of those single-minded, mean-spirited people whose only real pleasure in life was tied to increasing and protecting their wealth and the "interests" of others of similar station. These are the ones continually striving to feed that insatiable hunger for profit that they had managed to transform or "sanctify" into something more noble than mere human avarice.
More to come...
Admittedly, during the course of the 630 pages I got lost or felt bogged down by the amount of detail pertaining to things such as ship-building and later by the nautical jargon; also as many other reviewers noted, the Pidgin English was irritating until I began "listening" to it rather than trying to merely read it. There were many moments as I read that I found myself with my jaw dropped and mouth wide open in astonishment at what the characters were doing and/or saying.
There was one character in particular that I disliked from beginning to end, and that was Erasmus Kemp who reminded me of those single-minded, mean-spirited people whose only real pleasure in life was tied to increasing and protecting their wealth and the "interests" of others of similar station. These are the ones continually striving to feed that insatiable hunger for profit that they had managed to transform or "sanctify" into something more noble than mere human avarice.
More to come...
October 29, 2013
I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy this more than I did. The writing was uniformly excellent and the story made great insights into human relationships and power.
I think it may have been timing, and it may have just been me. But as much as I could appreciate the quality of the novel I had a hard time getting back to it after putting it down. In fact, I read about 200 pages today in a sprint because I wanted to finish it before I completely lost interest.
I think it may have been timing, and it may have just been me. But as much as I could appreciate the quality of the novel I had a hard time getting back to it after putting it down. In fact, I read about 200 pages today in a sprint because I wanted to finish it before I completely lost interest.
August 13, 2015
From the book jacket: A stunning and engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed. Filled with the “sacred hunger” to expand its empire and its profits, England entered fully into the slave trade and spread the trade throughout its colonies. This book, which won the Man Booker Award in 1992, follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise, [and] the sailors and slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Flordia, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.
My reactions
This is an epic story covering a time period from 1752 – 1765. There are two distinct, but interrelated story lines – that of Erasmus Kemp (son of William Kemp) and that of Mathew Paris (Kemp’s nephew, who sails as the ship’s doctor). Frankly Mathew’s story saved the book. I was bored to tears with much of the plot involving Erasmus. I could not care about his pursuit of Sarah, or his attempts to ingratiate himself with her by “acting” in the play. For me, he came across as a really unlikeable character – self-centered and bent on revenge.
Mathew’s story, on the other hand, is very interesting. His background is intriguing (we learn early that he has just been released from prison), his natural inclinations are in contrast to the rough crew men and Captain of the Liverpool Merchant. Although it was difficult to read the brutally graphic depictions of the life aboard the ship (particularly the treatment of the slaves), I felt it helped to set up Mathew’s motivations for the decisions and actions he ultimately took. I found myself totally engrossed in this story line and irritated every time I had to slog through the counterpoint of Erasmus’s tale.
The “utopian” society the sailors and slaves tried to develop once they arrived in the Florida wilderness had several surprises. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ways in which they formed their society, the rules they put in place, their methods of self-government, their decisions on justice, and the ways in which they also succumbed to the “sacred hunger” for power and possessions. I wish Unsworth had spent more time on the “Paradise” – that’s a book I would love to read!
Finally I must confess I struggled with how to rate the book. I had a hard time getting into it because of the early emphasis on Erasmus story and my dislike for him as a character. Still I appreciated the writing and was going to give it 3.5 stars. But then I got to the ending and the confrontation and soul-searching that occurred there made me see the entire book in a slightly different light. So I decided to give it 4 stars. There is much to think about in this novel; great book for a book group discussion!
My reactions
This is an epic story covering a time period from 1752 – 1765. There are two distinct, but interrelated story lines – that of Erasmus Kemp (son of William Kemp) and that of Mathew Paris (Kemp’s nephew, who sails as the ship’s doctor). Frankly Mathew’s story saved the book. I was bored to tears with much of the plot involving Erasmus. I could not care about his pursuit of Sarah, or his attempts to ingratiate himself with her by “acting” in the play. For me, he came across as a really unlikeable character – self-centered and bent on revenge.
Mathew’s story, on the other hand, is very interesting. His background is intriguing (we learn early that he has just been released from prison), his natural inclinations are in contrast to the rough crew men and Captain of the Liverpool Merchant. Although it was difficult to read the brutally graphic depictions of the life aboard the ship (particularly the treatment of the slaves), I felt it helped to set up Mathew’s motivations for the decisions and actions he ultimately took. I found myself totally engrossed in this story line and irritated every time I had to slog through the counterpoint of Erasmus’s tale.
The “utopian” society the sailors and slaves tried to develop once they arrived in the Florida wilderness had several surprises. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ways in which they formed their society, the rules they put in place, their methods of self-government, their decisions on justice, and the ways in which they also succumbed to the “sacred hunger” for power and possessions. I wish Unsworth had spent more time on the “Paradise” – that’s a book I would love to read!
Finally I must confess I struggled with how to rate the book. I had a hard time getting into it because of the early emphasis on Erasmus story and my dislike for him as a character. Still I appreciated the writing and was going to give it 3.5 stars. But then I got to the ending and the confrontation and soul-searching that occurred there made me see the entire book in a slightly different light. So I decided to give it 4 stars. There is much to think about in this novel; great book for a book group discussion!
March 15, 2012
Sacred Hunger is an astounding novel. It is the best book I’ve read in a long time; it is also, by far, the most devastating (which is saying something, given some of the Bookers I’ve read recently – Schindler’s Ark and The Bone People coming to mind). I have been reluctant to write this review because I’ve found it difficult to review books that I love, and Sacred Hunger falls into that category. I wasn’t sure that I’d find another Booker that I love quite as much as The Remains of the Day and The Famished Road, but Sacred Hunger vaulted up with those.
But, as I said, it is a wreck of a book. Unsworth tells you this from the beginning; you learn in the Prologue of the elderly man, a beggar on the streets of New Orleans who lived as a slave until he was too old to work, and who had stories of days as a child in a settlement where white and black men lived together and free. You know, at this point, how the book is going to turn out: because if the boy became an old man who lived out his days as a slave, you know that the settlement isn’t going to last; and of course you know there can be no good end, because the book then turns back to 1752 – over 100 years before slavery is finally abolished. There is no counting down to the end: none of the characters that you will be introduced to will live to see that day. So Unsworth tells you, right away, that this is going to be a terrible book. What I didn’t know was how utterly this book would break my heart; and even though I am telling you this, it isn’t really a spoiler, because it will still break your heart. And it is still entirely, without a doubt, a book you should read.
It is both a book of careful detail and massive scope. In many ways, Sacred Hunger probably hurt my chances of liking Oscar and Lucinda because I got to Sacred Hunger first. It accomplishes what Carey attempted, and I think did it better. It is epic. It sweeps across continents and generations, chronically the passage of a slave ship, the lives of its owner and its owner’s son, Erasmus; the owner’s nephew, Paris, who travels as the ships doctor after suffering disgrace in his home country; the ship’s crew; and of course the people they captured and enslaved. It is a meticulous book and brutal in its meticulousness. Unsworth spares his readers no details about each moment of the ship’s creation, its passage, the exact process by which people are traded and enslaved. Unsworth must have done an incredible amount of research to recreate this world, not only of mid-eighteenth-century England, but also of the western African coast and coastal interior. He spares us no detail about each character, either. No matter how minor the character, he drew them with depth and care. I think that there may not be a single flat character in the entire book, which is incredible, given the huge number of characters that he creates. I often think of epics as stories that necessarily gloss over the expanse that it covers; but this, though epic, is equally personal. It is the personal story of Erasmus, and Unsworth cuts back and forth between Erasmus and the passage of his father’s slave ship; it also is the personal story of Paris and his pre-ship history. And though these are the characters we are given the most access to, we are given access to all the characters. It is a long book, absolutely worth it for everything that Unsworth accomplishes with those pages.
It is hard to know how to describe this book without giving too much away. But (at the risk of spoilers), I keep thinking of this great scene in A Wrinkle in Time, where the Happy Medium shows Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin the darkness, and the star that cut away a small bit of it but died in the process. I keep thinking of that scene when I think about this book, because essentially I think that is what Sacred Hunger is about. It is devastating; and though the hope itself is what breaks your heart the most, in the end, it is still hope – and it is still a beautiful and incredible book.
But, as I said, it is a wreck of a book. Unsworth tells you this from the beginning; you learn in the Prologue of the elderly man, a beggar on the streets of New Orleans who lived as a slave until he was too old to work, and who had stories of days as a child in a settlement where white and black men lived together and free. You know, at this point, how the book is going to turn out: because if the boy became an old man who lived out his days as a slave, you know that the settlement isn’t going to last; and of course you know there can be no good end, because the book then turns back to 1752 – over 100 years before slavery is finally abolished. There is no counting down to the end: none of the characters that you will be introduced to will live to see that day. So Unsworth tells you, right away, that this is going to be a terrible book. What I didn’t know was how utterly this book would break my heart; and even though I am telling you this, it isn’t really a spoiler, because it will still break your heart. And it is still entirely, without a doubt, a book you should read.
It is both a book of careful detail and massive scope. In many ways, Sacred Hunger probably hurt my chances of liking Oscar and Lucinda because I got to Sacred Hunger first. It accomplishes what Carey attempted, and I think did it better. It is epic. It sweeps across continents and generations, chronically the passage of a slave ship, the lives of its owner and its owner’s son, Erasmus; the owner’s nephew, Paris, who travels as the ships doctor after suffering disgrace in his home country; the ship’s crew; and of course the people they captured and enslaved. It is a meticulous book and brutal in its meticulousness. Unsworth spares his readers no details about each moment of the ship’s creation, its passage, the exact process by which people are traded and enslaved. Unsworth must have done an incredible amount of research to recreate this world, not only of mid-eighteenth-century England, but also of the western African coast and coastal interior. He spares us no detail about each character, either. No matter how minor the character, he drew them with depth and care. I think that there may not be a single flat character in the entire book, which is incredible, given the huge number of characters that he creates. I often think of epics as stories that necessarily gloss over the expanse that it covers; but this, though epic, is equally personal. It is the personal story of Erasmus, and Unsworth cuts back and forth between Erasmus and the passage of his father’s slave ship; it also is the personal story of Paris and his pre-ship history. And though these are the characters we are given the most access to, we are given access to all the characters. It is a long book, absolutely worth it for everything that Unsworth accomplishes with those pages.
It is hard to know how to describe this book without giving too much away. But (at the risk of spoilers), I keep thinking of this great scene in A Wrinkle in Time, where the Happy Medium shows Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin the darkness, and the star that cut away a small bit of it but died in the process. I keep thinking of that scene when I think about this book, because essentially I think that is what Sacred Hunger is about. It is devastating; and though the hope itself is what breaks your heart the most, in the end, it is still hope – and it is still a beautiful and incredible book.
November 10, 2023
3.5/5
Once a man is in debt he becomes a flesh and blood form of money, a walking investment. You can do what you like with him, you can work him to death or you can sell him. This cannot be called cruelty or greed because we are seeking only to recover our investment and that is a sacred duty.It's been a long while since I read something like this: long, chock full with pathos, riding the knife's edge between modern sensibility and historical sensuality, and dealing with violently racialized topics that, for all the fact that the author is a white dude, I didn't feel had been handled insensitively, or at least not to the point of throwing out the babe with the bathwater. Of course, I am too aware of my bias towards an elegant turn of phrase and a deft hand with creative description to think that my eyes weren't clouded most of the time, and there were certain instances where I did have to consider whether the author was putting certain words in certain character's mouths not out of historical precedent, but in consideration of what would more than likely strike the right cord with the blithe and unassuming reader. Still, there's only so far one can pursue such doublethink, and as I have never been paid for writing these kinds of reviews and never will be, all I can say that, deep down, I relished this 600+ page read for its aspirations, its wrestling with some of the most powerful questions of good versus evil humanity has ever inflicted upon itself, and its catharsis, not out of cheap sentiment or happy go lucky/doomed mulattoes, but out of a close and credible observation of the rise and fall of an enterprise that sought to build a civilization in a world of cannibals. How well this story holds up in the times to come when those packed into ship holds like so many crates of sardines assert their full humanity across the entire spectrum of literature remains to be seen. At this point in time, I am comfortable with saying, if you have a strong stomach and want to read about a time in human history that we as a world still have not outgrown, this is one of the more well written and credibly introspective pieces out there. And if you're like me and found your way here due to the Booker and only the Booker, well. Better late than never.
No one can keep account of the damage done to himself. We imagine we have absorbed the shock, the harm, but we have merely caged it, and not in a strong cage either. It waits within the bars for a signal. And however long the wait may be, the leap is always unerring [...] Often the pounce comes before the mind knows the signal[.]
It was not the other's brutality that was too strong for him, but his logic.
Tender-hearted, even — whenever he couldn't find a cause for rage to save him from it.P.S. I know that there's a sequel. I just don't see any reason for it existing.
A man may go through life and remain ignorant of himself; he may think himself as other than he truly is and he may die with this illusion still intact, because no circumstance of his life has obliged him to revise it.
I can only be hanged once[.]
August 22, 2017
Λίγες φορές ανακαλύπτουμε βιβλία που μας ενθουσιάζουν τόσο πολύ. Αυτή είναι μία από αυτές τις φορές. Ως συγγραφέας σκέφτομαι: γιατί να μην το είχα γράψει εγώ αυτό το αριστούργημα! Ως αναγνώστης δηλώνω ένθερμη θαυμάστρια του αείμνηστου συγγραφέα. Το πρώτο βιβλίο του που διάβασα ( Χάνοντας τον Νέλσον) με έκανε να ενδιαφερθώ για αυτόν και να θελήσω να ανακαλύψω το έργο του. Με αυτό το βιβλίο όμως τον αγάπησα.
Βρισκόμαστε στην Αγγλία του 1750, στο Λίβερπουλ ένας έμπορος απαφασίζει να ασχοληθεί με το δουλεμπόριο, το οποίο είναι φοβερά επικερδές. Κατασκευάζει ένα ωραίο πλοίο, το εξοπλίζει όσο μπορεί καλύτερα και προσλαμβάνει τον καλύτερο καπετάνιο. Το πλοίο πρόκειται να κάνει το γνωστό εμπορικό τρίγωνο της εποχής: από το Λίβερπουλ στη Γουινέα της Αφρικής να αγοράσει και να κλέψει μαύρους και από εκεί στην Τζαμάικα να πουλήσει τους μαύρους στο σκλαβοπάζαρο και να παραλάβει ζάχαρη και βαμβάκι για την Αγγλία.
Κάτι θα συμβεί όμως στο πλοίο, το οποίο θα χαθεί κάπου κοντά στην Φλόριντα. Δεκαπέντε χρόνια μετά ο γιος του πλοιοκτήτη ( ο οποίος αυτοκτόνησε λόγω των χρεών του) ψάχνει να βρει το εμπόρευμα του πατέρα του.
Δεν είναι μόνο ότι πρόκειται για ένα εμπεριστατωμένο ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα. Είναι τα προβλήματα ηθικής, δικαίου, ανθρώπινης φύσης που μας βάζει να αναλογιστούμε. Με αφορμή την ιστορία, τα πραγματικα περιστατικά, το δίκαιο του 18ου αιώνα, τα διαφορετικά ήθη και έθιμα ανάμεσα στους λαούς, στις αφρικάνικες φυλές, στις τάξεις, προσπαθούμε να καταλάβουμε τι σόι ζώον είναι αυτός ο άνθρωπος!
Το βιβλίο μοιράστηκε το βραβείο Booker το 1992 μαζί με τον Άγγλο Ασθενή του Μάικλ Οντάτζε. Κατά τη γνώμη μου έπρεπε να είχε σαρώσει όλα τα λογοτεχνικά βραβεία του κόσμου.
Βρισκόμαστε στην Αγγλία του 1750, στο Λίβερπουλ ένας έμπορος απαφασίζει να ασχοληθεί με το δουλεμπόριο, το οποίο είναι φοβερά επικερδές. Κατασκευάζει ένα ωραίο πλοίο, το εξοπλίζει όσο μπορεί καλύτερα και προσλαμβάνει τον καλύτερο καπετάνιο. Το πλοίο πρόκειται να κάνει το γνωστό εμπορικό τρίγωνο της εποχής: από το Λίβερπουλ στη Γουινέα της Αφρικής να αγοράσει και να κλέψει μαύρους και από εκεί στην Τζαμάικα να πουλήσει τους μαύρους στο σκλαβοπάζαρο και να παραλάβει ζάχαρη και βαμβάκι για την Αγγλία.
Κάτι θα συμβεί όμως στο πλοίο, το οποίο θα χαθεί κάπου κοντά στην Φλόριντα. Δεκαπέντε χρόνια μετά ο γιος του πλοιοκτήτη ( ο οποίος αυτοκτόνησε λόγω των χρεών του) ψάχνει να βρει το εμπόρευμα του πατέρα του.
Δεν είναι μόνο ότι πρόκειται για ένα εμπεριστατωμένο ιστορικό μυθιστόρημα. Είναι τα προβλήματα ηθικής, δικαίου, ανθρώπινης φύσης που μας βάζει να αναλογιστούμε. Με αφορμή την ιστορία, τα πραγματικα περιστατικά, το δίκαιο του 18ου αιώνα, τα διαφορετικά ήθη και έθιμα ανάμεσα στους λαούς, στις αφρικάνικες φυλές, στις τάξεις, προσπαθούμε να καταλάβουμε τι σόι ζώον είναι αυτός ο άνθρωπος!
Το βιβλίο μοιράστηκε το βραβείο Booker το 1992 μαζί με τον Άγγλο Ασθενή του Μάικλ Οντάτζε. Κατά τη γνώμη μου έπρεπε να είχε σαρώσει όλα τα λογοτεχνικά βραβεία του κόσμου.
August 5, 2019
A page turner is a good description. Good versus evil and of course evil wins. Paris a disgraced doctor due to a pamphlet he wrote questioning Christianity’s 6000 year time line. He is given a job on the Liverpool Merchant a newly built slave ship by his Uncle. Paris cousin Erasmus the son of Kemp has a chip on his shoulder from when they were children and Paris lifted him up from an incoming tide while he was building a dam. Bizarre.
Erasmus also is going through a courtship with the lovely Sarah while doing a Shakespeare play. To put it bluntly Erasmus is a dick.
The book is divided into two parts and the first is about the building of the ship, the courtship, the sailing to Africa and getting slaves. Throw in an insane Captain, shanghaied sailors and it makes a great tale.
The second part of the book deals with Erasmus hunt for Paris. He thought the ship was lost. Instead in Florida a colony of black and white people are found to be living in harmony. The story follows Erasmus obsession in finding Paris when he finds out the ship was beached in a Florida tributary. It also follows how the crew and slaves have formed a community for 12 years. I really enjoyed this historical novel and the good versus evil battle.
Erasmus also is going through a courtship with the lovely Sarah while doing a Shakespeare play. To put it bluntly Erasmus is a dick.
The book is divided into two parts and the first is about the building of the ship, the courtship, the sailing to Africa and getting slaves. Throw in an insane Captain, shanghaied sailors and it makes a great tale.
The second part of the book deals with Erasmus hunt for Paris. He thought the ship was lost. Instead in Florida a colony of black and white people are found to be living in harmony. The story follows Erasmus obsession in finding Paris when he finds out the ship was beached in a Florida tributary. It also follows how the crew and slaves have formed a community for 12 years. I really enjoyed this historical novel and the good versus evil battle.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 22, 2018
Sacred Hunger is one of those books that stays on your mind long after you’ve finished it. Since Unsworth won the Pulitzer for this book I expected a lot and I wasn’t disappointed. The writing is lovely and the philosophy is complicated and thought provoking. It’s set in the mid eighteenth century. It’s about an English merchant who attempts to make a lot of money by purchasing trapped African people and sell them in the English colonies.
Most of the action is nightmarish. The main characters are two cousins one, Erasmus, is the son of the slave shipowner and his cousin is Matthew Paris, a doctor who is trying to recreate his life after a prison sentence that all but ends his life. Matthew is haunted by his recent experiences only to plunge himself without thinking about the consequences of aiding in persecuting Africans. Unsworht spares his reader’s nothing. This isn’t light reading but it will leave you with a lot to ponder.
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance reader’s copy.
Most of the action is nightmarish. The main characters are two cousins one, Erasmus, is the son of the slave shipowner and his cousin is Matthew Paris, a doctor who is trying to recreate his life after a prison sentence that all but ends his life. Matthew is haunted by his recent experiences only to plunge himself without thinking about the consequences of aiding in persecuting Africans. Unsworht spares his reader’s nothing. This isn’t light reading but it will leave you with a lot to ponder.
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance reader’s copy.
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