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Sacred Hunger
 
 

Sacred Hunger [Paperback]

Barry Unsworth
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
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From Publishers Weekly

This vast, vividly realistic historical novel follows the crew of a slave-trading vessel from its Liverpool shipyard through days at anchor bartering human cargo on the Guinea Coast, then on beyond the slaver's disease-ridden and mutinous Middle Passage. With an epic ambition that seems suited to its 18th-century setting, Unsworth ( Stone Virgin ) takes on a big theme--greed, the animating "sacred hunger" of the title--but at the same time fills his huge canvas with the alternately fascinating and horrifying details of shipboard life, colonial plunder and power struggles, the London clubs of absentee sugar lords, even a pidgin Utopia created by slaves and seamen on unclaimed Florida coast. Deftly utilizing a flood of period detail, Unsworth has written a book whose stately pace, like the scope of its meditations, seems accurately to evoke the age. Tackling here a central perversity of our history--the keeping of slaves in a land where "all men are created equal"--Unsworth illuminates the barbaric cruelty of slavery, as well as the subtler habits of politics and character that it creates. As intricate as it is immense, this masterwork rewards every turn of its 640 pages. (July) one with a continuing fascination for readers and authors alike--Unsworth illuminates its cruel ties and miscarriages, its floggings and murders, as well as the subtler habits of politics and character that it creates. As intricate as it is immense, this masterwork rewards every turn of its 640 pages.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

With its graphic depiction of the 18th-century slave trade and a society driven by the desire to maximize profit regardless of the human cost, this new novel by the author of Pascali's Island (Penguin, 1988) offers a dark view of human nature clearly relevant to our own time. William Kemp hopes to recoup his losses in cotton speculation by entering the Triangular Trade. As ship's doctor, his nephew Matthew experiences firsthand the horrors of shipboard life, ultimately leading a revolt that lands the crew and remaining slaves on the southeastern coast of Florida. Here they try to establish "a paradise place," but events force Matthew to conclude that "nothing a man suffers will prevent him from inflicting suffering on others. Indeed, it will teach him the way." Though the pace drags at times, taken as a whole this is a masterful effort that delivers an important message. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.
- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Customer Reviews

25 Reviews
5 star:
 (21)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Stunned ...., April 7 2002
This review is from: Sacred Hunger (Paperback)
Sacred Hunger is a powerful book set during the years 1752-1765. The story revolves around the merchant familly Kemp that enters into the slave trade - allowing passage on the slaver "The Liverpool Merchant" to the cousin Mathew Paris, a doctor recently released from prison. Unsworths book explores the slave trade, highlighting the rationale, in painful detail - and paints a sordid picture of the merchant mind of the time. "The Sacred Hunger" is allowed to emcompass everything, even human life.

For anyone interested in history in general, and Africa in particular "The Sacred Hunger" is an essential but painful read. It leaves you touched, deeply, on behalf of the millions of life lost to the inhuman trade.

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5.0 out of 5 stars One of those books you finish and say WOW, Mar 24 2002
This review is from: Sacred Hunger (Paperback)
This is an original and fascinating book. The writing is outstanding and the book explores important themes: greed, evil, corruption, justice and man's inhumanity to man.

When Wm. Kemp loses money in his cotton shipping, he decides to go for the big money and enter the slave trade. He sends his nephew, Matthew, along as ship's doctor. Disgusted by the horror on ship, he leads a revolt and an attempt by the seaman and slaves to form a utopia -- but his idealism is disappointed by the realization that suffering doesn't teach compassion, so much as it teaches how to inflict suffering on others.

This is a marvelous exploration of greed-the sacred hunger- and how it affects people and society.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Slaveship Could Be a Happy Ship, Mar 13 2002
This review is from: Sacred Hunger (Paperback)
I can but echo the comments others have made about how utterly magnificent "Sacred Hunger" is. I recommend it without hesitation. Rich with detail and sharply drawn, it makes an impression not quickly forgotten. Ostensibly the story of a slave ship joining the British merchant fleet in the 1750s, Unsworth manages to capture the spirit of the times, though I am not sure if it is ultimately those times or our times.

The primary dramatic tension in the narrative arises from Unsworth's portrait of two cousins. On the one hand, Matthew Paris is a sort of poor cousin who was imprisoned for questioning Anglican dogma. In despair and somewhat resigned to humiliation, he agrees to serve as the physician on the slave ship. While he seeks only to degrade himself, he cannot escape degrading others. Erasmus Kemp, the owner's son, is a type still very much with us. The reader loathes him, and all like him, as he understands no morality but money and the pursuit of profit, the "sacred hunger" referred to in the title. Although inexorably juxtaposed, the cousins sprang from the same soil, from the same genes, and are related in ways impossible to sever. This tension remains familiar in our cultural impasse. Like it or not, we are all a part of the system that produced the slave ships in the first place. We are all products of capitalism, less important than the wealth of nations, and all of us benefit, in ways large or small, from the exploitation of faceless people who live far away in presumed darkness.

The image of America itself in the novel reinforces this ambivalence, and yet provides the only hope. As the British colonized America, from Maine to Florida, slavery was an accepted and acceptable part of the economic system. No loud voices protested; only soft voices, far out of the mainstream, might have dared to complain. Yet, after the slaves and this crew in this novel overthrow the captain, while he is in the process of committing mass murder in the name of cutting losses, they find their way to Florida and establish a commune of sorts. The latter part of the novel portrays the settlement after twelve years, when tensions began to arise, again, between those who promulgate the theories of equality and those who seek gain at others' expense. America was their only hope, their only safe port, and ultimately is the hope of all of us. In spite of the forces of wealth and power arrayed against us, in spite of steps backward during reactionary periods, things are possible here that can only be dreamed elsewhere.

Rich and disturbing, beautiful and horrible, "Sacred Hunger" accomplishes more in one volume than many writers can accomplish in a career. It draws us back from visions of utopia while it makes us hope for something better. As the captain said earnestly enough, "If they would make the best of their condition, a slaveship could be a happy ship." Here is a toast to all who refuse to accept their conditions, whether as a slave in the 1750s or a corporate employee these days. Read this book and think, if you dare.

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