Morality Play (the Reckoning) [Paperback]

Barry Unsworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 2015

Morality Play is Barry Unsworth''s first nove l since winning the Booker prize in 1992. It is a dark and p owerful fable about the masks we wear, the roles we play and the corrupted nature of justice. '

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A portentous opening sentence?"It was a death that began it all and another death that led us on"?sets the tone for Booker Prize winner Unsworth's (Sacred Hunger) gripping story. Indeed, a larger spectre than those two deaths hangs over this tale set in 14th-century England. The Black Plague is abroad in the land, and here it also symbolizes the corruption of the Church and of the nobility. One bleak December day, young Nicholas Barber, a fugitive priest who has impulsively decamped from Lincoln Cathedral, comes upon a small band of traveling players who are burying one of their crew. He pleads to join them, despite the fact that playing on a public stage is expressly forbidden to clergy. His guilt and brooding fear of retribution pervade this taut, poetic narrative. Footsore, hungry, cold and destitute, the members of the troupe are vividly delineated: each has strengths and weaknesses that determine his behavior when their leader, Martin, suggests a daring plan. In the next town they reach, a young woman has been convicted of murdering a 12-year-old boy, on evidence supplied by a Benedictine monk. Desperate to assemble an audience, Martin suggests that they enact the story of the crime. This is a revolutionary idea in a time when custom dictates that players animate only stories from the Bible. As the troupe presents their drama, many questions about the murder become obvious, and they improvise frantically, gradually uncovering the true situation. This, in turn, leads to their imprisonment in the castle of the reigning lord and their involvement in a melodrama equal to the one they have acted. Among the strengths of this suspenseful narrative are Unsworth's marvelously atmospheric depiction of the poverty, misery and pervasive stench of village life and his demonstrations of the strict rules and traditions governing the acting craft; underlying everything is the mixture of piety and superstition that governs all strata of society. Though sometimes he strays into didactic explanations, Unsworth searchingly examines the chasm between appearance and reality and the tenuous influence of morality on human conduct. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

The author of the Booker Prize-winning Sacred Hunger (LJ 7/92) brings 14th-century England to life in this imaginative medieval mystery, which will inevitably invite comparisons with Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (LJ 4/1/83). Its narrator is Nicholas Barber, a young monk who has forsaken his calling and joined an itinerant troupe of players that gets caught up in the real-life drama of a small-town murder. The crime presents Barber and his fellows with an opportunity to attract a larger-than-usual audience, and they turn sleuths, weaving the bits of information yielded by their investigation into an improvised play that eventually reveals the surprising, sordid truth. Rich in historical detail, Unsworth's well-told tale explores some timeless moral dilemmas and reads like a modern page-turner. Recommended for fiction collections.
David Sowd, formerly with Stark Cty. District Lib., Canton, Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (December 3, 2015)
• ISBN-10: 0140269916
• ISBN-13: 978-0140269918
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable mystery....., June 4, 2000

By 

Bruce in California (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Morality Play (Paperback)

This simple story serves as a framework for a history lesson as well as a depressing yet fascinating glimpse into life in fourteenth century England. Although nowhere near as ambitious or complex, Morality Play has many of the same attractions as "An Incidence of the Fingerpost." It is a window into a world long gone, alien and difficult for us to imagine, and all the more enthralling because of it. It is a fascinating book that can be read in a few hours.

Fleeing the rigors of the priesthood, as well as an outraged husband, Nicholas joins a band of actors to survive in this nearly lawless land. The small ragged group travels together for protection and to perform stylized plays in small villages along the way for pennies. The plague is in the land again, starvation is an ever present threat, and Kings and Lords hold the power of life and death over the desperately poor. Unwittingly, the group of players stumble into a village which was recently the site of the murder of a young boy. A young woman has been tried for the crime and is to hang immediately. Step by step the group is drawn into this real life drama of life and death until their own wretched existence is at stake.

Although this is a clever plot in a deceptively simple story, the period is the real attraction here. The author captures the most desperate existence imaginable while painting a portrait of a cold, gray, primitive England that is vivid and memorable. A fast and entertaining book.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Masterful Tale of Fourteenth Century England, November 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Morality Play (Paperback)

Life in fourteenth century England was a grim affair, particularly when viewed through modern eyes. There was little in the way of material comfort, most people struggling merely to subsist. Liberty, too, was scarce in a feudal system dominated by the often capricious and competing forces of King, Lord and Church. And there were intermingled the ubiquitous spectres of magic, superstition, banditry, and disease. With the ravages of the Black Death, life in the late Middle Ages was truly nasty, brutish and short.

Against this background, Barry Unsworth's "Morality Play" weaves a masterful and compelling tale of Nicholas Barber, a twenty-three year old priest, "a poor scholar, open-breeched to the winds of heaven as people say, with nothing but Latin to recommend [him]." Nicholas, after commiting adultery and losing his cloak while fleeing the wrathful husband, takes up with an itinerant band of players. He thus becomes both a fugitive, by leaving his diocese without permission of his Bishop, and a sinner by entering upon an occupation forbidden by the Church.

The players soon find themselves in a town where Thomas Wells, a twelve year old boy, has been murdered and a young woman has been hastily tried, convicted and sentenced to hang for the crime. It is then that their leader, Martin, suggests that the troupe depart from the accepted practice of the day, the enactment of plays based upon Biblical stories with well-known themes. Martin proposes, instead, that they perform a "Morality Play" based upon the murder of Thomas Wells. It is a proposal fraught with peril, not only to their physical safety, but also to their moral well-being, for as Nicholas suggests, "if we make our own meanings, God will oblige us to answer our own questions, He will leave us in the void without the comfort of his Word."

The players accept Martin's suggestion, and soon the facts surrounding the murder of Thomas Wells, as well as the motives and behavior of the players, become troubling and enigmatic. The result is an absorbing narrative that unravels as part murder mystery, part suspense story and part historical fiction, the telling all the time enriched by Nicholas Barber's first person voice and diction.

"Morality Play" leaves the reader with a profoundly satisfying feeling for the historical period and the characters. But the book also operates on a deeper level, the text providing an often thought-provoking gloss on the relationship between theatre and reality, between life on the stage and real life. "Morality Play" is, thus, like all great fiction, not only an entertainment, but an intellectually stimulating short novel that educates even as it delights.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant medieval murder mystery, October 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Morality Play (Paperback)

Barry Unsworth's "Morality Play" is a brilliantly told murder mystery set in 14th century medieval England. It tells of how a fallen monk in his escape from the monastery joins up with a travelling theatre troupe and in the process helps solve a town murder by performing a morality play to expose the murderer. There are strong shades of Umberto Eco's "The Name Of The Rose" in this wonderfully captivating novel, which though far less ambitious in its aims, is arguably as effective in its delivery. Unsworth's prose is simple, unpretentious and uncluttered, yet so beautifully written with a sureness of touch that renders the overall effect almost poetic. A highly engaging novel that I would recommend unreservedly to anyone who enjoys a murder mystery in an unusual setting.