Customer Reviews

Sacred Hunger

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When I had the opportunity to read Barry Unsworth's "Sacred Hunger," I jumped at the chance, and not because this author won the Booker Prize. I didn't know a thing about him, had never heard of him, and couldn't have cared if he had won any prize related to writing. All I knew was that I could receive credit for a directed readings class at my university for reading the novel. The topic I was working on at the time concerned Atlantic history, a hot area of research for historians, and most of the books I read up to this point were lengthy, scholarly works full of footnotes and massive bibliographies. So when my professor suggested the idea of a novel covering many of the same themes, I readily accepted. Who wouldn't take a break from the tedium of academia? I quickly discovered that Unsworth's book involved a bit of work to get through. This novel isn't a mass-market paperback type read, not by a long shot. It's an incredibly well researched, multilayered piece of historical fiction that manages to incorporate nearly every aspect of the slave trade while maintaining a level of prose that would make Charles Dickens stand up and applaud.

"Sacred Hunger" follows many characters throughout its 600 plus pages, from lowly sailors to venture capitalists to slaves to dozens of other major and minor characters. The overarching storyline involves one William Kemp, a wealthy English cotton merchant currently down on his luck, and his effort to reap a quick profit from the slave trade circa 1750. He commissions the building of a vessel for just such a purpose, hires a bellicose tar by the name of Saul Thurso to helm the ship, and stakes his entire fortune on its success. He even enlists his nephew Matthew Paris, a physician who spent time in prison for challenging church dogma, to serve as the ship's doctor. The book flip flops back and forth from the travails of the slave voyage to the adventures of William's son Erasmus, a dour young capitalist whose plans revolve around marrying the daughter of a wealthy businessman and expanding his own family's holdings once his father passes on. Erasmus's plans come to naught when the slave ship disappears somewhere in the Caribbean, leading to a series of events that take many years to unravel. It takes that long to ascertain that Thurso's ship didn't just disappear into thin air, but was hijacked through a mutiny involving slaves, shipmates, and Matthew Paris.

Unsworth spares no effort to convey to the reader a sense of actually witnessing the slave trade up close and personal. We learn of the vile techniques used to impress hapless sailors into maritime service through the stories of unfortunate wretches such as Billy Blair and the fiddle player Michael Sullivan. The book shows us the utter brutality inflicted by Thurso and his subordinates on both slaves and the crew. We sit in open-mouthed wonder as we witness how the captains of these ships bartered with African kings over their "cargo." We see the ravages of disease on both slavers and slaves alike. And we quickly understand how the sale of human beings degrades everyone involved, from the merchants to the government to the Africans. The author even takes time out of his busy schedule to show how the English drove a wedge between Indian tribes in their quest to acquire territory in North America. Every negative aspect of Atlantic history--the class issues, slavery, territorial ambition, unrestricted trade, greed, murder, and torture--appear in this book in intricate and often nauseating detail. Don't come into this book expecting a joyful experience. The themes in "Sacred Hunger" are serious business, and Unsworth treats them as such.

Without a doubt, the prose work is the best element of the book. Sentences spark and pop off the page as Unsworth effortlessly captures the tones and rhythms of eighteenth century speech. Whether he's writing dialogue that comes out of the mouths of upper class English elites or the singsong slang of the sailors, the effect is always totally believable. Heck, he even pulls off Pidgin English in the latter part of the book! So excellent is the prose that it's easy to overlook the deep thematic structures of the story. Don't forget that you're reading a narrative that attempts to examine the struggle between unfettered capitalism on the one hand and utopian socialism on the other. A deep pessimism about free markets seems to run throughout the book, which I don't necessarily agree with, but at the same time Unsworth doesn't reject that form of social organization entirely. I don't want to spoil the conclusion for you, but it's obvious at the end that the author recognizes that socialism isn't all its cracked up to be either. No matter what your position is regarding political organization, this book will definitely make you challenge your dearly held convictions. If you seek a more challenging theme than the rather obvious capitalism/socialism duality, try to identify each character's "sacred hunger."

Speaking of the conclusion (which I still won't spoil), did anyone else wonder about the character's sudden questioning of everything he held dear up to that point? I know I did. An individual this single-minded and...well...evil most likely wouldn't possess the mental faculties necessary to examine his motivations. I'll grant that this ending helped take some of the gruesome edges off the story, and it is poignant in its own way, but it just doesn't make much sense. Perhaps Unsworth wanted to leave his readers with a glimmer of hope that exploitation could give way to compassion and introspection. Whatever the case, pick up this book when you get a chance and follow the brass button. You won't be disappointed.

I read this book about three years ago, and some of the passages are still etched vividly in my mind. The writing in amazingly lush. As some reviewers have already pointed out, there is a great deal of detail in some of the passages which, in lesser hands, could be terribly boring (Like in Millhauser's "Martin Dressler"). But here, they are magical. This is one of the few books where I would actually stop periodically to re-read the previous couple of pages just to savor the writing once again. Unsworth is a gifted writer who paints luxurious pictures on every page. The passages about crossing the ocean in the hold of a slave ship are harrowing.

But this book succeeds because of more than just good writing. The plot is complex and compelling, and the characters are entirely real. I'm normally not a fan of historical fiction, but this one is a real winner.

Make no mistake about it, reading Sacred Hunger is a significant undertaking -- both in terms of the impact this complex and epic story will have on you and because of the time and concentration it will take to navigate the book's more than 600 pages. That significance is something to savor.

I will avoid the cliché of saying that the story "has it all," but Sacred Hunger does come close to that. There's the adventure of a band of men moving between three continents and pushed until they snapped and yet optimistically deciding to create what they saw as a kind of utopia, there is an examination of the cruelty that humans are capable of inflicting on each other, the story includes an accurate lesson in a period of history and its economics and geography, a touching love story, a metaphor for modern times.

Curiously, the pages also include the story of a small brass button. I still haven't decided what the button represents, but I did note that it is the only thing in the story that manages to survive all the kinds of hell the length of the story includes, changing hands at least six times between the beginning of the book and its final pages and yet it ends up no worse off.

The title of this volume refers to its grandest theme, the desire that drives men to extreme action. It is in this aspect that the book shines brightest, as the term is defined differently but compellingly for each of the main characters, especially the two main characters, cousins Erasmus Kemp and Matthew Paris.

There is a sacred hunger in almost all of the less central characters as well, in Michael Sullivan (the fiddle player who longed to be treated like a man ... and only person to own the brass button twice), in Billy Blair (who was robbed of his money and who ended up a judge), in Saul Thurso (the captain who never failed his owners), even in many of the slaves and the other seamen forced into service, and in the soldiers camped in Florida and Africa. Therein lies one of the potential stumbling blocks for readers of Sacred Hunger: it includes a great many characters and to really understand the book it is imperative to remember who came from where and which character has a problem with or a debt to whom. Most of the crew is introduced starting with chapter 12, and I found myself referring back to that part of the book often to remember the particulars of certain figures. Later, it is also important to remember the characteristics of different African tribes involved in the story.

There are few female characters in the book, and those who do appear can seem unconvincing compared to the complex representations of many of the men. Similarly, I found myself wishing I knew much more about the artist and philosopher Delblanc, who comes into the story late but who plays an absolutely key role. If I have a criticism of the book it is the way Delblanc is developed.

But I use the conditional on that point because I am not sure if I do indeed have a criticism of the book. It is easy to seek out minor discrepancies or personal critiques in a volume of this size and scope, but the fact remains that sacred Hunger is a breathtaking story, the best I've read in some time.

This is one of the most painful books I have ever read, and my action of mailing copies to my closest friends is both an action of great friendship and great sadism. This story of the slave-trade and a new society formed after one slave-ship escapes -- through sickness, mutiny, opportunity -- pains as much as it pleases. Characters we live with and love are hunted down by characters who see them only as animals. We see both societies that can come about, only to face the fact that they will not be permitted to exist -- will be hunted mercilessly.

And from the very beginning of the book, we know that events will come to a very bad end, that a paradise found will be recalled only by a pathetic old man (who we later know in his youth) whose strange stories tell us, before the book unfolds, that paradise will be lost -- *is* lost before it is even found. As for the irony of the title, *Sacred Hunger* seems to be the insatiable imperialistic drive towards hierarchy according to skin color, slavery, world expansion. It is small consolation that their seems no curbing of that voracious hunger.

I find that once I send this book to a friend, I follow up to make sure it's been read. Like Coleridge's wedding guest, I need to impart this story. I lurk near the wedding guests, ready to leap out with the tale.

It reached my soul, and may yours.

Our Seattle-area book club members were mixed in their praise for Sacred Hunger. Some count it has one of the top five books of our club's five year history; others note the merits of the book, but are turned off by what they feel are unnecessary details throughout the story. We all agree that Unsworth has an astute eye for capturing what motivates his characters and for re-creating the spirit of the mid-18th century slave trade and class system of England. We also agree that Sacred Hunger is a unique mixture of an epic sea-faring tale and a moral examination of a society dominated by greed at any humanitarinan cost. Whether it's freedom (however ephemeral), revenge, or greed, the reader cannot mistake each character's moments of pain or contentment made possible by the desolate clarity of Unsworth's prose. Give it a try. Suffer the play scenes. The themes and characters of Sacred Hunger will not disapoint you.

Barry Unsworth's novel Sacred Hunger is an exquisitely crafted tale of commerce and corruption set in 18th century England, at the heart of which lies the tension between the moral characters of two cousins. Erasmus Kemp is the intense, arrogant son of a slave ship owner, who holds the prevailing opinion of the day that the lawful accumulation of wealth is the only way a man should live his life. Mathew Paris is the ship's doctor recently rescued from prison by his uncle for publishing blasphemous and seditious views on evolution. Their relationship is set against the backdrop of the Liverpool Merchant's ill-fated voyage to Africa to buy slaves, and the mutiny that follows.

Paris is a thoughtful and troubled man whose constant battle against pride enriches him with a humanity and compassion that are beyond his cousin's reach or understanding. The respective self awareness of the two characters is fascinating: while Kemp has no conscious doubt whatsoever that right is on his side, Paris is plagued by self-doubt and guilt at his wife's death while he was in prison. Kemp's hatred for Paris is a deep-rooted one, possibly founded on the sub-conscious knowledge that it is in fact his cousin who is the better man, despite what society would have him believe. Kemp possesses power and wealth, but these aren't enough to combat the monomania of his hatred for Paris and its tragic consequences. Unsworth portrays vividly the moral bankruptcy that festers at the heart of 18th century English society, where the kidnapping and trading of human beings is seen as a lawful enterprise while the mere expression of views contrary to the current religious ones is seen as unlawful and pernicious. Sacred Hunger attempts a formidable examination of human nature and what man can be driven to inflict on man for the sake of power and wealth, and the author succeeds in what he sets out to do with admirable assurance. The quality of Unworth's prose is astonishing. He writes with an economy and grace that no other contemporary author (that I know of) can match. The period detail is beautifully drawn and the style spare and evocative.

Sacred Hunger is a magnificent book: it really does rival the great Victorian novels in terms of its scope of ambition, moral exploration, convincing characterisation and marvellous scene setting. I cannot believe that there has been a better historical novel published in the last twenty years.

Unsworth! You have given us a truly marvelous epic--one which crisscrosses the Atlantic, from women who sip sweet tea in England, to the slave trade in Africa and the Carribean, where their sugar cane is made. There is a battle for the soul of the West--a gut-wrenching search for decency and humanity, pitted against the cruelest kind of marketplace.

Naked power made manifest in patriarchy and White supremacy scour the novel, seeking out any who dare to challenge it; a 'free market' destroying and enslaving those who confront it.
I dream that this will be a epic mini-series one day. In any case, it is a tale for the ages--a story of rich characters and moving human struggles. Truly this is a mighty and masterful work of art.

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.

Good writers can "spin a good yarn" from the point of view of one, perhaps two or three, characters. The better writers (in my opinion) are good at getting into the minds of several of their own diverse creations. The very best writers must do that and more; they must be masterminds, able to weave these separate tales into a whole rope to hang their realized universe upon. Barry Unsworth has achieved mastermind status here in Sacred Hunger.

Sacred Hunger is a story that explores 17th Century Britain's quest to increase its empire through financial means (though most of us are more familiar with Britain's wartime strategies of that period). Through the eyes of men from all walks of life, we see the birthing, launch and journey of a merchant ship bound for the slave trade in Africa. Individual human dramas course through the tale: the merchant Kemp who is pinning his last hopes upon the profits from this voyage; his son Erasmus, whose future as an upwardly mobile husband-to-be depends on a perfect reputation; members of the crew who are kidnapped or tricked into signing on; a captain who secretly barters human blood for safe passage with unknown deities; and the ship's doctor, Matthew Paris, for whom this posting is a strange penance for his sins past.

Matthew Paris slowly develops as the sympathetic underdog, observing and participating in the slave trade with steadily growing sense of conviction and dread. I believe he is Unsworth's archetype of the best of our civilized Western world, with all of his intelligence and compassion. Erasmus Kemp is Paris' counter, amoral and ruthless once his youthful hopes for romance have begun to sour. We follow into the turnings of their minds most often throughout this tale, and it is through these two that we glimpse Unsworth's best insights into the Great Question of human nature that the author is exploring, namely: would mankind, if shed of the evils of modern civilization and living in Paradise, be able to abide together peacefully?

Forgive me for inserting this paragraph here: Although female points of view are conspicuously absent for most of Sacred Hunger's narrative, it is a mark of Unsworth's regard for women that their characters demonstrate the most courage and common sense of all the people in this story. One almost gets the sense that the author is slyly hinting that if the base egos and ambitions of the men were removed entirely from the picture, the answer to the Great Question might be yes. But that may just be my own particular bias showing:)

Unsworth proves tops at insights into the lowliest and loftiest themes. He is convincing with his portrayals of both the speech of the 18th Century English upper classes, the harsher mutterings of the sailors and the hybrid languages of Africans and islanders. He is faithful in historical details of both the opulent and the guttural, without losing any of his philosophical scope. Rich, poetic imagery saturates Sacred Hunger, and in the end that is as good a reason as any to spend some hours on this book. Read it for that, and for the many days of ponderings that you will be left with once you are done.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

I have little but praise for this remarkable novel;in every way - prose, pacing and characterizations and fidelity to history - this is a stupendous achievement. I read that Unsworth suffered from a protracted bout of writer's block and depression in the course of bringing this story into the world, but it's impossible to guess that from the fluency, clarity and power of the final result. _Sacred Hunger_ is the work of a visionary and subtle moralist.

Unsworth has performed one of those feats of which gifted artists are capable: like Bruce Beresford's film _Black Robe_ or Wynton Marsalis's "Blood in the Fields", Unworth has put a human face,etched in pathos, on an entire body of history. Historians have recently begun exploring the history of New World Slavery, the slave trade, and the so-called Atlantic world in depth again (Ira Berlin, Robin Blackburn, John Thornton, Philip Morgan, Wilma King to name just a few of them). By and large, the historians in this field are exceptionally good ones, remarkably free of cant and jargon, but it is a sad truth that -- barring some instance of pop cultural sychronicity -- even the most lucidly presented histories will almost never find a mass public audience. Yet, discussion of slavery, the original sin at the heart of the American errand into the wilderness, continues to languish beneath the withering rays of national denial and indifference.

Unsworth rehydrates this vital discussion, by imagining a fictional, but utterly compelling and convincing, world. The narrative grid he constructs is virtually untarnished by unearned sentiment despite the Dickensian aspect. Unsworth gives readers so much to savor and ponder. The soul murder inherent in every aspect of Atlantic slavery is embodied here: the sexual economy of the slave trade (in the form of Erasmus Kemp and his pursuit of a bride), the catastrophic bleeding away of an entire continent to service the luxuries of another, the corruption engendered by this unacknowledged equation,and the reduction of slavers and enslaved alike in to mere commodities, mired in mutual fear, contempt and self-hatred. In the face of all this, occasional lapses in characterizations or voice (I wish that many of the African characters, particularly Kireku and Tabikali had been explored in greater depth) in the text are entirely immaterial. To paraphrase Ferlingetti: like Goya, in Unworth's greatest scenes we seem to see the people of the world at precisely the moment they first attained the title of "Suffering Humanity." The final page will break your heart.