Sacred Hunger
by Barry Unsworth
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Book Summary Information
Author: Barry UnsworthEdition: Paperback
Published: 1993-11
ISBN: 0393311147
Number of pages: 629
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Book Reviews of Sacred Hunger
Book Review: Greed , power and the forces that counteract them
Summary: 5 Stars
Barry Unsworth's historic novel that won the Booker Prize is an exceptional literary accomplishment and well worth the prize. The word 'vast' would be a good way to describe the novel since it has multiple vividly drawn characters selected from a broad range of social classes and conditions. It is also vast in chronological scope as it covers several 18th century decades in the lives of the characters. It is also vast in venue or setting in that the stately homes of wealthy Liverpool are contrasted with the back-water dens of prostitution and criminality of water-front Liverpool; tenuous military outposts in Sierra Leone on the African coast are contrasted with back-river slave trading posts; a utopian colony in colonial jungle Florida is contrasted with the decadent gentlemen's clubs where the sons of wealthy merchants flaunt their inherited wealth, influence politicians to help maintain their privileged status, and systematically humiliate the lower classes.
The novel is both historic and social commentary in addition to the well constructed multi-chaptered narrative plot. There are no artistic literary games played with the reader. Rather, the narrative is a well constructed chronologically ordered structure on which Unsworth can build both character development and analysis but also commentary on the nature of social structures developed by the powerful to suppress those with less power. In this regard the novel could be called `old fashioned' in narrative structure yet subtle and disarming in its underlying message and content.
Unsworth displays incredible ability to both describe place with vivid yet not overblown language. Likewise he has great ability to reveal character through dialogue. It is his ability to replicate the language of the wealthy capitalist, the bar-maid or the hardened sailor that helps him use dialogue to reveal class, intellect, and character. The use of pidgin-English on the African Coast, aboard the slave ship, and in the Florida utopia is vivid and direct. The final quarter of the book uses pidgin-English extensively but the reader quickly masters the dialect and is amused by the witty turn of phrases.
For this review I would like to discuss the four major male characters in the book: William Kemp, Erasmus Kemp, Matthew Paris, and Captain Saul Thurso.
William Kemp is a character well known in capitalistic paternalistic western society. He is the father, the provider, the manager, the risk taker, the stable and controlling force within his family, business, and community. Yet William Kemp's great investment in a slave ship fails and William Kemp decides not to face the consequences of his mismanagement that long lay hidden behind his respectable upper class facade. The section of the novel whereby Mrs. Kemp manages the scandal and crisis that is left by her husband's stigmatizing death is a telling passage. Here we see stiff Erasmus, their young adult son, unable to navigate the confines and social constriction of a stigmatized death, which his mother in her lower social role as a woman can.
Erasmus Kemp is an odd fellow, a brittle and vulnerable personality that is never relaxed in his own skin or in the world. When he is young he becomes enraged at his older cousin picking him up to keep him from becoming wet from an incoming tide. When he falls in love, he is so object driven that he eventually drives away the affection of his love, Sarah Wolpert. He is so unsure of his status as a privileged rich young man that he is threatened when his love, Sarah, has a different opinion than he, or when Sarah's mother dares to discuss taxation and business with males, or when his own `weak' mother manages a family scandal far better than he does. He seems forever driven to maintain his own inflated yet fragile self evaluation and the shallow image he portrays to the world. Thus much of his life is driven by a struggle for self definition. He must have a challenge or antagonist in order to understand the borders of his self-image.
His cousin, Matthew Paris, is the most developed character in the novel. Here we see a broken man. As a bright young physician he was willing to get into a power struggle with a powerful vicar over evolution. This power struggle then resulted in the loss of his profession, his incarceration and public humiliation, the death of his wife without him present, and a lifetime of restricted potential due to his record as a convict. Paris learned hurtful lessons about intellectual pride in the face of social power and realizes that his intellectual gift and self-regard set him up for a conflict which he could not win and for which his poor wife paid part of the awful price. Pride and intellect was the motivating force that initially allowed him to confront hypocrisy with truth. However after his great loss, he is not certain that pride was to his benefit and may have undermined his efforts. He is thus better prepared to assess consequences when he is faced with another social power and evil injustice in the person of Captain Saul Thurso.
Captain Thurso is a fascinating character for he is hard as a rock, unmoved by any human emotions, reacting against any perceived threat like a barking border dog, and so ego-maniacal that he see the forces of nature personally against him. It is his hard cruelty that eventually causes Matthew Paris, the ship's doctor, to respond against tyranny even though his last foray against tyranny resulted in incredible personal loss. Because his egotism has been fragmented, Matthew Paris is better able to bide his time, measure consequences, and recognize when a final blow has been dealt.
The utopian world in back river jungle Florida is exceptionally written, for here black slaves, impersonally chained like animals aboard ship, become human beings of vivid character and motives. The final third of the book is brilliant as we see life in a utopia and see that even in utopia oppression of the weak by the strong will always rear its head. Even here Matthew Paris must outwit greedy power if he wishes to stand on the side of the weak.
Overall this book is a triumph. It is a beautiful historic novel, full of character and class, place and time, and the force of greed and power in opposition to the forces that must confront greed and power and face the consequences for doing so.
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