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april_does_feral_sometimes's review against another edition
4.0
I think Robert Strandquist's review is the best review that suits what I would say about this book.
I would add that the excellence of 'The Quality of Mercy' relies on the way it tackles so much and does it so well. Unsworth has written a historical novel that captures the sounds, scents, dress, and even the English household accroutrements of the middle 18th century. In 300 pages he has deftly strung together the atmospheres of living stranded in Florida, being aboard a slave ship and inside an English court of law, visiting the offices of several bureaucrats and the awful prisons, watching hangings, living in a small mining town and a city. Plus he contrasted a variety of classes from the landed aristocrats, upper class lawyers, mercantile bankers and insurance companies, to the laborers in the mines and the poor of the workhouses and impressed sailors. The book never felt unbalanced with superfluous characters or details or subplots. At the same time that the reader enjoys a bit of a thriller story Unsworth makes the slavery of the poor regardless of race very clear and how it was not limited to African captives. On top of all these interesting explorations, Unsworth has created believable characters and realistically examines their motives in acting as they do so that I found it difficult to label anyone a bad person, despite lots of grief caused by a monstrous lack of empathy between the classes of social life. The poignancy of six-year-old miners' children flying kites for the first and last time before going to work in the dark, dangerous mines for 14 hour work-days was particularly sad.
However, the Great Merciful Button Symbol utterly mystified me .....
I would add that the excellence of 'The Quality of Mercy' relies on the way it tackles so much and does it so well. Unsworth has written a historical novel that captures the sounds, scents, dress, and even the English household accroutrements of the middle 18th century. In 300 pages he has deftly strung together the atmospheres of living stranded in Florida, being aboard a slave ship and inside an English court of law, visiting the offices of several bureaucrats and the awful prisons, watching hangings, living in a small mining town and a city. Plus he contrasted a variety of classes from the landed aristocrats, upper class lawyers, mercantile bankers and insurance companies, to the laborers in the mines and the poor of the workhouses and impressed sailors. The book never felt unbalanced with superfluous characters or details or subplots. At the same time that the reader enjoys a bit of a thriller story Unsworth makes the slavery of the poor regardless of race very clear and how it was not limited to African captives. On top of all these interesting explorations, Unsworth has created believable characters and realistically examines their motives in acting as they do so that I found it difficult to label anyone a bad person, despite lots of grief caused by a monstrous lack of empathy between the classes of social life. The poignancy of six-year-old miners' children flying kites for the first and last time before going to work in the dark, dangerous mines for 14 hour work-days was particularly sad.
However, the Great Merciful Button Symbol utterly mystified me .....
ccstackpoole's review against another edition
3.0
A book that explored the motivations between each character's decisions. Characters compelling, but the end felt rushed.
nadinekc's review against another edition
5.0
This book takes over events at the end of [b:Sacred Hunger|239592|Sacred Hunger (Sacred Hunger #1)|Barry Unsworth|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423442893l/239592._SY75_.jpg|2781088], 14 years later. Although a few of the characters reappear, it's really the moral arc of the story that continues to be explored in a new setting. This moral arc may bend toward justice, but it's not a simple or straight path and in this book it centers on the complexities of mercy and rings true in the 21st century as much as the 18th. All the characters were great, but Jane Ashton was the most interesting to me - probably because she felt so Austen-like. Not like a copy, but like a person Elizabeth Bennet would love to talk to.
tlaloq's review against another edition
5.0
When I finished Sacred Hunger, I was left wondering what happened to a number of the characters at the end of the novel. The Quality of Mercy provides a satisfying conclusion.
I won't say much beyond that, other than the same elements I appreciated in Sacred Hunger are to be found in this sequel.
I won't say much beyond that, other than the same elements I appreciated in Sacred Hunger are to be found in this sequel.
veronicafrance's review against another edition
4.0
I finished reading this yesterday, and today I learned that Barry Unsworth had died. He was a very talented historical novelist, although none of his other books, including this, matched up to [b:Sacred Hunger|239592|Sacred Hunger|Barry Unsworth|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223676733s/239592.jpg|2781088], one of the best historical novels I've read.
That's not to say this isn't a good book, just that it doesn't have the intensity and drama of Sacred Hunger. It's about mercy and justice, much of it taken up with court cases, so inevitably it's less exciting and more contemplative. I didn't feel the different strands necessarily meshed together that well, and after a strong start with Sullivan, I was sorry we didn't see more of him in the rest of the book. But Erasmus' gradual acquisition of at least a hint of mercy under the influence of his love for Jane was quite convincing.
Unsworth is always good at adopting an 18th-century tone, and this novel, with its domestic settings, is positively Austen like -- especially the end. Although it can be read standalone, I highly recommend that you read Sacred Hunger first.
In the same parcel I received Hilary Mantel's [b:Bring Up the Bodies|13507212|Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall, #2)|Hilary Mantel|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1330649655s/13507212.jpg|14512257] -- but I decided to save it, and read this first in case it couldn't stand the comparison!
That's not to say this isn't a good book, just that it doesn't have the intensity and drama of Sacred Hunger. It's about mercy and justice, much of it taken up with court cases, so inevitably it's less exciting and more contemplative. I didn't feel the different strands necessarily meshed together that well, and after a strong start with Sullivan, I was sorry we didn't see more of him in the rest of the book. But Erasmus' gradual acquisition of at least a hint of mercy under the influence of his love for Jane was quite convincing.
Spoiler
I couldn't help wondering what a marriage between him and Jane would be like, so I'm rather sorry there won't be a sequel -- it did seem to be set up for one.Unsworth is always good at adopting an 18th-century tone, and this novel, with its domestic settings, is positively Austen like -- especially the end. Although it can be read standalone, I highly recommend that you read Sacred Hunger first.
In the same parcel I received Hilary Mantel's [b:Bring Up the Bodies|13507212|Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall, #2)|Hilary Mantel|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1330649655s/13507212.jpg|14512257] -- but I decided to save it, and read this first in case it couldn't stand the comparison!
kenmuir's review against another edition
2.0
Disappointing sequel to Sacred Hunger.
I liked Sacred Hunger (4 stars) and I enjoy Barry Unsworth's other novels, but several issues in this book did not work well for me.
In the early stages the characters and plot are too explanatory. As a follow-up to Sacred Hunger, written 20 years later, but only set 4 years after the events of that book, Unsworth has reasonably assumed that many readers of Quality Of Mercy will not have read Sacred Hunger. As a result the conversations and descriptions early on try to recapture the Sacred Hunger situation. But these are done in an all-to-obvious and unconvincing manner. You get discussions that begin like, "Why sir, if you recall our last meeting on this subject ... " and then the speaker recounts everything in a most unrealistic and unnatural style. In real life you would trust the other person's memory to be as good as your own and not to require this. It's quite obviously a plot device to bring the reader up to speed.
The pace of the plot is also strange and inconsistent. Reading on my Kindle I was about 45% of the way through the book. Next time I looked I was over 80%. I couldn't account for this gap. Was I really approaching the end already? Had enough happened to make this apparent leap acceptable? Obviously not for me. I felt it jarred considerably.
The new characters introduced in Quality Of Mercy are awkward additions. They are introduced, described and positioned in the tale, but their stories are often left unfinished. What exactly was their purpose? Other than to fill several pages.
I finished the book feeling really quite unsatisfied. As a standalone tale I think it is incomplete and erratic. It actually felt more like book two of a Sacred Hunger trilogy rather than a concluding sequel.
I do think Barry Unworthy writes well. His command of language does enable the characters to have individual lives and appearances in the reader's mind. All the more disappointing then that these identities are left unfulfilled in their stories and how these stories intermesh.
I liked Sacred Hunger (4 stars) and I enjoy Barry Unsworth's other novels, but several issues in this book did not work well for me.
In the early stages the characters and plot are too explanatory. As a follow-up to Sacred Hunger, written 20 years later, but only set 4 years after the events of that book, Unsworth has reasonably assumed that many readers of Quality Of Mercy will not have read Sacred Hunger. As a result the conversations and descriptions early on try to recapture the Sacred Hunger situation. But these are done in an all-to-obvious and unconvincing manner. You get discussions that begin like, "Why sir, if you recall our last meeting on this subject ... " and then the speaker recounts everything in a most unrealistic and unnatural style. In real life you would trust the other person's memory to be as good as your own and not to require this. It's quite obviously a plot device to bring the reader up to speed.
The pace of the plot is also strange and inconsistent. Reading on my Kindle I was about 45% of the way through the book. Next time I looked I was over 80%. I couldn't account for this gap. Was I really approaching the end already? Had enough happened to make this apparent leap acceptable? Obviously not for me. I felt it jarred considerably.
The new characters introduced in Quality Of Mercy are awkward additions. They are introduced, described and positioned in the tale, but their stories are often left unfinished. What exactly was their purpose? Other than to fill several pages.
I finished the book feeling really quite unsatisfied. As a standalone tale I think it is incomplete and erratic. It actually felt more like book two of a Sacred Hunger trilogy rather than a concluding sequel.
I do think Barry Unworthy writes well. His command of language does enable the characters to have individual lives and appearances in the reader's mind. All the more disappointing then that these identities are left unfulfilled in their stories and how these stories intermesh.
frogggirl2's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
While very much a continuation of the first novel, this book is a much smoother, better paced, and better constructed work of fiction. While I was interested in what happened to these characters after the first book, I'm not sure this book is entirely necessary. Some interesting character work, particularly Erasmus Kemp, carries the book.
krobart's review against another edition
3.0
See my review here:
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/day-1132-the-quality-of-mercy/
https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/day-1132-the-quality-of-mercy/