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A review by april_does_feral_sometimes
The Quality of Mercy by Barry Unsworth
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 .....