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A Mercy
Availability:
In Stock
Price:
$23.95
$2.85*
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| Part No: | 0307264238 |
| Manufacturer: | Knopf |
| MFG Part: | |
| Customer Rating: | 4.0 / 5.0 |
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- ISBN13: 9780307264237
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
A powerful tragedy distilled into a jewel of a masterpiece by the Nobel Prize–winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier. In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, “with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady.” Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master’s house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved. There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who’s spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens’ mother. These are all men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness. A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and of a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment. Acts of mercy may have unforeseen consequences.
| Haunting.. One of Morrison's best. 4.25/5 | 2010-08-10 | 4 / 5 |
| I'll start by making a comparison: In a strange sort of way, this novel reminds me a lot of The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje: It concerns a number of people that have come from all over the world, from different backgrounds, but all live together-they interact several times a day, but they never fully understand or connect to each other.
As is often the case with Morrison's work, you will read the first chapter, which is only six or seven pages long, and have no idea what's going on.
Through different narrators from different time periods, what is described in the first chapter (which you'll probably want to re-read later) is revealed layer by layer. The non-linear narration of this story really adds to the overall impact for me.
Several of the characters in this novel really haunted me, stuck with me. (Florens and Sorrow come to mind.) Toni Morrison is able to really breathe life into black history, without seeming whiny, or as if she's exploiting it. Even for someone like myself, a white mid-western American, you will live and breathe with her characters, and develop a new appreciation for black history.
Toni Morrison, as others have pointed out, is a classicist, and in my opinion, A Mercy contains her best prose since Beloved. If you have never read Morrison, I suggest start with something like Sula, but don't over look this novel. |
| Important but difficult reading | 2010-07-06 | 4 / 5 |
| I can honestly say that I love every word that I have read from Toni Morrison. Simultaneously I have to say that many of her topics make me feel distinctly uncomfortable and sometimes sad.
"A Mercy" shows Ms. Morrison's literary and cultural skills off beautifully. She created characters that were completely believable and understandable even when they engaged in behaviors that I found reprehensible.
I hesitated (a very long time) before writing this review because I found reading this book to be such a struggle. After re-visiting it, I decided that "A Mercy" is important material presented in a unique and thought-provoking fashion. I was curious about all the characters and the ways in which these women's lives intersected. At the same time, I felt horrified by their stories. I guess that is why I love Ms. Morrison so. She is a master at generating a wide range of emotions through the written word.
If you are looking for a book with a straight-forward plot and characters that feel familiar to our modern lives, this is not the book for you. If on the other hand, you enjoy complex authors like Faulkner; if you are ready to buckle down and read and often re-read passages to gain an almost channelled insight into these lives, then jump in and get ready for an extraordinary journey through a slice of American history. |
| packs an emotional punch | 2010-07-03 | 5 / 5 |
| I listened to the audio version of this book and there was only one thing difficult about that. I couldn't tell where the chapters began or ended, so until I got familiar enough with the characters it was very difficult to tell who was speaking in the chapters. But once I got a grasp of who was who, how they were connected and intertwined, it was okay.
I have to say her words are like music. They flow and dip and dance, especially in the audio version. There's a rhythm, a cadence, an almost lulling as you forget where you are and put yourself into her timeline.
The book was beautiful and heartbreaking, as most of her books are. But it's never done for shock value or to make a point or browbeat you into learning something new. Her words find your weaknesses, the cracks in your armor, and pull you out of your comfortable box and put you where her characters are. Often, it's not a pleasant place to be, and maybe it never should be. It makes you feel, makes you react.
I really appreciate her taking on the subject of how indentured servants and how they were just a different kind of slave in the new world. Too often history only tells one tale of slaves and as horrifying as that knowledge is, I've never seen indentured servants given the same consideration. I wonder what prompted her to take up this task. It made me uncomfortable, sad, angry, and almost desperate - right along with her characters. Very few authors can trigger that kind of emotion.
I also agree with her saying that betrayal is the opposite of love, not hate.
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| Slighty Underwhelmed | 2010-06-18 | 3 / 5 |
| | I've read every Toni Morrison book and this one was good but not great. A Mercy is a pretty short novel and I felt like I hadn't had enough of it at the end. It really seemed more like a very long short story than a novel. It focused very much on one event - how some characters arrived at that moment, how other characters were affected after that moment. When everything was explained it ended. I guess I felt like the author put a ton of work into bringing the reader into 17th century America and introducing us to the characters but then ended the novel after the introduction. One of my favorite things about books in general is how much time you get to spend with the characters, in their world. You watch a movie for two hours and it's over but you might spend a week or two reading a book. Even when you're not actually reading, during those two weeks you're thinking about the book you're reading and imagining the characters and their environment. Even though I spent a few days reading A Mercy, I never really felt immersed in their world as I did with other Toni Morrison books. It almost seemed like the novel ended as soon as it got started. It was okay though, just the kind of rich narrative I expect from Toni Morrison. If I had to recommend just one of her books, Paradise is my favorite - definitely in my top 5 books of all time. |
| dazzling and profound! | 2010-06-15 | 5 / 5 |
| | I can't praise this book highly enough. In the past, I thought I would never love a Toni Morrison novel as much as "Song of Solomon," but "A Mercy" has changed that notion. Whereas other authors have written persuasively about slavery and its traumatic effects, in "A Mercy," Morrison thrusts readers inside a variety of characters' lives, allowing us to experience many of the different ways that barbaric institution damaged individual human beings and as well, the whole fabric of society. As I read, the intertwined narratives became a kind of living history. However, the book's merits transcend its didactic function. The writing in "A Mercy" is so exquisite that every page reads like the most carefully crafted verse. Yet the beauty of Morrison's prose does not compete with the psychological and emotional impacts of the book. Rather, it enhances them, opening both mind and heart, as great music does, to elicit a more profound and meaningful experience for the reader. |
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