Toni Morrison
Hardcover | Pages: 167 pages Rating: 3.7 | 20049 Users | 2708 Reviews
Mention Books In Favor Of A Mercy
| Original Title: | A Mercy |
| ISBN: | 0307264238 (ISBN13: 9780307264237) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Longlist (2009), James Tait Black Memorial Prize Nominee for Fiction (2008), The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books (2009) |
Commentary In Pursuance Of Books A Mercy
In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark 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, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives. A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter - a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.Itemize Appertaining To Books A Mercy
| Title | : | A Mercy |
| Author | : | Toni Morrison |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 167 pages |
| Published | : | November 11th 2008 by Knopf Publishing Group (first published 2008) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Cultural. African American |
Rating Appertaining To Books A Mercy
Ratings: 3.7 From 20049 Users | 2708 ReviewsDiscuss Appertaining To Books A Mercy
xxxxxxxxToni Morrisons A Mercy is set in late 16th century America; the narrative shifts between a variety of characters, including the Native American servant Lina, Jakob Vaark and his English wife Lina and their slaves, Florens and Sorrow. All of the characters are, in their own way, rootless, blown together like leaves by the poetry and pathos of Toni Morrisons prose. The novel explores the cause of their rootlessness-for the Black and Native American characters, their rootlessness forms the basis of
I read this with my book club African American Historical Fiction. This is a very hard one to rate and review. I found this story to be dry, mundane, unfascinating, and probably lacking 100 or so pages. This story represented a time rarely discussed, the 1600s. Knowing that alone bored me before even opening the first page. I was extremely surprised to find that the characters in this story were extremely underdeveloped. Honestly I didn't care for or about any of them. But it's funny what
I'd never read Morrison before. This was interesting, but the style is a bit confusing. I'm not sure I was able to keep track of all of the characters.
I was enthralled with the incandescent prose and moving voices of four women in this tale set on a remote farm in colonial New York in the 1690s. It was outstanding in the audiobook form read by the author, often sending chills up my spine with the vibrant power of its poetry. A major theme is how people harness love in all its forms and how they deal with the perception of betrayal. Another is the paradox of the foundation of the new world both on the hunger for freedom and on various forms of
Although the subject of "A Mercy" ie the interdependent lives of African slaves,Native Americans,indentured servants,free blacks,and whites in Catholic early Md.-this book was a bit disapppointing. It seemed as if Ms. Morrison wanted/had to crank out a book so did an "abbreviated" version of her usually phenomenal story-telling. the characters were 1/2 developed-almost but "no cigar" as was the story. Hey-Ms. Morrison has had an illustrious career-maybe next time???
Yes, I am a Toni Morrison fan and believe she is incapable of writing a bad book, but that doesn't mean I wasn't ready to be critical of her new book if necessary. It's not necessary. The beginning may seem slow (that never bothers me) as we are thrust into a world that is faraway in time, but real. Historical details never bog down; they are worn lightly, as a reviewer put it.Reviewers have compared one character here to Sethe from Beloved; and though I see the parallel, this is a very
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