In the event that you missed it I wish to call your attention to Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth.

[Enthusiast]

Last edited Wed Mar 18, 2015, 10:29 AM - Edit history (1)

We read this quite some time ago, several years.

Sacred Hunger is a story of the slave trade. But it is so much more than that. It is about the human condition in the 18th Century, commerce and greed.

This book has a Good Reads rating of over four stars. At first I struggled with the old style language but after a short while found it not to be a problem. Mrs. Enthusiast loved Sacred Hunger.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Hunger

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/u/barry-unsworth/sacred-hunger.htm

[hippywife]

1. Sounds intriguing, Enthusiast.

I looked and it's available at my library, and will probably place a request for it.

There aren't many comments or ratings for it on their site, but one reader gave it only a single star with the following comment, and I would love to hear your response to it:

I was utterly enthralled by this book initially; I was enamored of the language and deeply invested in the story about the people aboard a slave ship in the 1700s.

Alas, at some point after the middle of the book, the author lost me. He skipped ahead in time when I was so invested in the time in which he had put me. The reliance in the later chapters on pidgin English was wearisome and offensive.

The famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was born a slave but his English was grammatically correct and as elegant as it was powerful. The idea that the white men and the Africans could only communicate by all sides using pidgin English was irritating, demeaning and distracting.

I wish the author had done it differently because before that the book had me by the heart.

[Enthusiast]

2. I'm a white guy. Maybe I am simply insensitive. I must admit, the pidgin English didn't even

register with me. I believe it was very common at the time.

I am aware of Frederick Douglass and his incredible verbal skills. But I believe Frederick was the exception rather than the norm. Frederick was not only an exceptional black man but an exceptional man.

This isn't to say that someone wouldn't find some parts of Sacred Hunger objectionable. Being white I cannot see books the same way a black American reader might or the way a more racially sensitive white reader might. These things are unpredictable. I will say one thing, I am pretty certain Sacred Hunger would give any reader the sense of being transported back more than a century ago. It feels that authentic.

Here they have 352 reviews of Sacred Hunger. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/239592.Sacred_Hunger?ac=1

Thank you, hippywife.

[hippywife]

3. I guess I should have been more specific with my question.

I'm not thinking you are anything close to insensitive. I'm sure you, like I do, fully realize that just like all southerners don't have lazy grammar and diction, not all black slaves and freedmen spoke in pidgin English, though some at that time did. I imagine a percentage of white people without wealth allowing them access to or benefit of a good education probably did as well.

The book I'm currently reading is set in the early 1800s, with most of the characters being white settlers moving ever westward, written in the dialect of that time, much of which includes poor grammar as it seems the only form of education most of them have received was home schooling to a certain age and bible learning in their churches.

With regard to Sacred Hunger, I got the impression from that person's review that, being historical fiction, Frederick Douglass was included as a character with the author writing his dialect in pidgin English, as well. Since you've read it, I was just wanting to clarify if it was a just poorly written review, conveying a concept other than the reviewer intended.

[Enthusiast]

4. I guess it has been too long ago since I have read Sacred Hunger.

I don't remember Frederick Douglass playing a large role. But I certainly would have been appalled if the author wrote the Douglass dialogue as pidgin English. As poorly as I remember past books I think I would have remembered that.

[hippywife]

5. Okay, then.

I guess since I'm requesting it from the library, and not purchasing it, I really haven't anything to lose by checking it out (pun not intended, well at least not initially.)

Will let come back once I read it and let you know how I liked it.

Thanks, again!

[hippywife]

6. Picked it up from the library today,

along with another book, not sure which I'll read first. Will have to crack them both open and check them out.

[Enthusiast]

7. I hope you enjoy Sacred Hunger.

[hippywife]

8. I finished this a couple of weeks ago

but have been so busy hadn't had time to report back. It's a very big, very long book and it took me the first 200 pages to get into it at all. I usually put one down after the first 100 if it doesn't catch my interest but didn't have anything else to read at the time. All of the other books I was waiting for had long queues of people who'd reserved them ahead of me, and since I have to have a book at bedtime I plowed on through.

It really was about page 200 when I decided I needed to find out what happens to everyone so would keep reading. I didn't like Erasmus from the very first he was introduced. He just wasn't a very likeable person, had a distinct problem in that he was very one dimensional, wasn't able to view things any other way than according to his own opinion. His views on the woman he wanted to marry were more akin to ownership than love (even though he thought he loved her), all of which gave the only validity to his very flimsy reasoning for disliking his cousin and being so driven where he was concerned.

In addition to struggling with liking him at all, I had a hard time reading the language of the colony at the end of the book, but understood how it evolved.

[Enthusiast]

9. I'm sorry you didn't find it more appealing.

But we all have different tastes don't we.

Nice to talk with you, hippywife.

[hippywife]

10. It's not that I *disliked* it.

It just took me a little longer to get into it, and reading the language of the colony as written was a little more work than I was into.

Yes, we do all have different tastes, many of us have very eclectic reading habits, as well, so many tastes for a single person.

(Sorry it took me so long to respond. Have been very busy lately.)