A Mercy by Toni Morrison Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Mercy
Book Review: A Skeletal Masterpiece
Summary: 3 Stars
(2.5 stars) Toni Morrison's A Mercy engenders all the superficial qualities of a modern classic, but reads like an incomplete outline. Morrison's cast of one-dimensional characters are as flat as they are stock. But it is the painfully underdeveloped stream-of-consciousness narrative that ultimately relegates A Mercy to the fate of an almost masterpiece that never was.
Morrison reinvigorates the slave narrative with her unique portrayal of a seventeenth century American plantation, depicted through fragmented narratives of alternating perspectives. Devoid of oppressive, whip-wielding overseers, the Vaark farm is characterized as a place of refuge for four exiled women, all of whom are enslaved to some extent, but are struggling with far more than compulsory servitude.
Jacob Vaark, a self-made orphan turned entrepreneur, is a white landowner plagued by a "pulse of pity for orphans and strays." Hardly a paragon of moral righteousness, Vaark's compassion is more absurd than it is sincere, and he is used throughout the novel as little more than a mechanism of plot development. It is his contrived sense of compassion that is responsible for `rescuing' and therefore bringing together these aforementioned women.
Rebekka is Vaark's mail-order bride, bought and paid for, fresh off the boat from the Dickensian wasteland of industrial hell that is London, England. Unlike her husband, Rebekka is an exceptionally dynamic character. Her transformation, however, is so abrupt it has the feeling of a forgotten storyline hastily completed as an afterthought. But we can say this of Rebekka's character: she, like the other women on the Vaark farm, suffers from a desperate need for affection.
Rebekka finds such affection in a friendship with Lina, a Native American slave Vaark purchases despite the author's assurance that "flesh was not his commodity." While the addition of a Native American slave to the plantation dynamics is arguably original, Morrison takes no pains in endowing Lina with any qualities beyond those of the stereotype. Like the Indians who impart their knowledge of the earth to the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, it is Lina who reveals to Vaark the secrets of his own farm. She teaches him "how to dry the fish they caught; to anticipate spawning and how to protect a crop from night creatures" and together they plant "corn and vegetables." Under the moon, Lina dons "bright blue beads and dances in secret." Need I say more? Morrison certainly doesn't.
It should be apparent by now that Lina's predicament as a contrived, stock character is not an isolated one. Morrison neglects each and every one of her characters in much the same way they are neglected by their own families. Sorrow is perhaps the only figure who comes close to resembling that of a three-dimensional human being. Shipwrecked, orphaned, and left to survive on her own among the nautical wreckage, Sorrow develops a disturbing coping mechanism that is the only innovative character trait within the novel. Even after being rescued from the ship and later purchased by Vaark, Sorrow remains reliant on her psychosis. She is comforted by the constant presence of Twin, her fictitious "identical self," but desperately longs to feel complete.
Sorrow's story would be a poignant one were it not lost among the cacophony of a poorly rendered multi-vocal experimental narrative, which sounds more impressive than it actually is. Even more so than the poor quality of character development, it is this facet of A Mercy that hampers the conveyance of what was a potentially imaginative and inspiring story. Morrison loses her readers within the first chapter, which initially reads as a dissonant collection of words haphazardly strung together begging the questions "What is going on?" and "Why should I care?" This chapter is the first of a series of stream-of-consciousness narratives told from the perspective of Florens. Only eight years old when we first meet her, Florens's mother offers her to Vaark as compensation for an unpaid debt. This episode of betrayal torments the child for the next eight years until she meets a blacksmith and a fleeting affair brings to life the feelings of abandonment that have always hovered just at the surface of her unconscious.
A Mercy is simultaneously the story of Vaark, Rebekka, Lina and Sorrow, but it is also intended to be Floren's heartrending account of her own abandonment and rejection. Morrison, however, alienates the protagonist from her own narrative, and completely loses any sense of realism in doing so. Florens's stream of consciousness chapters are intended to reflect the writings of a sixteen-year old slave girl whose last informal education in writing takes place eight years earlier. Twenty-first century public school systems have produced less literate high school graduates. The impracticality of this narrative ultimately deprives Florens of her own voice. Morrison is following in the tradition of writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Charles W. Chesnutt whose uses of dialect respectively bring to life characters like Pheoby, Celie, and Uncle Julius. Florens, in contrast, is robbed of her own identity when Morrison forces upon her an articulate, albeit somewhat fractured, literacy well beyond her plausible means.
A Mercy, therefore, blanches in comparison to its irrefutable inspirations. It lacks the character development and sheer audacity of novels such as William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. The experience Faulkner and Woolf create is a haunting immersion into the thoughts of their characters. Reading these novels, you feel with Cash Bundren and Mrs. Ramsay. Reading A Mercy, you hear Toni Morrison describing the plight of a sixteen year old slave in awkwardly fragmented English. The poetic lyricism of Morrison's writing style is beautiful in its own right, but it is distinctly Morrisonian. Florens's chapters demand that Morrison give herself completely to Florens in the way that Woolf gives herself to Lily Briscoe and Faulkner gives himself to Tull and Darl. It is the lack of such commitment that ultimately separates A Mercy from its canonical counterparts, and renders it little more than an unfortunately unfinished skeleton of an incomplete masterpiece.
Book Review: A Tapestry of Beautiful Voices, Saturated with Emotion and Truth
Summary: 5 Stars
Toni Morrison paints this small verbal masterpiece with some of the most beautiful language I have ever read. Florens's voice teeters on luxurious poetry, as she creatively carves powerful meanings from the small fortune of words she's secretly learned. Her lust/passion was breathtaking.
The treat and surprise of this book is the manner its unfolding. Genius!
Without manufacturing angels or demons, Dr. Morrison completely captures her characters, their historical placement, and their personal plights. It was enlightening -- being submerged in a time so uncharitable to women. I turned the last page a more grateful and compassionate being.
Book Review: A Work of Genius
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best novels I've read in a long time. The narrative is dense, mysterious, sometimes
difficult but the attention the reader gives to it pays off. This is the work a mature master,
an American treasure.
Book Review: A big zero
Summary: 1 Stars
I never received the book and aparently, alot of others have had the same problem. They have never responded to my email ither. Don't purchase products from them and I hope Amazon removes them from their site.
Pam Mettler
Book Review: A challenge
Summary: 3 Stars
Challenging to read, never knowing who's "voice" I'm "hearing" as I start a new chapter. If I hadn't been reading it for my book discussion group, I wouldn't have finished it.