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a mercy by Toni Morrison

Pages: 167
First Published: Nov. 11, 2008 (Paperback - Aug. 11 2009)
Genre: historical fiction, literary fiction
Rating: 2.5/5

First sentence:

Don’t be afraid.

Reason for Reading: I am in the process of reading all the author’s books. This is her latest as of July 2009.

Comments: The time is 1680, the place is colonial America. This is the story of four women: Rebekka, an English girl sent to America as a wife whose family paid a monetary dowry; Florens, a black slave child (later woman) who is traded in exchange for partial payment of a debt; Sorrow, a European (Irish I find myself thinking for some reason) foundling coming to womanhood who is given as a gift to protect her from the growing boys in her current household; finally Lina, another child (later) woman who remembers vividly some small parts of her Native American life before she is sold and paid for. All these women belong to a man who doesn’t believe in slavery, who despises those who does. He is a fairly decent, kind man but ultimately wants to have the riches of those he despises. But most of all, as the jacket flap states: “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 …”

The story is told in many voices: all the woman have their turn (some many times), the man behind the women and the farm hands. The story is told in a progressive forward movement but also slips into flashback scenes to give backgrounds to the characters. In such a short book, this becomes quite confusing at times. I spent a large majority of the time not knowing who was speaking until halfway through their narrative. Generally, I enjoy switching points of view and flashbacks but the book was just too short for me to get a grasp on anything really substantial. I must say for half the book I was under the impression Lina was a Native American and then I came to think she was African and I’m pretty sure she’s Native, but I could be wrong… Needless to say, the book confounded me more than enlightened me in any way.

I couldn’t connect with any of the characters, nor did I really find the story emotionally charged which is something I’ve come to expect with Toni Morrison, from her books I’ve read so far. There is also a heavy theme of religious (namely Protestant) intolerance running through the book. First from a Dutch settler (Calvinist) towards Catholics in general, then Anabaptists causing grief in those other settlers who don’t understand their ways and finally the term used becomes “the Protestants” (though I still think we are talking Anabaptists) as the slave people talk of how the Protestant’s religion says that certain people such as savages (ie. blacks/natives, etc.) are not equal in God’s eyes to them. This theme is pretty heavy handed throughout and I didn’t know what to make of it. Does Morrison try to say slavery began with Anabaptist intolerance? Protestant intolerance? Christian? Religion, in general? I don’t know anything about Anabaptists but when you get to broad terms such as Protestant or religious intolerance for each one intolerant person there are many good-hearted embracing people and I just don’t buy into the “religion is the root of all evil” camp.

A readable story but with each chapter change the figuring out of where you are and what’s going on distracted me from enjoying the book as much as I could have otherwise. Fans, go ahead and read it, you may like it a lot more than I did. Never read Toni Morrison before? Don’t start with this one.

A Mercy
Toni Morrison
167 pages

One afternoon a few months ago, I was sentenced to that purgatory that is a 2-hour drive on the New Jersey Turnpike. But then my spirits were lifted heavenwards by a National Public Radio interview with Toni Morrison. Ms. Morrison discussed her new book, A Mercy, and rewarded her audience with a reading. Sheer bliss. I knew I had to read this book! 

My, oh my, oh my. Morrison packed so much richness into this short novel. The richness is centered around a tiny bit of storyline, in which Florens, a slave girl, is sent on an errand to get help for her seriously ill mistress. But there’s so much more in the stories of each character, told in their own voices: Jacob and Rebekka, the sadly childless European landowners; Florens, who was sold away from her mother to repay a debt; Lina and Sorrow, women who came to the farm via slave ship; Willard and Scully, the white indentured servants; and the blacksmith, a nameless free African who captured Florens’ heart. I found myself enveloped in Morrison’s prose, savoring every word, as with this description of an Atlantic crossing: Women of and for men, in those few moments they were neither. And when finally the lamp died, swaddling them in black, for a long time, oblivious to the footsteps above them, or the lowing behind them, they did not stir. For them, unable to see the sky, time became simply the running sea, unmarked, eternal, and of no matter. (p. 85) 

This is a wonderful, moving, haunting book. Highly recommended. (  )

I’m sort of at a loss when it comes to writing about Toni Morrison’s books.  There’s always that element of genius in her work — I would say she’s a very worthy Nobel laureate.  Somehow, though, her books always make me very uncomfortable.  I guess they’re meant to do that.  I always seem to absorb the emotions of the characters — which normally is a good thing — but oh, the depths of the emotions the characters experience!  I probably did like A Mercy better than others I’ve read so far, though perhaps Beloved will still be considered her masterpiece.

This story takes place in the 1680’s, in the wilds of a new America.  Jacob is a man who disapproves of the slave trade yet makes concessions toward it.  His wife Rebekka is a mail order bride from England, yet the two have a happy marriage.  On their land they do have ‘help’ in the form of Lina, a Native-American, Sorrow, an orphan from the sea, and Florens, a slave girl given up by her mother whom Jacob takes as payment for a debt.  Together they try to build a home for themselves, fighting against a harsh climate, disease, and inside and outside forces that seem bent on destruction.

With themes of racism, slavery, adventure, religion, and witchcraft, A Mercy is another brilliant work by a very brilliant author.

2008, 167 pages
Rating: 4.5/5