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Summary: Wonderful read --
Review: Fascinating story that subtly imprints the reader's consciousness with 14th century superstitions and experiences. A powerful experience and a complex and engaging mystery!
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Summary: The plot isn't that important here
Review: How can I say "buy this book -- don't let any negative reviews deter you" -- without seeming to contradict or criticize some of the negative comments? (Good comments, but some were possibly the result of preconceived notions.)I didn't expect a great mystery -- the concept was intriguing in itself, and it wouldn't have mattered to me if the murder had remained unsolved. I did expect a sure hand with the time, place, voice, characters -- the important stuff, and I sure got that. I don't feel that any characters were left hanging or that Unsworth "lost interest" -- the book could have been longer, but not because loose ends needed to be tied up. I just wanted to spend more time with Nicholas and the other players. Those people came alive, and it would have been quite an adventure (or not, and that's okay too) to travel with them a while longer. Read this book! You won't need your Latin-English dictionary either.
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Summary: Moving, wonderful
Review: I am a professional actor, and the examination of theatre was but one of the many pleasures of reading this book. Exquisitely imagined, beautifully told, this novel goes as deep into story-telling and its effect on the tellers and the listenters as I can imagine. Truly beautiful, and a deeply disturbing ending.
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Summary: Well Written Mystery
Review: I bought this book because I like the Middle Ages. I'm not a big mystery reader, but I really enjoyed this novel. It takes place in England in the later Middle Ages, where a group of traveling actors stop at a small village to perform a religious play called a morality play. The actors discover that a murder has recently been committed so they decide to research the murder and put a play about that instead. This is a short book but the author really fleshes out the characters well and you really feel like you are discovering clues along with the actors. The ending is a suprise as well. I would recommend this to all myster fans and to anyone interested in reading about the everyday life of a person living in the Middle Ages.
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Summary: Unforgettable
Review: I can still remember, some 6 months after reading this book, how Unsworth's description of the biting cold made me shiver! After The Name Of The Rose, I spend many hours and many half-read books trying to find another medieval historical novel of the same literary quality (ie no Br. Cadfaels...). Unsworth is 'quality' but not as pretentious as even Eco fans must admit that their hero is. I still haven't found The Rose's 'equal' - because Morality Play is far better...! Now for another long search...
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Summary: Evocative, compelling, focused
Review: I don't read historical novels; I grabbed this one because the bookstore was closing in five minutes and the first page seemed interesting. This is an excellent book. There's no history to slog through--throughout, context is implied briefly as the narrative proceeds; there are no "info dumps"--and the story is in motion by the time you get to page two. It's a tight story, a shrewd observation of the functions and origins of art, and a convincing historical setting, in that order of prominence. My reason for emphasizing this order is that I'd like people like me, who don't read historical fiction, to try this one. There's a lot to admire, but most of it can be reduced to this: clarity. Clarity of thought, clarity of plot, clarity of language. An admirable trick in itself is the way the language seems always "period" in flavor, but is never arcane or difficult. I've been recommending this one.
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Summary: Terrific for those interested in acting or 14th Cen England
Review: I enjoyed Morality Play, Barry Unsworth's mystery set in 14th Century England. I especially liked the players, and the narrator's struggle to learn to fit in as one of them. Unsworth unravels the book's mystery slowly as he introduces the characters and accurately depicts the tribulations of the time period. The mystery itself continually changes as the players try to reenact the crime scene in front of an affected audience. The ending is surprising and neatly fits together the many links of the mystery. What I found disappointing about the story was the lack of promised suspense. The novel takes a while to build momentum (it took half the book to cover what was on the back cover of the novel). Also, many times the narrator foreshadows terrible events to come to himself and his new friends, yet what Unsworth promises never quite unfolds. Not that I was looking for lots of bloodshed, but I was looking for a more suspenseful ending than just the unraveling of the mystery. Also, I greatly enjoyed the narrator's fellow players and was disappointed that they disappeared before the ending of the story, their own roles left unfinished after so much promise. Overall, I enjoyed Morality Play. The characters and rendering of the time period were great, but I would have liked a little more suspense.
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Summary: An exploration of morality for the monk, the players, and us
Review: I found myself inhabiting the 14th century far more vividly than when reading "The Name of the Rose", partly because the language was more accesible, as well as the concentration of the narrative to the small world, experienced by the characters. Though the mystery wasn't hugely mysterious, the effect on the characters had great dramatic impact for me. Unsworth's seamless presentation of the period, combined with the development of such a sympathetic hero causes me to remember this book's atmosphere and plot details far better than the 15 or 20 books I've read since last Fall, when I first picked it up (not putting it down except for daily chores, until I finished it, 3 days later)
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Summary: adequate mystery; great prose
Review: i found this novel to be very good in some respects and just adequate in others. the mystery aspect was okay, not very thrilling or suspenseful, and at times predictible. the resolution of the murder (i wont tell you what it is) was different from what i had originally deduced, and that did surprise me a little, but nothing incredible. note, before one takes my word to heart it is important that you know that i am not a huge mystery fan, and so maybe that one nugget of my personality may have proven bias. the part of the novel that i found particularly entertaining was the depiction of the fourteenth century, the lifestyle in it, and especially the prose of the narrator. the way the narrator told the story was in excellent portrayal of medieval prose and made the story very believible to the point where i turned to a history book inquisitive as to the story's truth. this, coupled with the author's incredible description of fourteenth century surroundings, makes one sincerely consider the novel as a primary source. the author goes to great lengths to depict the time accurately both in speech and events, producing what i found to be a very good history. to anyone who reads this review and in turn expects some literary sensation, let it be said that i read this book for my 14th century history class, and so i had some knowledge of the subject, a natural liking of it which the reader may not share. reading the author's credits, one can see that he does too and so it would be helpful if the reader were also familiar, but if not than read it as a good mystery, if that's your genre. if not, than buy jewel's poetry book.
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Summary: Atmspheric Medieval Mystery
Review: I picked up this book because I've always loved mysteries, this one promised to be a mystery and also qualify as decent lit., and because I loved the cover.
Unsworth is obviously a very talented writer, and the amount of research that must have gone into this novel in phenominal. Even more impressively, it doesn't feel like research when you read it. I learned all sorts of interesting details about Medieval life and culture in general and Medieval theatre in particular, and I got to learn all these things while being primarily engaged by a fascinating story, and a group of well-drawn characters. They were all good. Stephen, Tobias, Straw, Springer, our narrator, the marvelously real Nicholas, and particularly Martin, the leader of the Players, and Margaret, the marginalized member.
The mystery itself wasn't particularly difficult to discover; however, the tension of the book was steadily built, and the threat that the Players constantly felt seemed very real.
Unsworth also excels at description, and passages describing the bitter winter weather, and the arrival of the knight, are excellent.
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