Margaret A. reviewed on + 5 more book reviews
Barry Unsworth's short novel "Morality Play" (1995) is a murder-mystery set in 14th century England.
The narrator of the book is a 23-year old priest, Nicholas Barber, who becomes restless with the duties assigned him and runs away. He has a brief affair with a married woman then and meets a group of itinerant players just as one of their members dies. Nicholas joins the troupe which heads to a small village where they decide Deciding to do something different than has been done before They decide to make a play out of the real murder which has just occurred. The murder of a 12-year old boy, Thomas Wells. A young boy was found dead by the roadside and a girl has been condemned for execution. In order to create the play, the players must learn the truth of the crime and uncover, among other things, that the girl accused of the murder is both deaf and mute. The troupe comes closer to the truth of the murder than they realize.
This is a really entertaining book, a mystery told by a master storyteller, with beautiful langauge. Barry Unsworth offers us a mystery from the 14th century full of modern conceptions integrated into the narrative. He gives us a tale of child molestation and murder mixed with the social and class structure of the middle ages.
The narrator of the book is a 23-year old priest, Nicholas Barber, who becomes restless with the duties assigned him and runs away. He has a brief affair with a married woman then and meets a group of itinerant players just as one of their members dies. Nicholas joins the troupe which heads to a small village where they decide Deciding to do something different than has been done before They decide to make a play out of the real murder which has just occurred. The murder of a 12-year old boy, Thomas Wells. A young boy was found dead by the roadside and a girl has been condemned for execution. In order to create the play, the players must learn the truth of the crime and uncover, among other things, that the girl accused of the murder is both deaf and mute. The troupe comes closer to the truth of the murder than they realize.
This is a really entertaining book, a mystery told by a master storyteller, with beautiful langauge. Barry Unsworth offers us a mystery from the 14th century full of modern conceptions integrated into the narrative. He gives us a tale of child molestation and murder mixed with the social and class structure of the middle ages.
