Morality Play by Barry Unsworth Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize in 1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_and_shortlisted_authors_of_the_Booker_Prize and more importantly for the under signed, it is on Realini’s Best 150 Books of Fiction http://realini.blogspot.ro/ 10 out of 10

 Morality Play by Barry Unsworth Shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize in 1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_winners_and_shortlisted_authors_of_the_Booker_Prize and more importantly for the under signed, it is on Realini’s Best 150 Books of Fiction http://realini.blogspot.ro/

10 out of 10

 

 

Morality Play is a splendid, luminescent, dazzling, stupendous, captivating, fabulous, mesmerizing (the list could go on) opus magnum which becomes a complex, intriguing crime story, where the troupe of players sets out to find the killer and they reach to the top and for someone acquainted with Barry Unsworth it is somewhat to be expected, albeit so different from A Trip on Pascali’s Island http://realini.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-trip-on-pascalis-island-by-barry.html also shortlisted for the Booker Prize, but in 1980, delving into contemporary events, unlike Morality Play, which takes us to the fourteenth century, to enjoy one of the many lives that reading gives us the chance to immerse into “The person who doesn't read lives only one life…The reader lives 5,000…Reading is immortality backwards” ― Umberto Eco, another titan of world literature

 

This novel is fantastic and short, it starts with the death of Brendan, which is the occasion for our main character, Nicholas Barber, twenty three, a runaway priest (the catharsis of spring had been too much for him and he went off to experience life a fond) that stumbles upon a troupe of artists (called throughout players) who ponder on what is best to do about the dead colleague, for it would be difficult to dig in the hard earth – Christmas is approaching and they had been meant to perform in the castle of a relative of their lord, groups of actors had been patronized by one lord, or prince at that time –on the other hand, his corpse would be soon become difficult to transport, given putrefaction the smell and not in the least the need for money…a priest would ask for a lot to perform his duties…

Nicholas wants to join the travelling company, he is refused at first and then tested by Martin Bell – the leader of the party, a very determined, valiant, talented man  and ‘Men are distinguished by the power of their wanting’ who will place nonetheless the group in danger, once he will have fallen in love, if that is the meaning of what happens at one point in the plot – our priest tries to emphasize the Latin and quotes from the holy texts, but that does not appeal, instead, it is his agility and mainly, the ability he has to sing, not as good as the deceased, but acceptable…the problem remains that a clergy is forbidden to ‘play’

 

We find some interesting things about the company, which has a woman travelling along, albeit these were times when women were disregarded, indeed, Margaret would complain and highlight what will have happened to her later in the story, she is taken along because Stephen had wanted her, she helps with the mending, costumes, but she is not asked when the players have to decide on matters to give her vote, she cooks when Tobias – the most practical, earthy, who has small roles, plays the drums, and catches game when possible – provides something, will have a major role to play in the investigation.

 

Margaret is the partner of Stephen, but they argue quite often, the latter drinks often and does not respect the woman that might eventually find someone else – perhaps better, stronger anyway – and the troupe is completed by Straw, who has a fair hair and changing mood, and the youngest, the teenager Springer…I forgot about the half-starved hound, that belongs to Tobias and may end up in the village where they travel to burry Branden, whose corpse has reached the stage where it could affect much more than the wellbeing of the players, since the miasma would enter the clothes and then they would be rejected from the places they travel through and might not be exorcized from the costumes…

When they reach this inn, in the village on their way, they find that a murder had been committed, a boy of thirteen had been killed, a woman was jailed and she is to be hanged soon, all this has taken place in quite a hurry, at the end of just two days, the boy is buried, in hiding, and Martin finds about this while they enter their own colleague, in the only cemetery available, and this gives him the idea of changing their usual program – which included mostly pieces taken from the bible, the Nativity and the Rage of Herod would be on the suggested list for the lord of the castle near the village – and performing in the Play of Thomas Wells, who is the boy that had been murdered and whose story would attract an audience.

 

Thus, Morality Play becomes a complex, intriguing crime story, where the troupe of players sets out to find the killer and they reach to the top, revealing some very sinister secrets in the process…they first take the assumption that the woman in jail is guilty, Martin sending the actors to try and find details they can use in the play they will give the public, and hence they discover that a monk who is the confessor for the Lord in the nearby Castle has seen the woman, went to the house of her father and discovered the bag with money which the boy had on him (his parents had sold a cow and his mother had sent him home, to prevent his father from spending all on drink) the ultimate proof of guilt.

At least in first hearing, for various aspects begin to form a different tale, the woman had her face covered, hooded because of the cold, so she could not be identified by the monk, who had had a reason to frame the father, who had been involved in a heretical (at the time) faith, but since the father had been absent and the statement that the money of the dead boy have been found was made, the monk needed to follow with the same proposition, false as it was, thus putting the poor woman in prison.

 

She is unable to make a sound, is fragile and unable to hurt a rat, never mind kill a boy with her own hands…it is found that six boys had disappeared over the past year, and more forensic and other proofs are unveiled – for instance, the fact that the cadaver was not frozen, no signs of frost were there, when it was discovered, in the morning – and events are precipitated when the monk ids found dead, his hands tied around the back, in a clear evidence of an execution meant to silence him forever, to hide the identity of the man responsible for the abuse of this boy (and the others that had been missing before) clearly a person with gravitas and power, who will be punished in some way, perhaps by the contagious disease, the plague, that the teenager had suffered from, albeit the fate of most of the protagonists is on the edge, until near the end, and maybe even beyond that, we may be guessing what happens to them…