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by: Redmond O'Hanlon
List Price: $15.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.85 You Save: $5.10 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 916.724
EAN: 9780679737322
ISBN: 0679737324
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: June 30, 1998
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: June 30, 1998
Sales Rank: 199017
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Lit with humor, full of African birdsong and told with great narrative force, No Mercy is the magnum opus of 'probably the finest writer of travel books in the English language,' as Bill Bryson wrote in Outside, 'and certainly the most daring.'
Redmond O'Hanlon has journeyed among headhunters in deepest Borneo with the poet James Fenton, and amid the most reticent, imperilled and violent tribe in the Amazon Basin with a night-club manager. This, however, is his boldest journey yet. Accompanied by Lary Shaffer--an American friend and animal behaviorist, a man of imperfect health and brave decency--he enters the unmapped swamp-forests of the People's Republic of the Congo, in search of a dinosaur rumored to have survived in a remote prehistoric lake.
The flora and fauna of the Congo are unrivalled, and with matchless passion O'Hanlon describes scores of rare and fascinating animals: eagles and parrots, gorillas and chimpanzees, swamp antelope and forest elephants. But as he was repeatedly warned, the night belongs to Africa, and threats both natural (cobras, crocodiles, lethal insects) and supernatural (from all-powerful sorcerers to Samalé, a beast whose three-clawed hands rip you across the back) make this a saga of much fear and trembling. Omnipresent too are ecological depredations, political and tribal brutality, terrible illness and unnecessary suffering among the forest pygmies, and an appalling waste of human life throughout this little-explored region.
An elegant, disturbing and deeply compassionate evocation of a vanishing world, extraordinary in its depth, scope and range of characters, No Mercy is destined to become a landmark work of travel, adventure and natural history. A quest for the meaning of magic and the purpose of religion, and a celebration of the comforts and mysteries of science, it is also--and above all--a powerful guide to the humanity that prevails even in the very heart of darkness.
From the Hardcover edition.
Amazon.com:
There are similarities between Redmond O'Hanlon's magnificent Into The Heart of Borneo and No Mercy. In both, O'Hanlon's keen naturalist eye notes the details (tiny scarlet flowers probed hummingbird-like by purple-red hawkmoths), his wit (usually at his own expense) remains funny, and his travel companions quite human and often endearing. He's off on another jungle trek, this time seeking Mokele-mbembe, the alleged Congo sauropod. But No Mercy goes deeper and darker; fear and anger intrude on the levity, rationalistic thought yields to palpable fetishistic fright the deeper in they go, and O'Hanlon emerges a changed, more compassionate man.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Editorial murder
I cannot fathom all the glowing reviews of No Mercy. First of all, the book crams 450 small-font pages into what should have been a 300-page book. Second, it took O'Hanlon over sixty pages just to begin his journey. My editor would have roasted me for that. Then he moves wrenchingly slow, presenting long conversations word for word, describing every single bird in minute detail, describing his boring, lecherous guides, telling of a poisonous snake (Wow!) that a companion killed. I'm not a beginner ... Read More
Rating:  - Interesting but frustrating travelogue
_No Mercy_ by Redmond O'Hanlon is an interesting, at times quite good, but for me ultimately frustrating travelogue of the author's journey into the deep interior of The People's Republic of the Congo (not to be confused with Zaire).
The book started out very strongly, recounting the vivid first impressions of O'Hanlon and his travel companion Dr. Lary Shaffer in Brazzaville, consulting a feticheuse (a type of fortune teller), negotiating the complex and tangled government bureaucracy, ... Read More
Rating:  - Exciting, sometimes shocking, trip by an observant traveler
"No Mercy" is a very lively, very detailed, very sensitive description of what could have been the trip of a lifetime, though O'Hanlon has taken and written about many adventurous journeys. What I admire most about the book is that O'Hanlon doesn't flinch before any aspect of real life, be it positive or negative, admirable or deeply disturbing. He describes it all, without regard for what is politically correct or commonly assumed.
Great descriptions of flora and fauna. The text is accompanied ... Read More
Rating: - The Only Way I'll Ever Get to The Congo
Another excellent book from Mr. O’Hanlon. I previously read Into the Heart of Borneo and In Trouble Again. This is just as good and just as important. I wondered at first –the start was so abrupt and desultory. But I was soon taken in by the exotic setting, the bizarre but engaging real-life characters, and the curious, almost dream-like parade of events. If this were fiction (and it does read like a novel), an accurate label for it might be magical realism. I am perplexed at O’Hanlon being touted ... Read More
Rating: - Very aptly named book
Besides the dangers of sickness and loss of life so well reviewed by others, we come to the true brick wall of no mercy at the end of the book when Redmond takes his leave of his African traveling companions (as well as that moment when he is torn from his new gorilla "baby").
There truly is no mercy from poverty that enslaves its captives to hardship, disease and likely early death whereever it strikes in the world as Mr. OHanlon shows us so well. The book has an interesting type ending where ... Read More
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