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The Known World
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones.
The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order, and chaos ensues. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities.
The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can't uphold the estate's order, and chaos ensues. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities.
388 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2003
About the author
Edward P. Jones
25 books660 followersEdward Paul Jones is an American novelist and short story writer. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the International Dublin Literary Award for his 2003 novel The Known World.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,748 reviews
July 27, 2008
Manchester County, Virginia doesn't exist. Never has. After reading The Known World, however, you'd be forgiven if you thought you could take a tour of it's plantations and slave cemetaries on your vacation to colonial Williamsburg. The complicated pre-civil war Southern society that Edward P. Jones creates feels as real and surreal as any factual history of slavery you've read. It was not so much the story of Henry Townsend, a black slave owner, and all the people that his death allows us to meet that engaged me. It was the world, a world where I could taste the soil I might till and the women I might marry and the terrible choices I might be faced with, that put it's claws in me and refused to let go.
It took me nearly 2 months to finish the book's 388 pages. It should've been a quick read. It is a fascinating place with peculiar problems and characters I cried for on more than one occasion. It should've been a quick read but I kept asking myself this question: who would I have been? The slave, toiling away in the field? The overseer, unable to see the world for what it truly was? The freed man, working desperately to free the rest of his family? The smart child, taken under the wing of the rich white slave owner and convinced that there was nothing wrong with owning another human being? The broken black man tortured by his family's wealth built on the backs of men and women that look just like me? The slave too proud, too strong, too powerful to let another take his freedom? Who would I have been?
Who am I now?
In matters of race, there is always that fool's point, usually made by a white person (though not always) that asks,"why aren't you over it, already? Can't we just let it go?" It is a way to end an uncomfortable conversation. The reasons don't matter. I know many a person for which the sticky tar baby of race in America is simply a discussion they can't stick their hands in. It is too difficult. Too raw. Too cloudy to be sure that people will remain friends after an honest chat. The way I feel when I read books like The Known World is my answer. No matter how well-adjusted, how integrated, how loving of my fellow man, how multiculti kumbayah I am, I'm not over it. I can't let it go.
This fictional world was very real not all that long ago. It's effects still ripple through our every day. The world I know doesn't exist without it.
Highly highly recommended.
It took me nearly 2 months to finish the book's 388 pages. It should've been a quick read. It is a fascinating place with peculiar problems and characters I cried for on more than one occasion. It should've been a quick read but I kept asking myself this question: who would I have been? The slave, toiling away in the field? The overseer, unable to see the world for what it truly was? The freed man, working desperately to free the rest of his family? The smart child, taken under the wing of the rich white slave owner and convinced that there was nothing wrong with owning another human being? The broken black man tortured by his family's wealth built on the backs of men and women that look just like me? The slave too proud, too strong, too powerful to let another take his freedom? Who would I have been?
Who am I now?
In matters of race, there is always that fool's point, usually made by a white person (though not always) that asks,"why aren't you over it, already? Can't we just let it go?" It is a way to end an uncomfortable conversation. The reasons don't matter. I know many a person for which the sticky tar baby of race in America is simply a discussion they can't stick their hands in. It is too difficult. Too raw. Too cloudy to be sure that people will remain friends after an honest chat. The way I feel when I read books like The Known World is my answer. No matter how well-adjusted, how integrated, how loving of my fellow man, how multiculti kumbayah I am, I'm not over it. I can't let it go.
This fictional world was very real not all that long ago. It's effects still ripple through our every day. The world I know doesn't exist without it.
Highly highly recommended.
July 13, 2018
there is that old adage that a good book will tell you how to read it. and i have no idea to whom that should be attributed, only that my undergrad professors seemed to have been born to quote that thought endlessly: in my gothic lit class, my enlightenment class, my victorian lit class... the african and irish lit professors mostly kept their mouths shut on the subject. but the rest - hoo boy - did they love to drag that old chestnut out...
and it makes sense, to a certain degree. but this book doesn't tell you how to read it so much as it presents itself to the reader, like a fat man in a speedo lolling around on an undersized towel saying, "look at me ladies, you like it?? this is what you get!!" it almost demands that you read it and like it.
but i was disobedient.
every sentence, every paragraph, seemed to be trying to contain multitudes. and i am a fan of "thick" writing, but the manner in which this book presented itself quickly soured on me. there were too many stories or episodes ending with, "years from now, when celia was on her deathbed, she would think back to her third year of marriage",in a scene where she has yet to even be married, or right after two characters are introduced to each other, "this would be the last time they would meet until the hailstorm of aught-six" - and i am making up all the names and situations here, but you get an idea of the shape of my complaints. it's constant foreshadowing and some of the foreshadowing is just teasing, as the events never come to pass in the novel itself. it's like sitting down to tea with a god in his dotage, rambling and making connections only he can understand; seeing the past and future simultaneously.
"hey, karen, didn't you really like that kjaerstaad trilogy, where he basically did what you are complaining about here??"
yeah, what? so? shut up - isn't it past your bedtime??
yeah, but sure, that's true. but for some reason, it bothered me here. all i wanted was a straightforward linear narrative about a fascinating subject matter: free black men and women who owned slaves. when i read roll of thunder, hear my cry last summer, the whole transition period between slavery and freedom really excited my brainparts. i dunno. and mister jones was a real sweetheart when he came for the new yorker festival and i waited in line to get a book signed for a friend and i really wanted to like it because it seems like a nice fat sprawling sweeping story the way i like, but i just got lost in the names and the timeline and my confusion turned into apathy.
it's like this guy you date who seems really perfect - he is smart and looks like gabriel byrne and he dotes on you and everything is fun and on paper it all looks great and you know you should really like him, but he just doesn't make you laugh so you run off and leave him for a rockstar. you know?
because i feel like i should like this one because it is award-winning, and my experience with the african-american novel is middling (although i love the african novel, the west indian novel and the afro-canadian novel - go figure) so i feel like as someone who appreciates literature in general, i should totally love this. but it wasn't there for me.
oh, chris wilson, i am sorry. now you are going to want full custody because your baby is being raised among heathens.
years from now, when my and chris wilson's book-baby became the mayor of littleton, he would read this review and a tear of sorrow would come to his eye at my short-sightedness.
come to my blog!
and it makes sense, to a certain degree. but this book doesn't tell you how to read it so much as it presents itself to the reader, like a fat man in a speedo lolling around on an undersized towel saying, "look at me ladies, you like it?? this is what you get!!" it almost demands that you read it and like it.
but i was disobedient.
every sentence, every paragraph, seemed to be trying to contain multitudes. and i am a fan of "thick" writing, but the manner in which this book presented itself quickly soured on me. there were too many stories or episodes ending with, "years from now, when celia was on her deathbed, she would think back to her third year of marriage",in a scene where she has yet to even be married, or right after two characters are introduced to each other, "this would be the last time they would meet until the hailstorm of aught-six" - and i am making up all the names and situations here, but you get an idea of the shape of my complaints. it's constant foreshadowing and some of the foreshadowing is just teasing, as the events never come to pass in the novel itself. it's like sitting down to tea with a god in his dotage, rambling and making connections only he can understand; seeing the past and future simultaneously.
"hey, karen, didn't you really like that kjaerstaad trilogy, where he basically did what you are complaining about here??"
yeah, what? so? shut up - isn't it past your bedtime??
yeah, but sure, that's true. but for some reason, it bothered me here. all i wanted was a straightforward linear narrative about a fascinating subject matter: free black men and women who owned slaves. when i read roll of thunder, hear my cry last summer, the whole transition period between slavery and freedom really excited my brainparts. i dunno. and mister jones was a real sweetheart when he came for the new yorker festival and i waited in line to get a book signed for a friend and i really wanted to like it because it seems like a nice fat sprawling sweeping story the way i like, but i just got lost in the names and the timeline and my confusion turned into apathy.
it's like this guy you date who seems really perfect - he is smart and looks like gabriel byrne and he dotes on you and everything is fun and on paper it all looks great and you know you should really like him, but he just doesn't make you laugh so you run off and leave him for a rockstar. you know?
because i feel like i should like this one because it is award-winning, and my experience with the african-american novel is middling (although i love the african novel, the west indian novel and the afro-canadian novel - go figure) so i feel like as someone who appreciates literature in general, i should totally love this. but it wasn't there for me.
oh, chris wilson, i am sorry. now you are going to want full custody because your baby is being raised among heathens.
years from now, when my and chris wilson's book-baby became the mayor of littleton, he would read this review and a tear of sorrow would come to his eye at my short-sightedness.
come to my blog!
July 29, 2017
I know this is a critically acclaimed book, a Pulitzer winner, and a book tackling a difficult and complex stain on America history: slavery and black slave owners. There are moments when the book does say some interesting things or reveal some unsavory and uncomfortable truths, but it was so hard to engage with as a reader. I mean, I hung in with DFW through the first 600 pages of Infinite Jest where nothing happens -- but because I was fascinated by Hal, Orin, Marathe, Steeply, and Mario and Madame Psychosis who all fascinated me. There were literally dozens of other characters but these all pulled me in. In The Known World, there are also dozens of characters but none that I grew any attachment too. It was as if the author Jones was using a hand-held camera and no stabilizer so that the images were jumpy and out of focus. It reminded me sometimes of how the world seems to my myopic eyes between taking off my glasses in the morning and putting in my contact lenses.
The narration also highly annoyed me. All the parenthetical "in 60 years so and so will do such as such" were meaningless because I was given neither enough time nor enough detail to give a shit. Further, there is this reference to "years later they would all turn into human torches in front of the dry foods store", but no mention afterwards of to what this referred. But the most annoying bit was in using the Canadian journalist frame at about page 130 or so (which then only briefly appears in the narrative 200 pages later in a parenthetical throwaway comment, it is said that the journalist would never marry his heart's desire yet 3 pages later, they marry and that coming to talk to Fern that there was some incomprehensible stuff that happens off-screen that morning (also never adequately explained) and so she was not going to open up to the journalist and yet we still find her filling in details about Henry, Moses and Caledonia 30 pages later. Too much inconsistency - was the editor asleep or stoned and missed these?
So, despite taking on a complex subject, Jones is no Faulkner as his South does not eve approach that of the Great William. He is not as good as Pynchon or DFW is manipulating time and space in a narrative that was 100 or 150 pages too long and felt it, and he is not Alice Walker or Toni Morrison who brought us the most amazing, poignant, and powerful images of slavery and its residual impacts generations later that I have ever read. So, read Beloved or Absalom, Absalom if you want to hear about the South and I expect you will be less frustrated, but every bit enraged at this deplorable institution that is a cancer on the American past.
The narration also highly annoyed me. All the parenthetical "in 60 years so and so will do such as such" were meaningless because I was given neither enough time nor enough detail to give a shit. Further, there is this reference to "years later they would all turn into human torches in front of the dry foods store", but no mention afterwards of to what this referred. But the most annoying bit was in using the Canadian journalist frame at about page 130 or so (which then only briefly appears in the narrative 200 pages later in a parenthetical throwaway comment, it is said that the journalist would never marry his heart's desire yet 3 pages later, they marry and that coming to talk to Fern that there was some incomprehensible stuff that happens off-screen that morning (also never adequately explained) and so she was not going to open up to the journalist and yet we still find her filling in details about Henry, Moses and Caledonia 30 pages later. Too much inconsistency - was the editor asleep or stoned and missed these?
So, despite taking on a complex subject, Jones is no Faulkner as his South does not eve approach that of the Great William. He is not as good as Pynchon or DFW is manipulating time and space in a narrative that was 100 or 150 pages too long and felt it, and he is not Alice Walker or Toni Morrison who brought us the most amazing, poignant, and powerful images of slavery and its residual impacts generations later that I have ever read. So, read Beloved or Absalom, Absalom if you want to hear about the South and I expect you will be less frustrated, but every bit enraged at this deplorable institution that is a cancer on the American past.
July 15, 2024
Ambitious, Interesting, Disorganized
In an interview, Edward P. Jones revealed that The Known World took shape around 1) when he heard that Black people had owned slaves and 2) when he read a thin paperback in high school about a Jewish man who decided to join the Nazi party, how he acted in opposition to how one would expect.
The Known World is an ambitious novel which aims to describe the world of 1855 where Henry Townsend has recently died. As a result of his death, a cloud of uncertainty hangs in the air as he leaves behind his widow, Caldonia, and the undetermined fate of the slaves he purchased to work his land.
Although the plot is interesting, this book is disorganized. It covers many different characters and rapidly shifts time periods. I would be reading along and then the text would say “and this person lived to be 93 years old and had 235 grandchildren.” (paraphrasing)
Countless times, I had to stop and reread because the storytelling was so clunky.
In The Known World, there are quite a few references to Adam and Eve, even references to Milton (Paradise Lost). My favorite author, Philip Pullman, loves to talk about this topic and how in his works he wanted his characters to find their way back to The Garden by taking the long way around.
So this quote on page 329 stood out:
“There was a long way around but he chose not to take it.”
There is a character in The Known World by the name of Anderson Frazier. He creates and distributes pamphlets and interviews Fern Elston. In my opinion, this pamphlet could have provided a framework to systematically organize the characters instead of the resulting jumbled and confusing soup of characters and timelines.
The Known World has some unforgettable moments, but the organization of the narrative reduces the enjoyment of the reading experience.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $13.87 on Amazon
Audiobook – 1 Audible Credit (Audible Premium Plus Annual – 24 Credits Membership Plan $229.50 or roughly $9.56 per credit)
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In an interview, Edward P. Jones revealed that The Known World took shape around 1) when he heard that Black people had owned slaves and 2) when he read a thin paperback in high school about a Jewish man who decided to join the Nazi party, how he acted in opposition to how one would expect.
The Known World is an ambitious novel which aims to describe the world of 1855 where Henry Townsend has recently died. As a result of his death, a cloud of uncertainty hangs in the air as he leaves behind his widow, Caldonia, and the undetermined fate of the slaves he purchased to work his land.
Although the plot is interesting, this book is disorganized. It covers many different characters and rapidly shifts time periods. I would be reading along and then the text would say “and this person lived to be 93 years old and had 235 grandchildren.” (paraphrasing)
Countless times, I had to stop and reread because the storytelling was so clunky.
In The Known World, there are quite a few references to Adam and Eve, even references to Milton (Paradise Lost). My favorite author, Philip Pullman, loves to talk about this topic and how in his works he wanted his characters to find their way back to The Garden by taking the long way around.
So this quote on page 329 stood out:
“There was a long way around but he chose not to take it.”
There is a character in The Known World by the name of Anderson Frazier. He creates and distributes pamphlets and interviews Fern Elston. In my opinion, this pamphlet could have provided a framework to systematically organize the characters instead of the resulting jumbled and confusing soup of characters and timelines.
The Known World has some unforgettable moments, but the organization of the narrative reduces the enjoyment of the reading experience.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $13.87 on Amazon
Audiobook – 1 Audible Credit (Audible Premium Plus Annual – 24 Credits Membership Plan $229.50 or roughly $9.56 per credit)
Connect With Me!
Blog Twitter BookTube Facebook Insta
March 2, 2019
This is a complex novel, with dense writing, a non-linear structure, and an abundance of characters. It reads much like a true historical account of a place, Manchester County, Virginia, and time, pre-Civil War 1800s. This could very nearly have passed for a non-fiction book; each character feels so real, their personal stories and histories so authentic. The author even goes so far as to tell us what happens to many of them ten, twenty or even fifty years in the future. And yet, Edward P. Jones himself states: "The county and town of Manchester, Virginia, and every human being in those places, are products of my imagination… The census records I made up for Manchester were, again, simply to make the reader feel that the town and the county and the people lived and breathed in central Virginia once upon a time…" Well, consider me duped. At first I really thought such a county existed and the data presented were genuine facts. As my son passed through the living room, I even shouted out some sort of statistic or another and asked if he had ever read about such a thing in his history classes. He couldn’t recall, but it sounded ‘familiar’. Right, because much of this could have been true, yet it wasn’t. The institution of slavery of course was all too real and cruel, and that’s what this book is about, and this is the truth. Slavery in all its forms is evil.
Henry Townsend is a black farmer. He is a former slave that with the purchase of freedom and some land becomes a slave owner himself. Henry and his wife Caldonia own a small plantation near the border of his former master’s much larger one. I could not wrap my head around why on earth a freed man would ever want to enslave another human being. Henry and other black slave owners like him justify their actions: "Henry had always said that he wanted to be a better master than any white man he had ever known. He did not understand that the kind of world he wanted to create was doomed before he had even spoken the first syllable of the word master." Well, as the old saying goes, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ When Henry dies, all hell breaks loose, and we begin to see the ill-fated consequences of an institution that is immoral and corrupt.
A narrative that seems to jump around in time and between characters eventually comes together into a whole as consequences and events snowball out of control. Lives are permanently changed. Some for the worst, others (we hope) for the better. They all become woven together much like the massive tapestry hanging on the wall of another place in another time. Each is part of the story. Everyone is responsible for the events which passed, were allowed to pass despite the huge injustice to humanity.
This book is not easy to read. The structure is challenging and the topic is gloomy, albeit important. What happens to the people we grow to care for is often horrifying and heartbreaking. But it is well-written and extremely impactful. An important novel which is well worth your time and attention if you are up for the challenge. It won't suit everyone, but if you are at all interested, I encourage you to pick this one up.
"What I feared most at that moment is what I still fear: that they would remember my history, that I, no matter what I had always said to the contrary, owned people of our Race."
Henry Townsend is a black farmer. He is a former slave that with the purchase of freedom and some land becomes a slave owner himself. Henry and his wife Caldonia own a small plantation near the border of his former master’s much larger one. I could not wrap my head around why on earth a freed man would ever want to enslave another human being. Henry and other black slave owners like him justify their actions: "Henry had always said that he wanted to be a better master than any white man he had ever known. He did not understand that the kind of world he wanted to create was doomed before he had even spoken the first syllable of the word master." Well, as the old saying goes, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ When Henry dies, all hell breaks loose, and we begin to see the ill-fated consequences of an institution that is immoral and corrupt.
A narrative that seems to jump around in time and between characters eventually comes together into a whole as consequences and events snowball out of control. Lives are permanently changed. Some for the worst, others (we hope) for the better. They all become woven together much like the massive tapestry hanging on the wall of another place in another time. Each is part of the story. Everyone is responsible for the events which passed, were allowed to pass despite the huge injustice to humanity.
This book is not easy to read. The structure is challenging and the topic is gloomy, albeit important. What happens to the people we grow to care for is often horrifying and heartbreaking. But it is well-written and extremely impactful. An important novel which is well worth your time and attention if you are up for the challenge. It won't suit everyone, but if you are at all interested, I encourage you to pick this one up.
"What I feared most at that moment is what I still fear: that they would remember my history, that I, no matter what I had always said to the contrary, owned people of our Race."
May 20, 2010
Dear The Known World:
I'll be blunt. I'm breaking things off. This just isn't working. It's not you; it's me. Well, maybe it's you, too, a bit.
I really thought when we got together that we would have a brief but mutually satisfying relationship. I'd read you, you'd provide enlightenment or emotional catharsis or entertainment, maybe even all three. All the signs were there: the laudatory quotes on your jacket, a shocking and unexpected premise, high marks on goodreads. But something was just off by the end of the first chapter.
Maybe it was the masturbation scene right at the start. Or the characters that I just couldn't get into - I could hardly tell some of them apart. Or the way the narrative seemed to skip all over without any focus. Maybe I just didn't give you enough pages. I'm sure you got better as you went along. I mean, look at all the four- and five-star reviews you've gotten! But every time I picked you up my thoughts turned to the three other books on my bedside table that I'd rather be reading. I haven't actually been unfaithful, but that's just not a healthy basis for a relationship. So after 72 pages, I'm putting you down.
Don't feel too bad. Focus on all those other, good reviews and maybe we'll meet again someday when the stars all align just right. But probably not.
Emily
For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
I'll be blunt. I'm breaking things off. This just isn't working. It's not you; it's me. Well, maybe it's you, too, a bit.
I really thought when we got together that we would have a brief but mutually satisfying relationship. I'd read you, you'd provide enlightenment or emotional catharsis or entertainment, maybe even all three. All the signs were there: the laudatory quotes on your jacket, a shocking and unexpected premise, high marks on goodreads. But something was just off by the end of the first chapter.
Maybe it was the masturbation scene right at the start. Or the characters that I just couldn't get into - I could hardly tell some of them apart. Or the way the narrative seemed to skip all over without any focus. Maybe I just didn't give you enough pages. I'm sure you got better as you went along. I mean, look at all the four- and five-star reviews you've gotten! But every time I picked you up my thoughts turned to the three other books on my bedside table that I'd rather be reading. I haven't actually been unfaithful, but that's just not a healthy basis for a relationship. So after 72 pages, I'm putting you down.
Don't feel too bad. Focus on all those other, good reviews and maybe we'll meet again someday when the stars all align just right. But probably not.
Emily
For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
February 9, 2008
I'm going to have to rave a bit, because this is one of the best books I've read in the past ten years.
Jones packs in all the historical detail you could want, and of course he's hit on a subject--black slaveowners--that in and of itself is tabloid-sensational. Where lesser writers might lean too hard on the sensational aspect (or rely on it to bolster an otherwise weak narrative), Jones works it into a compelling and powerful story.
What makes it so powerful is a mix of fascinating characters who are woven into a series of overlapping plotlines. For me it's the structuring that is so brilliant (geek alert: I actually diagrammed the time shifts in the chapters as an exercise, to see when and how Jones yoked the whole thing together). This less than linear approach might be frustrating to those who just want things to be straightforward, but stick with it: the shifts provide suspense as well as texture, and they propel more than one storyline at once. They do all come together, trust me.
I also admire the overarching authorial voice in the novel, which certainly leans toward the formal, but also comes across as aware of the history it's grappling with: here and there Jones projects his voice forward for a moment, or seemingly digresses with factual material and research. Again it's all part of the tapestry and the mix, and I also think that the level of narrative awareness (which never disengages long enough to derail anything) adds another layer to the very idea of history--making the whole historical and contemporary both.
And for those of you who can do without all of the above writerly blather (a thousand pardons), you'll find in this book characters who are engaging, ignorant, cruel, earnest, sympathetic, tragic, hopeful, flawed--in short, complicated. Halfway through you'll be fighting off the impulse to skip ahead to learn everyone's fate.
Finally, I'll say that this book isn't perfect--there are aspects of what I've described above that sometimes don't work: narrative turns that do seem pointless digressions, a character or two a bit stereotypical or annoying. No matter. This book aims high, as brilliant works of art do, and the result is nothing short of amazing.
Jones packs in all the historical detail you could want, and of course he's hit on a subject--black slaveowners--that in and of itself is tabloid-sensational. Where lesser writers might lean too hard on the sensational aspect (or rely on it to bolster an otherwise weak narrative), Jones works it into a compelling and powerful story.
What makes it so powerful is a mix of fascinating characters who are woven into a series of overlapping plotlines. For me it's the structuring that is so brilliant (geek alert: I actually diagrammed the time shifts in the chapters as an exercise, to see when and how Jones yoked the whole thing together). This less than linear approach might be frustrating to those who just want things to be straightforward, but stick with it: the shifts provide suspense as well as texture, and they propel more than one storyline at once. They do all come together, trust me.
I also admire the overarching authorial voice in the novel, which certainly leans toward the formal, but also comes across as aware of the history it's grappling with: here and there Jones projects his voice forward for a moment, or seemingly digresses with factual material and research. Again it's all part of the tapestry and the mix, and I also think that the level of narrative awareness (which never disengages long enough to derail anything) adds another layer to the very idea of history--making the whole historical and contemporary both.
And for those of you who can do without all of the above writerly blather (a thousand pardons), you'll find in this book characters who are engaging, ignorant, cruel, earnest, sympathetic, tragic, hopeful, flawed--in short, complicated. Halfway through you'll be fighting off the impulse to skip ahead to learn everyone's fate.
Finally, I'll say that this book isn't perfect--there are aspects of what I've described above that sometimes don't work: narrative turns that do seem pointless digressions, a character or two a bit stereotypical or annoying. No matter. This book aims high, as brilliant works of art do, and the result is nothing short of amazing.
February 5, 2019
This book demands that you read it slowly and intently. Like eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner, you need to pause and digest before you have the next course. At the outset, the plot seems to be all over the place, bouncing from character to character, telling too many stories, not telling enough and then seeming to tell too much. Ah, but then, you make a little progress and the rhythm begins to assert itself, the stories begin to weave together, the minute details begin to become a diorama, the picture stops being a blur and comes into sharp focus. This isn’t one man’s story, or even the story of one place, this is the story of all men and this is the tale of a world.
This book is not so much about race as it is about the abject insanity and evil of the institution of slavery, wherever it is found, whoever is practicing it. In this system, there are free black masters holding black slaves, some of them well-meaning, but it does not make the practice any less immoral. There are white men who love their black mistresses and the children they bear, but it does not remove the fact that they hold a dominion over them that is not borne of love in any of its guises. There are also individuals who are victims of the system and others who refuse to be victims of the system, even at the cost of their lives.
I loved many of Jones’ characters, notably Augustus and Mildred Townsend. They exemplify what is the best in us. I felt sorry for some of them, like Sheriff John Skiffington, who would like to be better than this society allows him to be, and Caldonia Townsend’s brother, Calvin, who wishes to go to New York so that he will not have to bear witness to the cruelties around him, cruelties he must realized have escaped him only because of a trick of fortune. I despised some of them, and I recognized most of them. The petty and jealous, who must have dominion over someone to feel they have worth; the ungrateful and traitorous, who would turn upon a friend to put some silver in their own pockets; the meek and hopeless, who bow to the yoke and try simply to find a corner in which they are allowed to exist; the defiant and strong-minded, who fight with their last breath because to do otherwise is to prop up the indefensible; all are here.
What I loved most about this novel is its genuineness, its lack of exaggeration or hyperbole, where surely none is needed, its emphasis on the day-to-day injustice of an institution that is accepted as insurmountable or even correct only because it is what is. Edward P. Jones has leveled an attack at the heart of mankind and defied one to imagine what they would have done, what they would have dared to do, in such a place and time.
This book is not so much about race as it is about the abject insanity and evil of the institution of slavery, wherever it is found, whoever is practicing it. In this system, there are free black masters holding black slaves, some of them well-meaning, but it does not make the practice any less immoral. There are white men who love their black mistresses and the children they bear, but it does not remove the fact that they hold a dominion over them that is not borne of love in any of its guises. There are also individuals who are victims of the system and others who refuse to be victims of the system, even at the cost of their lives.
I loved many of Jones’ characters, notably Augustus and Mildred Townsend. They exemplify what is the best in us. I felt sorry for some of them, like Sheriff John Skiffington, who would like to be better than this society allows him to be, and Caldonia Townsend’s brother, Calvin, who wishes to go to New York so that he will not have to bear witness to the cruelties around him, cruelties he must realized have escaped him only because of a trick of fortune. I despised some of them, and I recognized most of them. The petty and jealous, who must have dominion over someone to feel they have worth; the ungrateful and traitorous, who would turn upon a friend to put some silver in their own pockets; the meek and hopeless, who bow to the yoke and try simply to find a corner in which they are allowed to exist; the defiant and strong-minded, who fight with their last breath because to do otherwise is to prop up the indefensible; all are here.
What I loved most about this novel is its genuineness, its lack of exaggeration or hyperbole, where surely none is needed, its emphasis on the day-to-day injustice of an institution that is accepted as insurmountable or even correct only because it is what is. Edward P. Jones has leveled an attack at the heart of mankind and defied one to imagine what they would have done, what they would have dared to do, in such a place and time.
February 12, 2008
A very complex and beautiful, compelling book about Henry, a former slave who becomes a slave owner, & his wife Caldonia. But they're just the start - the book is really a series of stories & vignettes about the families, friends, neighbors & community surrounding Henry & Caldonia. It took me a really long time to get into the book, because there are so many characters, some important & some not, & the book jumps around in time, making it difficult to follow. Trust me, use the cast of characters at the end of this edition (why not place this at the beginning?!) & give up your expectations about traditional narrative format, & you'll LOVE this book as much as I did. In life, we have our own story kind of playing in our head, & at the same time we have all these other stories we're hearing - the story about your mother's great-uncle. The story about your brother in law's neighbor. The one about your sister's husband's aunt & her neighbor. the one about your coworker's mother. You know all those stories? That's what this book is like - some characters are more important than others, so you hear more of their stories, but minor characters have stories too, & they sort of appear out of nowhere, & you get to hear their story, & then they're gone. It's really very cool! I particularly loved the story of the womanizing slave who has a vision during a lightning storm/tornado - & becomes the founder of an orphanage. And the little tiny story about the family who don't want to give up their cow, & the woman goes into the barn to milk the cow & there's this lovely description of her squirting the cow's milk into a cat's mouth, & if you've ever seen a cat eat with true contentment you will recognize the cat body language that Jones describes. Toward the end of the book there's a very powerful scene where a character, who isn't a particularly "good" character, says there should be a lantern or light of truth in the world, an actual place where people can stand & tell the truth without fear of retribution, where one might be able to right a wrong. It's a moment where you think, yes this guy could right the wrong by speaking out, because his fear of having people think he's "on the negro's side" is...well, wrong! But that's his fear & in that moment of the book you understand it & you think, yeah, what if he could speak out under that light of truth & not have anyone judge him? How wonderful would that be? While the book depicts the horrors of slavery, & there are a few characters who are outright despicable, there are many shades of gray in Jones' vision as well. It's a book that will make you think about slavery, the myths & realities & tragedies of it all, & on top of that it'll make you think about your own life & all the people you've known & how complex & interesting we all are, really. It's beautifully written & the characters will stick in your head as if you'd known them too. Oddly, I think what I initially disliked most about this book - its multitude of characters & convoluted timeline - is what I ended up really enjoying! Another example of a book that made my head expand, with some creakiness, but I'm glad the expansion can still happen!
December 9, 2010
In this book I learned that there used to be black slaveholders in the US. I thought that only white people were allowed to own slaves during the time that owning slaves were like owning properties. During that pre-Abolition time. During those sad dark days in the American history.
Black Edward P. Jones (born 1951) wrote this historical epic novel, The Known World based on the not well known fact that there were some black slaveholders (black people owning black slaves) in the state of Virginia during the time in the US when owning slave is legal. Wikipedia has this to say:
In terms of writing, Jones extensively use the technique called prolepsis that I first encountered reading Muriel Sparks' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961). Jones explained this in the interview (appendix of the book) saying that he is the God of those characters so he knows what happened in the life of each characters from the time he/she was born up to the time his/her death. The most moving example of this use was with the character of the child Tessie. One fine day of September 1855, their mistress Caldonia saw the 5-y/o Tessie playing with a wooden toy horse. Caldonia says to the child: That is very nice, Tessie to which Tessie responded, My papa did this for me. In January 2002, on her deathbed, the old Tessie asked her caretaker to get the wooden toy horse from the attic. While holding the toy, she breathed her last saying the same thing: My papa did this for me.
My heart stopped beating. Tears welled up in my eyes. That scene is just one of the many moving scenes about those slaves in that time of the history in Virginia when black people were traded like they were not human but properties.
I can make this review very long. There are just too many good things I would like to say here but I am afraid that no review can make justice to a book as good as this.
Black Edward P. Jones (born 1951) wrote this historical epic novel, The Known World based on the not well known fact that there were some black slaveholders (black people owning black slaves) in the state of Virginia during the time in the US when owning slave is legal. Wikipedia has this to say:
"Slavery in the United States was a form of unfree labor which existed as a legal institution in North America for more than a century before the founding of the United States in 1776, and continued mostly in the South until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865.[1] The first English colony in North America, Virginia, first imported Africans in 1619, a practice earlier established in the Spanish colonies as early as the 1560s.[2] Most slaves were black and were held by whites, although some Native Americans and free blacks also held slaves; there were a small number of white slaves as well.[3]"Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Award for Fiction, The Known World is one of the most memorable reads I had this year. It is not an easy book to read. This 388-page novel left me with a heavy chest each time I closed the book. Each page is gloomy and sad. The novel is well-told with lyrical prose creating a big canvas of imagery in one's mind while reading. In that big canvas are memorable and three-dimensional numerous characters most of them black slaves. No character is downright bad or good. The detailed description of the sceneries of a fictional county called Manchester and the true depictions of the characters are exceptionally striking that I had to slow down in my reading to savor the story and hold on *tugging to them, cheering them on* to each characters. Reading the last page left me with a heavy heart. I would not want to let go of that image of Manchester and say goodbye Please don't go yet to the characters that I already became part of my literary world. The world that resides in the recesses of my brain. The world that is known only to me populated by people who I met only in my readings.
In terms of writing, Jones extensively use the technique called prolepsis that I first encountered reading Muriel Sparks' The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961). Jones explained this in the interview (appendix of the book) saying that he is the God of those characters so he knows what happened in the life of each characters from the time he/she was born up to the time his/her death. The most moving example of this use was with the character of the child Tessie. One fine day of September 1855, their mistress Caldonia saw the 5-y/o Tessie playing with a wooden toy horse. Caldonia says to the child: That is very nice, Tessie to which Tessie responded, My papa did this for me. In January 2002, on her deathbed, the old Tessie asked her caretaker to get the wooden toy horse from the attic. While holding the toy, she breathed her last saying the same thing: My papa did this for me.
My heart stopped beating. Tears welled up in my eyes. That scene is just one of the many moving scenes about those slaves in that time of the history in Virginia when black people were traded like they were not human but properties.
I can make this review very long. There are just too many good things I would like to say here but I am afraid that no review can make justice to a book as good as this.
June 3, 2019
The Known World, Edward P. Jones
The Known World is a 2003 historical novel by Edward P. Jones. Set in Virginia during the antebellum era, it examines the issues regarding the ownership of black slaves by both white and black Americans.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه ژوئن سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: دنیای آشنا؛ نویسنده: ادوارد پی. جونز؛ مترجم: شیرین معتمدی؛ تهران، شورآفرین، 1394؛ در 389 ص، شابک: 9786006955049؛ موضوع: درباره دنیای سیاهان امریکای سده نوزدهم میلادی از نوی��ندگان سده 21 م
داستان «دنیای آشنا»، درباره ی دنیای سیاهان، در آمریکای سده ی نوزدهم میلادی ست. داستان، در سال 1855 میلادی، در مزرعه ی مرد سیاهپوستی به نام: «هِنری تاونسند»، میگذرد. او یک برده به دنیا آمده، اما حالا یک ارباب است. اربابِ سیاه، به آینده ای با مزرعه ی پنجاه هکتاری، و با سی و سه برده ی سیاه میاندیشد. او با برده هایش، همان برخورد را دارد، که اربابِ سفیدپوستش «ویلیام رابینز» با خود او داشت. واژه های داستان با دو شخصیت میچرخند: «هنری تاونسند»، اربابِ سیاه، و برده ی سیاه او: «موسا»، هرچند شخصیت اصلی داستان را میتوان «هنری تاونسند» برشمرد، اما او قهرمان رمان نیست، زیرا ویژگیهای یک قهرمان را ندارد، بلکه شخصیت محوری داستان است، که از زوایای مختلف، مورد کنکاش قرار میگیرد. در کنار زندگی «تاونسند»، قصه های عاشقانه، و کمدی شخصیتهای دیگر نیز، طی چند دهه، روایت میشود. «جان فریمن»، منتقد «ایندیپندنت»، درباره ی «جونز» و شاهکارش، مینویسد: «جونز در دنیایی آشنا از سبکی موجز بهره میگیرد، و هرچه داستان پیش میرود، ریتم آن نیز تندترمیشود، و لحن نویسنده نیز جان میگیرد. «جونز» چنان با زبان بازی میکند، و گاه در خلال داستان، گریزی پرشور به گذشته، و آینده میزند، که به گونه ای خیره کننده، توان تسلط بر قلمش را به رخ خوانشگر میکشد. و چنان آگاهیش را، با شکیبایی درمیآمیزد، که به راستی چیزی کم از معجزه ندارد.». «هارپر پرننیال»، منتقد «گاردین» نیز، درباره این شاهکار مینویسد: «خواندن دنیای آشنا آسان نیست، اما یک تجربه قدرتمند و فراموش ناشدنی است.». ا. شربیانی
The Known World is a 2003 historical novel by Edward P. Jones. Set in Virginia during the antebellum era, it examines the issues regarding the ownership of black slaves by both white and black Americans.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه ژوئن سال 2017 میلادی
عنوان: دنیای آشنا؛ نویسنده: ادوارد پی. جونز؛ مترجم: شیرین معتمدی؛ تهران، شورآفرین، 1394؛ در 389 ص، شابک: 9786006955049؛ موضوع: درباره دنیای سیاهان امریکای سده نوزدهم میلادی از نوی��ندگان سده 21 م
داستان «دنیای آشنا»، درباره ی دنیای سیاهان، در آمریکای سده ی نوزدهم میلادی ست. داستان، در سال 1855 میلادی، در مزرعه ی مرد سیاهپوستی به نام: «هِنری تاونسند»، میگذرد. او یک برده به دنیا آمده، اما حالا یک ارباب است. اربابِ سیاه، به آینده ای با مزرعه ی پنجاه هکتاری، و با سی و سه برده ی سیاه میاندیشد. او با برده هایش، همان برخورد را دارد، که اربابِ سفیدپوستش «ویلیام رابینز» با خود او داشت. واژه های داستان با دو شخصیت میچرخند: «هنری تاونسند»، اربابِ سیاه، و برده ی سیاه او: «موسا»، هرچند شخصیت اصلی داستان را میتوان «هنری تاونسند» برشمرد، اما او قهرمان رمان نیست، زیرا ویژگیهای یک قهرمان را ندارد، بلکه شخصیت محوری داستان است، که از زوایای مختلف، مورد کنکاش قرار میگیرد. در کنار زندگی «تاونسند»، قصه های عاشقانه، و کمدی شخصیتهای دیگر نیز، طی چند دهه، روایت میشود. «جان فریمن»، منتقد «ایندیپندنت»، درباره ی «جونز» و شاهکارش، مینویسد: «جونز در دنیایی آشنا از سبکی موجز بهره میگیرد، و هرچه داستان پیش میرود، ریتم آن نیز تندترمیشود، و لحن نویسنده نیز جان میگیرد. «جونز» چنان با زبان بازی میکند، و گاه در خلال داستان، گریزی پرشور به گذشته، و آینده میزند، که به گونه ای خیره کننده، توان تسلط بر قلمش را به رخ خوانشگر میکشد. و چنان آگاهیش را، با شکیبایی درمیآمیزد، که به راستی چیزی کم از معجزه ندارد.». «هارپر پرننیال»، منتقد «گاردین» نیز، درباره این شاهکار مینویسد: «خواندن دنیای آشنا آسان نیست، اما یک تجربه قدرتمند و فراموش ناشدنی است.». ا. شربیانی
September 7, 2012
There is probably an important and interesting story in here somewhere (for example, if it were actually about the widow of a black slave owner trying to run a plantation after her husband's death, as claimed on the book jacket). However, any plot that might exist was buried so deep beneath the convoluted chronology and extraneous characters and details that I decided I didn't care to keep digging for it, and quit on page 198. The author seemed determined to insert every existing anecdote about slavery into one novel. This might have worked better as a compilation of essays or short stories.
March 24, 2020
Jar Of Death Pick #28
3.5 Stars
Most people probably believe that the only people who owned slaves were white people. But that's actually not the truth. Free blacks owned other black people. Some free blacks bought their family members and others just wanted the slave labor. Native Americans owned slaves for much of the same reasons.
The Known World introduces us to some of those people.
The Known World has won a whole gang of awards, so we know its an important book and the writing is top notch. My only problems with the book were the fact that there were too many characters. You know this is a pet peeve of mine and I lost track of all the characters in this book. My other problem was that it jumped backwards and forwards in time way too much. Most of the time jumps were super confusing.
I liked The Known World but I think I might not be smart enough to read this book. I'll probably reread it sometime in the future and I do recommend to others because its a brilliant book.
3.5 Stars
Most people probably believe that the only people who owned slaves were white people. But that's actually not the truth. Free blacks owned other black people. Some free blacks bought their family members and others just wanted the slave labor. Native Americans owned slaves for much of the same reasons.
The Known World introduces us to some of those people.
The Known World has won a whole gang of awards, so we know its an important book and the writing is top notch. My only problems with the book were the fact that there were too many characters. You know this is a pet peeve of mine and I lost track of all the characters in this book. My other problem was that it jumped backwards and forwards in time way too much. Most of the time jumps were super confusing.
I liked The Known World but I think I might not be smart enough to read this book. I'll probably reread it sometime in the future and I do recommend to others because its a brilliant book.
October 15, 2022
داستان بردهای سیاهپوست به نام هنری تونسند که حالا ارباب شده و دوباره با بردههای سیاه پ��ست همان رفتاری دارد که ارباب خودش با او داشته.
یکی از زیباترین کتابهای ادبیات امریکا در مورد برده داری بود.
برندهی جایزهی پولیتزر سال 2004
جایزهی ایمپک دوبلین سال 2005
برندهی جایزهی حلقهی منتقدین کتاب آمریکا سال 2003
یکی از زیباترین کتابهای ادبیات امریکا در مورد برده داری بود.
برندهی جایزهی پولیتزر سال 2004
جایزهی ایمپک دوبلین سال 2005
برندهی جایزهی حلقهی منتقدین کتاب آمریکا سال 2003
April 26, 2007
Basically - a book about slavery in the South. I enjoy those kind of thing, especially The Secret Lives of Bees, but with this one, it felt like the book had no point. While I was reading, I kept on going "what did I just read? Am I really reading/understanding this book?" and kept on referring to the back cover of the book. No. The story was simply what I read. O.......K! Then ugh. I HATE leaving a book unread, so I kept on forcing myself to read thru the whole book. Finally the misery I was putting myself through ended, and UGH! The storyline. The author kept on jumping around the timeline too much - and honestly - I would describe this book as a glimpse of the lives of slaves in the south, but with a blah storyline. However this book has won a pultizer prize. EH!? Anyone out there who has read this book? Your opinions??
However like always, we learn from books. What I got out of this book was a new knowledge I never came upon, that black people owned black slaves.They even buy their own family members, and the slaves were considered as properties, including family. Hmm... History is richier than we will ever know or think of.
However like always, we learn from books. What I got out of this book was a new knowledge I never came upon, that black people owned black slaves.They even buy their own family members, and the slaves were considered as properties, including family. Hmm... History is richier than we will ever know or think of.
October 29, 2019
The Known World does this weird thing: it cites its sources. And it's weird because they don't exist. There are passages like this:
Jones goes on to tell you the publication history of that book, and a few more things about what was in it, and to imply that Roberta Murphy was a little racist. But there is no Roberta Murphy, there is no book, there is no Manchester, VA. What is Jones up to?
Wyatt Mason notes:
Too much of a bummer? It's not that The Known World is a feel-good novel. Ears and Achilles tendons will be sliced. It follows the rules of slavery books: slave narratives always had happy endings; later, fictional slave narratives always have sad endings. But Toni Morrison has a different opinion about what Americans can and can't take. Shit, so does Harriet Jacobs. And Jones knows this, so he's being disingenuous.
And you notice that he's talking about books he didn't actually read. NPR says,
Look, I don't mean to say Jones isn't telling the truth. I don't know if he is, and neither does he; neither of us read those two shelves of books about slavery. But the citation of imaginary sources in the book itself serves to either add authenticity that's undeserved, or - if you follow up on those sources - underline its lack of authenticity. I'm puzzled by it.
This sort of meta-sourcing has been done before - by Nabokov in Pale Fire, by Cervantes, and in its closest parallel by Borges in his first collection, Universal History of Iniquity, which also confused me. It's especially jarring here, maybe just because I find the truth of slavery a fraught subject, and maybe because the layers go so deep - even in interviews about his lack of authenticity, he appears to be consciously inauthentic. I don't know, man, I don't get it.
But anyway: is it a good made-up story about made-up people? Yeah, sure, totally. Eventually. The first half is a little annoying. There's a lot of chronological foofarah - skipping all over the place for no pressing reason - and a ginormous cast it's hard to keep track of, and our super-omniscient narrator often takes time out to tell you some trivial character's entire life story, which you didn't really need. But the second half ratchets up the tension to pure shit-your-pantsville, as that sprawling cast all meet their assorted fates. It makes up for some irritation in the first half.
So yeah, as a novel it's excellent. The authenticity issue, I bring up mostly because we take this book seriously; it won a Pulitzer. It deserves to be looked carefully at. I looked carefully and I was confused by its truth.
[Manchester, VA] went through a period of years and years of what University of Virginia historian Roberta Murphy in a 1948 book would call 'peace and prosperity'.
Jones goes on to tell you the publication history of that book, and a few more things about what was in it, and to imply that Roberta Murphy was a little racist. But there is no Roberta Murphy, there is no book, there is no Manchester, VA. What is Jones up to?
Wyatt Mason notes:
What research on the subject Jones undertook was, in fact, quickly derailed after he happened upon an account of a white slave owner who spent her days abusing one of her black slaves, a little girl, by beating her head against a wall. “If I had wanted to tell the whole story of slavery, Americans couldn’t have taken that,” Jones told an interviewer. “People want to think that there was slavery, and then we got beyond it. People don’t want to hear that a woman would take a child and bang her head against the wall day after day. It’s nice that I didn’t read all those books. What I would have had to put down is far, far harsher and bleaker.
Too much of a bummer? It's not that The Known World is a feel-good novel. Ears and Achilles tendons will be sliced. It follows the rules of slavery books: slave narratives always had happy endings; later, fictional slave narratives always have sad endings. But Toni Morrison has a different opinion about what Americans can and can't take. Shit, so does Harriet Jacobs. And Jones knows this, so he's being disingenuous.
And you notice that he's talking about books he didn't actually read. NPR says,
Jones collected two shelves of books about slavery, but never got around to reading them. Still, the author was able to use his imagination, and stories he had heard growing up, to make his characters come alive. "I decided the people I'd created were real enough and I had just accumulated enough information about what the world was like in the South before 1865 to allow me to lie and get away with it," he says.
Look, I don't mean to say Jones isn't telling the truth. I don't know if he is, and neither does he; neither of us read those two shelves of books about slavery. But the citation of imaginary sources in the book itself serves to either add authenticity that's undeserved, or - if you follow up on those sources - underline its lack of authenticity. I'm puzzled by it.
This sort of meta-sourcing has been done before - by Nabokov in Pale Fire, by Cervantes, and in its closest parallel by Borges in his first collection, Universal History of Iniquity, which also confused me. It's especially jarring here, maybe just because I find the truth of slavery a fraught subject, and maybe because the layers go so deep - even in interviews about his lack of authenticity, he appears to be consciously inauthentic. I don't know, man, I don't get it.
But anyway: is it a good made-up story about made-up people? Yeah, sure, totally. Eventually. The first half is a little annoying. There's a lot of chronological foofarah - skipping all over the place for no pressing reason - and a ginormous cast it's hard to keep track of, and our super-omniscient narrator often takes time out to tell you some trivial character's entire life story, which you didn't really need. But the second half ratchets up the tension to pure shit-your-pantsville, as that sprawling cast all meet their assorted fates. It makes up for some irritation in the first half.
So yeah, as a novel it's excellent. The authenticity issue, I bring up mostly because we take this book seriously; it won a Pulitzer. It deserves to be looked carefully at. I looked carefully and I was confused by its truth.
December 1, 2016
A knockout! Doesn't he have a new book coming out in the New Year? Soon I hope. He's a wonderful writer. Why hasn't Oprah made this into a film? What's she waiting for?
September 8, 2018
Despite some luminous moments where the characters come alive in a special way, this novel about the lives of slaves in a fictional community in Virginia of the 1830s felt too hermetic and sealed off for me to enjoy it as thoroughly as others might.
The special hook that the story holds is its rendering of freed blacks who became slave owners themselves. The focus is on one such plantation with about 30 slaves which is struggling to adapt to the death of its black master, Henry Townsend. We get a plausible history along the way of how his father, Augustus, was so talented at furniture making that he bought his own freedom, and state legislative action allowed him to continue residing in the state and eventually bought the freedom of his son.
With other free blacks, such as the feisty, condescending teacher Fern, who came from the North, they form a small society of their own. While Augustus abhors slavery, his son tries to emulate the path taken by the whites to economic success by owning slaves. Despite an ambition to become a benevolent master, the corrupting influence of owning people as property is well portrayed. When his lonely widow takes up a love relationship with her plantation foreman, she is replicating the same abuse of power enacted by most other white plantation owners, and the consequences are tragic.
The “known world” of plantation life in this fictional county is like an island in time, and the characters themselves seem stuck in it like insects in amber. The omniscient narrator is god-like in passing into the thoughts and dreams of more than a dozen characters. Unfortunately, the reader gets distanced from emotionally connecting to them by the narrator breaking the flow to leap backward and forward in time to reveal some particular fact or person’s fate (for more see: D.D. Wood review). Ultimately, the human bonds holding people to each other came off as tenuous and unreal as beholding a ship in a bottle.
Unlike the romanticized lives portrayed in Hailey’s “Roots”, the characters have no sense of cultural history of their African origins (the word itself appears nowhere in the book), and there is no foreshadowing of plantation life as a doomed phase in history on the path to the Civil War. The idea of a slave revolt is unthinkable, and the one humane white character, Sheriff Skiffington, feels no compunction over diligently carrying out a big part of his job in organizing night patrols and retrieval efforts when “property” runs away. Though we get no sense of the reality of the “Underground Railroad”, we do get a brilliant vision at one point where Augustus ends up mailing a slave girl to Philadelphia in a crate along with a shipment of his hand-carved walking sticks.
In an interview with Jones appended to the audiobook version of the novel, he admits he did not do much research for the book and was not concerned about communicating any particular message to his readers about the history of slavery. As the creator of all the characters, he would not admit to favoring any one character over another. Still the reader can’t help but getting the message of how inhumane slavery was and how individuals trapped in it strived to achieve some form of dignity in their lives. Like other reviewers, I didn’t feel I got to know any of the characters well enough to get emotionally engaged with them. When not interrupted by invasions from the narrator, the prose is effective in evoking the place and time, an obvious factor in helping it gain a Pulitzer Prize. Here is a lovely example from the opening for the book:
The evening his master dies he worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults, his own wife among them, and sent them back with hunger and tiredness to their cabins. The young ones, his son among them, had been sent out of the fields an hour or so before the adults, to prepare the late supper and, if there was time enough, to play in a few minutes of sun that were left. When he, Moses, finally freed himself of the ancient and brittle harness that connected him to the oldest mule his master owned, all that was left of the sun was a five-inch long memory of red orange laid out in still waves across the horizon between two mountains on the left and one on the right. He had been in the fields for all of fourteen hours. He paused before leaving the fields as the evening quiet wrapped itself about him. The mule quivered, wanting home and rest. Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more thought than if it were a spot of cornbread. …he ate it not only to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the field, but because eating it tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life.
The special hook that the story holds is its rendering of freed blacks who became slave owners themselves. The focus is on one such plantation with about 30 slaves which is struggling to adapt to the death of its black master, Henry Townsend. We get a plausible history along the way of how his father, Augustus, was so talented at furniture making that he bought his own freedom, and state legislative action allowed him to continue residing in the state and eventually bought the freedom of his son.
With other free blacks, such as the feisty, condescending teacher Fern, who came from the North, they form a small society of their own. While Augustus abhors slavery, his son tries to emulate the path taken by the whites to economic success by owning slaves. Despite an ambition to become a benevolent master, the corrupting influence of owning people as property is well portrayed. When his lonely widow takes up a love relationship with her plantation foreman, she is replicating the same abuse of power enacted by most other white plantation owners, and the consequences are tragic.
The “known world” of plantation life in this fictional county is like an island in time, and the characters themselves seem stuck in it like insects in amber. The omniscient narrator is god-like in passing into the thoughts and dreams of more than a dozen characters. Unfortunately, the reader gets distanced from emotionally connecting to them by the narrator breaking the flow to leap backward and forward in time to reveal some particular fact or person’s fate (for more see: D.D. Wood review). Ultimately, the human bonds holding people to each other came off as tenuous and unreal as beholding a ship in a bottle.
Unlike the romanticized lives portrayed in Hailey’s “Roots”, the characters have no sense of cultural history of their African origins (the word itself appears nowhere in the book), and there is no foreshadowing of plantation life as a doomed phase in history on the path to the Civil War. The idea of a slave revolt is unthinkable, and the one humane white character, Sheriff Skiffington, feels no compunction over diligently carrying out a big part of his job in organizing night patrols and retrieval efforts when “property” runs away. Though we get no sense of the reality of the “Underground Railroad”, we do get a brilliant vision at one point where Augustus ends up mailing a slave girl to Philadelphia in a crate along with a shipment of his hand-carved walking sticks.
In an interview with Jones appended to the audiobook version of the novel, he admits he did not do much research for the book and was not concerned about communicating any particular message to his readers about the history of slavery. As the creator of all the characters, he would not admit to favoring any one character over another. Still the reader can’t help but getting the message of how inhumane slavery was and how individuals trapped in it strived to achieve some form of dignity in their lives. Like other reviewers, I didn’t feel I got to know any of the characters well enough to get emotionally engaged with them. When not interrupted by invasions from the narrator, the prose is effective in evoking the place and time, an obvious factor in helping it gain a Pulitzer Prize. Here is a lovely example from the opening for the book:
The evening his master dies he worked again well after he ended the day for the other adults, his own wife among them, and sent them back with hunger and tiredness to their cabins. The young ones, his son among them, had been sent out of the fields an hour or so before the adults, to prepare the late supper and, if there was time enough, to play in a few minutes of sun that were left. When he, Moses, finally freed himself of the ancient and brittle harness that connected him to the oldest mule his master owned, all that was left of the sun was a five-inch long memory of red orange laid out in still waves across the horizon between two mountains on the left and one on the right. He had been in the fields for all of fourteen hours. He paused before leaving the fields as the evening quiet wrapped itself about him. The mule quivered, wanting home and rest. Moses closed his eyes and bent down and took a pinch of the soil and ate it with no more thought than if it were a spot of cornbread. …he ate it not only to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the field, but because eating it tied him to the only thing in his small world that meant almost as much as his own life.
June 29, 2007
Glorious account that gets past cliches. The premise is that two slaves in 1840s Virginia bought their freedom, but their son stayed a little too long under the master's care. What does the family do when the son starts his own farm and buys his own slaves? The mastery of Jones' writing comes in the sense of history that he lends to minute objects, chance encounters, and incantatory reveries within a frought landscape.
Not content to write an unwritten history of forgotten people, Jones re-writes the histories that have been written, citing documents the purport to explain the historical phenomenon of free blacks who owned slaves. Passages that carry runaway characters to the north also tie in academic treatises from the next century, deeds and warrants and court decisions that attempted to justify white supremacy, and the momentoes that emancipated children carry to their deathbeds. Jones doesn't neglect to include tales of individual transformation, collective redemption, or international implications in this epic. Characters may come and go like fleeting ghosts, yet the marks they leave may remain. When the words of the plantation master and deeds of the escaped overseer have faded into ineffectual memory, we readers are left with both the sense that an institution has gone horribly wrong and that the people within it can be honorably right; even if the results remain unapparent, the promise of future change remains, along with the threat of complacency and neglect.
Jones didn't attempt to detail the national debate over slavery that was current at that time. That limitation on his project was probably a good one. It allows us to see the human effects that rhetoric had covered, and allowed him to devote his attentions to demonstrating the range of positions that people could occupy in relation to the institution. Yes, whether you're descended from a slave, a master, a freed man, a black woman passing as white, an unwilling overseer, a treacherous deputy, a conscientious drunk, or an immigrant Irishwoman sold into prostitution, there's something in this book for you - and I wish that I was only joking, but the irony is that there is no irony here, and sincerity is the least of what we have to do, and memory is only the start of making a history that hasn't stopped.
Not content to write an unwritten history of forgotten people, Jones re-writes the histories that have been written, citing documents the purport to explain the historical phenomenon of free blacks who owned slaves. Passages that carry runaway characters to the north also tie in academic treatises from the next century, deeds and warrants and court decisions that attempted to justify white supremacy, and the momentoes that emancipated children carry to their deathbeds. Jones doesn't neglect to include tales of individual transformation, collective redemption, or international implications in this epic. Characters may come and go like fleeting ghosts, yet the marks they leave may remain. When the words of the plantation master and deeds of the escaped overseer have faded into ineffectual memory, we readers are left with both the sense that an institution has gone horribly wrong and that the people within it can be honorably right; even if the results remain unapparent, the promise of future change remains, along with the threat of complacency and neglect.
Jones didn't attempt to detail the national debate over slavery that was current at that time. That limitation on his project was probably a good one. It allows us to see the human effects that rhetoric had covered, and allowed him to devote his attentions to demonstrating the range of positions that people could occupy in relation to the institution. Yes, whether you're descended from a slave, a master, a freed man, a black woman passing as white, an unwilling overseer, a treacherous deputy, a conscientious drunk, or an immigrant Irishwoman sold into prostitution, there's something in this book for you - and I wish that I was only joking, but the irony is that there is no irony here, and sincerity is the least of what we have to do, and memory is only the start of making a history that hasn't stopped.
July 23, 2020
Set in antebellum Virginia, a former slave, Henry Townsend, owns fifty acres of land and thirty-three slaves. As the story opens, Townsend is dying. The novel chronicles his life, the lives of his family members, and the lives of people he encountered in the community.
The main characters are three-dimensional and feel like real people, with both admirable traits and flaws. Jones employs an omniscient narrator and non-linear storytelling. He weaves together overlapping stories of past and present events, such that the reader knows what happens to these people in the future before knowing what has happened to them in the book’s “present.” There are a great many characters in this book and the list of Dramatis Personae is helpful in keeping them all straight.
This novel is based on a lesser known historical fact. While it was not common, it did happen that some free blacks owned slaves. It lends a complexity to the slavery narrative – showing how people can be impacted by society’s strictures and how victims of exploitation could become perpetrators of the same system.
This is not a quick and easy read. It feels like being immersed in the life and times of Manchester County, Virginia, in the 1850s. It is an eloquently written condemnation of oppression in any form. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
The main characters are three-dimensional and feel like real people, with both admirable traits and flaws. Jones employs an omniscient narrator and non-linear storytelling. He weaves together overlapping stories of past and present events, such that the reader knows what happens to these people in the future before knowing what has happened to them in the book’s “present.” There are a great many characters in this book and the list of Dramatis Personae is helpful in keeping them all straight.
This novel is based on a lesser known historical fact. While it was not common, it did happen that some free blacks owned slaves. It lends a complexity to the slavery narrative – showing how people can be impacted by society’s strictures and how victims of exploitation could become perpetrators of the same system.
This is not a quick and easy read. It feels like being immersed in the life and times of Manchester County, Virginia, in the 1850s. It is an eloquently written condemnation of oppression in any form. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.
February 11, 2016
What a brilliant read! It wasn't a particularly easy book. There are A LOT of characters and there are many threads to the story. It all weaves together in very interesting and unpredictable ways. In the end it was well worth the effort.
This is one of those books where every aspect of the writing clicked for me. I loved it. I made me reexamine what makes me who I am as a person and as an American. I think this book changed me a little for the better.
This is one of those books where every aspect of the writing clicked for me. I loved it. I made me reexamine what makes me who I am as a person and as an American. I think this book changed me a little for the better.
Read
July 10, 2017when you enslave others, you've been in a cage already. before you avenge someone, dig two graves
happened to meet this book(in a low price) which i'd longed for. maybe there's really a Book God and i'm blessed
happened to meet this book(in a low price) which i'd longed for. maybe there's really a Book God and i'm blessed
February 12, 2015
2.5-stars, really.
here is a perfect example of a books i should love, and yet.... i didn't. the book was a lot of work and, for me, very little reward. i think most of my issues are because of the style/structure of the novel:
* the third-person, omniscient narrator - this was distracting from very early on in the read. i held off judging it. i wanted to trust jones and his choice.
* non-linear narrative - i don't tend to have problems with this at all, but i found it super-clunky here. also distracting.
* the made-up references - jones would cite sources and details that seemed to lend such an air of gravitas, but none of it is actually real. (i know, i know. this is fiction. a novel. get over it. but it was just kinda weird to me. social commentary inserted into fiction happens. steinbeck did it. teju cole does it. many writers do this. i felt like jones did a crap-ton of research for this book. but then i read this NPR piece. in it, he notes he collected 2 shelves worth of books on slavery... "but never got around to reading them". so this just added to my 'what the?' on the references in the novel and jones' research.)
* all of this combined for a really awkward flow, and convoluted storytelling. i felt like it could lose 50-100 pages and be a tighter, better story.
in case you think maybe i am a lazy reader - i'm not, i swear! i love nothing more than a meaty, tough read. jones' story is definitely both of these things. he explores the issue of free black people owning slaves in virginia, and he gives us a large cast of active characters. but it all felt so... surface-y. we get the actions and reactions, but we don't really get the motivations or emotions. jones is navigating a morally dodgy landscape, one i would have loved to have gone into more deeply. we are given the horrors and the heartbreaks, but it all felt so detached. and, you know, maybe that is totally on purpose. maybe, for some people, detachment is the only way through such a horrible time in history.
jones has collected some serious critical acclaim and recognition over his career. to name a few: he's won the pulitzer, the national book critic's circle award, the PEN/Hemingway award, a MacArthur genius grant, and the International IMPAC dublin literary award. he's won nearly $1 million in literary awards alone. the man knows what he's doing, and the respect he's earned is fairly universal. the known world is an important story. but is just shining the light on the issues jones raises enough? so now i am back to the should. i should love this book. (it was just okay for me.) people should read this book. (indeed. but this is not a book i will blanket recommend to all.)
so, i don't know you guys. i am bummed over this one. and this is a terrible review/collection of thoughts. maybe i'll become more coherent with some distance and fix this up a bit - but for now i wanted to note down something here.
(aside #1 (going to be a bit spoiler-y here): moses confused me. or, rather, his turn to all-of-a-sudden being an asshole was weird. we're going along with moses. he seems like a lovely man. then, halfway into the book, he's a wife-beater, jerkface? where did that come from, and why was he presented like that? the reveal of moses being a not nice man was sudden and odd.)
(aside #2: worth noting (was hugely interesting to me) - the cover photo of this edition is © Eudora Welty! i had no idea about her photographic prowess.)
here is a perfect example of a books i should love, and yet.... i didn't. the book was a lot of work and, for me, very little reward. i think most of my issues are because of the style/structure of the novel:
* the third-person, omniscient narrator - this was distracting from very early on in the read. i held off judging it. i wanted to trust jones and his choice.
* non-linear narrative - i don't tend to have problems with this at all, but i found it super-clunky here. also distracting.
* the made-up references - jones would cite sources and details that seemed to lend such an air of gravitas, but none of it is actually real. (i know, i know. this is fiction. a novel. get over it. but it was just kinda weird to me. social commentary inserted into fiction happens. steinbeck did it. teju cole does it. many writers do this. i felt like jones did a crap-ton of research for this book. but then i read this NPR piece. in it, he notes he collected 2 shelves worth of books on slavery... "but never got around to reading them". so this just added to my 'what the?' on the references in the novel and jones' research.)
* all of this combined for a really awkward flow, and convoluted storytelling. i felt like it could lose 50-100 pages and be a tighter, better story.
in case you think maybe i am a lazy reader - i'm not, i swear! i love nothing more than a meaty, tough read. jones' story is definitely both of these things. he explores the issue of free black people owning slaves in virginia, and he gives us a large cast of active characters. but it all felt so... surface-y. we get the actions and reactions, but we don't really get the motivations or emotions. jones is navigating a morally dodgy landscape, one i would have loved to have gone into more deeply. we are given the horrors and the heartbreaks, but it all felt so detached. and, you know, maybe that is totally on purpose. maybe, for some people, detachment is the only way through such a horrible time in history.
jones has collected some serious critical acclaim and recognition over his career. to name a few: he's won the pulitzer, the national book critic's circle award, the PEN/Hemingway award, a MacArthur genius grant, and the International IMPAC dublin literary award. he's won nearly $1 million in literary awards alone. the man knows what he's doing, and the respect he's earned is fairly universal. the known world is an important story. but is just shining the light on the issues jones raises enough? so now i am back to the should. i should love this book. (it was just okay for me.) people should read this book. (indeed. but this is not a book i will blanket recommend to all.)
so, i don't know you guys. i am bummed over this one. and this is a terrible review/collection of thoughts. maybe i'll become more coherent with some distance and fix this up a bit - but for now i wanted to note down something here.
(aside #1 (going to be a bit spoiler-y here): moses confused me. or, rather, his turn to all-of-a-sudden being an asshole was weird. we're going along with moses. he seems like a lovely man. then, halfway into the book, he's a wife-beater, jerkface? where did that come from, and why was he presented like that? the reveal of moses being a not nice man was sudden and odd.)
(aside #2: worth noting (was hugely interesting to me) - the cover photo of this edition is © Eudora Welty! i had no idea about her photographic prowess.)
April 1, 2019
Here is a book about black slave owners in the antebellum South! My interest was immediately piqued. On top of that, the book has won all sorts of prizes:
*Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2004)
*International Dublin Literary Award (2005)
*Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2004)
*National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (2003)
* Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee for Debut Fiction (/2004
*National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (2003)
I knew I had to give it a try.
I am glad I have read it, but to say I like it, would just not be true. It’s OK, so I am giving it two stars.
There is no real central character to the story, because he dies right off the bat. It is 1855 when Henry Townsend dies. He is black. He had been a slave, but his parents had bought him his freedom. He leaves behind no children but a wife, Caldonia, a twenty-eight-year-old educated black woman born free, and his property of thirty-three slaves and fifty acres in Manchester County, Virginia. The book is about the hell that breaks loose afterwards, but really what it is about is life in the South during the antebellum era, about the mindset of Blacks and Whites of this era.
The story is told by an omniscient narrator—who knows how each character thinks, what has happened to all of them in the past and what will happen to all of them in the future. It is this all-seeing narrator that shapes the entire feel of the story. This narrator knows everything, but he is not particularly adept at cogently telling a story. In one sentence you may switch form the present to the future and back again. In the next sentence you flip back to the past. It is easy to become confused. Character upon character is thrown at you, with little tidbits about their lives in the past, present and future. You are given an entire community of individuals—Whites and Blacks, a Native American or two, those who are free and those who are slaves, a sheriff and his deputy. The omniscient narrator is constantly restating who each one is, which is good in one sense, but the flow of the tale becomes jerky. Stop and start, backward and forward and often confusing. Use of the omniscient narrator is pushed to the extreme.
It is kind of nice to have a character or two to guide you through a story. You do not have that here. There are a whole group of characters, characters that are hard to attach yourself to. You do not get close to any one individual. In the afterword the author points out that he wanted to draw characters that were neither all good nor all bad, each one different in their own way. You do get that here, but you fail to feel anything for any of them. What you do get is a strong sense of being one of a large community. You are there, one among many, living in the antebellum South. This does give one a hands-on feeling of life then and there and how people were thinking.
Kevin Free narrates the audiobook. It is simple to follow, the speed is fine and he intonations are well done. The narration performance is good so I have given the narration three stars.
*Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2004)
*International Dublin Literary Award (2005)
*Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2004)
*National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction (2003)
* Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee for Debut Fiction (/2004
*National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (2003)
I knew I had to give it a try.
I am glad I have read it, but to say I like it, would just not be true. It’s OK, so I am giving it two stars.
There is no real central character to the story, because he dies right off the bat. It is 1855 when Henry Townsend dies. He is black. He had been a slave, but his parents had bought him his freedom. He leaves behind no children but a wife, Caldonia, a twenty-eight-year-old educated black woman born free, and his property of thirty-three slaves and fifty acres in Manchester County, Virginia. The book is about the hell that breaks loose afterwards, but really what it is about is life in the South during the antebellum era, about the mindset of Blacks and Whites of this era.
The story is told by an omniscient narrator—who knows how each character thinks, what has happened to all of them in the past and what will happen to all of them in the future. It is this all-seeing narrator that shapes the entire feel of the story. This narrator knows everything, but he is not particularly adept at cogently telling a story. In one sentence you may switch form the present to the future and back again. In the next sentence you flip back to the past. It is easy to become confused. Character upon character is thrown at you, with little tidbits about their lives in the past, present and future. You are given an entire community of individuals—Whites and Blacks, a Native American or two, those who are free and those who are slaves, a sheriff and his deputy. The omniscient narrator is constantly restating who each one is, which is good in one sense, but the flow of the tale becomes jerky. Stop and start, backward and forward and often confusing. Use of the omniscient narrator is pushed to the extreme.
It is kind of nice to have a character or two to guide you through a story. You do not have that here. There are a whole group of characters, characters that are hard to attach yourself to. You do not get close to any one individual. In the afterword the author points out that he wanted to draw characters that were neither all good nor all bad, each one different in their own way. You do get that here, but you fail to feel anything for any of them. What you do get is a strong sense of being one of a large community. You are there, one among many, living in the antebellum South. This does give one a hands-on feeling of life then and there and how people were thinking.
Kevin Free narrates the audiobook. It is simple to follow, the speed is fine and he intonations are well done. The narration performance is good so I have given the narration three stars.
Read
January 7, 2020I attended a workshop with some friends during which we all went around the room and recommended books that really moved us that year. I don't remember which book I suggested then, but I recall one woman in particular who really loved this book (or I believe she was more in love with Edward Jones' writing). At the end of the workshop we had a gift exchange raffle and she included this book as her contribution. I was the lucky recipient of this free copy.
I was interested in this historical novel set in a fictional place in Virginia during the antebellum era, about a former slave who ends up owning slaves. The strangeness of the story and the angle it takes as a slave narrative is intriguing. Also appealing is the way the omniscient narration allows the reader to approach the story without the moral judgement one reserves for this kind of story, since the distance of the narration allows one to realize quickly what the story tries to showcase: how slavery has already poisoned the integrity of all involved.
The framework of the novel is composed of anecdotal stories within stories, with pacing often interrupted for a mini scene or two, or an introduction of yet another character who may reappear later or simply disappear. Put another way, it is a book of puzzle pieces: one is added, taken away, another picked up, oh yes, there's the whole, whoops, maybe not, here goes another piece. So although I admired the writing and story setup in the beginning, I just was not in the right space to complete this novel. It has been a while since I added a book to my "did-not-finish" list; alas, this one has just made the list. This is not a failed attempt at reading this novel, however, because I remember not being able to finish Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow only to later fall in love with his novel, Petals of Blood. With that in mind, I look forward to reading Jones' Lost in the City.
I was interested in this historical novel set in a fictional place in Virginia during the antebellum era, about a former slave who ends up owning slaves. The strangeness of the story and the angle it takes as a slave narrative is intriguing. Also appealing is the way the omniscient narration allows the reader to approach the story without the moral judgement one reserves for this kind of story, since the distance of the narration allows one to realize quickly what the story tries to showcase: how slavery has already poisoned the integrity of all involved.
The framework of the novel is composed of anecdotal stories within stories, with pacing often interrupted for a mini scene or two, or an introduction of yet another character who may reappear later or simply disappear. Put another way, it is a book of puzzle pieces: one is added, taken away, another picked up, oh yes, there's the whole, whoops, maybe not, here goes another piece. So although I admired the writing and story setup in the beginning, I just was not in the right space to complete this novel. It has been a while since I added a book to my "did-not-finish" list; alas, this one has just made the list. This is not a failed attempt at reading this novel, however, because I remember not being able to finish Ngugi wa Thiong'o's Wizard of the Crow only to later fall in love with his novel, Petals of Blood. With that in mind, I look forward to reading Jones' Lost in the City.
November 22, 2011
A beautifully paced novel that inverts every cliche about institution of slavery. While not exactly removing race from the issue of slavery, Jones is able to show that even among African-Americans the perniciousness of slavery could damn a generation. The best summary of this idea came from a NYTimes review:
'There are few certified villains in this novel, white or black, because slavery poisons moral judgments at the root. As Jones shows, slavery corrupts good intentions and underwrites bad ones, yet allows decency the odd occasion -- but only by creating such an enormous need for it.'
The pacing and structure of this novel could be a little challenging to some, but I found that it fit the narrative perfectly. This isn't a novel that burns you with its quotable sentences, but it scars you with its images. There were periods in it where I thought I was reading a Cormac McCarthy novel. That alone is high praise.
'There are few certified villains in this novel, white or black, because slavery poisons moral judgments at the root. As Jones shows, slavery corrupts good intentions and underwrites bad ones, yet allows decency the odd occasion -- but only by creating such an enormous need for it.'
The pacing and structure of this novel could be a little challenging to some, but I found that it fit the narrative perfectly. This isn't a novel that burns you with its quotable sentences, but it scars you with its images. There were periods in it where I thought I was reading a Cormac McCarthy novel. That alone is high praise.
October 29, 2008
This tells the tale of black slave owners in the pre-Civil War south. It is an ensemble cast of characters, beautifully drawn in rich language and told with respectful remembrance. The tale jumps back and forth in time, so we know ahead the fate of some, but not all the main characters. The endings, as there are many for the diverse characters tend towards the awful, but not all fit that description.
February 16, 2019
Layers of excellence! I feel that I could immediately go back to the first page and read this book all over again! I have owned my first edition hardcover copy FOR SO LONG - including time spent boxed-up in a storage space. This has been the right time for me to finally read it.
Read
June 9, 2008People kept telling me how amazing this book was, and I didn't think it would live up to the hype. But it absolutely did. It's amazing.
July 29, 2009
I know there is something bizzare about me because I didn't like this book. I know it has a lot of good reviews on here, so people should still give it a chance. Honestly, it is the first book this year I just couldn't finish. I made it halfway through hoping with each chapter that I would become interested in the story.
I think my major problem was the way the author laid the stories out. Nothing is in chronological order, and it's extremely confusing to being going back and forth in character's lives. Half the time I didn't know if things were happening in the present or past. It was just too much work and I began to feel dread every time I looked at the book. Maybe someday I will give it another chance. I just don't have the patience right now.
I think my major problem was the way the author laid the stories out. Nothing is in chronological order, and it's extremely confusing to being going back and forth in character's lives. Half the time I didn't know if things were happening in the present or past. It was just too much work and I began to feel dread every time I looked at the book. Maybe someday I will give it another chance. I just don't have the patience right now.
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