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Dec 08, 2010

K.D. rated it:

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 o More...

28 comments like (20 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2010

karen rated it:

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. b More...

153 comments like (65 people liked it)

May 21, 2008

Gwendolyn rated it:

This was a great book, very well written and an interesting read. Tackling the complex morale issues surrounding slavery from a new perspective, this book delves into the territory of black owners of slaves. Without preaching, the author successfully navigates barbaric treatments and offers a view into the mental justifications and rationalizations. Characters of great strength, courage and resilience are interspersed on both sides of the issue, as are truly terrible individuals.

T More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2008

Marigold rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (10 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2008

Anne rated it:

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 More...

8 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Nate rated it:

Overall, the story was interesting; black families in Virginia owning their own slaves and the implications thereof.

The narration was told in a sweeping way that I'm sure was intended to sound like an oral history. I was willing to ignore my annoyance at not being able to gauge exactly where I was in the timeline. My problem was managing the timeline with all of the characters. I also had fun figuring out how to spot Jones's subtle segues into a new time. Toward the end of the book, More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 06, 2008

Heather rated it:

I felt that this book was important to read because it deals with a piece of American history that, like Europe's Holocaust, can never be comprehended, but should never be forgotten, either. The story is told from the less common third person omniscient point of view, which made it read more like a history book than a novel in some parts. It's hard to say which, if any, of the characters was the protagonist. This book sets itself apart from other books set in the antebellum South because the More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2008

Rick rated it:

Three books into a career, and I’ve only read two them, it would be ridiculous to declare this Jones’ masterpiece. Still one is tempted to hyperbole. And it’s a very, very good book. The Known World describes the plantation world of Henry Townsend, a freed black who owns a score or so of slaves in a fictional county in antebellum Virginia (with some foreshadowing to the years after the Civil War). Townsend had his freedom bought by his father, Augustus, who first bought his own, then his wife’s More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2007

Garth rated it:

"In its first 200 or so pages, Edward P. Jones’ The Known World resembles nothing so much as a story cycle. The impatient reader may begin to wonder where these vignettes of slave life. However, Jones’ leisurely pace and measured prose eventually reveal a unity of purpose, a cumulative power that overwhelms in two ways: gradually, then all of a sudden. Frankly, The Known World is the best new American novel I’ve read since Jeffrey Eugenides'Middlesex.

A broad range of influences More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2007

Nathanial rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Rosey rated it:

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 miser More...

7 comments like (10 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2007

Sam rated it:

My well-read mother-in-law referred this one to me. Fascinating. Well written. A modern day Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Freed Blacks owning slaves turns many of the justifications for slavery on their head, from the inferior black man argument, to God’s disapproval of the race. Touching, depressing, exciting, I couldn’t put this one down. I have yet to reconcile my believe and patriotism in America with the despicable practice of slavery that endured for over 100 years. This is a topic that really More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2009

JoLee rated it:

Edward P. Jones's book, The Known World tells of the lives of characters living in the fictional county of Manchester, Virginia in 1855. At the center of the story is the plantation of Henry Townsend, a freed slave now with slaves of his own, and the conflicts and moral dilemmas facing the small group of slave-owning free blacks in the county. Other characters in the story also face conflicting emotions (whether they know it or not) about slavery. For example, William Robbins, the most powerf More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 16, 2007

Snarky's rated it:

Everyone calls says my novel will "Your version of The Known World" not because mine is anything like that, but because of the circumstances under which it was written. I have a crap job that I just can't seem to leave but should. This book has inspired me more because of its author than the actually writing (which is intergalactic!)

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2009

Sonia rated it:

Very complex themes and characters. Historical fiction set in virginia, era 1800's. The tale of former slaves being slave owners. Learned some facts, very fascinating. Draw back: hard to remenber all the characters and how they are inter-relate.

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 26, 2009

BC rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jun 06, 2009

Kit rated it:

Even though I was fairly certain that I had read this book before (which I had)I proceeded to read it a second time. Once again, I was intrigued (and often horrified)by the reality of slavery in this country's not very distant past. For instance, I didn't know that some free "Negroes" owned slaves, or that those who had been freed could be swept-up and resold at the whim of anyone who dared to do it, with very little consequence, if any.

I'm thinking of recommending this bo More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 26, 2008

Jason rated it:

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 me More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2008

Scot rated it:

This is historical fiction that explores a fascinating phenomenon in the practice of slavery in 19th century America: what life was like for all involved when people of color owned slaves themselves.

The author brings two wonderful touches to his writing style: 1) a practice of sometimes stopping and focusing on one item or person and then flashing forward or backward in time to relevant connections before proceeding on with the story 2) strains of magical realism, when everyday lif More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 24, 2007

Meredith rated it:

This book is so great b/c of its ability to express all of the moral complexities of slavery pre-civil war. Duty, religion, morality, justice, law, success, conformity, experience……all contribute to the intricacies of slavery. The main characters revolve around Henry, who is a former slave that upholds an estate of slaves. Other characters are a God-fearing slave owner, a slave owner who falls in love with a black woman and has a child, and an educated black woman. Although rare, I had never kno More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 31, 2007

Aberjhani rated it:

Edward P. Jones' Bold Vision of "The Known World"

This story would have been exciting enough based only on the fact that Edward P. Jones so boldly took the antebellum novel to a place it has never gone before; namely, to black slave-owner Henry Townsend's plantation in Manchester, Virginia. There, the "Known World" is wholly different from what one might expect. But this seemingly obviously absurd anomaly of U.S. history, wherein black masters owned black sla More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 17, 2009

Nancy rated it:

Great characters; I knew them and got invested in them as people right from the start, even though there were so many of them, and the story was well crafted and compelling. Deserved the Pulitzer.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 21, 2009

Allison rated it:

I'm going to meet this author at a GW alumni event this afternoon. I really liked the book, very different narrative style, it was always interesting to see where the story would go next.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Christine rated it:

Pulitzer Prize winner 2004. A new take on the slave story. This was pre-civil war and focused on some free blacks who owned slaves and ran plantations in Virginia. The good points: this was writing at its best - beautiful language, Jones painted an incredible picture, I could feel, smell, and taste everything. Also, the ending was strong and meaningful. The bad points: I never felt compelled to pick it up and read it. At times I had to force myself to read. It seemed slow; maybe that was his int More...

0 comments like

Dec 18, 2011

Pamela_b_lawrencemsn.com rated it:

Great great book. One of the characters early on says, as strange as a world that makes him slave to a white man, "God had indeed set it twirling and twisting every which way when he put black people owning their own kind." Not much I can say that hasn't been said by many other reviewers, and probably the Pulitzer Prize committee, but this is a clear-eyed book about slavery in the 1850s about the moral bankruptcy that allowed it to happen and that it engendered. This novel is not More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 27, 2011

Noah rated it:

A beautiful and tragic novel about the dynamics of slaveowning society in the antebellum South, focusing on the very rare case of African Americans who had bought their own freedom and then purchased slaves themselves. Vivid and complex characters both black and white: the decadent white patriarch, William Robbins, who suffers from unexplained mental breakdowns and mentors his former slave, Henry Townsend, in the dark art of slaveownership. Henry Townsend, master cobbler and young slaveowner, wh More...

0 comments like

Sep 24, 2011

William rated it:

This is the Uncle Tom's Cabin of our time. The Known World shows how slavery not only changed a persons natural and physical state but also their mental state. We see how Moses breaks down over time from one who longs to keep his family together, to one pushing his family away so that he might have the chance to be free. While Stamford and Elias end up excepting their fate only later to become free men of high character. One of the main concepts introduced in this book is the ability for free bl More...

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Jun 10, 2011

Harmonybites rated it:

This is one of those books that despite recognizing some skillful and impressive writing, goes under the category of not-for-me. The writer cites Faulkner as one of his influences and something in Jones' style does remind me of that author, admittedly not a favorite. The Known World is set in pre-Civil War Virginia, in the fictional county of Manchester, about which Jones weaves in faux census data and snippets of history.

It begins in July of 1855 at the farm of Henry Townsend, a blac More...

0 comments like

May 21, 2011

Alexandra rated it:

Heartbreaking and epic. At first I was somewhat put off by the narrative structure; the story is told in roughly the style that ye oldey-timey southern people speak, with every single fact ever relevant about a character being mentioned as that character is introduced. As the various threads all come together, however, I found the mosaic effect of this technique marvelous. Each character's birth, life high and low points, and death all became equally pertinent to each moment of the story, they w More...

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Apr 06, 2011

Emma rated it:

The Known World is an unconventional book, the oddest facet for me being the lack of a main character. Henry Townsend serves as a sort of focal point, but he dies at the beginning of the novel; equally important are his wife Caldonia, parents Augustus and Mildred, the overseer Moses, the slaves Elias, Celeste, Stamford and Alice, the teacher Fern, Henry's former master William Robbins, and the sheriff John Skiffington and his cousin Counsel. The secondary cast, of course, is exponentially larger More...

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