The Known World in Reading with Style

Feb 10, 2015 Juniper rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2015-books

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 dist 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.) ...more

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Dec 20, 2010 Chinook rated it really liked it

Shelves: yale-291

Oprah calls this book the best one she's read in ten years (I was watching her do an interview with the author when I was about halfway through reading it myself.) It is a Pulitzer Prize winning book that was apparently written when the author was fired. Perhaps it's time for me to get fired from something!!! Who knew it could end up going so well?

Fern Elston: "We, not a single one of us Negroes, would have done what we were not allowed to do." (God and the law)

This book is just sad. One sad thi ...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a haunting, beautiful story set in antebellum Virginia. It explores slavery in a setting that includes black slave owners and free blacks. It has a very unusual structure in that future of some of the characters are woven into the present of the story. For instance you know that by age 12 one young slave, Luke, is buried the slave's cemetery but then you see him a year before and at age 4. This prescience added to the superstitions and hauntings by the newly dead add to the heart ache an ...more

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Sep 20, 2008 Krista rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-literature

This was a beautifully written book about an ugly era in the history of the United States. I didn't realized that there were black slave owners in the South before the Civil War. This story interweaves lots of different narratives, and then weaves back in little bits of stories you'd thought been left behind. The narration of the audio book was totally engrossing. It's not a cheerful seaside read, but I highly recommend it! ...more

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