The Known World | Edward P. Jones

The Known World | Edward P. Jones | Riveting! You'll never forget it.

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The Known World

	The Known World Edward P. Jones HarperPerennial, 2004 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 295 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Masterful, Pulitzer-prize winning literary epic about the painful and complex realities of slave life on a Southern plantation. An utterly original exploration of race, trust and the cruel truths of human nature, this is a landmark in modern American literature. Henry Townsend, a black farmer, boot maker, and former slave, becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as his own slaves. When he dies, his widow, Caldonia, succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love beneath the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave 'speculators' sell free black people into slavery, and rumours of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years. An ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges from the past to the present, The Known World seamlessly weaves together the lives of the freed and the enslaved -- and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multi-dimensional world created by the institution of slavery.

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Gripping

What an awesome story. It is not a simple linear story rather rich in detail and circuitous. The time jumps around quite a bit and so do the many stories within the story.I was hooked from the beginning. Fascinating read. I read his on vacation but it is a deep and entertaining read. I think it would also be a great piece to read for a high school o college history class.

Riveting! You'll never forget it.

Edward P. Jones's "The Known World": A Study Guide from Gale's "Novels for Students" (Volume 26, Chapter 4)

Gorgeous

"The Known World" is one of the most beautifully written novels I've read. I savored it as as I do Nabokov or Garcia Marquez. If you appreciate a flawlessly structured narrative written with sublime economy of words; if you delight in reading a good story with deep philosophical undercurrents; if you live in pursuit of fine literature--- well, then, read this book. By the way, saying: "this book is too difficult for me to get into," isn't *exactly* levelling criticism at the book.

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Difficult to read but well worth it

I, too, found this book difficult to read, but not because of the prose; it was difficult to read because the subject matter was so viscerally presented and articulately explored. To confront the idea of people being worth money and nothing more was almost too much to bear. I applaud Mr. Jones for his ability to dig into this subject and to display it in a way that forces us to face such a legacy.

I was afraid that there would not be any redemptive value in the book but found that redemption was offered in the smallest, most subtle ways. Stop reading now if you don't want a spoiler. The knowledge after the fact that Moses had not killed his wife and child, that the man who would lead to his maiming knew it, saw it on him was powerfully felt because of its subtlety. The way Jones presents the final assault on Moses, the cutting of his Achilles tendon was remarkable. Knowing that the man who casually enacted such violence would never do so again after being forced to bear the suffering he had created, almost through the barrel of his body, for miles and while literally being hugged by that suffering was simply sublime. Clearly, this book is well worth the pain it may cause and the sadness in may imprint.

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