The Known World

View other editions of The Known World.
View books by Edward P. Jones.

Do we really know? - Rated
The Known World is a literary masterpiece. In beginning the book, you wonder how hard it will be to read in the manner of mid-19th century country/slave vernacular, but in page after page, the language just flows, and there is no denying the language is painting a picture of who these people are. There are numerous characters, yet they are so vivid in their representation, it is impossible to get confused as to who did what. Some of the characters you love, and of course, others are just repugnant. As I read The Known World, I felt I could actually hear the singing in the field, smell the smells of the slave barracks, and see the humid, torrid heat of the southern countryside. It's not a typical story about slavery. Former slaves owning slaves is a part of our national footprint I don't think has been written about much. Now, thanks to Edward P. Jones, we possess a manuscript of an amazingly enlightened view of this old world phenomenon. In addition, Edward P. Jones' writing is so eloquent and fluent in the nature of "this world", you wonder if he could have actually lived it. It is a beautiful story that, although sad, is also compelling and makes you feel smug and small in the scheme of this "Known World".

A masterpiece - Rated
This is a powerful and absorbing book with an unusual format - lots of interweaving stories and jumps forward in time as well as backwards. I enjoyed the huge cast,though perhaps an actual list at the end would have been helpful at first. I felt I understood for the first time how slavery actually worked, and how completely it corrupted everyone involved. There are terrible cruelties in this book, all conveyed in beautifully "simple" prose, amd with an encompassing sympathy that makes even the most intransigent slave-owner still seem human. We judge everyone; but the author doesn't. He is simply showing us how it was. The Known World is a masterpiece.

Slavery epic fails to fully engage - Rated
Over the past decade, a number of novels that have been both personal favourites and received significant critical acclaim have dealt with various dimensions of the issue of slavery. These include Valerie Martin's Orange Prize winning 'Property'; Abdulrazak Gurnah's Booker short-listed 'Paradise'; Caryl Phillips Commonwealth Prize winning 'Crossing the River' and Barry Unsworth's Booker-winner 'Sacred Hunger'. Edward P Jones has already received lavish critical acclaim for 'The Known World', including the Pulitzer Prize and a recent short-listing for the IMPAC Dublin International Literary Prize, yet I found this meandering epic failed to deliver the emotional impact that I had expected.

'The Known World' is set primarily in Manchester County in the state of Virginia in the 1850s and 1860s, although Jones also journeys outside the county and travels both forwards and backwards in time to flesh out particular threads of the story. If there is a central character in the story then it is Henry Townsend, a former slave who becomes a successful, slave-owning black farmer. Indeed, this raises my principal concern with the novel, that there really is no central character but rather an array of loosely-connected characters whose lives are explored in varying degrees of depth. As a consequence, unlike in the prize-winning novels mentioned in the introduction, I failed to particularly engage with any of the characters despite some of the awful incidents that occur. This inability to engage fully with the novel is compounded by Jones' impersonal and academic-sounding prose. 'The Known World' is clearly particularly well-researched and contains a wealth of factual information about the practice of slavery in the particular period, so that the work continued to hold my interest throughout. In particular, the novel is interesting in portraying blacks and American Indians as slave-owners; the social distinctions between whites in the South and the precariousness of life even for supposedly 'free' blacks. However, my lack of engagement with the characters in the novel meant that I finished feeling curiously flat and indifferent.

"A map of life of the County of Manchester, Virginia" - Rated
The Known World is a vast, all-encompassing novel of epic proportions that sweeps across the landscape of the County of Manchester, Virginia, and presents us with a broad patchwork of life during the slave years of the 1860's. Edward P. Jones' superior storytelling keeps the reader totally engaged as he jumps backwards and forwards in time, gradually revealing the tortured and often grief-stricken lives of the various inhabitants of Manchester County, both black and white.

Slavery is threatened, and the promise of freedom is now hopeful for many blacks. The abolitionist movement is growing, but having free papers still doesn't necessarily mean much, and in a world where people believe in a God they cannot see and pretend the wind is his voice, a piece of paper often means nothing.

Full of heartache, loss, and the enduring power of the human spirit, The Known World focuses on Henry Townsend, who at 31 has achieved the kind of success, that most black folk can only dream of. Building a small fortune, Henry is now free, owns some land, and is married to Caldonia, an accomplished and educated young woman. In his early years, Henry learnt much from Williams Robbins, his white owner, and now he also owns his own slaves, seemingly without conscience.

The novel begins with Henry's quiet death, and then jumps back in time to the events leading up to the accumulation of his wealth and the sometimes-strained relationship with his parents. The story then moves forward to Caledonia's troubled handling of the estate, where she blurs the lines of behaviour, crosses boundaries, and becomes intimate with Moses, Henry's first slave. Moses, who helped Henry build the plantation years before, is now Henry's overseer, but he chooses to work among his fellow slaves. As Caldonia begins to rely heavily on Moses, Moses starts to expect his freedom.

However, things are beginning to fall apart in Manchester County. Slaves are beginning to revolt and escape, and corrupt patrollers are stealing free men back into slavery. Previously trusted slaves have become suspect, family is now turning on family, and the County's police force, chock-full of dishonesty and corruption are choosing to believe the word of white men, rather than the word of freed black slaves.

With his multi-layered and complex narrative, Jones portrays a world undergoing profound social change and upheaval. From the small, country cabins of the slaves, to the opulent drawing rooms of the wealthy white landowners, and to the bright lights and boarding houses in the cities of Richmond and Washington, the author offers an insightful, multifaceted portrait of America on the cusp of the Civil War.

The characters in The Known World are hard and tough, and driven to survive. It's a bleak world where black slave owners have begun to believe that their own salvation would flow down to their slaves, and if they themselves went to church and led exemplary lives then God would bless them and what they owned. One day they would go to heaven and so would their slaves. Mike Leonard February 05.

Interesting concept, bad execution - Rated
The thought tha free black men could be masters of slaves was what drew me to the book.
However, the characters aren't fully developed, there are plotlines presented and immdediately forgotten and at the end we are left wondering why this book ever needed to exist.