The Known World

A Must Read

I found this book to be not only thought provoking but compelling. This book was not an easy read but very well written. I felt empathy for the characters but you are left wondering how did certain events change their lives for ever. I will definitely be reading other books by this author.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

It's about slavery ... and it's about freedom

This book is about slavery and it is about freedom. There is a character, Alice, who we are told was 'kicked in the head by a mule' when she was younger. She chanted nonsense. She danced in the woods alone at night. People of the county thought she was crazy but, in the end, it turns out that Alice was not as crazy as people thought. The book tells of how people are sometimes able to escape the small worlds that hold them captive, a lesson for all of us as we all, at one time or another, have attempted to escape a small world of some kind, either a physical or mental prison that has confined us.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

What A Fascinating Subject

The Known World follows the family of a black slave owner and their associates. This subject has always fascinated me since briefly touching on this in college. Apparently there was a black slave owner in southeast Texas. I have heard mixed reviews on the writing style. Personally I enjoyed both the subject and story. Jones does seem to write in past, present, and future concurrently, which can be confusing. However, I found that it gave instant insight into the characters and motives without revealing the storyline too early. I felt the culture of the South and various races were well represented. I definitely recommend this book

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

The Known World

V. Shipley

It is said that you should never judge a book by its cover, but when just glancing at the cover of The Known World, a person can't help but be interested. From the cover, it is obvious the book is about slavery, but one could never guess how twisted the subject of slavery can get.

The Known World is a story about slavery, not just the regular American slavery. The internal struggle of the book is really about the concept of free blacks owning slaves. Jones really plays with this theme through out the entire novel. He makes it seem as if he is unbiased on the subject throughout the book but his tone is otherwise. An atrocity occurs in everyone's life that owns a slave. The main theme of the book is anyone who participates in slavery is polluted by it and their concepts of justice and humanity become tainted.

The strange but yet awesome thing about the novel is that all of the characters are connected through a single character, Henry Townsend. Henry is a freed black, who was once a slave, which owns slaves. We are introduced to him in the beginning by learning about his death. He is not the only one. In the beginning Jones states, "In 1855 in Manchester Country, Virginia, there were 34 free black families. and eight of those free families owned slaves." Henry was a boot maker and was a slave for William Robbins. Robbins develops a fatherly bond with Henry and is reluctant to let him go. However, he remains close with him through out the entire novel.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading. History buffs would be especially interested because Jones gives you another side to a long complicated story. I had never even thought about blacks owning other slaves prior to the Civil war. This book will broaden any reader's horizons, as long as they are friendly.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Sad Book

I did not like this book. I was surprised. The writing style was difficult to follow. It had important historical information, but I had trouble finishing it. It was a sad book.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Great for Discussion

I feel this is an important book, though it is not, in my opinion, particularly enticing. I found the flow of the story impeded by numerous side anecdotes and a tendency to jump from present to past and back. The well-developed characters in the book, however, could provide the basis for much good discussion beyond the obvious topic of slavery and the phenomena of freed slaves becoming slave owners themselves. Hence, I feel it would be a great book club selection.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Painfully MESMERIZING!

This book is an EXCELLENT pick for a book club! It raises several points for discussion... From the various perspectives regarding BLACK OWNED SLAVES to the personalities and life history of the characters, this book depicts another painful aspect of slavery worth talking about. Edward P. Jones is a FASCINATING STORYTELLER. I came to LOVE the way he shares the character's back-story. His writing style provides incredible INSIGHT into the motivations of his characters and invokes the emotion to love and hate and understand why! I must admit it was a tough read to start, but once I understood his style I was ENGROSSED to the end. I would RECOMMEND THIS BOOK to anyone looking for a thought provoking and GRIPPING novel.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a beautiful and thoughtful book

Okay I know this book is long. I also know there isn't much action in this book either. With that being said this book made me think about the atrocities of slavery and the evil side of the human being. What Mr.Jones has created would not be considered exciting but what this book lacks in action it makes up for and surpesses in depth of characters and setting. Unless you really allow yourself to believe in the story than the many characters in this book won't matter and you will than miss out on some beautiful story telling. Mr. Jones takes a little fragment of history and manages to create his own world and his own masterpeice.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A must read!

If you want something with substance and beautifully written, this is the book. The author writes with great imagery and I found myself fully engulfed in it. Not for those who are looking for something 'light'. If you want to read something good, this is it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

an established and intelligent look into slavery--an American classic

I really liked Edward P. Jones' The Known World. I really didn't have a favorite character because the novel goes back and forth in time--the point being i got to know each charaster, bit by heartbreaking bit. I loved the way the novel brought so many stories together under the stronghold of slavery. There is an old slave named Stamford who chases around young girls. Moses the overseer satisfies himself by self-gratification in his spare time. (Yes, a story like this can be hilarious.)But yet there are paradoxes: Henry Townsend ,who the novel revolves around, is a black slave owner: John Skiffington is a sheriff that won't own slaves--well his cousin gave him a slave but he treats her as a daughter--but he enforces the slavery laws. There are people who act like they're white but they are not: Oden, the indian patroller and Fern, the English teacher. But there were chracters i wanted to get to know further--Augustus and Mildred Townsend, Henry's parents. Well to be honest I wanted to get to know everybody even further and didn't want to leave them alone at that last sentence.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Compelling and though provoking

Much has already been said about the basic plot of this book, so I'd like to address the non-linear writing style...imagine yourself as a leaf tumbling down a stream, sometimes hurtling forward, yet frequently caught in little swirling eddies along the edges. If you relax and 'go with the flow' rather than expecting this book to read as you would wish, you will find it to be an astounding and seductive experience on several levels. The viewpoint of this book is equally fluid; through some magic, Jones has you seeing life through the eyes of whatever character he's currently focused upon. There are terrible, ugly, beautiful, sad, heartwarming things that happen constantly throughout this book and somehow, you are always identifying through the protagonist of the moment, whether this be a slave or a slave patroller, frightening as that might be. There is no melodrama here. Somehow, everything is just taken for granted, assumed...it is, after all, their known world. And, for a brief time, ours as well. We eventually come to take it for granted. We can look back with the smugness of time and condemn slavery and its consequential perverse social structurings. Yet a book like this makes one question our own 'known world,' the social structures and cultural practices we take for granted and assume we are powerless to change. I wonder what our descendents will find equally perverse here...probably our oil addiction which forces us to attempt to control countries half-way around the world rather than simply learning to make do with less here at home.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Very Disjointed

I rarely leave a book unfinished. As for this one, it was like trying to walk in the mud, slow and tedious. Too much to follow to be a nice read. The author jumped around from paragraph to paragraph so that it made it unenjoyable to read. I did not find any of the history interesting enough to keep me reading (and I have a degree in history). PASS

too long and boring

I tried getting into this book... had it for three years and can not finish it.

Too much information

This book was filled with too much information for readers to absorb. Often confusing, as it jumped from the present to the past, and back again. Constantly implementing tedious "mini stories" into what was to be a plot....

I am not one to quit reading a book.........

but I had the hardest time following this one I just gave up.
The names alone had my head spinning.
I keep saying I am going to try again but I just cant.
My sister in law finished it and liked it but she wrote all the names of the characters on a piece of paper to follow with. Too much work for me to read a book and do that.............

Oprah thought it was great, I thought it was okay!

I thought this book had great potential. I liked it but didn't love it. Oprah said it was the best book she has ever read?! Hummm... I thought it was an okay book. This book is about slavery and a man named Henry Townsend, a black farmer and a former slave. This story was a look at slavery from many different perspectives. I thought the book was a bit hard to follow. I didn't know that there was a family tree in the back of the book until after I read it. The family tree would have been helpful early on. I was more interested in some characters a lot more than others.

The Known World, The Way to Freedom

"Master Dead Master Dead," said Alice. Edward P. Jones, winner of the Pulitzer Price, wrote The Known World. This story revolves around the day master Henry Townsend a former black man, who owns slaves, dies and then travels back into time where it all began. This story is based in the 19 century in Manchester County, Virginia had way too many characters, kept skipping around, and was a very long dry book that was trying to get the idea out of black's owning slaves, and revolving around death.
Far too much is being said, in this 388 page novel. It all revolves around one of the main characters death Henry Townsend who was born into slavery, and his father will eventually buy his freedom. He will become a black master and own slaves with the help of his old master William Robbins. The story starts off really fast, and within the first fifty pages or so you are introduced to so many characters. It becomes really hard to understand for one could even get lost. The author Edward P. Jones never really reveals the characters in depth. In my opinion, some of the characters are mention in the novel, and they really had no reason to be in the novel in the first place. Each character has their own story that gets mentioned in the book. It gets really hard to follow, and the book itself is really dull.
Next, The Known World through out the book had many flashbacks. In my opinion it made it very confusing to try to read. For example, it would talk about Henry Townsend's funeral in one paragraph, and a paragraph later it would be talking about the past. This is not a type of book I personally enjoy reading. For some positive remarks, the book had some historical events, which made it quite interesting. It talked about how black people could own black slaves as their own property, and how black slaves really weren't treated well. The Known World really did have a good message, but I just wished the author had told the story in sequential order. It would have made it a lot easier to follow, more enjoyable, and would have made more sense.
After all I strongly believe reading this book was like watching paint dry. It took so long to read, because you had to reread the paragraph over and over to finally understand what was happening. It is not a book I would recommend to many people. I would only recommend this book to adults. You really have to enjoy books with flashbacks and have time to sit and read a book with so much detail. In the book it talks about Henry Townsend dying, his death, his funeral, and the past with all the characters.
Overall, The Known World by Edward P. Jones wasn't the book for me. Many other people have enjoyed this fictional novel though. Like Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World, said "Extraordinary..The best new work of American fiction to cross my desk in years." So many eyes have different opinion in books they read. Edward P. Jones was trying to get the idea out to the readers how blacks could own slaves, and it all revolved on the death of Henry Townsend. The Known World did have way too many characters, it kept skipping around, and was a very long dry book based in the 19 century. This book just wasn't for me, but that doesn't mean it's not for you.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Truly a heartfelt emotional read

This story tells a side of slavery in America that is not told or taught by college black history professors. A powerful read that made me miss a few appointments because I simply could not put it down.

do not take the time to read it!

How this book won an award is amazing to me. I am a very avid reader and it took me three years to finish this book. The concept is facinating and could make for a great book if the following things happened: Less jumping around and more focus on specific characters, it was hard to relate to anyone when a paragraph later you were someone else in the book. Way too long and long winded, for concept to work it needed to be about a hundred pages less and more to the point of the actual plot. Place more action closer to the first two hundred pages so readers will actually want to finish the book. The author is talented but just seems to have lost direction or an exact plot in this book. I expected so much more and was let down.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

overrated

i expected that this book is really great with the praises and all, but personally when I read it, it kind of bored me it's too long yet nothing exciting happend that really made me attach to the book, but from the chapters that i've read because im still finishing it 'sigh' the theme of the book which is slavery and freedom is really showing