March 2009:The Known World-Edward P. Jones

[MonkeyCatcher]

I'm about halfway through, and absolutely loving it. I think that the comparison to One Hundred Years of Solitude is perfect (I loved that book also).

The extra details keep the story fresh and exciting, and enable Jones to explore slavery from so many different angles. Some of my favourite parts of the book have been paragraph-long excursions into someone's past. Keeping them so short gives them a lot more impact, and makes them a lot more poignant. I'm also really liking how he'll give you little tid-bits of a certain story every now and again, allowing you to gradually piece together a chronological series of events. Very interesting method of delivery.

[oskylad]

Jane Brody recently had an article in the International Herald Tribune on why eating dirt is good for you.

Eating dirt can be good for you - just ask babies - International Herald Tribune

[Libra]

Originally Posted by saliotthomas

Funny you metion it Libra,because it is what braught to mind Hundred years of solitude were there is also dirt eating in the begining(if i remenber well).The way the tale is told also,a saga with the life description of every charateres to forme an all comprehensive story.
I'm nearly finished(30mn or so) but what i like the most is the incursion of fantastic(a bit like in Marquez)the boys with same dreams,the house bigger on the inside than the outside shows,the dead walking,ect..
The story sort of take an hard turn toward the end though.

That's why I liked it so much.Thomas,there was a girl in Marquez's book who ate dirt several times through but if I remember correctly it was mostly in the begining where she first went to live with the family.

I also liked the fact like MonkeyCatcher said,about how he would go back and tell each characters history.

I can't understand how free slaves owned slaves and how did they feel on both sides?I understand they mostly were family members but some weren't.

Originally Posted by oskylad

Jane Brody recently had an article in the International Herald Tribune on why eating dirt is good for you.

Eating dirt can be good for you - just ask babies - International Herald Tribune

^Cheaper than baby food...

[saliotthomas]

At the end of the audio book,there was an interview of the Author.He explain that what triggered the idea of a ex-slave owning slave was something he read about a jew joining the nazi parti.The all book revolving around a that paradoxe.

[MonkeyCatcher]

I finished the book today, and overall I'd give it a 4/5. It would have been 5/5, but I didn't like the end very much. It felt really rushed and I think that Jones lost his unique voice in the last 50 pages or so. It became very to-the-point, losing the meandering style and pace that so endeared me to it in the first place. I had no problems with how things wrapped up in the end, but the way in which the events were relayed wasn't to my liking.

I definitely noticed a progression towards the fantastical towards the end of the novel. Almost like the narrative followed the same path as Moses into chaos and turmoil.

[Libra]

This is the answer the author gave in the interview Robert posted about free slaves owning slaves:

I don't have any hard data but I'm quite certain that the numbers of black slaveowners was quite small in relation to white slaveowners. The fact that many people — even many black people — didn't know such people existed is perhaps proof of how few there were. In addition, as I note in the novel, husbands purchased wives and parents purchased children, and so their neighbors may have come to know the people purchased not as slaves, as property, but as family members. Finally, owning a slave was not a cheap proposition, and the economic status of most blacks back then didn't lend itself to owning a human being

Originally Posted by joderu95

I'm a bit past half way and I really like it. I am interested in, amongst other things, the relationship between Henry and Robbins. Without giving anything away, there is a scene between those two and Henry's slave Moses that really helps solidify the image of William Robbins for me. He is not an evil man but it is clear how he thinks of black people as chattel until they can prove otherwise by presenting their "free papers." His character reinforces the idea that slavery was first and foremost an economic system, though an immoral one. Henry's character also serves a useful purpose too and that is, in part, to remind us that there were black slave owners as well. More common were black slave owners in South Carolina than Virginia and it was not uncommon for family members to own other family members. This was done obviously to save family from harsh treatment by abusive masters and also to exploit the resource of labor for financial gain.

I think Henry saw Robbins maybe as a father figure ,it seems they had a bond on some level .

[joderu95]

I thought the small bits where a couple people died and Jones continues on in the storytelling without any kind of pause were pretty cool. One second someone is being shot and the next second they are visiting with family in by and by.

[MonkeyCatcher]

Originally Posted by joderu95

I thought the small bits where a couple people died and Jones continues on in the storytelling without any kind of pause were pretty cool. One second someone is being shot and the next second they are visiting with family in by and by.

I think it's supposed to refelct how unremarkable the death of a slave, even a violent one, was in those times.

[Libra]

Originally Posted by MonkeyCatcher

I think it's supposed to refelct how unremarkable the death of a slave, even a violent one, was in those times.

True,you also see that when they say reaching a certain age and not being dead was a surprise.

[joderu95]

That could be, although I just saw it more as simply a quick glimpse at the bliss of release from a difficult life. But I don't doubt the idea about a slave's death being unremarkable, save for the fact that property was lost, is the point Jones was making.

[kella]

Hah, my copy got lost in the mail. :( Amazon will replace it though.

[oskylad]

I finally finished the book. But my earlier somewhat lukewarm opinion of it (Book & Reader Forums - View Single Post - March 2009:The Known World-Edward P. Jones) never improved, and steadily declined as I slogged through the last chapters. I found the death and immediate bliss scenes to be especially weird.

The book does show the depravity of humankind. It tries, somewhat unsuccessfully in my judgment, to lay this at the foot of slavery - whether black-owned or white-owned. But at the end, the depravity is the result of the inward nature of the characters rather than the outward circumstances in which they find themselves.

There are some attractive characters amid the grimness. Elias and Celeste. John and Winifred. I am not sure I understood anything about Stamford (how tiring it was to repeatedly be told he was a man who lived for young stuff) and his epiphany amongst the blueberries and dead crows.

Many of you liked the book. I wish I shared your enthusiasm. To me it showed promise - but in the end was a disappointment.

[joderu95]

It showed a single aspect of humanity's depravity - slavery. I have a hard time believing Jones would think that since slavery has ended in America so has our depravity.

[oskylad]

Legal slavery has ended. Slavery has not. Modern Slavery in America

[joderu95]

You've caught me with a semantic oversight.

So it is not clear that when I say "slavery has ended in America" that what I am saying is that the systematic capture and subjugation of various African peoples and subsequent physical abuse by their European and American captors is no longer a reality in the United States of America? The pre-20th Century Atlantic Slave Trade and modern issues of forced labor around the world are two separate issues. For the record, the quote above would correspond with the former, but not the latter situation. At least in a thread about The Known World.