StarAstrologer - Books : The Known World (Today Show Book Club # 17)
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Binding: Audio Cassette
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060569433
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
ISBN: 0060569433
Label: HarperAudio
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
Number Of Items: 10
Publication Date: September 01, 2003
Publisher: HarperAudio
Release Date: August 14, 2003
Sales Rank: 365748
Studio: HarperAudio
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor -- William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful white man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as of 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 estate, the know world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave "speculators" sell free black people into slavery, and rumor os slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.
An ambitious, luminously written novel that ranges seamlessly between the past and future and back again to the present, The Known World weaves together the lives of freed and enslaved blacks, white, and Indians -- and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery.
Read by Kevin Free.
Amazon.com Review:
Set in Manchester County, Virginia, 20 years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel, The Known World, is a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery. Caldonia Townsend is an educated black slaveowner, the widow of a well-loved young farmer named Henry, whose parents had bought their own freedom, and then freed their son, only to watch him buy himself a slave as soon as he had saved enough money. Although a fair and gentle master by the standards of the day, Henry Townsend had learned from former master about the proper distance to keep from one's property. After his death, his slaves wonder if Caldonia will free them. When she fails to do so, but instead breaches the code that keeps them separate from her, a little piece of Manchester County begins to unravel. Impossible to rush through, The Known World is a complex, beautifully written novel with a large cast of characters, rewarding the patient reader with unexpected connections, some reaching into the present day. --Regina Marler
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
CONFESSION: It's hard to get me interested in historical fiction. I prefer with nonfiction or scifi. I only read this book because I had nothing else to read at the time. On the other hand, that made me a captive audience. I wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get into it.
PROS:
- The concept (a black owning slaves) is interesting.
- The dialogue feels real
- The chapter titles gives you an idea where the story might go
- A list the dozen characters, ... Read More
Rating:  -
Edward P. Jones wrote a terrific book of short stories in 1991, Lost In The City, that was justifiably critically praised, for nine of its fourteen tales are great, but it was forgotten until his 2003 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning novel, The Known World, came out. Then his publisher, Amistad Press, rushed to reprint the earlier work, to cash in on the publicity, after years of pulping old copies. It is ironic, because in this edition of the novel, the best writing in the whole book ... Read More
Rating:  -
"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.
Rating: -
Edward P. Jones's "The Known World": A Study Guide from Gale's "Novels for Students" (Volume 26, Chapter 4)
Rating: -
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.
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