Review: The Known World, by Edward P. Jones

I read a lot of material, both new and old, and it's not often that I come across a recently-published book that I would call 'literature'. Edward P. Jones' work, The Known World, crosses the line between novel and Work effortlessly. I am not the only one who thinks so - Jones won the 2004 Pulitizer prize for literature, and the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. It spreads across the mind like spilled water on an old wood floor, silently sliding, soaking in, and bringing texture into sharp relief.

Placed in the antebellum south, TKW is a broadly sweeping story that centers around the life and death of Henry, the favored slave of a wealthy plantation owner who, in a gross twisting of values, comes to own a large number of his own slaves as a freed adult. Strange as it seems, this is an actual historical detail; some freed slaves did indeed go on to own plantations with slaves. This in itself makes for a fascinating basis, because it seems completely counter-intuitive for such a thing to occur. Henry's life is at the center of a maelstrom of humanity created by Jones; there are so many characters in this story I honestly had a difficult time keeping everyone straight for quite awhile, and briefly considered creating a small chart to help me organize everyone. Via webbed plot lines, the reader learns the life and eventual fate of at least twenty inter-related characters, both slave and master, white and black, male and female, told in their own voices; these characters are so thoroughly and realistically created that I found myself having to look back at the binding to make sure I was reading fiction and not a recording of actual events. The prose is reminicent of a much older work, including the chapter titles, which are in the format of short descriptive phrases, like those you would see in a piece from a hundred years ago or more, such as Frederick Douglass' personal narrative. The entire package together successfully transports the reader into the 1800s, making the events that much more engrossing.

The story is long, at approximately 305pp for the Nook version (the paperback is listed as having 432pp, I'm not sure where the discrepancy comes from there), and yet there is not a word wasted. Unlike many authors I have read recently, Jones is not afraid to carry his tale to its natural completion, rather than getting three-quarters of the way through and rushing to the finish. This was refreshing, to say the least. I haven't read anything created with this kind of care and respect in a long time.

TKW is not a light read, and if you take it to the beach expecting to be able to also keep an eye on the kids and listen to gabbing neighbors, you will be lost. This story changes character hats frequently, and you need to keep up or risk being entirely lost, because each character's experience is closely tied in with others' and will be referenced in both blatent and obscure ways later on. I actually forced myself to put it down when I got tired rather than powering through *just a few more chapters*, because of this, and also because if the author put this much care into creating this tapestry, the least I could do is to be fully present to witness it all as intended.

It is the honest perspectives, and well-crafted relationships between the characters, that kept me reading this wonderfully-written book. No character is treated as lesser, or villified; it is left to the reader to judge these complicated, nuanced creations based on his or her own values, which I appreciated. Jones thought enough of his characters, and readers, to know that all he had to do was lay out the facts, and let them speak for themselves.

Rating: five stars. An excellent, multi-dimensional work of modern literature that feeds the mind.