March 25, 2010: Page Turners 7 p.m.

Book: The Known World by Edward P. Jones

Discussion:

The meeting of the Page Turners book discussion group was a little different this month. Due to a professional conference I was unable to moderate the meeting. Luckily, another librarian, John Reid, was willing to fill in. The overall opinion of this month’s selection was rather divided, as shown by the group members’ votes. Two readers voted thumbs up, two voted thumbs down, three voted thumbs sideways, one abstained from voting and another had not yet finished the book. For a complete description of the discussion please see John’s summary below:

The group opened with a discussion of the fact that the book won a Pulitzer Prize and whether it had been worthy of the honor. More people disliked the book than liked it. The most unpleasant aspect of the book for the group was the nature of "time-jumping" in the book, where the author would refer to the future lives of characters in sometimes the same paragraph where they were introduced. The technique gives the reader a sense of being all-seeing and all-knowing. It is also perhaps designed to show off the impressive amount of research the author had undertaken. The huge amounts of (often tangential) detail, related to both the characters and the setting, detracted from a smooth reading. Consensus was strong that the book was a tough read and at many points easy to put down.

There was also a discussion of tone. The book was written in a very dry, historical fashion, almost as though it was a legitimate history itself and not a work of fiction. It was suggested that perhaps the book was trying to serve as such a history, though the details of the book are not historical.

The meaning of the title drew some debate. "The Known World" was taken to mean the small world which the characters in the book knew and understood. Because slavery was so pervasive and normal in that world, the slaves in the book have little context for the extent of the evils perpetrated against them. In that vein, one patron commented how some slaves were actually well-fed and well-treated by some masters, further muddying the moral picture. On the other hand, claimed another patron, such good treatment came at the expense of their liberty. The brutality of the period was well-reflected in the book.

We touched on the character of Alice briefly. Was she truly insane or deranged, or merely faking it to make her way out of slavery? The consensus was that it was all a put-on, as demonstrated by the intelligence displayed in her creation of the Townsend Plantation mural discovered at the close of the book. We also discussed a possible plot hole regarding Caledonia: why did she turn to Moses for comfort? It was perhaps unease with the plantation she had inherited from her dead husband Henry, and an unwillingness to draw the hard line between master and property.

FINAL VERDICT: The book covers an important and novel subject, but it is a shame it was not more readable. Many people who would find the story enlightening and engaging would probably be turned off by the author’s incredibly dry writing style and unwillingness to focus on the immediacy of the characters’ actions.