Passages

I wasn't universally enamored of Jones' writing style, especially the kind of magical realism passages, but often he could really turn a phrase and capture a mood precisely, especially when he was trying to relate the grace, and poetic, if sad, resignation that had become a part of slave mentality. I liked these a lot:

...Mary, hearing Ophelia sing, had decided right then that she didn't want heaven if it came without Ophelia. Mary asked Ophelia about coming with her and eating peaches and cream in the sunlight until Judgment Day and Ophelia shrugged her shoulders and said, "That sounds fine. I ain't got nothin better to do right at the moment. Ain't got nothin' to do till evenin time anyway."

"So when I say he (Augustus) was a handsome man, he was indeed. Henry was, too, but he never got old enough to lose that boyish facade colored men have before they settle into being handsome and unafraid, before they learn that death is as near as a shadow and go about living their lives accordingly. When they learn that they become even more beautiful than even God could imagine."

And Alice's song that always ended "He told me this, he told me that." And there was another song: "I'm over here, I'm over there, I ain't nowhere." Both of these seemed to perfectly express the randomness of a slave's life and the lack of personal identity and permanence in a place and a social network. You just always had to be prepared for whatever, and whatever was usually pain.

The unknown world

Any thoughts on the "magical" parts of the narratives — for example, where the narrator would tell what happened to people in the afterlife (like Mildred walking around the house and settling in bed with Augustus)? Do you think this added anything important to the story or the narrative voice, or did it detract from it?

In "Middlesex," we had a first-person narrator who told us a bunch of stuff he couldn't have possibly known, and he was usually frank that he was just poetically connecting the dots for the sake of literary truth vs. actual truth. What was your sense of Jones' narrator? Did you whole-heartedly accept the narrator's complete omniscience?

Celeste and Moses

How would you explain Celeste being so kind to Moses after he treated her so badly and caused her to miscarry?

Did Moses become increasingly unsympathetic to you? He did to me. Was it just understandable bottled-up rage seeping out in dark ways?

One of the things I kept thinking when I'd conclude that someone was really being a bastard was how nearly impossible it would have been to NOT be a bastard in those circumstances. I think we have a tendency to expect a kind of saintliness from downtrodden people — we expect them to be better than their oppressors because we expect them to have a kind of empathy and awareness, and we less often think about how it's perfectly understandable in many instances that they would become as ugly as the system that shaped them.

The women

Who was your favorite female character?

Problematic?

Were there any relationships in the book that you found too improbable?

(I have at least one in mind, but I don't want to rant about it until you weigh in.)

Skiffington

SKiffington is a character for whom I first had a lot of sympathy, but I felt colder and colder about him as the story progressed. I suppose he's an example, as you alluded, Erin, of a decent man whose decency is unable to thrive in the corrupt world of slavery. His soul became very slippery. And what did you make of his sexual attraction to Minerva? I really wondered why the author made that a part of his personality. I just didn't see its place in the story or in his character development. But what am I missing?

The two most overtly "Godly" people in the book, the minister and Bible-reading Skiffington, both had an issue with "impure" thoughts/actions. Any significance there?

Robbins

William Robbins was an intriguing character. I had the sense that the author really grappled with his personality and its presentation. He's the character who first sprung to mind when I read Erin's "We're all worthy" post, in terms of people being complex and neither wholly good nor evil. What did you think of him? Why do you think the author chose to have him not just have a sexual relationship with Philomena but to be deeply in love with her?

Favorite scene

What was your favorite scene from the book?

I really adored the scene where Elias, after realizing he was in love with the crippled Celeste, presented a hand-made comb to her. It's not a very good comb, but she acts like it's a rare treasure because he gave it to her. Aside from the food in her stomach and the clothes on her back and a little of nothing in a corner of her cabin, the comb was all she had. A child of three could have toted around all she owned all day long and not gotten tired. Then the comb instantly breaks the first time she uses it and Elias says, "Pay it no mind .. I'll make you a comb for every hair on your head." And Celeste, crying, says, ""Thas easy to say today cause the sun be shinin. Tomorrow, maybe next week, there won't be no sun, and you won't be studyin no comb."

The scene is comical but sad and moving because it underscores how fragile love is in general, but especially in their world, where despite their commitment to each other they can be torn apart. Elias is restless and adrift and can only think of escape until he gets close to Celeste and realizes that loving her can anchor him to life and give it purpose and beauty and passion. His love strengthens him (and her) and at the same time makes them poignantly vulnerable because it exposes a layer of tenderness that the world may or may not treat with care.

"We are all worthy of one another"

This quote, from Caldonia to Louis, was mentioned a few times in the book, and it really stood out to me, even as a possible theme of the novel. We are neither all good nor all evil. Regardless of experience or station in life, we are all human. We are all worthy of one another.

This makes me think, too, of how Jones seemed to indict not whites or slaveholders but slavery in general. It tainted everyone it touched. It corrupted slaveholders, even those who intended to be fair masters. It caused slaves to lie, cheat and bully each other, to betray each other for their own gain. Even people like Sheriff Skiffington, who made a decision not to participate in slavery, found himself hunting down runaway slaves and returning the "property" to its owner. There are good intentions but very little that is pure and good.

"Henry had always said that he wanted to be a better master than any white man he had ever known. He did not understand that the kind of world he wanted to create was doomed before he had even spoken the first syllable of the word master."

"Middlesex" and "The Known World"

One reason I wanted to read "The Known World" was a review that compared it to "Middlesex," as another epic family story, a "great American novel." The two novels won the Pulitzer Prize in succession.

Do you see similarities between the two?

Alice

What did you make of Alice? Was she crazy? Or was she just pretending to be crazy to gain a little extra freedom? Why did she hide her artist talent until she was free?

Writing style

The novel is written in an unusual style: changing point-of-view right and left, jumping back and forth in chronology, including elaborate back stories for the characters, as well as their future fates. Did you enjoy this style? Or find it hard to follow? Could you keep the characters straight? And what did you think of all the fake "historical" data that Jones included about Manchester County? Did that help the story?

The premise

The hook of "The Known World," what makes it an unusual slavery novel, is that the slave owners are free blacks. I was intrigued by the idea, especially knowing that the slave master's parents -- who had worked hard to buy their son's freedom -- were horrified and angry that he would now be owning his own slaves.

As I was reading, I kept forgetting that Henry and Caldonia were black. I was picturing white people in some scenes, which I suppose is just because that's the traditional image of slave owners on the plantation.

Did you have that problem? Had you known before that some free blacks owned slaves before the Civil War? What do you think Jones' message is about slavery?

Kim's pick

I thought this would be a good summer read: "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith — a coming-of age novel written in late 1940s Britain. Maybe we can start discussing on June 9?