The Known World - Monday, September 20, 2004
Earlier this year, I was delighted to hear from one of my friends from Stanford. This particular friend happens to be one of the most well read brother’s I’ve ever met. While we were undergraduate students at Stanford, he used to engage in public debates with Stanford professors and other ‘intellectuals’. The wildest thing is, this dude used to WIN! He’s currently a lawyer residing in New York and he gave me a holla..
Hey D…man, I got the link to servinemup.com the other day and once I started reading it, I had to close the door to my office because I was laughing so hard!. You have an interesting style of writing…it’s not bad..for a techie. I’ve been reading this book by Edward P. Jones called The Known World, you should check it out..your styles are somewhat similar.
That part he put in, ‘Not bad..for a techie’..is a reference to a Stanford division that most of the world may not be privy too. You see, at Stanford, they have these different classifications of students. Those who are in the technical world…engineers, mathematicians, physicist and the like..these students are called ‘techies’. These are the students grinding out problem sets and design projects in Terman Engineering building, the Physics tank or the computer lab. Of course, I was a techie.
The opposite to techies, are called ‘fuzzies’. Whenever you see those pictures of Stanford, or ‘The Farm’ as it’s commonly called, and you see those folks hanging out on the lawn, reading a book in the sun, playing hacky sack or just dozing..those are normally the fuzzies. The English Lit majors, Art History, Political Science..you know, all those literate ‘cultured’ folks who speak and write very well? Those are fuzzies. Since I was a devout techie and he was a fuzzie, we often tease each other whenever we have the chance.
Of course I replied and thanked him for checking out servinemup.com, but I also took it a step further, because as much as I respected this fuzzy friend of mine, I knew that when it came to books and the world of literature, his knowledge is eons past mine. So I took note of the name and went to the bookstore in search of this ‘Edward P. Jones’..whoever that is..right?
Comes to find out that Edward P. Jones is a writer who has won numerous awards and who recently wrote his 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning 1st novel, The Known World. They didn’t have it in paper back yet, so instead I purchased another book by Edward P. Jones called Lost In the City: A Collection of Short Stories.
After I read Lost in the City, I knew Edward P. Jones was my kinda brother. I could feel him. So after I finished Lost in the City, I then went back and got the The Known World..and let me tell ya’ll, it’s so rich, deep and compassionate, that it will pull your wig back. It’s a novel set during Reconstruction in America and it follows the tales of a black slave owner in Virginia. That’s right..some free black folks were slave masters too, not just white folks. This phenomena in itself was not foreign to me, because my grandfather, who was born at the turn of the century, had often told us about black folks who owned black folks in Arkansas, so I already knew it to be a real thing.
But when you pick up brother Jones book and start getting into it, you’ll feel a compassion for the reality of the human condition that will make you realize that this is not your ordinary run of the mill novel. Edward P. Jones really knows how to tell a story ya’ll..and I must admit, once I read these works of his, it made me have a moment of hesitancy about my own work. You know, me being a techie and all, sometimes I feel like a baldheaded black stepchild that’s playing in them white folks yard when he’s not supposed to, when it comes to writing. None of my training was in the world of the written word..I was always doing problems sets, writing computer programs and using calculators all through college. But now that I have discovered my own literary voice, I have to work that much harder to catch up to the curve and do all I can to improve my grammar, my sentence structure..my prose.
But as much respect I have for all of these ‘fuzzies’ that have been in the writing game since Methuselah was a pup, I know that I have my own unique style and flow and I belong in the world of written expression of the human condition just as much as the next n’ga. Because when you get down to it, fiction writing comes down to telling a story that will make the reader feel like they’re experiencing the scenes along with the characters. You gotta make em feel ya baby.
Now as far as the similitude’s between D.E. Washington and Edward P. Jones, I believe my friend was remarking on both of our frequent use of Biblical passages and references. There’s a way of putting that ‘real’ into fiction that will let the reader know that the writer has spent some time studying the Word. You gotta give God His glory ya’ll, He’s more than worthy.
My wife ran across an announcement in the newspaper for Edward P. Jones appearing here in Houston…
Oooh baby look, your boy is going to be here.
My boy???
Edward P. Jones.
Oh really??!! When? Where??
He’s going to be at the Alley Theatre this Monday.
It’s not too often that you get to see Pulitzer Prize winners in person, especially 1st time novelist who won the prize, so of course, I was there!
Mr. Jones read a couple of passages from his novel and then he had a roundtable discussion with Charles H. Rowell, a Professor of English at Texas A&M University and the editor of Callaloo, a premier Journal of African Diaspora Arts and letters based in College Station at Texas A&M University. It felt good to see two highly intelligent and literate brothers, discussing Mr. Jones book before an auditorium of a couple of hundred folks. The best part was that this wasn’t something confined and regulated to the Mahogany or Black section of the bookstore, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly predominately white audience.
Due to the large line of folks waiting to get their books signed, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Mr. Jones extensively like I wanted to, because I had a LOT of questions. But he did so graciously sign my copies of The Known World as well as Lost in the City. So for all of ya’ll who are ready to break away into another world, I strongly encourage you to check out brother Jones’ work. He’s a wonderful storyteller who blends the mysticism of reality with the freedom of fiction that will draw the reader into his world, or rather I should say..The Known World.
“He was a handsome man,” she said of Augustus. “ I never leaned toward exaggeration,” she said to Anderson. “So when I say he was a handsome man, he was indeed. Henry was too, but he never got old enough to lose that boyish façade colored men have before they settle into being handsome and unafraid, before they learn that their death is as near as a shadow and go about living their lives accordingly. When they learn that, they become more beautiful than even God would imagine, Mr. Frazier.”
– excerpts from The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
Edward P. Jones won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award for his debut collection of short stories, Lost in the City. A recipient of the Lannan Foundation Grant and a Lannan Literary Award, Mr. Jones resides in Washington, D. C. The Known World – winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the National Books Award- is his first novel.
