Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Known World

Oprah calls this book the best one she's read in ten years (I was watching her do an interview with the author when I was about halfway through reading it myself.) It is a Pulitzer Prize winning book that was apparently written when the author was fired. Perhaps it's time for me to get fired from something!!! Who knew it could end up going so well?

Fern Elston: "We, not a single one of us Negroes, would have done what we were not allowed to do." (God and the law)

This book is just sad. One sad thing after another happens. What startled me the most was the idea of Black slave owners. Not something I had thought about before. It is also a book that points out with force how following along with law and religion is so far away from being enough. Conscience must require more from us.

Oprah seems to be reading my mind lately. First she does a show with Edward Jones talking about writing The Known World the day after I started reading it, and then I see a show about rape survivors right as I started reading Lucky. Odd.

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