I don't remember much about reading Twain's 'Finn' almost twenty years ago. Upon looking up my notes on it, my main takeaway was that "Twain didn't really know what to do with Jim." As soon as I heard the great Percival Everett was going to take on the book from Jim's point-of-view, I knew it would be a winner for him. It automatically went on way too high of a pedestal before it was even released. Upon reading 'James', I'm a bit disappointed. Sure, I have only read a couple Everett's books, but Everett is a genius. This seemed more like a recap of Twain's book with the occasional genius sentence that I expect from Everett sprinkled throughout. I get that Twain's original work is an adventure novel, but I'm not sure why Everett had to lean so heavy in focusing on plot. The entire point is that James is more layered than he is allowed to let the surrounding white folk around him know. And I realize James can not be spouting references to modern day things, but I did expect this narrative to be more layered. Why can't James have an even larger interior wisdom that at least the reader gets to witness, as the way the book is written, James is writing things down, rather than allowing most of the characters around him to see that he is subverting expectations based on race? Then I was sad about some of the choices in the end of the book. Possibly re-reading the source material would have helped me here. I think also, this is Everett's move to a big publisher. Hopefully that means his backlist of 30+ books will be republished and easier to find? I can wish.But also, I hope this isn't less amazingness from Percival Everett that we get, just because he moved to a big publisher. Maybe more plot based books now? It's funny how that might be mirroring one of the purposes of the book 'James' in the first place. But really, I think a reply to Twain's 'Huck' was needed, and I think Everett was one of the rare writers who could do it. ( )

“Belief has nothing to do with truth.”

This book takes the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and turns it upside down and inside out! (I kinda wish I had re-read the original before I read this...) It does sag a little in the middle, but it is well worth the read! Telling the story from Jim's point of view, and the reality of a slave's life at the time is just amazing! The slaves change in diction when white people are around is brilliant! And teaching the children how to speak proper ‘slave’ talk around the whites is even better!

And this is not the Jim you grew up with! This Jim has “…imagined conversations with Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke about slavery, race and, of all things, albinism.”

And that big twist at the beginning of Part Three! Whooeee!!! And Chapter Seven of Part Three is awesome! It just gets better from there!

“I am a sign. I am your future. I am James.”

“Just James.” ( )

Here is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and because it's by Percival Everett, you already know it's going to be good. This novel is in the form of a diary kept by James, known as Jim in the originating novel. When James finds out he is to be sold, he runs, unwilling to lose his family. He is soon joined by Huck, who is running away for his own reasons and they set out together to journey down the Mississippi River to where it joins the Ohio, which is where James plans to head north. As they travel, they face many dangers and are often separated, but always the dangers that James faces are magnitudes higher, as is made clear, over and over again.

How strange a world, how strange an existence, that one's equal must argue for one's equality, that one's equal must hold a station that allows airing of that argument, that one cannot make that argument for oneself, that premises of said argument must be vetted by those equals who do not agree.

Everett makes the horrors of slavery clear, but like he did in The Trees, there is also humor. This is, after all, an adventure story, with the episodic structure of that genre. James is well-read, having used Judge Thatcher's library for years and, like the other enslaved people, he uses the dialect expected of him around white people, but among others like him, he is free to speak the way he wants, a secret language switching that Huck occasionally catches him at. His odd friendship with Huck is wonderfully developed. This is the best book I have read so far this year and I will be surprised if anything surpasses it. It's an extraordinary achievement from one of our greatest living writers. ( )

James is not retelling the story of Huckleberry Finn. It is the story of James, the enslaved man who fled before he was sold away from his wife and daughter. He assists Huck Finn in his attempt to escape his violent, abusive father. The two hide out on a nearby island and eventually take to the river to head for the free states up north.

Along the way, they encounter many of the same adventures in Mark Twain’s seminal book, but Percival Everett tells us James’ story. His frame of reference is radically different from Huck’s. Despite the violence and the threat of violence, this is a compassionate story full of love and empathy.

James is not Jim. James is an educated man who debates philosophers in his dreams. He is the code-switcher par excellence hiding his true self from the white people who lack the imagination to recognize an educated Black man in their midst. James is at times humorous and other times heartbreaking, He meets all kinds on his trip on the river and plays many roles. He faces white violence more than once. Even when rescued by a group of white men, it was for their benefit as they recruited him to pretend to be a white man playing a Black man. The supposed kindness of the white minstrel troupe was revealed to be less than skin deep when James and another Black man pretending to be a white man made up as a Black man try to leave. This feels farcical on its face, but it exposes the expediency of white supremacy in the actions of self-proclaimed good guys. In another tragically comic scene, James is trapped in the boiler room of a steam ship with a Black man who has so internalized white supremacy that he enforces his own enslavement.



I loved James. It deserves to be a classic to be read decades from now. I presume it won’t be because it reveals the ugliness of white supremacy too closely. That won’t be the reason people cite, they will object to the use of a racist epithet, but the true ugliness in the book is found in the people who enslaved Jim and his family, the conmen who exploited him, the slavehunters who pursued him, and even Huck who disavows him.

The story is engaging and fast-paced. I started it before going to bed and just stayed up until I finished because I could not put it down. So fair warning, be sure you have time to read it when you start it.

James at Doubleday | Penguin Random House
Percival Everett on Wikipedia
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2024/05/29/james-by-percival-everett... ( )