James by Percival Everett
Several people in our book group at Grand Living recommended
this book, including my wife. It is a quick and enjoyable read, especially if
you remember a little bit of your reading of Huckleberry Finn a long
time ago. James re-imagines that
book with Jim as the main character. He becomes a James who develops into a man
of intelligence and courage as he struggles to search out the meaning of friendship,
how to become a father to Huck, and how to find his wife and family, who have
been sold off to another owner after he has been declared a runaway.
Jim finds the world he needs to become “James” by sneaking
into Judge Thatcher’s office and learning to read by studying the books he found
there. The power of the word is made clear. As he says, “If I could see the
words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t
even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them.” The impact of this was completely subversive.
The dialect of the original is deftly
satirized so that as Jim finds his voice, he learns to speak “white” when
necessary, which confounds most of the whites he encounters.
Whole chapters are chock-full
of sardonic humor, as when Huck and Jim meet a Minstrel company and end up with
Jim being blacked up to impersonate a white man who is impersonating a black
man. A bit later on, Jim teams up with a light-colored negro to work a wild
confidence game. The light-skinned negro impersonates a white man and sells Jim
as a slave. As soon as the money is collected, Jim promptly escapes. One
memorable quote comes to mind here. “After
being cruel, the most notable white attribute was gullibility.”
The good humor and satire never allow you to escape the physical
and sexual violence that accompanied slavery. The rope and whip are never far
away. Virtually every black back carries the scars of bloody stripes and the rape
of a black woman by her owner is given a terrifying treatment. Throughout the book, you are encouraged to
think about what it means to be a slave and how not having freedom can destroy
the soul of both the free and the enslaved. It is a fascinating companion to
the original classic.
I give it a 5 out of 5.
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