Percival Everett takes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and gives Huck’s companion, Jim, the titular role in this poignant retelling.
The story begins almost exactly as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn does, with Huck and his friend Tom trying to play a prank on Jim. While in Huckleberry Finn we get a version of Jim as seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Huck, in this version we get to see Jim from every angle: the slave, the man, the runaway, the father, the friend, the protector.
One of the first things we learn in this retelling is that Jim and the other slaves have developed a way of managing their white masters. They purposely talk and act like creatures of lesser wit in order to seem ineffectual. Dissimulation helps the slaves stay on their good graces and keeps them protected from their savage treatment. We learn that Jim not only can speak in perfectly clear English, but he can also read. When he gives it a try, he finds that he can also write.
Jim is an academic with an interest in philosophy and has devoured books by the likes of Voltaire. When he and Huck set off on down the Mississippi river towards Illinois, where a life of freedom awaits them both, we see the journey those of us who read Huck’s account are familiar with. However, while Huck’s tale was laden with satire and seen through a filter of innocence, in James we are encountered with the hard truths of Jim’s reality.
Jim is at every moment afraid for his life, fully aware that being caught can mean death. He runs into several characters all of whom use Jim as it best suits their needs. At one point Jim acquires the help of some fellow slaves, but when one of them gets caught and blamed, Jim witnesses the punishment that ends fatally for the slave.
One thing that kept going through my mind while I read was how sure I felt that Mark Twain would throw his full seal of approval at this novel. I would even say that he’d be glad that a point in time finally came when someone was able to tell Jim’s story (and win a Pulitzer for it!) and not have to hide it through the veil of a white child’s eyes.
The narrative in James is simple—it’s easy to follow and absorb, but that doesn’t mean that the context is simple. Every turn of the page is filled with nuance and layers of depth that touch on what it means to be a free man, to seek one’s own freedom. It questions why anyone should get a say in anyone else’s freedom, and it touches on what it is meant when someone is self-made.
James is a story that will envelop you with its charismatic main character, and will keep tugging you along as you see the world as James saw it: without filters, with heavy truth but with so much endless hope and courage.