James: A Novel

James by Percival Everett is a retelling of the story of Huck Finn by James himself. Brilliant and revelatory, we see the life of James through his own eyes – eyes not shaded by prejudice or power. James runs away when he hears that he is about to be sold, determined to return for his wife and daughter once the danger has passed. He runs into Huck, who has faked his own death after being beaten by his father, and as in the original story, they build a raft and sail down river to escape the men looking for them. Some events of the original story remain – the raft, the river, the encounters with the conmen the Duke and the King, but others are replaced by scenes that reveal James’s cunning and intelligence. James is a reader and sneaks into Judge Thurber’s library to read Rosseau and Voltaire. He can write and begins recording his life story with a stolen pencil stub. Before running away, there is an ingenious scene where James is teaching the children of slaves how to speak in a way that won’t intimidate their white masters – putting all their language through a “slave filter” so their intelligence will stay under the radar of the whites. During these sessions he emphasizes that “the better they feel, the safer we are” which he has one of his fledglings translate to “da mo’bettah day feels, da mo safer we be.” Percival Everett elevates Twain’s story to a story that reveals the lived history of slaves. He empowers James with intelligence and language and agency. James is a hero who saves his wife and child and countless other slaves. A must read.

I am in awe of this book. As an ex English teacher who actually taught Huck Finn to high school juniors, I did not expect James to be the kind of book it is. It is ingenious and heartwarming and honest. Sure, it relies on the fact that James is a lot more sophisticated than he's let on, but that device serves the story. It is an action packed adventure with heart. I never read anything by Percival Everett before, but I am so glad I decided to read James. Don't get hung up on the small stuff--I'd say to readers--and just go with your heart. You will love this story.

As an alternative title, "The Pencil," works, perhaps even better than the given title, "James,” which, while better than "Tim," still underwhelms and asks no questions.

At first glance and upon guessing what the book will be about, I conjured the obvious, a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim's point of view. Wrong. Such a refabrication practically writes itself, so why bother? The author has not; his premise starts as expected but then diverges in wild ways. Some of the scenes you expect do appear—the cave, the minstrel show—but transformed and reimagined, then augmented with new scenes that have no parallels in Twain's book.

So by calling it "The Pencil," it would give away part of the book's theme: the written word, books, and writing, their importance in general and in particular to the non-free. A man dies for a pencil in this book. In Twain? Nope. Literary writers often write books about language, meta-fiction that tells a story as an afterthought—not the case here. Language is a major theme in this book, but it serves the purpose of revealing what freedom actually means and how much it costs.

New characters appear too, some just for a scene and others for longer. Huck Finn appears but disappears, too, for chapters at a time, driving a parallel sub-plot and becoming a character mirror for Jim. Huck arrives as a deus ex machina, mucks about, makes some things better and other things worse, and then disappears to reappear later. It works.

The book also echoes Greek and Roman literature, and Jim's journey feels much like that of Odysseus, but I will not reveal more.

The book gallops along, driven by an abundance of dialog that echoes historical accents but is not dialect-trodden. The author delivers the voices of their time but does not reduce the book to farce. Touches of modern language also peer through out but do not jar the story.

Recommended.

What a wonderful,impactful retelling of the Huck Finn story from the perspective and context of Jim. The writing is wonderful,the story tracks with Twain just enough to give it a literary legitimacy,but the perspective of the narrator takes it to another level. A unique and clarifying vision of the slave/master relationship and the horror of a system that reduced human beings to animals in the eyes of other humans. I have recommended it to my grandchildren.

I have to first off admit that I have in fact not read the original Tales so this story wasn’t a retelling for me. Taking place right before the civil war started, it’s as expected, a harrowing tale full of atrocities bestowed upon slaves during that time. The way it’s written though tells a beautiful story of the resilience and perseverance of the main character, James, and his will to survive and save his family. Although it’s a bleak look into life before abolition, there are some funny and quirky moments that were just executed so perfectly that it brought some light to the story. I loved the relationships forged between James and different characters throughout the story, especially Huck. For me this book was just unputdownable and brilliant. Now, on to read the originals so I can get the full experience.

This is the first book I have read by Percival Everett and it was a good one. He tells the old Huckleberry Finn story from the slave Jim's perspective. It was an exciting, sometimes a bit scary, and often funny account of Jim's running away and traveling down the mighty Mississippi River. It was hard to put down and highly recommended. I am definitely going to read more by this author.

I read a review that classified this book as a future classic. I now know exactly what the reviewer meant. I’m sitting here trying to process what I just read, and I must admit, this book shook me. It is billed as telling the story of Huck Finn from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. While it follows many elements of Huckleberry Finn, the events are seen in quite a different angle through Jim’s eyes. While the author includes humor, the story is incredibly thought provoking, as well as heart wrenching. Jim, or James, as he comes to be known, is an intelligent, loving, and brave man. A true hero. I will be thinking about this book for a long time. It was definitely worth reading.

Since reading ERASURE, this was an immediate purchase just for the concept alone.

What I especially loved about JAMES is that the humor's just as engaging as Twain's original book, but the tragedy of slavery is no less dulled for it. The CRINGE factor is huge and poignant, yet the humanity is just as vivid and hopeful as one could expect.

However, where I always had an issue with HUCKLEBERRY FINN's conclusion (felt too much like a backhanded slight on the previous book TOM SAWYER than a legitimate ending), the conclusion of JAMES is both earned, epic and entertaining (and even the "revelation" expressed that purists would complain about................it actually made sense to go that route). While not as overblown as the finale of DJANGO UNCHAINED, it's equally as vicious and personal as you could get without being distasteful.

Such a wonderful read that I'd recommend all year.

I enjoyed the book and I'm glad I read it.

It's got some shortcomings though, imo. For one it tends to overexplain things, doesn't always give the reader enough credit: "I was running because they were after me and I didn't want to get caught." Yeah, that's what running is. I was already with you on that.

The other is the whole conceit with the register the slaves operate in depending on whether or not white people are around. So they all really speak like highly educated people but just play the hambone bit as a bluff to make white people think they're stupid? It's fine if we're not going for verisimilitude here, but why does secretly adopting the speech of the dominant culture signify sophistication? That just reinscribes the dichotomy. Granted, most of the white characters use a vernacular dialect and don't use the elevated literary voice the slaves use, but it still privileges a "white" voice to make the black characters seem super smart. Weird move, and it's not subtle at all because James is constantly explaining this to the reader, which goes back to my first critique.

This book actually is paced better than Huck Finn, less digressive, so the tension is better. Huck tends to talk and talk and talk. James explains too much, but the plot still moves at a decent clip.

And one last thing. The book has taken an entire fictional landscape, characters, and plot from one of the so-called great American novels, so a lot of the imaginative work has already been done for the author here. Still a worthwhile read, although I wish I had waited to spend less money on a used paperback copy.