The other guy on that raft is finally seen.
If you’re familiar with Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, the basis for the Cord Jefferson film American Fiction, then you’ll be ready for James, his raw, new spin on the Mark Twain classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, where this time, Nigger Jim’s perspective is boldly placed center stage.
Published last month, the acclaimed author’s latest of over thirty novels leads us down an alternate path of the antebellum period in Mississippi, where Twain’s 19th-century work is confronted head-on by Jim’s perspective. While Huckleberry Finn puts us inside the head of Huck, a barely literate thirteen-year-old who has inadvertently absorbed the bigotries of the day, in Everett’s version, we’re in the mind of Jim, an intelligent, well-read man. The events are mostly the same in both novels, but Everett’s viewpoint is completely different.
In James, Jim is not at all childish, pandering and unaware. In fact, his inner thoughts are more like those of an intellectual. In Chapter 2, for example, Jim teaches his six kids how to talk to white folks just as he does in Finn, with the language of every black character in the book: a clever code-switching act that pleases white people, a crucial tool for survival.
“White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them… The better they feel, the safer we are” or “Da mo’ betta dey feels, da mo’ safer we be”.
Huck’s vernacular remains consistent throughout both books, but Jim uses what he calls “situational translations” in James, a kind of “correct incorrect grammar” that he only applies when speaking to white people. When he talks to the reader or chats with other Black folks, his language (and the language of the other enslaved individuals) is well-spoken and follows proper grammar.
Everett doesn’t use the language to imply that the enslaved actually spoke like jargon-addicted academics. He is emphasizing, exaggerating even, how they’d intentionally act immaturely around their masters as a way to hide their intelligence and maturity, a kind of behavior common among oppressed groups throughout history. As a matter of fact, his version of Jim provides us with continuous commentary that analyzes every event in the story from a political and psychological way of thinking, a stark contrast to Twain’s Finn, where we’re inside the mind of an uneducated child who often misunderstands what’s happening around him.
James is equally as funny as it is heartrending. There’s no doubt, however, that Everett skillfully encapsulates how deceptions and plot machinations add to the humor in Twain’s novel. For instance, Huck and Jim’s dishonest antics coupled with Huck’s primitive, ignorant beliefs bring many layers of levity. But with James, it isn’t all fun and games because the language tricks play a critical role in life-and-death situations. Everett takes us on a thrilling journey filled with narrow escapes and constant danger, where survival and roleplay are going hand-in-hand. There are moments when Jim finds himself entangled in a money-making scheme orchestrated by impostors pretending to be destitute aristocrats, even sold to a minstrel troupe. And just when he pins his hopes on a risky disguise to free his family, a shipwreck throws a wrench into his plans.
The central dilemma of Twain’s novel, which has troubled readers for years, revolves around Huck’s fear of aiding Jim’s escape from enslavement. Huck believes it is immoral to help Jim, especially since he finds it shocking that Jim wants to free his family. However, Everett uses their differing perspectives to add a freshly cynical, funny outlook on their relationship while still treating the characters with compassion. There’s a moment, for example, when Huck considers joining the civil war.
“To fight in a war,” he said. “Can you imagine?”
“Would that mean facing death every day and doing what other people tell you to do?” I asked.
“I reckon.”
“Yes, Huck, I can imagine.”
Everett also redresses Jim’s journey with unconventional, gripping narratives where he engages in dream dialogues with Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and John Locke, skillfully challenging their limited understanding of human rights throughout the story. As the plot progresses, his perception of white people as his “enemy” becomes sharper with each atrocity he witnesses, the novel depicting American history as a real-life apocalypse narrated by its victims. Unlike Everett’s previous novels, The Trees, specifically, where the focus is on lynching, the sentiments in James aren’t quite as diplomatic.
“White people try to assure us that everything will be fine in heaven. But will they be there? If so, I might consider other arrangements.”
James is hilarious, spellbinding, painful and terrifying. It’s the complete package, a kind of reading enjoyment that keeps you hooked from beginning to end and can make you pause and reflect in different ways.
The prodigious Everett has done it again.
James by Percival Everett is available at all major retailers where books are sold, including the following, Black-owned bookstores:
