Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and James (Mark Twain and Percival Everett)

I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in an attempt to understand the perspective that James was written with and how the retelling takes the original but gives it another point of view. 

The base story is about a young Huckleberry Finn running away from home due to many things, but mainly an abusive father and finding Jim, a “slave” who has runaway from his “master” (my hands hesitate as to type out these words), since he is on the verge of being sold off. The two have a prior relationship and care for each other in their own ways. Together they set off - Jim in the hope of reaching a free state and Huckleberry well, for the lark. On the way, they meet characters who try to take advantage of them. In the last part of the book, Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend and protagonist of the first book written by Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, joins them. Here on, it becomes a tale of the fun the two boys have, much of it at the expense of Jim.

On the whole, the book is entertaining, though at times a difficult read due to the language used, reflective of the times. However, the last part of the book is what made me angry. The two adolescent boys, in their quest to have an adventure and to recreate great escapes from prison that they (mainly Tom) has read about in books, make Jim/ James undergo unnecessary and exasperating antics. The way they use him for their entertainment and make him do outlandish things for their fancy, made me really want to slap them. It reiterates how callous they are, how they fail to treat Jim as a human being with dignity and how it seems to be ok and actually fun to make him suffer for their entertainment.

Now coming back to James, where largely the same story is rewritten from James’ perspective. Incidents in the original book, where Tom and Huckleberry have fun at the expense of James, are narrated from the perspective of how James experienced the same. One seethes at the dehumanisation of the black community and silently fumes at the injustices that were heaped on them for generations. James teaches the black children survival tactics to deal with white fragility and how to get around it. 

We learn that James has taught himself to read but he knows how big a threat this is to the white man - a man who can read is a man who can think and there is no greater threat than that to them. He has conversations in his delirium, about ethics and morality with the greatest thinkers of the time - Voltaire for one.   

In James, we also find that gaps in the original story are filled in - there are parts in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where the boy and the “slave” get separated. What James does in those parts is not elaborated in Twain’s books, except a cursory mention. Everett fills in these gaps for us, to understand what horrors James went through in the times he was alone. We understand his struggle, see his frustration, his fear for his life and his desperation to get to his family. We also see signs of his desire to rebel, to free his people from this life and the hope that one day his daughter can walk free and equal. We are exposed to much violence and the horrors that the original glosses over or largely ignores. Twain’s book focuses on the fun the teenage Huck has and his antics and adventures and we laugh, smile and chuckle with him. James shows us the ugly side of this fun - the dehumanisation, the visceral fear, the inhuman cruelty, the desperation - and makes one disgusted in parts and really angry in others.  

The last part of Huckleberry Finn that i found most frustrating (that i have elaborated above) is largely missing in the retelling. Instead, the story takes a different turn with James going back for his family and rescuing them. However, i felt that i would have liked to know how James felt with the adolescent and uncaring behaviour of the two boys and how he handled their antics. While in the original, none of his feelings and thoughts are given any space, the retelling could have told us more about his state of mind, seeing the callous behaviour of the two boys - one of whom he had literally saved from death a number of times. 

While this book was a favourite for the Booker in 2024, it did not win the award. I think i sort of understand this. James, as a stand alone book, probably does not have merit. It depends on the original for the storyline and the characterisation (of others except James). It is not an original in that sense. But what is does beautifully and the value it adds, is by showing us the other ugly face of the same coin. Hence, it may not stand the test for the Booker prize, but it is a must read. A reading of the original book, even a cursory reading in summary, would help give more meaning to this book.