Henk's Reviews > James

Winner of the National Book Award 2024 for fiction and winner of the Pullitzer Prize! 🏆
Deservedly shortlisted for the Booker prize 2024, one of the clearly stronger books on the list.
Telling hard truths about racism, identity and slavery by reimagining the classic adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Not the typical fun and wit Everett normally offers but an important book
Maybe you won’t be a slave, but you won’t be free

Rape, whipping, breeding farms, influence of monetary interest on morality, radicalisation, the blurb for this book highlighting funny doesn’t really fit or do justice to James.

Definitely this book is excellently written, but Percival Everett his reimagined The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, focused on James (“Jim” in the original) is a great, yet not an easy read. With imagined conversations with philosophers, a deeper relationship between Huckleberry and Jim and clear eyed depictions of the barbarity of slavery, it’s at times almost grim, even though there are glimpses of hope near the end.
Everett asks the reader to think hard about the lasting consequences of slavery in modern society.

James transforms throughout the book from the imagined Jim, who uses incorrect grammar and belief in witches to appease and lull white people in a false sense of superiority, to a leader of his people. More than a journey along the Mississippi, this book focusses on that journey of identity. Characters like Norman, and a enslaved man who is flogged for a pencil, further this journey, while Huckleberry Finn is rather ancillary, despite the connection between the two characters, while Everett situates the book at the start of the Civil War. It is made very clear that this war will not solve all the problems of James and his people, despite all the good intentions, and the further I got in the book, the more I got the feeling the author also comments our current day world and the injustice that still prevails even now in society. One of the more funny, if tragic at the same time, later sections of the book is when James is picked up by a slightly more enlightened minstrel company. Hypocrisy and black face feature prominently and seem to comment that even after the war things won't materially improve for black people.

James is a remarkably nuanced book, with both black and white characters making morally ambiguous (to downright reprehensible) decisions.
Very well written and confronting a difficult topic clear-eyed, James is definitely one of the standouts of the Booker prize 2024 list.

Quotes:
He is going to get drunk now, not so much because he can, but because we can’t, I said.

All white men look alike in a way, like bears, like bees, especially when they’re dead.

2024 Booker prize personal ranking, shortlisted books in bold:
1. Held (4.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2. Playground (4.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3. James (4*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4. Wandering Stars (4*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
5. Headshot (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
6. The Safekeep (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
7. My Friends (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
8. Stone Yard Devotional (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
9. This Strange and Eventful History (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10. Creation Lake (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
11. Enlightenment (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
12. Orbital (2.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
13. Wild Houses (2.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...