The slave’s story: James, by Percival Everett, reviewed

Rereading The Adventures of Huckle-berry Finn can be a saddening experience. It’s not just the oft-repeated n-word that jolts, then pains, then twinges; it’s the ‘no sah’, ‘I’s agwyne to’ locutions of Huck’s companion, the runaway slave Jim. In retelling the celebrated adventure story in Jim’s own voice, Percival Everett upends the convention. James and his fellow slaves can speak perfectly good English between themselves. It’s only when white folks are around that they perform blackness. Whether two slaves out of the earshot of whites would discuss if a situation represents ‘an example of proleptic irony or dramatic irony’ is another matter.

Huck Finn is one of the great voices in all literature – coarse, honest, bewildered, innocent, moral, and hilarious without intending to be. Everett doesn’t even try to reflect this in a narrative that’s more about action and anger than atmosphere. He couldn’t in any case rival the knowledge of the Mississippi of the man who took his pen-name from a river pilot’s cry. When a steamboat smashes the pair’s raft, Huck says: ‘I dived – and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a 30ft wheel had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room.’ No point touching up a passage like that.

In Huckleberry, Jim and other slaves are superstitious and gullible, easy to tease and amaze. In James, this is another pretence; white people must always be made to feel intellectually superior. The novel is plotted fairly tightly on the original text, but during their journey downriver the two fugitives are separated several times. It’s when filling in these episodes that Everett’s retelling comes alive.