Signifying on an American Classic

 James by Percival Everett

Percival Everett Photo Credit Department of English, Arizona State University, CC BY 3.0 

James book cover

James by Percival Everett has received unanimous praise, and it is rightly deserved. Not so much a retelling of Huckleberry Finn, but rather a reconsideration of the themes and ideas of the American novel, James reconceives the story from the perspective of James, the enslaved companion of Huckleberry Finn. Although this is a novel that deals with the brutality and violence of slavery, James’s perspective and insight into the world bring a certain level of humor and biting wit to challenge the perceptions of slavery and enslaved people. Furthermore, it is an exciting adventure and heartwarming tale of a man’s attempt to both maintain his family and identity while separated from them, yet also seek to reunite with them. One of the most entertaining parts of the book was James’s constant code switching to make white people feel better and to also kind of maintain an insight and knowledge around them. It kind of reminded me of Chief Bromden from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in that he basically maintains the stereotypes in order to gain more from it. James’s journey also reminded me of Ellison’s narrator in Invisible Man who finds that there’s not only a kind of safety in these stereotypes, but also a kind of knowledge to be gained. In fact, the engineer on the steamboat reminded me a lot of Lucius Brockway in the Liberty Paint Factory, someone who operates out of sight, but also seeks to please his white masters to maintain his position.

James details James’s flight from enslavement towards freedom, moving down the river and encountering scammers, danger, and death. Throughout the story, James seeks to keep a book and his pencil, to detail his story and his self. We also see the power of literacy, both oral and written, to not only define oneself, but also to redefine and challenge the history. In this way, James operates like the antithesis of Schoolmaster’s book in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, where definitions are written by the definers. James seeks to not only rename himself for American audiences, but also to recount and detail his story and adventures, proving that he is not a mere sidekick, but rather the unsung hero. This was a great book to read, and it made me want to revisit Huckleberry Finn as well as some of the other books from African-American Literature I’ve referenced. There were many examples and references throughout the book that, in Henry Louis Gates’s theory, signified on the traditions of African-American Literature—From Hurston’s hurricane that destroys Lake Okeechobee to DuBois’s veil of consciousness, from Morrison’s thick love to Douglass’s freedom through learning, James is a book that captures and reinvents American literature, allowing audiences to reconsider and reconceptualize the roles, history, and perspectives in literature