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Book Review
By Derryll White
Everett, Percival (2024). James – A Novel.
Percival Everett is an accomplished author with an impressive list of books and awards to his credit. In ‘James’ he resurrects Samuel Clemens’ [Mark Twain] characters Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and Jim (James Golightly) the slave.
‘James’ is a remarkable novel that explores the boundaries of freedom, the fit between slavery and white entitlement. It is somewhat allegorical right now with the chains of Donald Trump’s power reaching out for all of us. But the core dialogue of this story is even meaner than that, exploring the roots of suppression and oppression that all people without power feel. Jim in this novel is the ultimate manifestation of that oppression, but he is also the definition of what freedom can be, of what is possible – with action.
Like Samuel Clemens, Percival Everett moves everything towards a possible better place. He is very specific in showing that it is not easy, but encourages that it is possible. We all need to keep that in mind in the coming days and remember that Jim’s transformation is only made possible by personal action.
Read this book.
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Excerpts from the novel:
A SLAVE – I could see books in front of me. I had read them secretly, but this time, in this fever dream, I was able to read without fear of being discovered. I had wondered every time I sneaked in there what white people would do to a slave who had learned how to read. What would they do to a slave who had taught the other slaves to read? What would they do to a slave who knew what a hypotenuse was, what irony meant, how retribution was spelled?
HOPE – She laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“I don’t know. Hope? Hope is funny. Hope is not a plan. Actually, it’s just a trick. A ruse.” She stretched the se of that word, as if enjoying the sound of it. “You’re looking at this hand while the other is shoving a stick up your ass. A pointy stick. You think they want you because you can carry a load. You think they want you because you can hammer a nail. They want you because you’re money.”
“What?”
You’re mortgaged, Jim. Like a farm, like a house. Really, the bank owns you. Miss Watson gets a bond, a piece of paper that say what you’re worth, and you just keep living in this condition. Living. You’re a part of the bank’s assets, and so people all over the world are making money off your scarred black hide. Make sense? Nobody wants you free.”
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
