I just finished reading Percival Everett’s “reimagining” of the character of Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. To give the book its due in its own terms, I reread Huck Finn immediately before beginning “James.”

Mark Twain left much room for the character of Jim to be developed. But through Mr. Twain’s storytelling, we know more than a few pertinent details about Jim. We know that Jim is smart, caring and careful, self-aware and astute. He willing to do what he must to keep himself, and Huck, safe, regardless of what indignities he must suffer. We come to know Jim as a good man, his status of independence, or lack thereof, notwithstanding. What we don’t know are the details of how he moves through his life once he becomes a “runaway.”

Jim didn’t need the trappings of 21st century mindset to justify how he felt about his experiences. To be a good man in spite of the life he was forced into was enough. It is not a stretch to think that Jim would have been able to read. Perhaps even to write, but that takes a willingness to give his society some leeway in how his time is spent. Born into slavery, learning to read would have been doable but nonetheless a mighty tall task for an enslaved man.

Reading at the level that James was able to read asks the reader to accept a suspension of believability. While it’s not unheard of for someone to reach past what is before them, reading with full comprehension of philosophical books goes far beyond that. And then to converse on that level when none of his peers is able to is completely unbelievable. To be fluent in a language, whether it is foreign or of specific jargon, requires conversational use regularly. No one in James’ world filled that particular space.

The reinvention doesn’t stop with James’ behaviors. There are major divergences from the original story of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Of course, the focus of the story was going to change. But to alter major plot points from the original is to create a whole different story.

There are notable interactions throughout the adventure that just don’t take place in the story of James. It was through those interactions that we were shown the type of man Jim was. Without them, knowing James becomes more stilted, less casual. He stops being an enslaved man in pre-Civil War America and becomes a man with modern day sensibilities. That change in character denies the truth of his existence.

Jim was an enslaved man who lived his life as best he could, holding onto the best parts of himself in defiance of what the world was doing to him. We don’t need to see his anger, we know it’s there just below the surface. We also understand why he keeps it in check. He is a man choosing to live a life of great risk. The greatest risk for a man in his position. Taking out revenge, for any wrongdoing, is wasted, and supremely risky, behavior.

Jim sets out on his adventure with one purpose, to escape and reunite with his family. On the surface that reads as two purposes. But reuniting with his family is escape. One doesn’t exist without the other. For him to circle back for any reason other than to serve that purpose is self-defeating. The saving of Huck as opposed to his enslaved friend defines that. Family is the reason. The purpose.

Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the mid-1800’s. It wasn’t published until after the Civil War, but the story very much takes place long before the war, long before war was even a possibility. But in James, Huck and James meet up with a young soldier on his way to the front lines, it is assumed. Huck even voices a desire to join and fight on the side of the North. Mr. Everrett has taken story and advanced their experience to decades later but left them the original ages.

It was over 50 years between my two readings of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The way I felt reading it the first time was decidedly different than how I felt reading it the second time. Not only did my personal response emanate from a different place in my heart, but my political sensibilities had also evolved to the point where the frequent reading of the n word required a suspension of those sensibilities.

The Jim from my youth and from my advanced age is the same man. I trusted him to be who he was, to do what he did with authenticity and truth. I understood him and how he came to be who he was. I don’t know James. He is man out of his element, out of his time. He stands far above his peers in his own eyes. Jim knew enough to understand that he and his peers were one in the same.