Play Book Tag discussion

This was a reread for my F2F book club. It remains a 5-star book. This retelling of Huck Finn hits hard. Told from Jim's POV, it becomes a book about slavery. It forces you to consider how far slavery reaches into a person's soul, whether you are enslaved or the enslaver. As a self-educated man who has had conversations in his dreams with great philosophers, Jim has a greater understanding of his place in the world and his limited choices. Even the civil war that is beginning does little to bring him hope. He certainly cannot wait for the war to possibly make him a free man. And so he becomes James. He sees the fear he can build in the enslavers, but will that be enough?

I love how this book pays homage to the power of words, both reading and writing. It made me think about my dad, who used words to make his community a better place.

At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.

I listened to this on a fabulous audio soon after it came out. My F2F book club at the library will be discussing it this week. In fact it is the Community Read for the whole city this year.

I agree about the power of words. The conceit of the enslaved people speaking perfectly and only putting on dialect in front of the "masters" isn't that far from how people really have to twist their behavior to please those who have power over you. And the importance of a pencil is so profound. The fear of what words can do is why it was famously forbidden to teach slaves to read and write.

It's unfortunate that Huckleberry Finn has gotten a bad rap for its language. The book itself makes it clear that runaway slave Jim is a much better father figure for Huck than his own drunken and violent Pappy. And Huck decides he'll risk Hell in order to help Jim, which is very powerful. James includes enough of the original to reorient us but then adds so much to it.

Excellent review. My F2F book group also read James this year. One of the best choices we had made, ever.