Jerry’s Reviews > James > Status Update

From early on, I've had a kind of "Forrest Gump" feel about the book. Mark Twain's characters. A minstrel show. Now, apparently, the Civil War has started. And a plot twist that's both a bit much and totally plausible at the same time.

I didn't realize "Jim Crow" comes from 1820s-ish minstrel shows nor that it's actually stolen from a slave song. Everett weaves this into the story with a traveling minstrels buying Jim for his tenor voice. Then blackface.

Meantime, story arc is treading between slave states & "free" states, while noting runaway slaves weren't free in "free" states.

Seems to give a perspective of views in the era, foreign to today.

Well, the story's certainly had some interesting twists.

Jim & Huck get separated; then happen to come back together. Parts of the story seem a little too convenient. Tho there haven't been any real famous people, somehow the story has a bit of a Forrest Gump feel.

However, I must say I like a couple lines:
"...the tidiness of lies..." regarding how people justify things, and
"I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim."

Well, Jim is a slave who runs away to avoid being sold, without his family. Huck find him on an island they end up going downriver together.

It reads nicely and the chapters are short. But I'm not sure I'm fond of the fanfiction nature of the book. Though it does give a personal flavor to a slave's experience, I suspect it's not the only book to do so. At least it's an undercurrent and not too heavy-handed.

It’s a Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Jim story.