Emma Goto
A retelling of Huckleberry Finn, but from the POV of Huck’s companion, a slave named Jim (or as he calls himself, James).
In the original book Jim is portrayed as a bit slow, and speaks a very grammatically incorrect dialect of English (whether it’s typical or stereotypical I’m not sure). But the twist is that James chooses to play up this slave stereotype in front of white people, while secretly knowing how to read and speaks “correct” English when with his family and fellow slaves.
I hadn’t actually read Huckleberry Finn, so I got the general plot overview from Wikipedia. The book seems to hit all the major plot points, diverging to tell James’s imagined story when the pair get separated. It’s still very readable even without that added context, although I wonder if it would be more impactful having been able to read how Huck sees Jim first, before the real James.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.
A retelling of Huckleberry Finn, but from the POV of Huck’s companion, a slave named Jim (or as he calls himself, James).
In the original book Jim is portrayed as a bit slow, and speaks a very grammatically incorrect dialect of English (whether it’s typical or stereotypical I’m not sure). But the twist is that James chooses to play up this slave stereotype in front of white people, while secretly knowing how to read and speaks “correct” English when with his family and fellow slaves.
I hadn’t actually read Huckleberry Finn, so I got the general plot overview from Wikipedia. The book seems to hit all the major plot points, diverging to tell James’s imagined story when the pair get separated. It’s still very readable even without that added context, although I wonder if it would be more impactful having been able to read how Huck sees Jim first, before the real James.
Originally posted at www.emgoto.com.