#literature

James by Percival Everett

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'James' Author Percival Everett on Freedom, Violence, and the Lure of ...Ok, what am I reading right now?  I wanted to explore humorous novels, after all summer is near, so chillin’ in the hammock with some chuckles, ideal. Let’s start with the ever unreliable – “Hey Siri, what are the funniest books ever written.”  She gave me a list with “James “by Percival Everett on, but WTF – slavery is not funny. You’re fired Apple Irish voice. However, I’m glad James popped up because it’s a great read and it brought back many education journey memories.

The novel is based on “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” written in 1884 by Mark Twain, the ex-river boat pilot. However, the new version is written from James’ (the new Jim) perspective. Both follow his escape from Miss Watson because she is about to sell him down the river. Literally, to New Orleans. They must escape and make some money to buy freedom for their family and move to Illinois, a free state.

“James,” the re-creation, is amazing. His vocabulary when speaking with other slaves is right out of Oxford (not the Faulkner home), but when talking to white folk, he plays slave – “Mos’ peoples likes money mo’ ’n anythin’ else. White folks, anyways”.  He’s also a proficient reader, writer and teacher. And why not? Who’s to say he couldn’t.  I love this take.

The  first escape  is to Jackson’s Island where he meets up with Huck.  The boy fakes his death to escape the violence from his drunk and abusive father, Pap Finn, just like in the original. From here Jim and Huck make a raft and head up the river to freedom in the north. While travelling, James pens intriguing passages about his situation, until he loses his pencil.

Both novels take place in Southern antebellum society before the civil war, giving an accurate and terrifying portrait of slave life in the United States.  However, the lynching scene differs. In “James” it takes place over a stolen pencil and it’s an accused slave who is murdered by a gang of white assholes.  However, in Twain’s novel, Colonel Sherburn, a white dude and a wealthy shop owner, challenges and calls out the mob gathered to lynch him after he shoots town drunk Boggs.  When I first read “Huckleberry Finn,” this scene had me in tears of anger.

I also loved Norman – the light skinned companion who passes as a white dude (not in the original – even Twain could’ve imagined this situation). The ending of the novels is slightly different.  In the original Jim is freed by Miss Watson but loses it to help Tom Sawyer (a prick), after he’s shot, but finally his freedom is secured. Huck then “lights out for the Territory.”  Whereas in “James,” we have fireworks, but hope (not too much spoiler here).

I read the Twain novel just as I started my university journey. My first English class was  American Literature with Gary Frame, the best teacher I ever had. I always felt sorry that poor guy because he put up with an overly zealous student who waited outside his door almost every day to ask questions. I’m sure as he walked back to his office, saw me he said, “Oh shit not again.” He surely wanted to light out for the Territory.

I loved “James” and I’m sure if Gary Frame were still teaching, the novel would be on his syllabus. I remember almost every book I read in that class.  Ok, time to re-read “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch,” but no recreation here.

A Letter to America

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Maybe it’s time for a little reminder, America before you march cross the 49th parallel. I’ll say one thing for trump, he’s brought this country together like never before. Even the Quebecois are championing Canada.  Do you know how hard that is? We’ve  been trying to get the French onboard for 157 years. Here’s a a little reminder from Margaret Atwood, a Canadian treasure.

Dear America: This is a difficult letter to write, because I’m no longer sure who you are. Some of you may be having the same trouble. I thought I knew you: We’d become well acquainted over the past 55 years. You were the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books I read in the late 1940s. You were the radio shows — Jack Benny, Our Miss Brooks.You were the music I sang and danced to: the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, the Platters, Elvis. You were a ton of fun.

You wrote some of my favourite books. You created Huckleberry Finn, and Hawkeye, and Beth and Jo in Little Women, courageous in their different ways. Later, you were my beloved Thoreau, father of environmentalism, witness to individual conscience; and Walt Whitman, singer of the great Republic; and Emily Dickinson, keeper of the private soul. You were Hammett and Chandler, heroic walkers of mean streets; even later, you were the amazing trio, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, who traced the dark labyrinths of your hidden heart. You were Sinclair Lewis and Arthur Miller, who, with their own American idealism, went after the sham in you, because they thought you could do better. You were Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, you were Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo, you were Lillian Gish in Night of the Hunter. You stood up for freedom, honesty and justice; you protected the innocent. I believed most of that. I think you did, too. It seemed true at the time.

You put God on the money, though, even then. You had a way of thinking that the things of Caesar were the same as the things of God: that gave you self-confidence. You have always wanted to be a city upon a hill, a light to all nations, and for a while you were. Give me your tired, your poor, you sang, and for a while you meant it. We’ve always been close, you and us. History, that old entangler, has twisted us together since the early 17th century. Some of us used to be you; some of us want to be you; some of you used to be us. You are not only our neighbours: In many cases — mine, for instance — you are also our blood relations, our colleagues, and our personal friends. But although we’ve had a ringside seat, we’ve never understood you completely, up here north of the 49th parallel.

We’re like Romanized Gauls — look like Romans, dress like Romans, but aren’t Romans —  peering over the wall at the real Romans. What are they doing? Why? What are they doing now? Why is the haruspex eyeballing the sheep’s liver? Why is the soothsayer wholesaling the Bewares?

Perhaps that’s been my difficulty in writing you this letter: I’m not sure I know what’s really going on. Anyway, you have a huge posse of experienced entrail-sifters who do nothing but analyze your every vein and lobe. What can I tell you about yourself that you don’t already know?

This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment, brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more likely to be embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother — from a New England background — was confronted with an unsavoury topic, she would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my own inclination: Mind your own business.

But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage, many lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading partner: We know perfectly well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you. We have every reason to wish you well.

You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn’t this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation, and fraud? I know you’ve been told all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t used to be easily frightened.

You’re running up a record level of debt. Keep spending at this rate and pretty soon you won’t be able to afford any big military adventures. Either that or you’ll go the way of the USSR: lots of tanks, but no air conditioning. That will make folks very cross. They’ll be even crosser when they can’t take a shower because your short-sighted bulldozing of environmental protections has dirtied most of the water and dried up the rest. Then things will get hot and dirty indeed.

You’re torching the American economy. How soon before the answer to that will be, not to produce anything yourselves, but to grab stuff other people produce, at gunboat-diplomacy prices? Is the world going to consist of a few megarich King Midases, with the rest being serfs, both inside and outside your country? Will the biggest business sector in the United States be the prison system? Let’s hope not.

If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve fouled your own nest.

The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a cave, it was said; in the country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You, too, have great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women of courage, of conscience, of prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you. You need them.

The letter was posted in The Globe and Mail on, 28 March 2003.  The letter was penned while  George W Bush as president. Man he looks good now, eh? I removed the paragraph about the Iraqi war, but we’re in another war, n’est-ce pas?

Thursday Murder Club – A Book Review

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Yes, I’ve started a new book. The mystery never ends.  The novel is the first in a very successful mystery series by Richard Osman (four at last count).  The stories revolve around a group of  grey-haired sleuths  who live in a retirement home in Kent, England.  I mean what else do you do when you retire? Screw knitting, right?

In this novel, a dude is murdered in his home, smacked over the head with a blunt object. Beside the dead body is a picture of two other dudes with a ton of cash surrounding them.  How did the picture get there? And who took it?

A  group of seniors are on the prowl, lead by Elizabeth with her suspicious police and government connections.  She also clandestinely worked outside the Isles in her past. Holy MI-5 or 6  Batman (we are not totally sure which agency  – as any good spy would nurture).  Next is Joyce, a kindly old chatter box. She worked as a nurse, previously. We have journal entries from her, exposing  information about the murders but also her very humorous naivety in contemporary issues;  for example the surprise when she finds out you can send photos on your phone.  We also have Ibrahim, the psychologist and Ron, an ex-union thug to round out the club. A very interesting and diverse group.

On the cop side we have Donna, who left the London Met due to a romantic spurn  and Chris the overweight, junk-food addict who can’t seem to get his physical being on the right track. Donna is starting at the bottom of the police pecking order in Kent; she was higher up in London, so the reboot is difficult. There is a love / hate relationship with the two groups, but the amount of information Elizabeth gleans assists the police enormously. Both coppers see (however grudgingly) the  benefits an ex MI-6 or 5  agent brings to the table.

Then we have another murder, Ian Ventham, a pure asshole who only cares about financial gains. He’s murdered during a protest at the Cooper’s Chase retirement home.  He leads a group of bulldozers and diggers early one morning with the intent of ripping up a century old graveyard. The senior’s protest sends a strong screw you corporate vibe.  Suspicion hangs in the air.

Excellent read – not too heavy and not too bland. I never thought a group of seniors in a retirement home for detectives, but it works well. We also have some strong social comments – loneliness and grief among our seniors. And  how shitty it is when your kids don’t visit (I’m going to call my parents right now). We are NEVER too busy, right? And memory loss, another aging issue. I learnt a very neat trick from Elizabeth who jots down a question two weeks ahead in her journal – what’s the license plate number of the car seen outside the retirement home ? In two weeks she must answer the question correctly (not sure if it’s a spook trick or senior aid). It’s a great memory test and I’m considering employment, if I remember

Then She Was Gone

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I just finished “Then She Was Gone” by Lisa Jewell. I don’t know how to categorize the book – Mystery? Thriller? Whatever the genre, I enjoyed the read, but holy darkness, Batman. We’re talking Chris Nolan cape crusader. Not for this review, but why is everything so dark these days – books, movies. What does this say about our society?

The novel is about the Mack family living a very common existence in North London, dinner parties, good grades, high school romance. Until a horror beyond horror hits the family. The family’s golden child, Ellie, is snatched. She’s gone. The action rips the family apart, creating weird broken relationships. The parents, Laurel and Paul, split up because Ellie’s mother devotes all her time to finding her favourite child. She gives up on the living family.

Then just as she’s recovering and starting to move on, she meets Floyd. They hook up in a coffee shop near her home. The new BF has a daughter who looks very familiar. But the relationship is not just good sex and nice clothes. We find that Floyd has a strange past with Ellie’s math tutor just before she was abducted or ran away from home. We aren’t sure at this point.

When she meets Floyd, we are happy because Laurel is moving on. Great. But it doesn’t take long until something doesn’t feel right. Is he a fraud? He doesn’t appears like his book sleeve photo – he’s a published maths for dummies author. It’s just not right. Then the truth falls like a cannon ball in the shallow end of a kid’s pool and darkness reigns.

And my goodness we have some weird relationships in the novel. Poppy, Floyd’s daughter will need some serious therapy for her entire life. Hanna, the not so golden child,  and her brother Jake have very difficult relationships with their mother. The daughter lives a lonely existence with a secret she cannot share with her mother. The only way Laurel can keep in contact with her estranged daughter is by cleaning her house and with that task she spies. The son lives in Devon (away from mother) with a wife who manages his life. Laurel’s  ex-husband remarries and they rarely make contact. Holy estrangement Batman.

And darkness? Holy cow, I’m not going to describe the basement and what goes on in there, but it kept me awake for nights. And the Irish monster, please, please may I never meet such a creature. Another screwed up relationship is between Floyd and his past. There’s not a skeleton in his closet, it’s an entire graveyard.

I couldn’t put the book down. Jewell is very good at making me want to burn another page. But if I may suggest, don’t read it before you go to bed and make sure you read it in a brightly lit safe place and please lock all your doors and windows.