Uploaded August 2024 | Updated September 2026, 6 days ago
Percival Everett's 'James' is fast-paced and never boring, but too straightforward. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2025. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.
6 or 7/10
James: When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Thanks for watching, and remember: Huckleberry Finn is a children’s book?
#pulitzerprize #bookerprize #bookerprize2024 #booktube #booktuber #percivaleverett #huckleberryfinn
Percival Everett's 'James' is fast-paced and never boring, but too straightforward. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2025. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024.
6 or 7/10
James: When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Thanks for watching, and remember: Huckleberry Finn is a children’s book?
#pulitzerprize #bookerprize #bookerprize2024 #booktube #booktuber #percivaleverett #huckleberryfinn
