So coming to David F. Walker's and Marcus Kwame Anderson's Big Jim and the White Boy, I have a pretty good idea of the story it's re-telling -- now from Jim's perspective -- but I'm not so familiar that I could pinpoint all the places where the two diverge. The broad strokes? Sure, but definitely none of the details. But in point of fact, Big Jim and the White Boy is not really a retelling of Mark Twain's original. I suppose that works well enough for a one-line shorthand, but that does a huge disservice to the narrative being put out here.
Firstly, the basic narrative from the original is being told by Jim and Huck, now very, very old men. (Jim is noted as being over 100, and Huck is in his early 90s.) So the story is structured like two old men, who've been friends for a long time, are trying to tell a story together. There's side commentary and arguements about details and the casual banter you would expect between two people who've known each other for the better part of a century. Not to mention it's presented as them telling the story, so it's not strictly chronological either. This acts as a solid framing device and allows for some additional commentary on Mark Twain's approach.
Interestingly, though, this isn't the primary framing device. The group of children the two men are telling their story to includes at least one of Jim's granddaughters. And she starts bringing this story into a more 20th century context. She wonders why the social context and commentary that her grandfather is providing isn't reflected in what she's taught at school. It brings in the idea of how a child born in the 1920s might look at and understand the idea of US slavery, and the legacy of how/why they might still be treated as second-class citizens. It's through her grandfather's story that she has a direct connection to that time period. It also puts a more emotional element to the original story. She's resonding to the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a way that's more visceral that Twain's writing because it's being relayed (and corrected) by the people who actually lived it, people who she's directly related to and already has an emotional connection to. People who show up in family photo albums.
But to add another layer of interesting framing, that story is being told by the granddaughter's granddaughter, now a professor at Howard University. She relays what her grandmother told her as family history, combined with 21st century historical research. She's able to zoom out and examine the story not only as it was told by Twain and her great-great-great grandfather, but also with the findings of other historical and literary scholars who have (by now) over a century of research compiled. Plus her own research in which she is able, for example, to compare those family photos against exaggerated sketches used in period wanted posters. Her access to the body of research already done combined with her family history puts a greater context on both what had been passed down from generation to generation but also what other scholars may not have had the correct framing to understand completely.
Despite the multiple levels of framing devices and switching between them, the overall story flows very smoothly. It feels less like a book and more like a story being told to you directly with that side commentary and arguements about details and the casual banter I mentioned earlier. I think it's a really challenging approach to make work; with the constantly shifting time periods and narrators, it could be easy to lose track of where you are as a reader. But Walker and Anderson seem to have no difficulty in pulling it off. I have to imagine they had to use a hell of a lot of organization tools to keep the whole thing straight. Regardless of how they kept things straight between them, the reader clearly benefits with an almost suprisingly casual narrative.
In the original novel, Twain never expressly definted when it takes place, just some years in advance of the US Civil War. Walker decides to peg the events of the book to 1855. (Likely a little later than many people would place it so he can age the characters up into the 20th century more plausibly.) But he continues Jim and Huck's adventures beyond those of the book, following Jim's intent to find his family. This affords a nice showcase of Anderson's talents as he depicts Huck at various stages as he's growing up. He's thirteen at the start but we see him at several different points over the next sixteen years, and Walker always makes him easily identifiable, but looking slightly older each time. That's not difficult if you're shifting from thirteen to 92, but thirteen to fifteen to eighteen to twenty-six can be difficult. Particularly, I think, with Anderson's more simplified line style. Jim (and the other recurring characters) age as well, but as they're all adults to begin with the visual age shifts are less significant. Huck's growth is seen by the reader, and acts as a cue for the shifting time periods I noted above.
The book is entertaining in its own right and just a good story, indeed acting as a re-imagining of Twain's original. But it's also imbued with a message of not only why it is important to re-imagine those types of works, but how we should continue to examine what we're taught and told in any capacity. Almost a kind of hidden dissertation on why media literacy in general is important; why we need to consider who is telling these stories and why, even when they're presented as fiction to begin with.
David F. Walker's and Marcus Kwame Anderson's Big Jim and the White Boy was released last week from Ten Speed Press and should be available from most bookstores. It retails for $35.00 US in hardcover and $25.99 US in paperback.
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