Avoiding Hard Banjo Tunes

We saw Tim Maddren perform The Man From Snowy River at the Wagga Civic Theatre’s season launch late last year. The vigour and conviction of his interpretation, his magnetism and rich tenor voice totally engaged us. He could not have been a better advertisement for Banjo. His performance at the launch and a strong recommendation from a thespian friend clinched it and we booked. We saw the show this week. Their flyer describes Banjo as ‘a sweeping theatrical journey through ambition, legacy, mateship and identity (that) explores the tension between the bush and city, romance and reality…’

Our thespian friend did warn us that the dance segments could have been trimmed and a goodly proportion of the world’s popular music audience deems Coldplay whose music was interwoven with Paterson’s writings in this Got Ya Back production ‘inoffensive or overly earnest’. Prior to this I only knew Viva la Vida which is catchy nonsense. Whether that describes their entire repertoire I couldn’t say, but blending it with Paterson’s 19thC romanticisation of the bush is what Humphries from Yes Minister would consider ‘brave’.

Dear reader, you are probably sensing by now that I was not enthralled with Banjo. While purporting to both celebrate and critique Paterson, this production settles for sit com renderings of Henry Lawson’s (and others’) accusations of hypocrisy and inauthenticity and completely sidesteps any examination of the context in which he wrote i.e. rampant colonialism, indifference to Indigenous culture and history, the comforts of a middle class profession and  Gladesville home . The most cursory look at AB Paterson’s biog proves his stint as a pastoralist was brief. For the bulk of his career he worked as a lawyer and writer. So to dwell for as long as this production does on his father’s ill fortune farming in Illalong and its impact on Paterson’s psyche is something of an indulgence. His father’s words:

I toiled and toiled while lived the light

And dreamed of overdrafts at night 

are quoted in the program and used twice in the 90 minute performance.

Banjo is a highly selective presentation of this revered poet’s life. Lead, Maddren and guitarist Mat Brooker never falter in their energy and enthusiasm. Musical styles are eclectic and pacey with what (questionably) seemed to be Indigenous rhythms invoked as well as Oklahoma-style barn dance tunes, folk music and of course Coldplay tunes all in the mix. Foot stomping is employed to a degree that made me fret for the potential impact on Tim and Mat’s podiatry and lumbar health. Bush balladeering is a male dominated genre but two works that gave dancer/choreographer Steph Maddren a chance to shine The Road to Gundagai and As Long As Your Eyes Are Blue were included.  Slight but droll describes the first, its geographical references went over very well with the Wagga audience; nauseatingly sentimental describes the second. Ensemble equity is the only explanation for these interludes. In fact the percentage of stage time given to uninspired dance sequences especially pas de deux between Steph and lean Bejae Ingate who seemed to be representing both the youthful Banjo and any fill in character required was excessive. The choreography was clichéd, channeling the Graham/Graemes, Martha and Murphy, with the addition of cringeworthy hip hop ‘moves’ a la Raygun. It didn’t help that there was little chemistry/synergy between Steph and Bejae.

Tim Maddren and Mat Brooker - Got Ya Back promotional poster for Banjo 

If the rendition of The Man From Snowy River was the standout, and Clancy of the Overflow was delivered with genuine warmth and affection, the performance of Waltzing Matilda was disappointingly muddled and filled with mugging and ‘business’ that robbed it of its melancholy power.  

Enough, I fear I have already offended an audience that seemed to be lapping Banjo up with a misbegotten nostalgia for a pastoral Australia based on confiscation of First Nations’ lands and an idealisation of the squatter’s tenacity and not altogether uncomplaining  stoicism in the face of the hardships of making a living on the land. I don’t mean to trivialize the courage and endurance it took and still takes to run a property or to downplay Riverina residents’ love for this part of the world. However exploring the ironies and complexities that informed the work of Australia’s bush poets and those inherent in AB Paterson’s writing would have produced a far richer theatrical experience. 

Musicals To My Ears

In his show The Road I Took, which he is currently touring around Australia, Phillip Quast recalls his father playing songs from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma on the record player when he was a boy growing up in Tamworth in northern New South Wales. His father’s taste in musical theatre and the proximity to Australia’s premiere annual country music festival shaped his early taste in music. Since then, via an impressive television, film and theatre career, Quast’s taste has continued to grow. Throughout the years he’s turned his hand and vocal chords to Stephen Sondheim, Marsha Norman, Frank Loesser and The Wiggles among others - numbers by all of whom are featured in The Road I Took. And apart from his assumption that we would all know the lyrics to and willingly collude in a performance of Wiggly Woo, Quast provided a very pleasurable evening for this audience member.

Screen shot of poster for the Albury show 27 November 2025 (source: https://allevents.in/albury)

Musical theatre did not feature prominently in my English childhood and country music not at all.  As I’ve mentioned before, my parents had LPs of Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra. Dad would sometimes emulate the latter – the image of him crooning in the kitchen comes to mind. Mum also had the Rex Harrison - Julie Andrews recording of My Fair Lady with a wonderful cover design featuring GB Shaw and those two performers in a cascading string puppet design.  She would wistfully join in with The Street Where You Live often while ironing I recall. I don’t remember them having any other records.   Our main listening was the pirate radio station Radio Luxembourg, on a worn blue vinyl covered transistor radio that Dad would carry from workshop to house with him.

The LP with the clever cover that Mum had

My exposure to musical theatre was negligible as if ever a musical came on television our father would deride the male cast members as ‘dancing poons’ and point out that in real life people did not burst into song at the drop of a hat. A little more tolerant, Mum nevertheless favoured naturalism in her musicals so anything featuring Ethel Merman or Eddie Cantor would have been right out. Our grandmother took  us to see Mary Poppins which I enjoyed despite its major departure from the P L Travers books (see Saving Mr Banks). I was particularly moved by Feed the Birds not realising until much later on a visit to London that the romanticized pigeons roosting around St Paul’s were deemed public nuisances. A sign we saw instructing the public not to feed them had been modified thus:

Feeding the  birds/Tories discouraged despite Disney's urging

The first musical I fully embraced was Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, the Joshua Logan 1967 film version. I saw it with my mother and her delight was contagious. We were both genuinely swept away by the charisma of the leads: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero - all photographed most aesthetically in a movie that has been criticized for the anachronistic beauty if of its settings. I have seen it several times over the years and admit to excusing all its exaggerations and cosmetic flourishes. My companion at Quast’s show was talented Wagga actor, Diana Lovett who was joining him for a workshop on the following two days  and for which she had had to prepare two songs. We are of an age and she chuckled mischievously when telling me that one of the songs she’d selected was The Simple Joys of Maidenhood from Camelot. When I mentioned my affection for the film she poo-pooed it comparing it unfavorably to Broadway and West End productions she’d seen with Richard Harris but with other Guineveres and Lancelots. Divergent as our views were on Ms Redgrave’s casting we were united in our non-compliance with the Wiggly Woo gambit.

Movie poster for Camelot (1967) - full lush art nouveau revival style

My tastes differs too from those of my much missed dear friend Monica. Not knowing she couldn’t stand Sondheim I once included her in group booking to see Sweeney Todd.  Her good manners prevented her from declining. On the other side of the ledger I have her to thank for seeing Man of La Mancha and Les Mis because her twin nephews were in productions. That is genuine appreciation. I don’t know that I would have seen and enjoyed them otherwise.

I escaped from the childhood restrictions on my movie musical enjoyment when I moved in with my boyfriend and his actor friend in the 1970s. It was an era when Hollywood classics were screened into the small hours and we enjoyed countless black and white Busby Berkeley and Astaire and Rogers movies as well as less revered films like the 1952 vehicle for Virginia Mayo and Ronald Reagan She’s Working Her Way Through College  - a simple tale of a burlesque dancer who enrolls in tertiary study. The lyrics of the title song have entered the family canon:

She’s working her way through college

To get a lot of knowledge

That she’ll probably never ever use again…

Just a sample of the useful gender theories the film airs.

Films like this are undoubtedly the reason why some people abhor musicals

While I can’t say I’ve  become a die-hard devotee of the genre I’ve seen a few musicals  over the years and even feel that my father tolerated me watching The Pyjama Game while I was staying with him, but that might be a false memory spawned by wishful thinking. Initially sharing my mother’s preference for more naturalistic forms, (Cabaret was an early and enduring favourite) I now embrace most styles. I recently saw and was entranced by  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - no wonder it is considered a landmark film. I do draw the line at Andrew Lloyd Webber and specifically will not forgive what he did to TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. I wasn’t overwhelmed with joy at Tim Minchin’s Matilda when I saw it on stage at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre but do like the movie version.  Locally And Juliet left me bored and annoyed but Mama Mia and Wicked I liked very much. As those who know me will attest, I am picky, picky, picky.

Cuddly bear era - Philip Quast in Play School (source: The Quast Quality blog https://gebo-tqq.blogspot.com/)

Anyway back to Phillip Quast. He is certainly versatile and I suppose I forgive him for peppering his show with nursery favourites as for many he is as identified with Play School as he is with stage musicals. His Javert of course was definitive and oh, that he’d been cast in the film, but then the casting of the movie version of Les Miserables is just that, miserable! Monica’s nephews’ version was infinitely preferable. See, picky, picky, picky…

 

To Sydney to see Betsy

My sister Belinda and I went to Sydney for three days recently. Her main, if not only, objective was to see her daughter who lives in supported accommodation in the Sutherland Shire. Mine was to keep her company, and to catch up with a bereaved friend and my son. Born with hydrocephalus, Belinda’s daughter, Betsy confounded predictions by surviving her first few hours and adjusting to the surgical insertion of a shunt in her head in the following months. In her early years she suffered meningitis and other illnesses that could have killed her but now, at 33 years of age, is doing really well. She has scoliosis, cannot walk and is paralysed on one side. She has limited verbal communication and frighteningly strong upper body strength on her good side. This she flaunts by steering her wheelchair with great vigour to wherever she wants to go and delighting in opening and then slamming shut doors. She also administers powerful pinches and scratches to mostly her mum but occasionally anyone else she interacts with. I have a bruised finger from her attentions as I write this. Belinda has lacerations and bruises up both her arms. Betsy loves music and Belinda brought her a new sound system so she could enjoy some of her favourite songs on USB sticks. Betsy is popular with staff at the house as she is cheerful and expressive rewarding their attention and care.

Belinda and Besty

We were booked into an Air B&B property in Marrickville, another poor choice of mine to add to a growing list. The description on the  website: ‘Stylish Studio + Sunny Patio in Great Location’ is largely true but fails to mention the two steep sets of tiled stairs we had to navigate with our luggage, Belinda’s Jack Russell Terrier and his bedding to reach it. After our 5.5 hour journey we arrived in sweltering heat and had to park illegally, half on the footpath, in the garbage strewn lane behind the building. A roller shuttered locked car port taunted us as we struggled to get through the small security door with our baggage.

So many steps were hard for two sixty something women with hip and knee issues to negotiate and several trips up and down were required before we could move the car and settle in. The apartment itself was clean and comfortable and the adjacent kitchen well supplied with appliances, crockery etc. The vaunted patio was a concrete box behind the building’s Victorian parapet and much too hot to brave until the weather cooled on our last day. However then a brisk breeze caused its unsecured rectangular carpeting to flail about disconcertingly.

The celebrated Marrickville banh mi shop

Marrickville has the advantage of being familiar (we lived in Petersham and then in adjoining Canterbury for over two decades) and offering abundant delicious food options. One highlight for us was feasting on banh mi from the suburb’s original pork roll kiosk where Albo was pictured queueing last election campaign. The value and quality are amazing and put Wagga’s recently opened business purporting to sell the same for almost double the price to shame.

Untested with road trips before, Ryk, Belinda’s dog, acquitted himself beautifully on the journey up and as a guest at the Air B&B. He was similarly calm and well behaved on our drive out to Gymea to see Betsy. Betsy grew up with dogs and delighted in offering them crusts and other morsels from her plate. She hadn’t met Ryk before and didn’t show much interest in him and her now solely liquefied diet precludes offering sneaky treats. Ryk was a hit with support worker Tabitha; she got him a dish of water and let us out into the grassy courtyard where he sniffed the perimeters thoroughly and watered a failing gardenia bush. He and I sat on a vinyl settee and almost dozed off until the strains of John Hamlin and Bonita Collings roused us to join Belinda and Betsy back in her room. As Belinda fed Betsy her pureed chicken teriyaki, we watched her obvious delight at hearing the Playschool hits. It was apt after having seen Phillip Quast’s The Road I Took show just a week and a half earlier to hear his suave baritone adjusted to render ‘Where Did You Get That Hat?’ 

Betsy can be quite dismissive of visitors saying ‘Bye’ when she’s had enough of their company. She did try that on when we first arrived but relented and I think genuinely enjoyed time with her mum and, to a lesser extent, her aunt. When it was time to go, Tabitha asked us to take the ‘boom box’ packaging with us as they are overwhelmed with garbage and recycling. Belinda asked if there was anything Betsy needed - bibs and shorts apparently.

Betsy with Ryk and me

The friend I planned to see lives just around the corner from Betsy’s group home and I had hoped to call over but was unsuccessful reaching her by calls and texts. In a streak of gruelling tragedy she has lost her partner and both her parents in the past three years. Already suffering chronic fatigue syndrome these losses and some associated legal battles have left her severely depleted. It never occurred to me that she would be out and about giving the Sunday reading at mass and going to an 80 year old’s birthday lunch which I later discovered was what was occupying her time that day. Unsurprisingly ferocious migraines ensued.

I did manage to spend time with my son, measuring, cutting and installing perforated heat resistant foil panelling to the north facing bedroom windows of his flat and then grabbing refreshments at the Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club. I only took one wrong turn on the return trip to Marrickville and coped with the Sydney traffic better than I usually do.  My son had just returned from Japan and had bought me some beautiful cards and prints well as a copy of the graphic novel Les Chats du Louvre which I had heard about in the wake of the recent jewellery theft from that prestigious art museum.

Lunch stop

On Monday morning we carted our luggage down the steep stairs, this time in pleasant cool temperatures, to our (again illegally) parked car in the laneway and went in search of a decent coffee to fortify us for the journey home.  A pet shop nearby the café had three fawn coloured Cavoodle puppies in the window identical to one of the dogs Betsy grew up with. This reminder of a lost loved dog heightened Belinda’s already emotionally raw mood in the aftermath of visiting Betsy and it was good to put some miles behind us and speed on to Goulburn for lunch. Trappers Bakery had tables where we could sit with Ryk. He and some sparrows shared the remains of Belinda’s sausage roll. We made good time on our return to Wagga stopping for a pee and to share a bakery-purchased vanilla slice at Bookham.

We judged our trip an imperfect success but in the hours that followed the return to her house it became apparent that Belinda’s beloved cat (whom my husband had been feeding but hadn’t actually clapped eyes on) was missing. She’s done the flyers and Facebook posts to no avail so far.  As I have thought a few times in response to my sister’s travails, she didn’t need this.

It's an ill storm...

At our Word Play group we were recently given the writing prompt: ‘a time when the weather really affected an occasion’ – I recalled this event.

Our pommy friends the Budds were dotty about going to Doyles when they visited us in Sydney. They always included a meal at the beachfront seafood restaurant in their plans when they stayed with us. They faced no protests. Watson’s Bay is one of Sydney’s most picturesque spots and overseas visitors are blithely unaware of the nearby Gap and its grim associations.  Doyle’s faux newspaper menus (a nod to more affordable fish and chip meals) are iconic and its food fantastic. It was a balmy summer evening when six of us gathered at a table overlooking calm harbour waters. Me, my husband Bob, mother Brenda and sister Belinda, our English guests, the elfin Tricia and her partner Chris, somewhat lobster hued from his sun exposure the previous day.

A shamelessly manipulated and anachronistic image of Chris Budd (sorry)

As the sun set the Harbour Bridge was silhouetted against tangerine and violet striated skies. We walked on the sands and dipped our toes in the water waiting for our meals to arrive. White wine was consumed, chatter and jokes were shared. The evening promised to be another memorable one.

Sunset with Harbour Bridge (searched 'royalty free' but forgot to note source - tch, tch)

Sydney is known for its sudden wild winds, ‘southerly busters’, which arrive dramatically as respite from long humid summer days. However this day had been warm and mild. We were unprepared when a gust caught the edges of one of the large umbrellas covering the tables. Within seconds the umbrellas were rolling and tossing and threatening to become airborne. The now dark skies were rent with lightning and thunder growled drowning conversation. Rain fell in swirling torrents. We and our table contents were drenched. Diners scattered jostling one another as they sought shelter. Chaos reigned. We weren’t distressed but laughed at our predicament as we huddled soaked through under an awning surveying the devastation.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the rain subsided and the wind dropped. Most patrons had settled their bills during the disruption and headed out the door. We hadn’t asked for our check yet so lingered soggily. Chris and Bob helped the staff re-erect the umbrellas and straighten the tables and chairs.

Welcome Douglas!

Something on the shining courtyard floor beneath one of the tables caught my eye.  A glistening grey rectangle imprinted with the balaclava-clad image of an Australian more used to severe weather than us, Douglas Mawson. When the heavens opened they had soaked us but had also brought a gift. This was the 1980s and a one hundred dollar note made a significant contribution to the cost of our meal.  

Anything But Common

Commonplace books were popular from the Renaissance through to the 19th century.

A commonplace book is an ancient system for recording knowledge.

(They are) albums of distinguished quotes interrupted by analysis (which) curate ideas from many places. Some have handmade… paper ink and binding. They may incorporate prints, digital art and repurposing.

(Paraphrased from assignment description for subject ART317: Art & Books, Charles Sturt University)

Associate Professor Charles Sturt University (CSU), Sam Bowker for his subject ART317: Art & Books sets an assessment task of producing a commonplace book to record students’ responses and learning. This year, 2025, the result is the exhibition, at the HR Gallop Gallery on campus, Extraordinary Commonplace Books showing work produced by some twenty students. The exhibition is being held in conjunction with Sam Bowker’s public lecture series Art & Books which commemorates the 25th anniversary of the subject, originally created by Dr Sue Wood, being offered. Proceeds from the lecture series are being donated to Wagga Wagga’s Booranga Writers Centre which lost its state funding in 2024 but continues to offer workshops and monthly readings/open mics to the community.

The content of the lectures and my recent interest in producing collages made seeing Extraordinary Commonplace Books compulsory for me.  I was rewarded with creativity, synthesis and ingenuity that captured the essence of the subject of study and also celebrated individual interests and talents. Stylistically the books were very diverse, from Deborah Martinez’s rustic stick bound loose leaf folio with its delicate uneven pages, to Kira Sarkany‘s extensive large scale pastel decorated concertina-scroll, to the detailed and eclectic scholarship and illustration of Caitlin Grieve’s work. Jess Verco’s book was remarkable for its impeccable script and ingenious use of QR code-accessible audio, while Grace Frede‘s work exemplified thorough independent research and featured a wonderful fold out section on Rafa Al Nasiri’s poem Almond Blossom (2009) complete with her own expressive painting. I am singling out just some of the impressive achievements this class has produced, as many as an hour spent with my phone camera and note book allowed but the work on show was universally impressive.

Caitlin Grieve's painstaking collage work 

The remaining lectures in Dr Bowker’s series will look at book illustration and the future of the book in our techno-centric society.  If this collection of extraordinary commonplace books is any indication, the handmade, tactile and visually eclectic will retain a strong place in our reading and aesthetic preferences.

Extraordinary Commonplace Books is open until Friday 29 August, 2025 10am - 5pm weekdays The HR Gallop Gallery is in the centre of Building 21 near carpark 5 off Darnell-Smith Drive, Charles Sturt University Campus, Wagga Wagga.

May the Fourth be with you*

Each fourth of May I post a ‘May the fourth be with you’ meme on Facebook because I can’t resist a pun and enjoy the pop culture reference; however my disdain for the Star Wars movies as basically Star Trek meets the western remains. And while we’re talking US genres, it is ironic, isn’t it that the US probably can’t enjoy the joke this date provides our part of the English speaking world because they say ‘May fourth’, not ‘May the fourth’?

This year the fourth of May was general election day in Australia (see footnote) and the Albanese-led Labor government was returned in a surprise landslide. That sparked immediate joy, but just as delightful has been witnessing the disarray and idiocy in the coalition partners in the aftermath. While these events don’t offset the nightmares of Gaza and Trump they do at least provide a little homegrown reassurance that sometimes sense and kindness prevail.

This May the fourth, I went to a life writing workshop in Tarcutta, about an hour outside Wagga, that these days has something of a ghost town feel serving mainly as a stopover location for long haul trucks. On the drive out, morning sunlight made the mustard hued paddocks and mottled gum trunks shine, generating serotonin. The turn off to Mates Gully Road seemed a long time coming and then the road itself meandered for several kilometres. I momentarily panicked that I would be late but arrived for a 9 am start with a few minutes in hand. A free event arranged by the Wagga Library in conjunction with the Tarcutta Country Women’s Association, there was no sense of urgency inside the folksy weatherboard building where about twenty of us gathered over the obligatory homemade slices arrayed on a tea trolley. Every surface in the immaculate room was beige, cream or white; even the ceiling fans were straw rattan and cream. Although still early autumn, the temperature was very cool and, surrounded by rural folk in fleecy lined garments, I regretted my cotton shirt and light jacket. The hum of the reverse cycle air con soon filled the air but it took over an hour to counter the chill.

Trestle tables were arranged in a horseshoe formation. I sat next to Frith, newly arrived in the Riverina, whom I had met at another writers’ function the previous month. Then she had challenged the visiting Irish writer about the thoroughness of his research making for an uncomfortable moment which the author handled with aplomb. She admitted to me this morning that she is hypercritical of any shortcomings she perceives in others and communicates her perceptions in a plain, bordering on blunt, style. Her credo, she stated, is the opposite of looking for the good in people (I wonder how I am faring). Anticipating some ructions during the workshop I adopted my default approach of gentle teasing.  I am sure people thought we had known each other forever, or were related, because of our seeming double act particularly when Frith punched me on the arm during one retort.

The facilitator, Graeme Gibson, introduced himself as a retired horticulturalist and community activist whose own memoir In Life There Is Luck was published in 2023. Graeme distilled what he had learned into a publication called A Pocket Guide to Memoir Writing which he used as a teaching aid throughout the morning. Naturally I purchased a copy (see photo). We did several useful exercises one of which provided the basis for this post.  I have been compiling a list of clichés and generally cringe worthy expressions enjoying currency and am about to employ one, ‘take away’. Amongst the workshop’s ‘take aways’ for me were two quotes (I hope not misquotes) from Hemingway:

The cure for writer’s block is to write one true sentence

Write in a reckless fever then edit in a cardigan

Three from Graeme:

Writing fuels memories

Writing about little things helps you write about big things  

Let the verbs do the work

And one for the guest speakers at our historical society meetings:

Just because it happened doesn’t make it interesting. Just because it is interesting doesn’t mean it belongs in the story.

Graeme’s workshop was compact and energising. The CWA went above and beyond with the catering. Listening to my fellow participants proved yet again that each of us has (at least) one story to tell and a unique voice. I heard about remembered sylvan glades and their association with a loved grandmother, sibling rifts produced by differing recollections and class identification and a fallen log that used to be the main play equipment at the local primary school until safety regulations had it removed.

Afterwards I cast my vote at the Tarcutta Memorial Hall and met Riverina independent candidate Jenny Rolfe's husband – the only person handing out how to votes at this conservative leaning polling station. I guess I helped skew the demographic a little. The Tarcutta streets were almost empty; a few large rigs peppering the carparks, many shops, including the former Halfway Café (built 1926) were vacant and I was the only customer at the handicraft store.

May the fourth was very much with me this year and writing about it is fuelling more memories.

*My friend Kathryn Halliwell has pointed out that I have ascribed all these events to 4 May 2025 when they in fact took place on 3 May 2025. Obviously I don't let the facts get in the way of a good story/tagline. 

Dem/them; Jim/James

Percival Everett’s James has just won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. It was previously short listed for the Booker.  We read it for our book group last month. The novel is a reimaging of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s (James’) perspective and is a searing critique of racism and conventions in the depiction of African Americans in literature.  Our book club convener, David Gilbey, summarised our response to Everett’s device of having his characters use 'double language' i.e. speaking one way amongst themselves and another in response to or within the hearing of white Southerners:  

We discussed James' 'double language, some of us thinking it was overdone, others thinking it was nicely sustained… James …  teach(es) and reinforce(s) his children's understanding of the roles they needed to play to survive and to communicate meaningfully with other blacks in different instances

and indeed schools his children in ‘masking’ effectively in front of their masters to sustain an illusion of ignorance and deference.

I was the dissenter in our group thinking that the instances in the book where James draws the reader’s attention to this masquerade were too numerous and not handled particularly subtly. James’ subterfuge is established from the outset when Everett recreates a scene from Twain’s novel where Tom and Huck take Jim’s hat and hang it on a tree limb (a nail in the reworking) certain he will attribute its movement to witches.

“Lak I say, I first found my hat on a nail. ‘I ain’t put dat dere’ I say to mysef. ‘How dat hat get dere?’ I knew ‘twas witches what done it.  I ain’t seen ‘em, but it was dem.  And one dem witches, the one that took my hat, she sent me all da way down to N’Orlins. Can you believe dat?” My change in diction alerted the rest (his fellow slaves) to the white boys’ presence.  So, my performance for the story became a frame for the story. My story became less of a tale as the real game became the display for the boys.(Page 13, James)

In Huckleberry Finn Jim profits in reputation by recounting this story to his credulous peers. It is designed to illustrate his and their superstitious, naive natures. However, while Tom and Huck have duped Jim they are not immune to superstition either; a few pages prior Huck indulges in a complex ritual to ward off the bad luck that may attend him after accidentally killing a spider.

Everett brings twenty first century sophistication and a political agenda by not only shifting the agency so that his protagonist is now outwitting the boys but elevating James to the status of a highly (self) educated man who can quip about the difference between proleptic irony and dramatic irony and conduct debates on social inequality (especially slavery) and hypocrisy with the likes of Voltaire and Locke.

While I could enter into the general spirit of Everett’s revisionist narrative I found it heavy handed and preachy in places and was unable to suspend disbelief in the face of James’ learnedness and atheism which seemed more like a projection of Everett’s own characteristics than the credible recreation of a literary character.  For me the novel was strongest when it dealt with the picaresque flow of events,  the emotional impact of slavery itself and the actions of the various opportunists, villains and beneficiaries James encounters among them  Emmett, the King and Bilgewater  and Judge Thatcher. For a book challenging stereotypes I found the tropes of the doomed young girl, Sammy, rescued from rape and slavery only to drown in the Mississippi and the ‘yes, Huck I am your father’ revelation cloying and a bit cheap.  Not to mention the abruptness and somewhat improbably heroic sounding ‘I am James’, ‘Just James’ that end of the book.

Percival Everett has an impressive body of work and I caught the adaptation of his novel Erasure (filmed as American Fiction) a few months back. That too deals with the question of authentic African American language and characterisation in literature but perhaps because of its contemporary setting and many subplots I found it more satisfying than James.

I am no expert on what earns a work a prestigious literary award but I would hazard the suggestion that in this case the stature of the author and the mission he undertook to reclaim Huckleberry Finn and purge it of racism for a modern enlightened readership may have weighed significantly in the judges’ minds.