ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 1976
Jezik: Engleski
Autor: Strani

MISTER JOHNSON (Penguin Modern Classics) 1976
de Joyce Cary (Author)
First published in 1939, this novel set in Nigeria (where Cary had served two stints in the British colonial army)reads today as alarmingly un-PC. It wasn`t thought so at the time, of course; the 1962 paperback I read has two introductions, one from the editors who call Johnson `a rubber-legged thing of surprise and caprice,` and one from V.S. Pritchett, who admits that Johnson may be seen as a `stock comic African` but then says stoutly, `Who is more irrational, childish and backward...: the poor hallucinated black clerk Johnson or the emotionally incompetent and obsessed white Commissioner Rudbeck?` And of course Pritchett hits the nail squarely on the head, for that is the set-up of Cary`s novel, and in Johnson he has created as rich and fascinating a character as Gulley Jimson, from the better-known Horse`s Mouth. On the one hand, Johnson is a liar, a thief, a wastrel, childish and thoroughly incompetent at his job as a clerk. On the other, he is gay (in the old sense), imaginative, romantic, energetic, persuasive, a natural leader, and a wonderful poet or song-maker. Cary has included the full text of a number of songs, and I would love to hear them sung.
The setting is the the colonial office in a remote small town in Nigeria, where Rudbeck represents the rule of British law, with the occasional aid of a corrupt Emir and his Waziri. Johnson is his clerk, and at the start of the novel he has just fallen for a local girl, whom he proposes to buy from her father with money he doesn`t have. How he manages this scam and a string of others, while throwing parties every three or four nights, details the `rise` arc of the novel, to be followed inevitably by the fall. The structure is impeccable. (It is said to have been Cary`s favorite novel.) The ending is beautifully crafted.
In short, this is a good book and at times very funny. I`m leaving a star off as a concession to the delicate sensibilities of those who won`t be able to get beyond Cary`s whiteness and Johnson`s blackness. But they might try to relax a little--Johnson is good company.

Ima inventarski pečat, inače dobro očuvano.
KCK