SPOILER ALERT.......SPOILER ALERT.....SPOILER ALERT
If you haven't read the book yet, don't read this review or my thoughts on it!!!!
Well after much fanfare and waiting, Harper Lee's long lost manuscript was published and distributed on July 14th. There has been some controversy surrounding it because Harper Lee may or may not have given her blessing to publish it. It's somewhat suspect that the manuscript surfaced after Ms. Lee's sister Alice passed away. Alice was a lawyer, like their father, and tended to all of Ms. Lee's affairs, contracts and royalties from To Kill a Mockingbird. Ms. Lee is about 88 and it's unclear if she is having memory problems.
The manuscript was written in the 1950s, was apparently shopped around with no takers. Then a few years later, TKAM was published and let's face it, that's a hard act to follow. Your first novel wins the Pulitzer Price and everyone wants a piece of you, to discuss it over and over to the point where Ms. Lee refused to discuss 'the book', as she referred to it. Then an incredible movie adaptation is made and again, another hard act to follow. Has anyone noticed that it's probably one of the few old movies that has never been remade? You just can't mess with perfection. But I digress.
Go Set a Watchman takes place about 20-25 years after TKAM. Same characters....Scout, Atticus, Uncle Jack, Aunt Alexandra. Scout....or Jean Louise as she's known now that she's in her 20s....lives in New York City but goes to visit her family in Maycomb, Alabama. Civil rights is in it's infancy, the NAACP is making it's presence known, race relations are very tense. Jean Louise lives in the north and doesn't even notice people of other races anymore because she's surrounded by them. You get colourblind in a big city like NYC. Washington DC has made some new laws which affect the south and they don't like it one bit down there.
Jean Louise takes up with her longtime friend and now suitor, Henry, or 'Hank', who is Atticus' protege and law partner. Her brother Jem passed away from a heart attack...that tidbit of info was pretty devastating to learn. But Jean Louise notices that things are different....very different...in her old hometown. She goes to visit their former housekeeper, Calpurnia, and her visit draws stares from the other black people. Cal won't look at her or talk to her, which of course upsets and confuses her.
Cal's grandson has just been arrested for running over and killing a white man in town, and Atticus has taken the case, just like he took Tom Robinson's rape case when Jean Louise was a child, which as we know is one of the themes of TKAM. A side note: The facts of that case are a little bit different in GSAW, and I don't understand why that wasn't edited to match TKAM.
Unfortunately, Jean Louise discovers a very racist brochure on her father's desk, which leads her downtown to sneak into a meeting of all of the men in Maycomb, including Atticus and Hank, where they are discussing 'the negro problem' and NAACP's meddling. Horrified, she leaves the meeting, absolutely reeling from the realization that her sainted, beloved, fair father is as racist as the other men in town. She was considering marrying Hank, possibly moving home to Maycomb, but now she can't stand the thought.
At this point she goes to visit her Uncle Jack and this is where the book bogged down for me. The dialog between the two of them was really tedious. I found myself spacing out. When she confronts Atticus and they argue, again I found it tedious. He forced her to admit that she had many of the same opinions as the southerners because she IS a southerner.
The book ends with no resolution to anything, in my opinion. I thought it was a pretty dry read overall. Certainly didn't measure up to TKAM, which is just a masterpiece. The best parts where when Jean Louise was reminiscing about her childhood and teen years. I was disappointed considering the build up and excitement I had to read this. I can see why Ms. Lee couldn't find a publisher for it at the time because it would have been considered somewhat incendiary for the time. TKAM was published in 1961 but takes place in the 1930s. GSAW was written in the mid 50s and takes place in the mid 50s, by an Alabaman woman living in NYC, just like Jean Louise.
Finally, the title of the book continues to evade my understanding. It's apparently a bible quote, "For thus the Lord said to me: Go, set a watchman, let him announce what he sees." Maybe if the comma was returned between 'Go' and 'Set' it would make more sense? Is Jean Louise the watchman announcing what she sees in Maycomb? I don't get it. At least with TKAM, it was clear. Both Boo Radley and Tom Robinson were the mockingbirds, and it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.
It's worth a read if you are a fan of TKAM. Maybe other people will find it an excellent read....based on the comments on the book's Facebook page, I'm clearly in the minority....sadly, I did not.
I haven't read it and probably won't do so anyway. I am interested in your comments though. I am sorry the book ended as a damp squib for you I know how much you were expecting. Maybe that's the trouble, you were expecting too much after the first book.
ReplyDeleteWell like I said, TKAM is a hard act to follow. And technically it was written after this one, which she couldn't get published. I guess she really only had one great novel in her, although it's been opined that she ghost wrote 'In Cold Blood' for Truman Capote.
DeleteThanks for the low down. I will still read it after I go back and refresh my memory about TKAM. And I want to see the movie again also. Havent read or seen either for years.
ReplyDeleteBoth are just wonderful. Perfect in every way. I was talking with one of my friends yesterday and we agreed that we are glad Gregory Peck isn't alive to read this new book. He was born to play the Atticus we admired and loved from TKAM.
DeleteFrom what I have read, the "latest" book was a first manuscript and the publisher advised her to concentrate on the story of Scout. I read TKAM before reading this and was not pleased with GSAW. Sped read to chapter 11. Publishing hype is all this was. Even if you had never read TKAM, this book would not hold you as you don't know or really need or want to know these characters. - Michelle
ReplyDeleteI agree. This really wasn't a very good book at all and I really have my doubts that she gave her blessing to publish it. That conversation with Uncle Jack could not have been more boring.
DeleteThe whole saga around this feels like an ugly injustice to Harper Lee and the world. If she wanted it published, she'd have done so when she was younger and of sound mind. She was so humble, though, about TKAM, even. She didn't like a minute of the attention. So I'm not buying into this media madness that only serves to make $. It's sad. I'll stick with my memories of the movie, TKAM. (I didn't even read the book.)
ReplyDeleteYou didn't read it? If you can, you should. It's fantastic. The movie did the book justice in its adaptation. But the new book? Ugh. Wish I'd never read it now. Definitely didn't live up to the hype.
DeleteI think the "watchman" is her conscience--how she needs to awaken it. One of the themes of the novel is how she is (or has been kept) oblivious to the very life she is immersed in. The whole business about getting her period and the confusion over pregnancy. Less obviously, the tenuous social position Hank holds in the town. It drives his actions after the high school dance, and she just doesn't get it. Really she doesn't get it until she has her blinders lifted at the meeting. She finally sees all the compromises he makes by going along to get along. Atticus is doing the same in this meeting (and with the Klan earlier) since associating with them and understanding them is important to keeping the peace (and maybe defeating them, but Atticus doesn't seem to have that very unrealistic goal). Until then, JL was afforded the luxury of seeing her world in black and white—she was living unconsciously. But, just like when the facts of life are revealed to her belatedly, she now she's her father's world as the complex and complicated place it really is. Her conscience is awakened.
ReplyDelete(Kristy)
Hi Kristy! So glad to see you here! Great thoughts and observations. I could see Atticus attending the meeting cause of the whole, 'keep your enemies closer' thing which was what I was hoping was the case but it wasn't. He may have been more middle of the road than the other men in town, but still thought of the black people as too childlike to function in positions of power and that 'no one wants that'. It was very disappointing to say the least. Because in TKAM, Atticus and even Miss Maudie are portrayed as not racist at all, an anomaly for 1930s Alabama. And the Sheriff and Judge know Tom Robinson isn't guilty and seem to sympathize with the situation. But then again, I guess TKAM is seen through Scout's eyes, where you do miss the nuances of adulthood and things are, as you said, black and white.
DeleteJoJo, I found your critic enlightening. I have seen so much media hype about Lee's latest novel GSAW and wondered how it compared to her stellar TKAM. Sometimes sequels can be disappointing.
ReplyDeleteHuge disappointment. I wish now I hadn't read it & that the manuscript had stayed hidden.
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