Publication
Harper (2015), Edition: First Ed, 288 pages
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML: Performed by Reese Witherspoon #1 New York Times Bestseller "Go Set a Watchman is such an important book, perhaps the most important novel on race to come out of the white South in decades." �?? New York Times A landmark novel by Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize�??winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch�??"Scout"�??returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past�??a journey that can only be guided by one's own conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of the late Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor, and effortless precision�??a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context, and new meaning to an Amer… (more)
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Media reviews
Shockingly, in Ms. Lee’s long-awaited novel, “Go Set a Watchman” (due out Tuesday), Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like “The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Or asks his daughter: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in
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our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?” The depiction of Atticus in “Watchman” makes for disturbing reading, and for “Mockingbird” fans, it’s especially disorienting. Scout is shocked to find, during her trip home, that her beloved father, who taught her everything she knows about fairness and compassion, has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion. “Mockingbird” suggested that we should have compassion for outsiders like Boo and Tom Robinson, while “Watchman” asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus. Show Less
And so beneath Atticus’s style of enlightenment is a kind of bigotry that could not recognize itself as such at the time. The historical and human fallacies of the Agrarian ideology hardly need to be rehearsed now, but it should be said that these views were not regarded as ridiculous by
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intellectuals at the time. Indeed, Jean Louise/Lee herself, though passionately opposed to what her uncle and her father are saying, nevertheless accepts the general terms of the debate as the right ones. Show Less
Go Set a Watchman is a troubling confusion of a novel, politically and artistically, beginning with its fishy origin story. .. I ached for this adult Scout: The civil rights movement may be gathering force, but the second women's movement hasn't happened yet. I wanted to transport Scout to our own
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time — take her to a performance of Fun Home on Broadway — to know that, if she could only hang on, the possibilities for nonconforming tomboys will open up. Lee herself, writing in the 1950s, lacks the language and social imagination to fully develop this potentially powerful theme. Show Less
Despite the boldness and bravery of its politics, Go Set a Watchman is a very rough diamond in literary terms … it is a book of enormous literary interest, and questionable literary merit.
It is, in most respects, a new work, and a pleasure, revelation and genuine literary event, akin to the discovery of extra sections from T S Eliot’s The Waste Land or a missing act from Hamlet hinting that the prince may have killed his father.
Watchman is both a painful complication of Harper Lee’s beloved book and a confirmation that a novel read widely by schoolchildren is far more bitter than sweet. Watchman is alienating from the very start.
On one hand, this abrupt redefinition of a famed fictional character is fascinating. … Yet for the millions who hold that novel dear, “Go Set a Watchman” will be a test of their tolerance and capacity for forgiveness. At the peak of her outrage, Jean Louise tells her father, “You’ve
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cheated me in a way that’s inexpressible.” I don’t doubt that many who read this novel are going to feel the same way. Show Less
A lumpy tale about a young woman’s grief over her discovery of her father’s bigoted views … The depiction of Atticus in “Watchman” makes for disturbing reading, and for “Mockingbird” fans, it’s especially disorienting.
The editor who rejected Lee's first effort had the right idea. The novel the world has been waiting for is clearly the work of a novice, with poor characterization (how did the beloved Scout grow up to be such a preachy bore, even as she serves as the book's moral compass?), lengthy exposition, and
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ultimately not much story . . . The temptation to publish another Lee novel was undoubtedly great, but it's a little like finding out there's no Santa Claus. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member lauralkeet
Controversy, speculation and hype heralded the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman. It was almost enough to put me off reading it. Almost, but not quite. And I’m so glad. This was a well-written and powerful book.
For anyone unfamiliar with the back story, Harper Lee submitted Go Set a
In Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise makes her annual trip home to Maycomb, Alabama. She reconnects with family and her lifelong friend Henry Clinton, who clearly wants more than friendship this time around. And Jean Louise is not entirely opposed to that idea. Through Jean Louise’s eyes, Harper Lee gives us an ironic and sometimes amusing portrait of small town southern life; a chapter about the music in a Methodist worship service made me laugh out loud.
But then, Jean Louise discovers a pamphlet in her father’s house that sickens her.
She took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt.
“What is this thing?” she said.
And by the end of this chapter,
The one human being she had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her; the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, “He is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentleman,” had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.
Then Harper Lee gets angry. Really angry. And Jean Louise is her voice, her “watchman”:
For thus hath the Lord said unto me,
Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.
~ Isaiah 21:6
I can understand why Lee’s publishers had her rewrite the book. It’s not because of the writing, or the anger; it’s because 1950s America was not ready for what she had to say. TKAM is a quieter book; Atticus’ crusade for equal rights more level-headed. But while both books were written in the 1950s, I was struck by how the racial aspects resonate today. And maybe today it’s time to be angry.
For anyone unfamiliar with the back story, Harper Lee submitted Go Set a
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Watchman to her publisher, and they asked her to rewrite it set 20 years earlier, when its main character, Jean Louise Finch, was a young girl nicknamed Scout. This is the book we all know and love, the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. The two books are similar in some respects: both deal with issues of race, as experienced by characters with the same names. But are the characters really the same people? That’s hard to say. Lee did not set out to publish two books. She didn’t intend to tell readers what happened after the events in TKAM. The best way to read these books are as companion pieces that allow the reader to consider similar issues through different lenses. In Go Set a Watchman, Jean Louise makes her annual trip home to Maycomb, Alabama. She reconnects with family and her lifelong friend Henry Clinton, who clearly wants more than friendship this time around. And Jean Louise is not entirely opposed to that idea. Through Jean Louise’s eyes, Harper Lee gives us an ironic and sometimes amusing portrait of small town southern life; a chapter about the music in a Methodist worship service made me laugh out loud.
But then, Jean Louise discovers a pamphlet in her father’s house that sickens her.
She took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt.
“What is this thing?” she said.
And by the end of this chapter,
The one human being she had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her; the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, “He is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentleman,” had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.
Then Harper Lee gets angry. Really angry. And Jean Louise is her voice, her “watchman”:
For thus hath the Lord said unto me,
Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.
~ Isaiah 21:6
I can understand why Lee’s publishers had her rewrite the book. It’s not because of the writing, or the anger; it’s because 1950s America was not ready for what she had to say. TKAM is a quieter book; Atticus’ crusade for equal rights more level-headed. But while both books were written in the 1950s, I was struck by how the racial aspects resonate today. And maybe today it’s time to be angry.
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LibraryThing member japaul22
I'll start with a short recap of the circumstances regarding the release of this book as I have understood them. Harper Lee wrote Go Set a Watchman in the late 1950s and sent it to a publisher. Someone there read it, saw promise in the writing, but asked her to try again, focusing on the main
First for a review of Go Set a Watchman on its own merits. In this book, Jean Louise Finch returns from New York City to her small, Southern hometown in Maycomb County, Alabama. She is in her 20s and being courted by a Maycomb young man who she grew up with, Hank Clinton. Atticus, her father, is aging and has rheumatoid arthritis which is slowing down his body, but not his brain. Coming home brings up memories for Jean Louise; she feels both tied to the town and separate from it. She remembers several scenes from her childhood and teenage years, and I did find that these flashbacks were the most genuine and best written parts of the book. Then Jean Louise's world is shattered when she finds that her father is not the perfect person that she grew up believing him to be. She finds him at a meeting of a Town Council that is united in opposing the Civil Rights legislation that is being passed throughout the country. There is a lot of the "n" word being thrown around, and a lot of hate and invective speech being spewed. It is not easy to read. And it is not easy to see Atticus agreeing that blacks are too simple and backward to deserve the same rights as whites -- that there is no way he will sit back and accept the federal government's ideas as a way for Southerners to live. The last half of the book is highly political and racist and sort of loses the story line to arguments between Jean Louise and various characters about the topic. In the end, Jean Louise will have to decide if she will stay in Maycomb and try to change the town from the inside or escape back to New York and leave it all behind.
This is a grown up book with grown up ideas. I can't imagine it would have gone over well in the South, or really anywhere, being published in the 1960s. It would have been so raw - it still feels raw to read. Leaving aside the segregation and politics, the writing itself is a bit uneven. It's good, but not great. I was annoyed by the relationship between Jean Louise and Hank (something a little too demeaning toward Jean Louise) and some of the potential story lines get a bit lost in the politics. But, really, it's good overall, just uncomfortable because of the topic.
Now, if you have reverence for the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, especially Atticus and Calpurnia, you should probably skip this because it will color your view on these characters. One reason I read Go Set a Watchman was because I was so interested in the writing process of taking one book idea and creating another from it (especially when that rewrite turned in to such an amazing book). I was surprised at just how little of the material was used in TKAM. Almost nothing at all, even the childhood flashbacks in GSAW, made it in to TKAM. Go Set a Watchman absolutely does not have the charm or follow through of Lee's subsequent masterpiece. Scout's childhood voice gives charm, innocence, and an element of fantasy to To Kill a Mockingbird that makes it a great book. Go Set a Watchman is an interesting book, a good book, but is not destined to be a classic.
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character's childhood instead of her young adulthood. To Kill a Mockingbird was the result of this rewrite. First for a review of Go Set a Watchman on its own merits. In this book, Jean Louise Finch returns from New York City to her small, Southern hometown in Maycomb County, Alabama. She is in her 20s and being courted by a Maycomb young man who she grew up with, Hank Clinton. Atticus, her father, is aging and has rheumatoid arthritis which is slowing down his body, but not his brain. Coming home brings up memories for Jean Louise; she feels both tied to the town and separate from it. She remembers several scenes from her childhood and teenage years, and I did find that these flashbacks were the most genuine and best written parts of the book. Then Jean Louise's world is shattered when she finds that her father is not the perfect person that she grew up believing him to be. She finds him at a meeting of a Town Council that is united in opposing the Civil Rights legislation that is being passed throughout the country. There is a lot of the "n" word being thrown around, and a lot of hate and invective speech being spewed. It is not easy to read. And it is not easy to see Atticus agreeing that blacks are too simple and backward to deserve the same rights as whites -- that there is no way he will sit back and accept the federal government's ideas as a way for Southerners to live. The last half of the book is highly political and racist and sort of loses the story line to arguments between Jean Louise and various characters about the topic. In the end, Jean Louise will have to decide if she will stay in Maycomb and try to change the town from the inside or escape back to New York and leave it all behind.
This is a grown up book with grown up ideas. I can't imagine it would have gone over well in the South, or really anywhere, being published in the 1960s. It would have been so raw - it still feels raw to read. Leaving aside the segregation and politics, the writing itself is a bit uneven. It's good, but not great. I was annoyed by the relationship between Jean Louise and Hank (something a little too demeaning toward Jean Louise) and some of the potential story lines get a bit lost in the politics. But, really, it's good overall, just uncomfortable because of the topic.
Now, if you have reverence for the characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, especially Atticus and Calpurnia, you should probably skip this because it will color your view on these characters. One reason I read Go Set a Watchman was because I was so interested in the writing process of taking one book idea and creating another from it (especially when that rewrite turned in to such an amazing book). I was surprised at just how little of the material was used in TKAM. Almost nothing at all, even the childhood flashbacks in GSAW, made it in to TKAM. Go Set a Watchman absolutely does not have the charm or follow through of Lee's subsequent masterpiece. Scout's childhood voice gives charm, innocence, and an element of fantasy to To Kill a Mockingbird that makes it a great book. Go Set a Watchman is an interesting book, a good book, but is not destined to be a classic.
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LibraryThing member DarthDeverell
In Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee picks up with Atticus and Scout Finch, continuing their story from the time of older Scout narrating the events of To Kill a Mockingbird in flashback. Lee sets her narrative shortly after the events of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, with Scout, now an adult
Nearly every child in America reads To Kill a Mockingbird while in high school and sees the 1969 film with Gregory Peck portraying Atticus. While students may not appreciate it when they are young, Atticus’ unshakable moral philosophy remains with them throughout adulthood. Readers of Go Set a Watchman can easily empathize with Jean Louise as she yells at Atticus, “I believed in you. I looked up to you, Atticus, like I never looked up to anybody in my life and never will again. If you had only given me some hint, if you had only broken your word with me a couple of times, if you had been bad-tempered or impatient with me – if you had been a lesser man, maybe I could have taken what I saw you doing” (p. 249-250). We, the readers, have taken Atticus into our hearts. His change in character feels like a personal betrayal. As Jean Louise says, “I grew up right here in your house, and I never knew what was in your mind. I only heard what you said” (p. 247). Atticus’ brother, Dr. John Finch, explains to Jean Louise that she had anchored her conscience to Atticus’, saying, “Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience” (p. 264-265). Lee presented the events of To Kill a Mockingbird through Jean Louise’s rose-tinted memory of her father. Her memory cast him as a demigod among men. As Dr. Finch says, “Our gods are remote from us, Jean Louise. They must never descend to human level” (p. 266). Lee stripped away that child’s view of Atticus and made him human in Go Set a Watchman. Dr. Finch tells Jean Louise, “He was letting you reduce him to the status of a human being” (p. 266). Most of the negative responses to Go Set a Watchman come from Lee’s revelations about Atticus. No longer a pillar of morality, Atticus Finch is now a three-dimensional, human character. Lee has killed our god and we, like Scout, are left with the man.
Lee’s insight into Southern attitudes of the mid-1950s are just as relevant to today’s audience as was her portrayal of the 1930s South to the audience of To Kill a Mockingbird. Dr. Finch describes the Southern mindset to Jean Louise, saying, “For years and years all that man thought he had that made him any better than his black brothers was the color of his skin. He was just as dirty, he smelled just as bad, he was just as poor. Nowadays he’s got more than he ever had in his life, he has everything but breeding, he’s freed himself from every stigma, but he sits nursing his hangover of hatred…” (p. 197). This description easily describes those who opposed Brown v. Board of Education in the 1950s as well as those who currently stand against Obergefell v. Hodges or who defend the Confederate flag. Jean Louise observes, “Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends” (p. 270-271). With her broken faith in Atticus, she can stand on her own for the morality she once saw in him and attempted to emulate, without his human failings shaking the bedrock of her idealism. In this way, Lee shows how Southerners can break from their past and moral bargaining to finally confront past wrongs and move forward.
A complicated sequel, Go Set a Watchman can be read as a rough draft, published for its use in literary study, or taken at face value as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. In either case, its legacy is anything but clear, though it offers a far more mature view of the world. While the morality in To Kill a Mockingbird was easy to understand, Lee now forces her readers to confront the complicated and messy real world. If high school students read To Kill a Mockingbird, this is the college-level sequel that challenges their preconceived notions and deepens their understanding of the world.
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and going by her given name of Jean Louise, visiting Maycomb, AL after living in New York City for a number of years. While organizing some of her father’s papers, she finds a racist pamphlet that her father received at a citizens’ committee. She attends their meeting, sees her father in the company of a vehement racist, and has her entire view of the man challenged. Likewise, Lee’s readers feel their world shake.Nearly every child in America reads To Kill a Mockingbird while in high school and sees the 1969 film with Gregory Peck portraying Atticus. While students may not appreciate it when they are young, Atticus’ unshakable moral philosophy remains with them throughout adulthood. Readers of Go Set a Watchman can easily empathize with Jean Louise as she yells at Atticus, “I believed in you. I looked up to you, Atticus, like I never looked up to anybody in my life and never will again. If you had only given me some hint, if you had only broken your word with me a couple of times, if you had been bad-tempered or impatient with me – if you had been a lesser man, maybe I could have taken what I saw you doing” (p. 249-250). We, the readers, have taken Atticus into our hearts. His change in character feels like a personal betrayal. As Jean Louise says, “I grew up right here in your house, and I never knew what was in your mind. I only heard what you said” (p. 247). Atticus’ brother, Dr. John Finch, explains to Jean Louise that she had anchored her conscience to Atticus’, saying, “Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience” (p. 264-265). Lee presented the events of To Kill a Mockingbird through Jean Louise’s rose-tinted memory of her father. Her memory cast him as a demigod among men. As Dr. Finch says, “Our gods are remote from us, Jean Louise. They must never descend to human level” (p. 266). Lee stripped away that child’s view of Atticus and made him human in Go Set a Watchman. Dr. Finch tells Jean Louise, “He was letting you reduce him to the status of a human being” (p. 266). Most of the negative responses to Go Set a Watchman come from Lee’s revelations about Atticus. No longer a pillar of morality, Atticus Finch is now a three-dimensional, human character. Lee has killed our god and we, like Scout, are left with the man.
Lee’s insight into Southern attitudes of the mid-1950s are just as relevant to today’s audience as was her portrayal of the 1930s South to the audience of To Kill a Mockingbird. Dr. Finch describes the Southern mindset to Jean Louise, saying, “For years and years all that man thought he had that made him any better than his black brothers was the color of his skin. He was just as dirty, he smelled just as bad, he was just as poor. Nowadays he’s got more than he ever had in his life, he has everything but breeding, he’s freed himself from every stigma, but he sits nursing his hangover of hatred…” (p. 197). This description easily describes those who opposed Brown v. Board of Education in the 1950s as well as those who currently stand against Obergefell v. Hodges or who defend the Confederate flag. Jean Louise observes, “Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends” (p. 270-271). With her broken faith in Atticus, she can stand on her own for the morality she once saw in him and attempted to emulate, without his human failings shaking the bedrock of her idealism. In this way, Lee shows how Southerners can break from their past and moral bargaining to finally confront past wrongs and move forward.
A complicated sequel, Go Set a Watchman can be read as a rough draft, published for its use in literary study, or taken at face value as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. In either case, its legacy is anything but clear, though it offers a far more mature view of the world. While the morality in To Kill a Mockingbird was easy to understand, Lee now forces her readers to confront the complicated and messy real world. If high school students read To Kill a Mockingbird, this is the college-level sequel that challenges their preconceived notions and deepens their understanding of the world.
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LibraryThing member Schatje
Many people have been asking whether they should read this book. Some fear having their image of Atticus Finch tarnished and some are concerned about the circumstances surrounding the book’s publication. I suggest that people read it but with an appropriate mindset.
DO NOT read this as a sequel to
DO read the book as “the parent” of TKAM, which is supposedly what Lee called it. GSAW was written before the book that has become so beloved by so many. Parts of GSAW appear verbatim in TKAM: “Instead, Maycomb grew and sprawled out from its hub, Sinkfield’s Tavern, because Sinkfield . . . induced [the surveyors] to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He sent them packing the next day armed with their charts and five quarts of shinny in their saddlebags – two apiece and one for the Governor” (43 GSAW; 133 TKAM). At other times, minor wording changes are made. “when the time came for John Hale Finch to choose a profession, he chose medicine. He chose to study it at a time when cotton was one cent a pound . . . Atticus . . . spent and borrowed every nickel he could find to put on his brother’s education” (89 GSAW) becomes “he invested his earnings in his brother’s education. John Hale Finch . . . chose to study medicine at a time when cotton was worth nothing” (9 TKAM). Certain events are obvious parallels: Aunt Alexandra hosts a Coffee to welcome her niece in GSAW whereas in TKAM she hosts the Missionary Society; in GSAW, Jean-Louise observes her father at a meeting of the Maycomb County Citizens’ Council from “her old place in the corner of the front row [of the Colored balcony], where she and her brother had sat when they went to court to watch their father” (105).
The Tom Robinson trial figures prominently in TKAM but it is mentioned only briefly in GSAW and with a major change. In the precursor novel, Jean-Louise mentions, “he won an acquittal for a colored boy on a rape charge” (109); in TKAM, Atticus has only a moral victory. There are other interesting deviations; for example, in GSAW, when Scout is twelve she wonders, “Would Jem cry? If so, it would be the first time” (135) whilst TKAM has Jem crying after the guilty verdict at Tom Robinson’s trial: “It was Jem’s turn to cry” (214).
I would add that, like Atticus, GSAW is a flawed parent. The first one hundred pages meander: Jean-Louise returns home and visits with Aunt Alexandra, Atticus, and Henry Clinton, her wannabe husband. It is only with Jean-Louise’s discovery of her father’s reading of a pamphlet entitled The Black Plague (101) that the novel seems to find its focus. Even then, in terms of plot, very little happens: there are a lot of long conversations especially between Jean-Louise and her uncle and her father. Certainly in terms of plotting, GSAW is weak. In these conversations, much may be beyond the understanding of readers. Uncle Jack launches into a long history lesson about Southern racial history; realistic dialogue it is not. And Atticus and his daughter argue about the Tenth Amendment and a Supreme Court decision, though neither is ever explained; only someone versed in states’ rights and the Brown vs Brown ruling will be able to make sense of that discussion, even though it is part of a climactic scene.
That is not to say that GSAW does not have strengths. A twenty-six-year-old Scout is exactly as readers of TKAM would expect her to be. She refuses to submit to conventional expectations of women so she and Aunt Alexandra continue to butt heads. The flashbacks to Scout’s adolescence are wonderful, probably the best part of the novel. Especially because of when it was written, the book provides a very clear view of what most whites in Alabama in the 1950s would have felt in the face of the civil rights movement; even Jean-Louise admits she was “furious” when she heard about the Supreme Court’s school-desegregation ruling because “’there they were, tellin’ us what to do again. . . . to meet the real needs of a small portion of the population, the Court set up something horrible that could – that could affect the vast majority of folks. Adversely ‘” (238 – 239). It seems that Jean-Louise shares her father and uncle’s “’constitutional mistrust of paternalism and government in large doses’” (198).
Which brings us to Atticus’ racist comments which have already been quoted so often. He does say, “’Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?’” (245) and “’Do you want your children going to a school that’s been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?’” (246) and “’you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people’” (246). We even learn that Atticus once joined the KKK though Jean-Louise is told, “’Mr. Finch has no more use for the Klan than anybody . . . You know why he joined? To find out exactly what men in town were behind the masks. . . . all the Klan was then was a political force. . . He had to know who he’d be fighting if the time ever came to –‘” (229 -230). He introduces a speaker at a meeting of the Maycomb County Citizens’ Council, a speaker who proceeds to spew hatred, though Atticus tells his daughter that he considers that man a sadist but he let him speak “’Because he wanted to’” (250). This is certainly a harsher portrayal of Atticus than that found in TKAM, yet he is certainly recognizable in his willingness to let people speak their views regardless of his agreement with them. Jack’s description of his brother certainly sounds like the Atticus of TKAM: “’- the Klan can parade around all it wants, but when it starts bombing and beating people, don’t you know who’d be the first to try and stop it? . . . The law is what he lives by. He’ll do his best to prevent someone from beating up somebody else . . . but remember this, he’ll always do it by the letter and by the spirit of the law’” (268).
GSAW may have people returning to TKAM for a closer look at Atticus. He, for example, didn’t choose to defend Tom Robinson; “the court appointed him” (165). What about his comments about the racist neighbour, Mrs. Dubose: “’She was [a lady]’” (116)? And he does comment on the KKK: “’Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political organization more than anything’” (149). Perhaps the reader, like Jean-Louise, has to see Atticus in a more realistic way, has to “welcome him silently to the human race” (278)?
Despite being disenchanted, the reader should not see GSAW as totally disheartening. The title of the book, a Biblical allusion, refers to the prediction that Babylon will fall. The implication is that Maycomb and the South will fall; Uncle Jack says as much to his niece: “’The South’s in its last agonizing birth pain. . . . It’s bringing forth something new . . . but I won’t be here to see it. You will. Men like me and my brother are obsolete and we’ve got to go’” (200). Jean-Louise is colour-blind and has no difficulty expressing her views; she may be seen as the new moral compass.
So . . . read Go Set A Watchman, keeping in mind that it is an unedited manuscript from which To Kill a Mockingbird was derived. Written in the 1950s, it provides a look at Alabama in the early years of the civil rights movement from a white person’s point of view. It may not be a pretty picture but one need only look at the news to see that much has not changed. It may not become such an integral part of school curricula but, as an early draft, it can be especially useful for writing classes. If I were still teaching, I could see many discussions: Why does the first person point of view in TKAM work so much better than the third person used in GSAW? Why is plot structure so much more effective in TKAM? Why would the portrayal of Atticus have been softened in TKAM? Which novel is more effective in developing the theme of disillusion? When there is a discrepancy between events, why was the version in TKAM chosen?
So . . . read the book, and like Jean-Louise is required to do, become your own watchman/woman.
DO NOT read this as a sequel to
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To Kill a Mockingbird. Superficially it might seem to be one; after all, Jean-Louise is twenty years older when she goes to visit her 72-year-old father Atticus in Maycomb. We learn what has happened to some of the characters encountered in TKAM: Jem, Dill, Calpurnia. And, yes, it is a type of coming-of-age novel, like TKAM. This time Jean-Louise learns that her father has flaws: “[She had] confused [Atticus] with God. [She had] never saw him as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s failings” (265). She also learns that she has to let her own conscience guide her; at first she declares, “I need a watchman to lead me around” (181) not realizing until later that her conscience, not some other person like her father, must be her guide because “’Every man’s island, . . . every man’s watchman, is his conscience’” (265).DO read the book as “the parent” of TKAM, which is supposedly what Lee called it. GSAW was written before the book that has become so beloved by so many. Parts of GSAW appear verbatim in TKAM: “Instead, Maycomb grew and sprawled out from its hub, Sinkfield’s Tavern, because Sinkfield . . . induced [the surveyors] to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He sent them packing the next day armed with their charts and five quarts of shinny in their saddlebags – two apiece and one for the Governor” (43 GSAW; 133 TKAM). At other times, minor wording changes are made. “when the time came for John Hale Finch to choose a profession, he chose medicine. He chose to study it at a time when cotton was one cent a pound . . . Atticus . . . spent and borrowed every nickel he could find to put on his brother’s education” (89 GSAW) becomes “he invested his earnings in his brother’s education. John Hale Finch . . . chose to study medicine at a time when cotton was worth nothing” (9 TKAM). Certain events are obvious parallels: Aunt Alexandra hosts a Coffee to welcome her niece in GSAW whereas in TKAM she hosts the Missionary Society; in GSAW, Jean-Louise observes her father at a meeting of the Maycomb County Citizens’ Council from “her old place in the corner of the front row [of the Colored balcony], where she and her brother had sat when they went to court to watch their father” (105).
The Tom Robinson trial figures prominently in TKAM but it is mentioned only briefly in GSAW and with a major change. In the precursor novel, Jean-Louise mentions, “he won an acquittal for a colored boy on a rape charge” (109); in TKAM, Atticus has only a moral victory. There are other interesting deviations; for example, in GSAW, when Scout is twelve she wonders, “Would Jem cry? If so, it would be the first time” (135) whilst TKAM has Jem crying after the guilty verdict at Tom Robinson’s trial: “It was Jem’s turn to cry” (214).
I would add that, like Atticus, GSAW is a flawed parent. The first one hundred pages meander: Jean-Louise returns home and visits with Aunt Alexandra, Atticus, and Henry Clinton, her wannabe husband. It is only with Jean-Louise’s discovery of her father’s reading of a pamphlet entitled The Black Plague (101) that the novel seems to find its focus. Even then, in terms of plot, very little happens: there are a lot of long conversations especially between Jean-Louise and her uncle and her father. Certainly in terms of plotting, GSAW is weak. In these conversations, much may be beyond the understanding of readers. Uncle Jack launches into a long history lesson about Southern racial history; realistic dialogue it is not. And Atticus and his daughter argue about the Tenth Amendment and a Supreme Court decision, though neither is ever explained; only someone versed in states’ rights and the Brown vs Brown ruling will be able to make sense of that discussion, even though it is part of a climactic scene.
That is not to say that GSAW does not have strengths. A twenty-six-year-old Scout is exactly as readers of TKAM would expect her to be. She refuses to submit to conventional expectations of women so she and Aunt Alexandra continue to butt heads. The flashbacks to Scout’s adolescence are wonderful, probably the best part of the novel. Especially because of when it was written, the book provides a very clear view of what most whites in Alabama in the 1950s would have felt in the face of the civil rights movement; even Jean-Louise admits she was “furious” when she heard about the Supreme Court’s school-desegregation ruling because “’there they were, tellin’ us what to do again. . . . to meet the real needs of a small portion of the population, the Court set up something horrible that could – that could affect the vast majority of folks. Adversely ‘” (238 – 239). It seems that Jean-Louise shares her father and uncle’s “’constitutional mistrust of paternalism and government in large doses’” (198).
Which brings us to Atticus’ racist comments which have already been quoted so often. He does say, “’Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?’” (245) and “’Do you want your children going to a school that’s been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?’” (246) and “’you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people’” (246). We even learn that Atticus once joined the KKK though Jean-Louise is told, “’Mr. Finch has no more use for the Klan than anybody . . . You know why he joined? To find out exactly what men in town were behind the masks. . . . all the Klan was then was a political force. . . He had to know who he’d be fighting if the time ever came to –‘” (229 -230). He introduces a speaker at a meeting of the Maycomb County Citizens’ Council, a speaker who proceeds to spew hatred, though Atticus tells his daughter that he considers that man a sadist but he let him speak “’Because he wanted to’” (250). This is certainly a harsher portrayal of Atticus than that found in TKAM, yet he is certainly recognizable in his willingness to let people speak their views regardless of his agreement with them. Jack’s description of his brother certainly sounds like the Atticus of TKAM: “’- the Klan can parade around all it wants, but when it starts bombing and beating people, don’t you know who’d be the first to try and stop it? . . . The law is what he lives by. He’ll do his best to prevent someone from beating up somebody else . . . but remember this, he’ll always do it by the letter and by the spirit of the law’” (268).
GSAW may have people returning to TKAM for a closer look at Atticus. He, for example, didn’t choose to defend Tom Robinson; “the court appointed him” (165). What about his comments about the racist neighbour, Mrs. Dubose: “’She was [a lady]’” (116)? And he does comment on the KKK: “’Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political organization more than anything’” (149). Perhaps the reader, like Jean-Louise, has to see Atticus in a more realistic way, has to “welcome him silently to the human race” (278)?
Despite being disenchanted, the reader should not see GSAW as totally disheartening. The title of the book, a Biblical allusion, refers to the prediction that Babylon will fall. The implication is that Maycomb and the South will fall; Uncle Jack says as much to his niece: “’The South’s in its last agonizing birth pain. . . . It’s bringing forth something new . . . but I won’t be here to see it. You will. Men like me and my brother are obsolete and we’ve got to go’” (200). Jean-Louise is colour-blind and has no difficulty expressing her views; she may be seen as the new moral compass.
So . . . read Go Set A Watchman, keeping in mind that it is an unedited manuscript from which To Kill a Mockingbird was derived. Written in the 1950s, it provides a look at Alabama in the early years of the civil rights movement from a white person’s point of view. It may not be a pretty picture but one need only look at the news to see that much has not changed. It may not become such an integral part of school curricula but, as an early draft, it can be especially useful for writing classes. If I were still teaching, I could see many discussions: Why does the first person point of view in TKAM work so much better than the third person used in GSAW? Why is plot structure so much more effective in TKAM? Why would the portrayal of Atticus have been softened in TKAM? Which novel is more effective in developing the theme of disillusion? When there is a discrepancy between events, why was the version in TKAM chosen?
So . . . read the book, and like Jean-Louise is required to do, become your own watchman/woman.
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LibraryThing member Cecrow
The fact this book exists and that we are reading it is an incredible thing. Happily there's no question this is Harper Lee's voice, straight out of the 1950s. This being her first manuscript I expected it to read like a less mature work than it does. The dialogue is just brilliant and engaging,
This novel is deceptive in that it's slow and peaceful to get going. It builds around Jean Louise revisiting her home town, some cosy flashbacks and a marriage proposal, before a central event comes into play and the real story begins. I'm not sure it's possible to fully appreciate the hurt that Jean Louise experiences unless you've read the other novel first. It ramps up from there to a tumultuous conclusion that takes some time to reflect on. It's not a plot driven by action like modern fare. This is a good old-fashioned clash of moral cymbals, and the whole symphony is chiming in by the time it plays through its final chapters. To avoid spoilers all I can say is, it does exactly what it needed to do if it was going to matter.
It puzzles me how this could have been left forgotten in a drawer, box, whatever, for so long. I'm so grateful that it was found and that I got to read it. It ends on a different note - an essential note, but different - and so may not be as popularly embraced as the first, but if you enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird then this has many rewards and even a few surprises in store and it is entirely worthy of your time.
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while the setting, character portrayals and humour are all a perfect echo of her other novel.This novel is deceptive in that it's slow and peaceful to get going. It builds around Jean Louise revisiting her home town, some cosy flashbacks and a marriage proposal, before a central event comes into play and the real story begins. I'm not sure it's possible to fully appreciate the hurt that Jean Louise experiences unless you've read the other novel first. It ramps up from there to a tumultuous conclusion that takes some time to reflect on. It's not a plot driven by action like modern fare. This is a good old-fashioned clash of moral cymbals, and the whole symphony is chiming in by the time it plays through its final chapters. To avoid spoilers all I can say is, it does exactly what it needed to do if it was going to matter.
It puzzles me how this could have been left forgotten in a drawer, box, whatever, for so long. I'm so grateful that it was found and that I got to read it. It ends on a different note - an essential note, but different - and so may not be as popularly embraced as the first, but if you enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird then this has many rewards and even a few surprises in store and it is entirely worthy of your time.
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LibraryThing member librookian
I'm still not sure how I feel about this book. On the plus side: Scout has turned into the kind of feisty, I'm-not-much-interested-in-being-a-lady adult that I had hoped. There are some passages (tellingly descriptions of childhood incidents) so descriptive and funny they made me laugh out loud.
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But since Watchman was written first and heavily edited into To Kill a Mockingbird, should this book have been published? I'm sure its depiction of Atticus will upset a lot of Mockingbird lovers, especially since the book can be viewed as a sequel instead of the first-draft it actually was. Keep these things in mind and you may just enjoy catching up with some old friends, as I did. Show Less
LibraryThing member john257hopper
It is quite hard to review this novel independently of the literary sensation represented by its discovery and publication. First off, while it is recognisable as the work of the same author as To Kill a Mockingbird, it clearly lacks the authorial skill and sheer readability of the established
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classic, and some passages are really dull. More significantly, as has been widely trailed, it seriously tarnishes the character of Atticus Finch that generations of people have come to respect and love as standing up for values of human decency and respectful treatment of one's fellow human beings in the face of violence and intimidation. While the final section to some extent attempts to provide a nuanced explanation for Atticus's change of attitude through a vigorous argument between him and Jean Louise, this was never more than marginally convincing to me and some of the dialogue sounded very implausible. Jean Louise on the other hand comes across very well, as a grown up version of the stubborn, determined, infuriating and loveable character from Mockingbird and this book is even more about her story. This was for me the book's only real redeeming feature and I am afraid to say I do think that this probably should not have been published - sometimes there are good reasons why "lost" novels were lost. Show Less
LibraryThing member MaureenCean
I had to stop reading all of the controversial bits and other reviews well in advance so I could try to have a clear shot at an unbiased reading of this. I think I managed ok. I had about four distinct reactions in the course of my reading. First, I felt as if I was going back to visit with old
I can't bring myself to criticize the writing for three reasons. First, no one has given me a Pulitzer Prize; second, I understand that Lee requested that it be printed largely unedited; and third, if this is in fact the original work from which TKaM was distilled, it is a draft and not a finished product. Seems pretty clear to me. That being said, I do have to go back over the argument between Scout and Atticus - I had a little trouble at times following it.
So was I really satisfied with it? Not so much, but under the circumstances described above, I don't think I had any right to expect it. Some other reviewer likened it to a historical document. I'm good with that. I am assuming that the people who did work with Lee on editing back in the day were Northern in their sensibilities, and I wonder what impact that had on the direction and final outcome - was there a subtle agenda being promoted here? Any way you cut it, I am glad to have read it.
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friends as Scout slipped into one after another reverie of her childhood, or her family history. That was replaced by dread, since that could not go on forever, something bad had to happen. That was replaced by incredulity, as in, "Oh my God, not Atticus! He must be undercover, trying to fix them from the inside out." And then finally, "Huh? Is that it?"I can't bring myself to criticize the writing for three reasons. First, no one has given me a Pulitzer Prize; second, I understand that Lee requested that it be printed largely unedited; and third, if this is in fact the original work from which TKaM was distilled, it is a draft and not a finished product. Seems pretty clear to me. That being said, I do have to go back over the argument between Scout and Atticus - I had a little trouble at times following it.
So was I really satisfied with it? Not so much, but under the circumstances described above, I don't think I had any right to expect it. Some other reviewer likened it to a historical document. I'm good with that. I am assuming that the people who did work with Lee on editing back in the day were Northern in their sensibilities, and I wonder what impact that had on the direction and final outcome - was there a subtle agenda being promoted here? Any way you cut it, I am glad to have read it.
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LibraryThing member SamSattler
Go Set a Watchman was crowned Book of the Year months before it was finally published in mid-July. And as regards book publicity, both positive and negative, it certainly deserves that title, and could easily be dubbed Book of the Decade with little argument from either the book’s supporters or
Watchman has split the book community almost right down the middle. For every reader who waited anxiously for the book to become available, there seems to be a reader who had already declared no interest in reading it – at least until all the hoopla died down. Some worry that Harper Lee has been hoodwinked into allowing what was really just a rejected manuscript into being published at all. A few even go so far as to doubt that she is even aware that the book has been published. Others, once they began to hear rumors that Lee exposes the much beloved Atticus Finch’s racism in Watchman, declared that they would never read it because they did not want the Atticus character from To Kill a Mockingbird to be tainted in their minds.
I tended to be in the “wait and see” camp myself, but I decided to drive from Houston to Monroeville, Alabama (Lee’s hometown and residence) so that I could witness firsthand the festivities planned there for the book’s unveiling. What I saw in Monroeville, and the conversations I had with the locals, leads me to believe that Lee is fully aware of what is happening with Watchman. Not one time did I hear anyone express any doubt at all about that and, in fact, the town celebrated the book and its author with great pride during the two days I was there. And, because I could not resist buying a copy of Watchman in the gift shop of the old Monroeville courthouse, my reading plan as regards the book changed – and I finished it before I made it back to Houston.
Go Set a Watchman is certainly not nearly as polished as To Kill a Mockingbird. I found the book’s first hundred pages (in which Lee sets up the premise for what is to follow) to be slow reading and was beginning to grow bored with what Watchman appeared to be. But then things got interesting.
Jean Louise Finch, otherwise known as “Scout,” is the twenty-six-year-old narrator of Watchman. She is in Maycomb, Alabama, on a rare visit home from New York to what remains of her family there. The country is in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, a time of tension and turbulence in much of the South, and Jean Louise is finding it difficult to reconcile her childhood memories to what seems to be happening in Maycomb. When she finds that those to whom she is the closest, including both her father and the man she is engaged to marry, are secretly involved with the most blatant racists in the county to keep Negros “in their place,” she is ready to leave Maycomb and her family behind forever.
In the end, Go Set a Watchman is a realistic look into the mindset of white Southerners of the time, men and women who feared destruction of the only way of life they had ever known. Good men, as well as evil men, were caught up in the struggle for full racial equality that was happening all around them. It was largely a matter of degree, and Atticus Finch, a good man was, after all, nothing but a man of his times.
Go Set a Watchman is not a great book, but it is one that will have people talking about it for a long time. Those worried about Atticus Finch’s “image” need only remember that Mockingbird is told through the eyes of a child and Watchman through the eyes of that now-adult child. Atticus may not be the saint from Mockingbird, but he is still a good man trying to do what he believes to be the right thing.
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its detractors. Watchman has split the book community almost right down the middle. For every reader who waited anxiously for the book to become available, there seems to be a reader who had already declared no interest in reading it – at least until all the hoopla died down. Some worry that Harper Lee has been hoodwinked into allowing what was really just a rejected manuscript into being published at all. A few even go so far as to doubt that she is even aware that the book has been published. Others, once they began to hear rumors that Lee exposes the much beloved Atticus Finch’s racism in Watchman, declared that they would never read it because they did not want the Atticus character from To Kill a Mockingbird to be tainted in their minds.
I tended to be in the “wait and see” camp myself, but I decided to drive from Houston to Monroeville, Alabama (Lee’s hometown and residence) so that I could witness firsthand the festivities planned there for the book’s unveiling. What I saw in Monroeville, and the conversations I had with the locals, leads me to believe that Lee is fully aware of what is happening with Watchman. Not one time did I hear anyone express any doubt at all about that and, in fact, the town celebrated the book and its author with great pride during the two days I was there. And, because I could not resist buying a copy of Watchman in the gift shop of the old Monroeville courthouse, my reading plan as regards the book changed – and I finished it before I made it back to Houston.
Go Set a Watchman is certainly not nearly as polished as To Kill a Mockingbird. I found the book’s first hundred pages (in which Lee sets up the premise for what is to follow) to be slow reading and was beginning to grow bored with what Watchman appeared to be. But then things got interesting.
Jean Louise Finch, otherwise known as “Scout,” is the twenty-six-year-old narrator of Watchman. She is in Maycomb, Alabama, on a rare visit home from New York to what remains of her family there. The country is in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, a time of tension and turbulence in much of the South, and Jean Louise is finding it difficult to reconcile her childhood memories to what seems to be happening in Maycomb. When she finds that those to whom she is the closest, including both her father and the man she is engaged to marry, are secretly involved with the most blatant racists in the county to keep Negros “in their place,” she is ready to leave Maycomb and her family behind forever.
In the end, Go Set a Watchman is a realistic look into the mindset of white Southerners of the time, men and women who feared destruction of the only way of life they had ever known. Good men, as well as evil men, were caught up in the struggle for full racial equality that was happening all around them. It was largely a matter of degree, and Atticus Finch, a good man was, after all, nothing but a man of his times.
Go Set a Watchman is not a great book, but it is one that will have people talking about it for a long time. Those worried about Atticus Finch’s “image” need only remember that Mockingbird is told through the eyes of a child and Watchman through the eyes of that now-adult child. Atticus may not be the saint from Mockingbird, but he is still a good man trying to do what he believes to be the right thing.
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LibraryThing member DonnaMarieMerritt
Spoiler alert: If you haven't read the book, you might wish to do so before tackling this review or attacking this reviewer.
Harper Lee's GO SET A WATCHMAN has caused quite a stir.
First, people weren't sure she was of sound mind and thought perhaps she was being manipulated when she released it.
Second, how dare she change Atticus from an upright, perfect gentleman with a strong moral code to a racist! But was he? I think he was far ahead of his Southern neighbors in the 1950s, as was Lee ahead of her contemporaries. But we'll return to that.
We need to begin with Harper Lee's wonderful telling of a story. If you rushed into the book trying to get to the "juicy" part where we find out the horridness about Atticus, do yourself a favor and read it again. Slow down and enjoy the childhood memories she shares, the scenes she sets, the language she uses. Read these marvelous lines again:
If you did not want much, there was plenty.
"I'm not familiar with the author," she said, thus condemning the book forever.
When she looked thus, only God and Robert Browning knew what she was likely to say.
Had she been obliged to pay any emotional bills during her earthly life, Jean Louise could imagine her [Aunt Alexandra] stopping at the check-in desk in heaven and demanding a refund.
And those lines are all just from Part I (of VII).
It's almost hard to believe WATCHMAN was written first. Knowing the true complexity of her characters, Atticus in particular, how was she able to pull off MOCKINGBIRD? It's because she respects that Scout is then a child and sees everything from a child's point of view. Lee refrains from "correcting" Scout's impressions because they are not wrong. She sees her father as she sees him. Period.
In TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD:
"Do you defend n*gg*rs, Atticus?" I asked him that evening.
"Of course I do. Don’t say n*gg*r, Scout. That's common."
" 's what everybody at school says."
"From now on it'll be everybody less one." . . .
"Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?"
"Of course they do, Scout." . . . "I'm simply defending a Negro—his name's Tom Robinson."
Referring to the same case in GO SET A WATCHMAN:
Atticus Finch rarely took a criminal case; he had no taste for criminal law. The only reason he took this one was because he knew his client to be innocent of the charge, and he could not for the life of him let the black boy go to prison because of a half-hearted, court-appointed defense.
Scout adored Atticus. If she had found out as a child that he had "pursued the case to its conclusion with every spark of his ability and with an instinctive distaste so bitter only his knowledge that he could live peacefully with himself was able to wash it away," she would have either 1) hated him or 2) accepted his sentiments and started believing that black people were somehow inferior. As an adult, she is ready to face her father's personal attitude, and even then it almost destroys her. She misses that Atticus does what's right despite not wanting to do it. It takes a strong person with solid values to do that.
Jean Louise doesn't make her "discovery" until chapter 8, a full one hundred pages into the book. And when she does, she can't stomach the fact that her father and aunt and Henry all seem to be strangers, that she didn't know how they felt before this. [And by the way, for those who complain that she is not "Scout," what a ridiculous thing to let bother you. That's her childhood nickname and is still used occasionally by her elders in this book. Honestly, people!] It eats away at her that she imagined she knew them completely, and especially that she thought her father above everything:
But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing.
But Atticus does leave his daughter with something: independence and freedom to form her own opinions—about Maycomb, about him, about life. Despite his misgivings about civil rights, he listens to her and tries to explain his view. And his view, if you read it carefully, makes sense to a person with a lawyer's logic:
"Now think about this. What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I'll tell you. There'd be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don't know how to run 'em? . . . Honey, you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people . . . They were coming along fine, traveling at a rate they could absorb, more of 'em voting than ever before. Then the NAACP stepped in with its fantastic demands and shoddy ideas of government—can you blame the South for resenting being told what to do about its own people by people who have no idea of its daily problems?"
Now before you jump up screaming and waving your fists, consider that this is a 72-year-old man in the South in the 1950s. Consider, too, what Jean Louise recalls:
Many times she had seen him in the grocery store waiting his turn in line behind Negroes and God knows what. She had seen Mr. Fred raise his eyebrows at him, and her father shake his head in reply. He was the kind of man who instinctively waited his turn; he had manners.
Atticus is ahead of his time. He is not a hypocrite. He is polite to everyone because that is who he is. He is not a racist. Racism is fueled by hatred. Atticus does not hate anyone, not in Mockingbird and not in Watchman. Others are afraid of those not like themselves. That's not Atticus either. But he's grown up with things a certain way and he's not sure anyone in his town, black or white, can handle change at that pace, especially when he feels civil rights are being forced on them.
Don't get me wrong. The Civil Rights Movement was long overdue. I am not agreeing with Atticus, but I understand his rationale at his age in that time. And I understand Harper Lee sharing his mindset with us. (What I do not understand is our current mindset—more on that at the end.)
When Jean Louise finally angrily and viciously confronts him (and let me tell you, that scene was brilliant—read it on more than one level, from more than one point of view), Atticus says, "I've killed you, Scout. I had to."
That line is crucial. He has taught her to think for herself and he recognizes that the next generation will be better than his. That's the gift we give our children. We don't force our beliefs and biases on them. We let them decide for themselves, even if we think privately they are wrong. That's a selfless love, difficult for many parents, impossible for some. Me? I want my children to be better than I am. I want them to love the imperfect person I am, but to imitate only my good qualities and to reject my bad ones.
Jean Louise isn't seeing that and feels betrayed, not just by her father, but by everyone in town. Uncle Jack, and you may or may not agree with his methods for grabbing her attention (that part was a bit jarring), opens her eyes:
"You never saw him as a man with a man's heart, and a man's failings . . . You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting the answers from him, assuming that your answers would always be his answers."
and
"You've no doubt heard some pretty offensive talk since you've been home, but instead of getting on your charger and blindly striking it down, you turned and ran. You said, in effect, 'I don't like the way these people do, so I have no time for them.' You'd better take time for 'em, honey, otherwise you'll never grow."
and
" . . . the time your friends need you is when they're wrong . . ."
If you didn't heed my Spoiler Alert and you haven't read the book, better stop reading this and go pick it up. If you have read Watchman, we're getting to my favorite part:
She went to him. "Atticus, she said. "I'm—"
"You may be sorry, but I'm proud of you."
She looked up and saw her father beaming at her . . .
"Well, I certainly hoped a daughter of mine'd hold her ground for what she thinks is right—stand up to me first of all."
Notice how we're back to not teaching children our "truths" or to follow blindly, but teaching them to take what they need (her father's compassion, kindness, dedication to justice, and his love for her) and reject what no longer makes sense in a changing world (his misguided thoughts on civil rights):
As she welcomed him silently into the human race, the stab of discovery made her tremble a little.
Made me tremble a little, too.
And now, let's bring Harper Lee's Watchman into this millennium. Is it any less relevant today? Harper Lee did not turn a decent man into a racist. She has reminded us that we have a long way to go. We pat ourselves on the backs, convince ourselves that we are enlightened, insist that everyone has the same opportunities.
We are not there yet and we know it. We cannot ignore what's been happening in America (police targeting black men and women; gun massacres; hate crimes against anyone different) and across the globe (suicide bombings; ISIS; hate crimes against anyone different).
ACKNOWLEDGE what's wrong, THINK deeply about what must change, DECIDE what role you play, and DO something.
As Uncle Jack tells Jean Louise, "every man's watchman, is his conscience."
Go set your watchman. Let's leave this world knowing we made a difference.
Harper Lee's GO SET A WATCHMAN has caused quite a stir.
First, people weren't sure she was of sound mind and thought perhaps she was being manipulated when she released it.
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Horseshit. From personal encounters I've read, she is as bright as ever (and brighter than most). Second, how dare she change Atticus from an upright, perfect gentleman with a strong moral code to a racist! But was he? I think he was far ahead of his Southern neighbors in the 1950s, as was Lee ahead of her contemporaries. But we'll return to that.
We need to begin with Harper Lee's wonderful telling of a story. If you rushed into the book trying to get to the "juicy" part where we find out the horridness about Atticus, do yourself a favor and read it again. Slow down and enjoy the childhood memories she shares, the scenes she sets, the language she uses. Read these marvelous lines again:
If you did not want much, there was plenty.
"I'm not familiar with the author," she said, thus condemning the book forever.
When she looked thus, only God and Robert Browning knew what she was likely to say.
Had she been obliged to pay any emotional bills during her earthly life, Jean Louise could imagine her [Aunt Alexandra] stopping at the check-in desk in heaven and demanding a refund.
And those lines are all just from Part I (of VII).
It's almost hard to believe WATCHMAN was written first. Knowing the true complexity of her characters, Atticus in particular, how was she able to pull off MOCKINGBIRD? It's because she respects that Scout is then a child and sees everything from a child's point of view. Lee refrains from "correcting" Scout's impressions because they are not wrong. She sees her father as she sees him. Period.
In TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD:
"Do you defend n*gg*rs, Atticus?" I asked him that evening.
"Of course I do. Don’t say n*gg*r, Scout. That's common."
" 's what everybody at school says."
"From now on it'll be everybody less one." . . .
"Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?"
"Of course they do, Scout." . . . "I'm simply defending a Negro—his name's Tom Robinson."
Referring to the same case in GO SET A WATCHMAN:
Atticus Finch rarely took a criminal case; he had no taste for criminal law. The only reason he took this one was because he knew his client to be innocent of the charge, and he could not for the life of him let the black boy go to prison because of a half-hearted, court-appointed defense.
Scout adored Atticus. If she had found out as a child that he had "pursued the case to its conclusion with every spark of his ability and with an instinctive distaste so bitter only his knowledge that he could live peacefully with himself was able to wash it away," she would have either 1) hated him or 2) accepted his sentiments and started believing that black people were somehow inferior. As an adult, she is ready to face her father's personal attitude, and even then it almost destroys her. She misses that Atticus does what's right despite not wanting to do it. It takes a strong person with solid values to do that.
Jean Louise doesn't make her "discovery" until chapter 8, a full one hundred pages into the book. And when she does, she can't stomach the fact that her father and aunt and Henry all seem to be strangers, that she didn't know how they felt before this. [And by the way, for those who complain that she is not "Scout," what a ridiculous thing to let bother you. That's her childhood nickname and is still used occasionally by her elders in this book. Honestly, people!] It eats away at her that she imagined she knew them completely, and especially that she thought her father above everything:
But a man who has lived by truth—and you have believed in what he has lived—he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing.
But Atticus does leave his daughter with something: independence and freedom to form her own opinions—about Maycomb, about him, about life. Despite his misgivings about civil rights, he listens to her and tries to explain his view. And his view, if you read it carefully, makes sense to a person with a lawyer's logic:
"Now think about this. What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I'll tell you. There'd be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don't know how to run 'em? . . . Honey, you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people . . . They were coming along fine, traveling at a rate they could absorb, more of 'em voting than ever before. Then the NAACP stepped in with its fantastic demands and shoddy ideas of government—can you blame the South for resenting being told what to do about its own people by people who have no idea of its daily problems?"
Now before you jump up screaming and waving your fists, consider that this is a 72-year-old man in the South in the 1950s. Consider, too, what Jean Louise recalls:
Many times she had seen him in the grocery store waiting his turn in line behind Negroes and God knows what. She had seen Mr. Fred raise his eyebrows at him, and her father shake his head in reply. He was the kind of man who instinctively waited his turn; he had manners.
Atticus is ahead of his time. He is not a hypocrite. He is polite to everyone because that is who he is. He is not a racist. Racism is fueled by hatred. Atticus does not hate anyone, not in Mockingbird and not in Watchman. Others are afraid of those not like themselves. That's not Atticus either. But he's grown up with things a certain way and he's not sure anyone in his town, black or white, can handle change at that pace, especially when he feels civil rights are being forced on them.
Don't get me wrong. The Civil Rights Movement was long overdue. I am not agreeing with Atticus, but I understand his rationale at his age in that time. And I understand Harper Lee sharing his mindset with us. (What I do not understand is our current mindset—more on that at the end.)
When Jean Louise finally angrily and viciously confronts him (and let me tell you, that scene was brilliant—read it on more than one level, from more than one point of view), Atticus says, "I've killed you, Scout. I had to."
That line is crucial. He has taught her to think for herself and he recognizes that the next generation will be better than his. That's the gift we give our children. We don't force our beliefs and biases on them. We let them decide for themselves, even if we think privately they are wrong. That's a selfless love, difficult for many parents, impossible for some. Me? I want my children to be better than I am. I want them to love the imperfect person I am, but to imitate only my good qualities and to reject my bad ones.
Jean Louise isn't seeing that and feels betrayed, not just by her father, but by everyone in town. Uncle Jack, and you may or may not agree with his methods for grabbing her attention (that part was a bit jarring), opens her eyes:
"You never saw him as a man with a man's heart, and a man's failings . . . You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting the answers from him, assuming that your answers would always be his answers."
and
"You've no doubt heard some pretty offensive talk since you've been home, but instead of getting on your charger and blindly striking it down, you turned and ran. You said, in effect, 'I don't like the way these people do, so I have no time for them.' You'd better take time for 'em, honey, otherwise you'll never grow."
and
" . . . the time your friends need you is when they're wrong . . ."
If you didn't heed my Spoiler Alert and you haven't read the book, better stop reading this and go pick it up. If you have read Watchman, we're getting to my favorite part:
She went to him. "Atticus, she said. "I'm—"
"You may be sorry, but I'm proud of you."
She looked up and saw her father beaming at her . . .
"Well, I certainly hoped a daughter of mine'd hold her ground for what she thinks is right—stand up to me first of all."
Notice how we're back to not teaching children our "truths" or to follow blindly, but teaching them to take what they need (her father's compassion, kindness, dedication to justice, and his love for her) and reject what no longer makes sense in a changing world (his misguided thoughts on civil rights):
As she welcomed him silently into the human race, the stab of discovery made her tremble a little.
Made me tremble a little, too.
And now, let's bring Harper Lee's Watchman into this millennium. Is it any less relevant today? Harper Lee did not turn a decent man into a racist. She has reminded us that we have a long way to go. We pat ourselves on the backs, convince ourselves that we are enlightened, insist that everyone has the same opportunities.
We are not there yet and we know it. We cannot ignore what's been happening in America (police targeting black men and women; gun massacres; hate crimes against anyone different) and across the globe (suicide bombings; ISIS; hate crimes against anyone different).
ACKNOWLEDGE what's wrong, THINK deeply about what must change, DECIDE what role you play, and DO something.
As Uncle Jack tells Jean Louise, "every man's watchman, is his conscience."
Go set your watchman. Let's leave this world knowing we made a difference.
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LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
We all know by know that the story here is set some 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, as a grown-up Jean Louise Finch comes home to Maycomb from New York City for her annual visit. The reader, unless he has been under a rock for the last five years, has the advantage of her, as
What struck me repeatedly as I was reading Watchman was that I kept filling in background that I could only know from reading Mockingbird. I found it hard to believe this story came first, or could make any sense whatsoever without the underpinning of TKM. Aside from the changes easily explained by the passage of time or a child's lack of understanding, the only obvious inconsistency between the two stories is that in Watchman Atticus won an acquittal for his black client accused of rape. It is much easier to believe that Watchman was a lesser sequel to Mockingbird than that it was the "first draft" of that superior novel. In fact, for the first half I was firmly convinced that Harper Lee’s notes or draft may have been the starting place for this book, but that it had surely been written by someone else much more recently. I'm still not sure that isn't what happened. So much of it sounds distressingly current. Like this passage (I could have written it last week): "Why doesn't their flesh creep? How can they devoutly believe everything they hear in church and then say the things they do and listen to the things they hear without throwing up?"
Ultimately, Go Set a Watchman is a story of disillusionment....not ours, as readers of a fondly remembered novel with a beloved protagonist, but a daughter's when she makes the inevitable discovery that her father was a real man of his time and not the flawless idol she had set up to worship. Most of us come to that realization gradually...Jean Louise had it thrust upon her. Jean Louise is a believable young adult version of the Scout we know and love from TKM. However, without the context of the childhood experiences we shared in that novel, she is a minimally developed character whose emotional framework we have less basis to appreciate. Her ranting against her father (and his maddeningly cool-headed responses to it) are poorly crafted, but understandable because we already know who she thought her father was. "If a man says to you, 'This is the truth,' and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught out by him again. But a man who has lived by truth---and you have believed in what he has lived---he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing."
As an extension of To Kill a Mockingbird Go Set a Watchman works to shake us up a little...to cause us to examine our own assumptions and hidden prejudices, as perhaps Harper Lee was doing when she wrote it.
While it is definitely not as polished, poignant or poetic as TKM, it surprised me by being quite powerful in its own way, bearing absolutely none of the comforting nostalgic tone of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic.
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she is unprepared for what she learns about the town and people she grew up with. Atticus isn't a saint? Calpurnia didn't love the Finches like family all those years she worked in their house? Uncle Jack is a pain in the ass who can never answer a straight question with a straight answer? Actually, that's the one that bothered me most. I really liked Uncle Jack in TKM. I find nothing astonishing in the "revelation" that Atticus's attitude toward the black population of Maycomb was paternalistic and therefore racist by 21st century standards. Read TKM with a modern eye and you can't help but see it. It is, as Toni Morrison said, a white savior story. In the 1960's, that was less of a condemnation than it is now. TKM served as important a literary role in the civil rights movement as Uncle Tom's Cabin did in rousing support for abolition. It made ME a supporter of equal rights at a pretty crucial time in my moral development. I would hate to think that, like UTC, there will come time when it is virtually unreadable. But it's a possibility I accept.What struck me repeatedly as I was reading Watchman was that I kept filling in background that I could only know from reading Mockingbird. I found it hard to believe this story came first, or could make any sense whatsoever without the underpinning of TKM. Aside from the changes easily explained by the passage of time or a child's lack of understanding, the only obvious inconsistency between the two stories is that in Watchman Atticus won an acquittal for his black client accused of rape. It is much easier to believe that Watchman was a lesser sequel to Mockingbird than that it was the "first draft" of that superior novel. In fact, for the first half I was firmly convinced that Harper Lee’s notes or draft may have been the starting place for this book, but that it had surely been written by someone else much more recently. I'm still not sure that isn't what happened. So much of it sounds distressingly current. Like this passage (I could have written it last week): "Why doesn't their flesh creep? How can they devoutly believe everything they hear in church and then say the things they do and listen to the things they hear without throwing up?"
Ultimately, Go Set a Watchman is a story of disillusionment....not ours, as readers of a fondly remembered novel with a beloved protagonist, but a daughter's when she makes the inevitable discovery that her father was a real man of his time and not the flawless idol she had set up to worship. Most of us come to that realization gradually...Jean Louise had it thrust upon her. Jean Louise is a believable young adult version of the Scout we know and love from TKM. However, without the context of the childhood experiences we shared in that novel, she is a minimally developed character whose emotional framework we have less basis to appreciate. Her ranting against her father (and his maddeningly cool-headed responses to it) are poorly crafted, but understandable because we already know who she thought her father was. "If a man says to you, 'This is the truth,' and you believe him, and you discover what he says is not the truth, you are disappointed and you make sure you will not be caught out by him again. But a man who has lived by truth---and you have believed in what he has lived---he does not leave you merely wary when he fails you, he leaves you with nothing."
As an extension of To Kill a Mockingbird Go Set a Watchman works to shake us up a little...to cause us to examine our own assumptions and hidden prejudices, as perhaps Harper Lee was doing when she wrote it.
While it is definitely not as polished, poignant or poetic as TKM, it surprised me by being quite powerful in its own way, bearing absolutely none of the comforting nostalgic tone of the Pulitzer Prize-winning classic.
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LibraryThing member gbill
Anyone who believes racial dialogue in America is irrelevant because "slavery's over", or "civil rights passed", read this book. While it was written in the 1950's and is set shortly after the Supreme Court ordered states to desegregate, it shows just how tough it is to change centuries of racism,
Dear readers, please pardon what I am about to say, and continue no further if you don't wish to be exposed to venting which includes spoilers. However, I must get this off my chest. Atticus Finch, you racist dog. How dare you. Like your daughter, we believed in you. We thought you were a paragon of virtue, a man ahead of his time, who saw through racist hysteria to try to save an innocent young black man. Little did we know you were applying justice to the one while denying it to the many, and that you had a cold, intellectual racism of your own that was far more insidious.
Your argument in this book? The South had a right to its own way of life, should not be told by the Federal Government what to do, and blacks are "backwards" as a race. Sound familiar to the argument the Confederates used leading up to the Civil War? Oh, and despite it being 90 years later, it was "too soon" for such changes to be mandated, the South should be on its own pace, and that blacks should be kept out of democracy, because "they outnumber us", and if elected to office, civilization would degenerate. "Jeffersonian"? From the perspective of believing black people are inferior, unfortunately, yes, you have that in common with him. His views were formed in the 18th century. What's your excuse?
Why does Atticus infuriate us so, on top of being so morally wrong, and so hopelessly on the wrong side of history? Why do people want to return this book and get their money back? Why, aside from what feels like betrayal? Simple. The truth hurts. He is us. He represents a big portion of America in the 1950s, and sadly, too much of America today, in different forms, and better cloaked.
Like Jean Louise 'Scout' Finch, all grown up and freshly back from Manhattan, you will be outraged. You'll cheer her on as she relates Atticus to Hitler to his face. What Atticus takes away from your faith in humanity, Jean will restore. You'll be rooting for her to leave and never look back, and be shocked and horrified when her Uncle Jack punches her in the face twice (by the way, just where is reader outrage for this?), and gets her to drink a tumbler full of whiskey in order to "listen to reason" - the reason amounting to taking a middle position, loving her father even if he is not perfect, and helping the South along because it needs it, as opposed to condemning and fleeing it.
You won't find a more honest book about this time period, or one deserving more to be read today, amidst our continued racial tension. The dialogue (including Jean's interior voice), is authentic, cultured, and funny, and her childhood memories are brilliant. The book has a lot of things going for it besides race relations, though that is the focus of most people's reactions (ahem, including my own diatribe). As anyone who's left home to go far away knows, it's hard to go back. It's also hard to see those you idolize fall from grace in front of your eyes. And it's hard to reconcile just how deep the divide is between white and black in America to this day, but books like this help us understand it.
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and how ugly it can be, lurking beneath the surface of even the most respectable and “fair” men. Dear readers, please pardon what I am about to say, and continue no further if you don't wish to be exposed to venting which includes spoilers. However, I must get this off my chest. Atticus Finch, you racist dog. How dare you. Like your daughter, we believed in you. We thought you were a paragon of virtue, a man ahead of his time, who saw through racist hysteria to try to save an innocent young black man. Little did we know you were applying justice to the one while denying it to the many, and that you had a cold, intellectual racism of your own that was far more insidious.
Your argument in this book? The South had a right to its own way of life, should not be told by the Federal Government what to do, and blacks are "backwards" as a race. Sound familiar to the argument the Confederates used leading up to the Civil War? Oh, and despite it being 90 years later, it was "too soon" for such changes to be mandated, the South should be on its own pace, and that blacks should be kept out of democracy, because "they outnumber us", and if elected to office, civilization would degenerate. "Jeffersonian"? From the perspective of believing black people are inferior, unfortunately, yes, you have that in common with him. His views were formed in the 18th century. What's your excuse?
Why does Atticus infuriate us so, on top of being so morally wrong, and so hopelessly on the wrong side of history? Why do people want to return this book and get their money back? Why, aside from what feels like betrayal? Simple. The truth hurts. He is us. He represents a big portion of America in the 1950s, and sadly, too much of America today, in different forms, and better cloaked.
Like Jean Louise 'Scout' Finch, all grown up and freshly back from Manhattan, you will be outraged. You'll cheer her on as she relates Atticus to Hitler to his face. What Atticus takes away from your faith in humanity, Jean will restore. You'll be rooting for her to leave and never look back, and be shocked and horrified when her Uncle Jack punches her in the face twice (by the way, just where is reader outrage for this?), and gets her to drink a tumbler full of whiskey in order to "listen to reason" - the reason amounting to taking a middle position, loving her father even if he is not perfect, and helping the South along because it needs it, as opposed to condemning and fleeing it.
You won't find a more honest book about this time period, or one deserving more to be read today, amidst our continued racial tension. The dialogue (including Jean's interior voice), is authentic, cultured, and funny, and her childhood memories are brilliant. The book has a lot of things going for it besides race relations, though that is the focus of most people's reactions (ahem, including my own diatribe). As anyone who's left home to go far away knows, it's hard to go back. It's also hard to see those you idolize fall from grace in front of your eyes. And it's hard to reconcile just how deep the divide is between white and black in America to this day, but books like this help us understand it.
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LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
Well, I had to read this, as "To Kill A Mockingbird" is one of my all time favorites. And despite what I'd heard so far, this book is well worth the read! It felt comfortable, even if it turned a god into just a man. There are enough flashback, childhood stories to make it, well a sort of
The title comes from the Bible, Isaiah 21:6. The conflict is race, segregation, civil rights, and the roles and reactions of the North, the South, the Supreme Court, the NAACP, and the Finches. Scout finds that the home she left isn't the same as the one she grew up in, or is it she who is no longer the same? Her growth and conflicts are the backbone of this book, but, for me, the treasures are her reminiscences of growing up. It is in those tales, that what I loved about the first book rise to the top of this book! I'd say, forget what others say, and read this book! Decide for yourself. Decide, and enjoy!
p.s. - on an aside: I love Stephen King, and had to smile when Harper Lee mentioned (twice, I think) "Childe Roland to the dark tower came." So... does this make this part of King's "Dark Tower" saga? ;-)
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homecoming for me, Scout, Jem, Cal, and Atticus.The title comes from the Bible, Isaiah 21:6. The conflict is race, segregation, civil rights, and the roles and reactions of the North, the South, the Supreme Court, the NAACP, and the Finches. Scout finds that the home she left isn't the same as the one she grew up in, or is it she who is no longer the same? Her growth and conflicts are the backbone of this book, but, for me, the treasures are her reminiscences of growing up. It is in those tales, that what I loved about the first book rise to the top of this book! I'd say, forget what others say, and read this book! Decide for yourself. Decide, and enjoy!
p.s. - on an aside: I love Stephen King, and had to smile when Harper Lee mentioned (twice, I think) "Childe Roland to the dark tower came." So... does this make this part of King's "Dark Tower" saga? ;-)
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LibraryThing member Gingermama
While I can understand why some readers are disappointed with this book, with the portrayal of Atticus and other changes to the town and its inhabitants since the setting of "To Kill a Mockingbird", it seems to me that anyone who can read this story with an open mind will find that it has a lot to
Granted, this book doesn't have as strong an emotional impact of "Mockingbird", and the editor who read the draft and told Ms. Lee to go back and write the story of Jean Louise's childhood instead was absolutely right: that's where the better story lay. That said, this rejected manuscript is still miles better than much of what's been published in the last few years. There's real emotion here, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but always honest. I suspect I'll remember this book for a very long time.
I listened to the audio version, brought beautifully to life by Reese Witherspoon, and would highly recommend it.
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offer. Scout is now a young woman who's left behind her childhood nickname and goes by Jean Louise, a New York-dwelling college graduate on a visit back home to Maycombe. Set in -- as well as written in -- the 1950s, the civil rights movement is very much on her mind, and she's struggling with the changes taking place (or not taking place fast enough, in some cases).Granted, this book doesn't have as strong an emotional impact of "Mockingbird", and the editor who read the draft and told Ms. Lee to go back and write the story of Jean Louise's childhood instead was absolutely right: that's where the better story lay. That said, this rejected manuscript is still miles better than much of what's been published in the last few years. There's real emotion here, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, but always honest. I suspect I'll remember this book for a very long time.
I listened to the audio version, brought beautifully to life by Reese Witherspoon, and would highly recommend it.
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LibraryThing member Sean191
What was Lee thinking? What were her publishers thinking? Going into this book, I was aware that people were distraught because Atticus turned out to be a racist - and was his whole life, but his dedication to the letter of the law (if not the spirit) outweighed his bigotry. So, I was prepared for
It's more problematic because I'm not sure that Scout isn't Lee's way of inserting herself into the story, to share her point of view. There are things Scout agrees to about people of color in this book that are just over-the-top racist. Really blatantly disgustingly so, but their couched in her defense of PoC. So agreeing with others that they're less intelligent or child-like, or lazy...but saying that doesn't make it right to not give them a chance to grow.
Maybe those misguided views paired with defending their right to live as free and equal people would have been boundary-breaking in the deep south in the '50s...but that's not when this book was released. Instead, it came out decades later and the offensiveness of those statements only grew with time. I won't give Lee the credit of complexity to believe she introduced those glaring flaws to Scout to stoke discussion. There's not enough other work from her to be able to determine satire or social criticism and frankly, I think taking into account the age she was when she wrote Go Set a Watchman and the deep-seated beliefs of the South (and the North for that matter) at the time, it's likely that Lee didn't see anything wrong with what Scout was saying and that makes me reluctant to ever re-read TKAM as I'm going to look at it through a very different lens and I don't know if the view will be as flattering for what was an American classic that was propped up as an indictment against racism.
I nearly forgot - the story as a whole, wasn't horrible. It had an interesting premise and it would have worked without TKAM having existed, even if all the characters were deeply flawed. But the writing itself and the characters were bland. Lee had an amazing legacy with one book. She was well into her later life. I don't understand why after not releasing anything for 50 years or so, she chose to put this out there. It was a mistake.
Edit: I wrote my initial review and then read other reviews and after a dozen or so, saw no one calling out the deep racism of Scout/Jean Louise and it's at least as horrible as Atticus' because Jean Louise doesn't even realize how racist she's being and Lee is putting her forward like a champion to fight against oppression. It took me just a moment to find a passage that illustrates what I mean. This conversation is between Scout and Atticus:
"Let's look at it this way," said her father. "You realize that our Negro population is backward, don't you? You will concede that? You realize the full implications of the word 'backward' don't you?"
"Yes sir."
"You realize that the vast majority of them here in the South are unable to share fully in the responsibilities of citizenship, and why?"
"Yes sir."
There are more examples...they're not good.
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that. I was also prepared for writing that wasn't as polished as To Kill a Mockingbird as this was purportedly written first and then scrapped in lieu of the other story. What I wasn't prepared for was the deeper racism that was written as "fact" by Lee through Scout. It's more problematic because I'm not sure that Scout isn't Lee's way of inserting herself into the story, to share her point of view. There are things Scout agrees to about people of color in this book that are just over-the-top racist. Really blatantly disgustingly so, but their couched in her defense of PoC. So agreeing with others that they're less intelligent or child-like, or lazy...but saying that doesn't make it right to not give them a chance to grow.
Maybe those misguided views paired with defending their right to live as free and equal people would have been boundary-breaking in the deep south in the '50s...but that's not when this book was released. Instead, it came out decades later and the offensiveness of those statements only grew with time. I won't give Lee the credit of complexity to believe she introduced those glaring flaws to Scout to stoke discussion. There's not enough other work from her to be able to determine satire or social criticism and frankly, I think taking into account the age she was when she wrote Go Set a Watchman and the deep-seated beliefs of the South (and the North for that matter) at the time, it's likely that Lee didn't see anything wrong with what Scout was saying and that makes me reluctant to ever re-read TKAM as I'm going to look at it through a very different lens and I don't know if the view will be as flattering for what was an American classic that was propped up as an indictment against racism.
I nearly forgot - the story as a whole, wasn't horrible. It had an interesting premise and it would have worked without TKAM having existed, even if all the characters were deeply flawed. But the writing itself and the characters were bland. Lee had an amazing legacy with one book. She was well into her later life. I don't understand why after not releasing anything for 50 years or so, she chose to put this out there. It was a mistake.
Edit: I wrote my initial review and then read other reviews and after a dozen or so, saw no one calling out the deep racism of Scout/Jean Louise and it's at least as horrible as Atticus' because Jean Louise doesn't even realize how racist she's being and Lee is putting her forward like a champion to fight against oppression. It took me just a moment to find a passage that illustrates what I mean. This conversation is between Scout and Atticus:
"Let's look at it this way," said her father. "You realize that our Negro population is backward, don't you? You will concede that? You realize the full implications of the word 'backward' don't you?"
"Yes sir."
"You realize that the vast majority of them here in the South are unable to share fully in the responsibilities of citizenship, and why?"
"Yes sir."
There are more examples...they're not good.
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LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
What a disservice was done to Harper Lee in coercing her to publish this novel that she had wisely kept hidden for so many years. To Kill a Mockingbird was a paean to humanity and to the nobility of conscience. Go Set a Watchman is the perfect description of Southern Chauvinism - the Civil War was
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not about slavery and the defense of segregation has nothing to do with racism. Sad, and supremely disappointing. Show Less
LibraryThing member Othemts
This book is controversial for two reasons. First, it's questionable whether Lee ever wanted it published and possible she was exploited in her infirmity and old age. Second, it presents Atticus Finch, one of the noble heroes of American literature, as an unrepentant racist.
Of course, this Atticus
The novel starts with Jean Louise (aka Scout) Finch returning to visit Maycomb, Alabama from New York. There are some humorous bits as the unrepentant tomboy Jean Louise ponders just how much she doesn't fit in to the community she fled. There are also interesting and humorous flashbacks to her younger days (which an editor considered the best parts of the book, thus inspiring Lee to rewrite the book from the perspective of Scout as a child).
Then Jean Louise discovers that Atticus and her fiance Hank are attending the local Citizens Council meeting and she is shocked and disillusioned. Frankly, at this point the novel goes south as Jean Louise engages in unnatural conversations with several characters each a didactic representation of a Segregationist or States Rights point of view, while Jean Louise represents the Northern Liberal perspective (and frankly, Jean Louise is very weak as a proponent of equality and integration, although she may have seemed more radical in the 1950s).
This book is good for a couple of things. For one, it helps understand the writing process, giving a peak at an early draft of a great novel. Second, it's a snapshot of opinions of white Southerners on racial issues in the late 1950s. Sadly, what it is not is a good or well-written novel.
Favorite Passages:
She was a person who, when confronted with an easy way out, always took the hard way.
It had never fully occurred to Jean Louise that she was a girl: her life had been one of reckless, pummeling activity; fighting, football, climbing, keeping up with Jem, and besting anyone her own age in any contest requiring physical prowess. When she was calm enough to listen, she considered that a cruel practical joke had been played upon her: she must now go into a world of femininity, a world she despised, could not comprehend nor defend herself against, a world that did not want her.
There was a time, long ago, when the only peaceful moments of her existence were those from the time she opened her eyes in the morning until she attained full consciousness, a matter of seconds until when finally roused she entered the day’s wakeful nightmare
You are fascinated with yourself. You will say anything that occurs to you, but what I can’t understand are the things that do occur to you. I should like to take your head apart, put a fact in it, and watch it go its way through the runnels of your brain until it comes out of your mouth. We were both born here, we went to the same schools, we were taught the same things. I wonder what you saw and heard.
Blind, that’s what I am. I never opened my eyes. I never thought to look into people’s hearts, I looked only in their faces. Stone blind . . . Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone set a watchman in church yesterday. He should have provided me with one. I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour. I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is.
I’ll come down to you. I believed in you. I looked up to you, Atticus, like I never looked up to anybody in my life and never will again. If you had only given me some hint, if you had only broken your word with me a couple of times, if you had been bad-tempered or impatient with me—if you had been a lesser man, maybe I could have taken what I saw you doing. If once or twice you’d let me catch you doing something vile, then I would have understood yesterday. Then I’d have said that’s just His Way, that’s My Old Man, because I’d have been prepared for it somewhere along the line.
Of course, this Atticus
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is not the same Atticus as in To Kill A Mockingbird, as Go Set A Watchman is not a sequel but an early draft of that novel that was heavily re-written and edited. Still this Atticus is a valuable character for a couple of reasons. First, it shows that white people who may have been considered equitable when Jim Crow was firmly in place became reactionary once the Civil Rights Movement started, and found ways to justify it to themselves. Second, it seems like each book has the Atticus that the readers of its time need. In the 1960s, the Atticus who was a model of a white person advocating for equality and justice. In the "colorblind" 2000s, we have white people who admire Atticus Finch but with no self-awareness will say things like "I'm not racist but..." or "all lives matter." A major plot point is that Atticus thinks Jean Louise needs to stop looking up to him for the answers and make up her own mind and that's probably a good lesson for the reader as well.The novel starts with Jean Louise (aka Scout) Finch returning to visit Maycomb, Alabama from New York. There are some humorous bits as the unrepentant tomboy Jean Louise ponders just how much she doesn't fit in to the community she fled. There are also interesting and humorous flashbacks to her younger days (which an editor considered the best parts of the book, thus inspiring Lee to rewrite the book from the perspective of Scout as a child).
Then Jean Louise discovers that Atticus and her fiance Hank are attending the local Citizens Council meeting and she is shocked and disillusioned. Frankly, at this point the novel goes south as Jean Louise engages in unnatural conversations with several characters each a didactic representation of a Segregationist or States Rights point of view, while Jean Louise represents the Northern Liberal perspective (and frankly, Jean Louise is very weak as a proponent of equality and integration, although she may have seemed more radical in the 1950s).
This book is good for a couple of things. For one, it helps understand the writing process, giving a peak at an early draft of a great novel. Second, it's a snapshot of opinions of white Southerners on racial issues in the late 1950s. Sadly, what it is not is a good or well-written novel.
Favorite Passages:
She was a person who, when confronted with an easy way out, always took the hard way.
It had never fully occurred to Jean Louise that she was a girl: her life had been one of reckless, pummeling activity; fighting, football, climbing, keeping up with Jem, and besting anyone her own age in any contest requiring physical prowess. When she was calm enough to listen, she considered that a cruel practical joke had been played upon her: she must now go into a world of femininity, a world she despised, could not comprehend nor defend herself against, a world that did not want her.
There was a time, long ago, when the only peaceful moments of her existence were those from the time she opened her eyes in the morning until she attained full consciousness, a matter of seconds until when finally roused she entered the day’s wakeful nightmare
You are fascinated with yourself. You will say anything that occurs to you, but what I can’t understand are the things that do occur to you. I should like to take your head apart, put a fact in it, and watch it go its way through the runnels of your brain until it comes out of your mouth. We were both born here, we went to the same schools, we were taught the same things. I wonder what you saw and heard.
Blind, that’s what I am. I never opened my eyes. I never thought to look into people’s hearts, I looked only in their faces. Stone blind . . . Mr. Stone. Mr. Stone set a watchman in church yesterday. He should have provided me with one. I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour. I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is.
I’ll come down to you. I believed in you. I looked up to you, Atticus, like I never looked up to anybody in my life and never will again. If you had only given me some hint, if you had only broken your word with me a couple of times, if you had been bad-tempered or impatient with me—if you had been a lesser man, maybe I could have taken what I saw you doing. If once or twice you’d let me catch you doing something vile, then I would have understood yesterday. Then I’d have said that’s just His Way, that’s My Old Man, because I’d have been prepared for it somewhere along the line.
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LibraryThing member bell7
Jean Louise Finch, at the age of 26, lives in New York but returns to Maycomb to visit family about the time of the Supreme Court injunction to desegregate the schools. She finds herself wrong-footed when she discovers that many of her views on race are different from those she loves most, and
Obviously, this book has received a lot of hype and I'm sure by now most people know the story: this is the manuscript written before To Kill a Mockingbird, and was re-written into the classic many know and love. Discovered last year, and published this, we now have a new book by the author whom no one expected to write another story. So, as with many people, I read the book with a sort of nervous anticipation. Would it hold up to the "original"?
I love the characters and the dialogue and the ability of the author to bring out the humor in a childhood memory. I think Go Set a Watchman works better as a companion piece, almost looking at the writing from a historical perspective of what was developed from a draft to a finish work, than it does as a sequel, strictly speaking (close readers will notice one or two things that were blatantly changed from one to the other). I had the feeling I was pulling back the curtain from the craft of writing, and it's a fascinating insight into how it could work. Jean Louise - Scout - is as outspoken as ever, saying what she thinks no holds barred and fighting with her Aunt Alexandra, and I loved her for it. The themes, perhaps, were laid out a bit directly in the text, making it feel a bit rough, but again it was interesting to think about how they were developed differently in To Kill a Mockingbird. Some readers may be disappointed with some of the other characters, especially Atticus, but I thought the exploration of how Jean Louise would react as a young adult seeing her childhood heroes were human was well done and believable. Would I read it again if it were a standalone? Probably not, but given the story of the text itself it is well worth reading and dissecting.
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memories of the past conflict with what she observes in the present.Obviously, this book has received a lot of hype and I'm sure by now most people know the story: this is the manuscript written before To Kill a Mockingbird, and was re-written into the classic many know and love. Discovered last year, and published this, we now have a new book by the author whom no one expected to write another story. So, as with many people, I read the book with a sort of nervous anticipation. Would it hold up to the "original"?
I love the characters and the dialogue and the ability of the author to bring out the humor in a childhood memory. I think Go Set a Watchman works better as a companion piece, almost looking at the writing from a historical perspective of what was developed from a draft to a finish work, than it does as a sequel, strictly speaking (close readers will notice one or two things that were blatantly changed from one to the other). I had the feeling I was pulling back the curtain from the craft of writing, and it's a fascinating insight into how it could work. Jean Louise - Scout - is as outspoken as ever, saying what she thinks no holds barred and fighting with her Aunt Alexandra, and I loved her for it. The themes, perhaps, were laid out a bit directly in the text, making it feel a bit rough, but again it was interesting to think about how they were developed differently in To Kill a Mockingbird. Some readers may be disappointed with some of the other characters, especially Atticus, but I thought the exploration of how Jean Louise would react as a young adult seeing her childhood heroes were human was well done and believable. Would I read it again if it were a standalone? Probably not, but given the story of the text itself it is well worth reading and dissecting.
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LibraryThing member Jfranklin592262
This left me confused and disappointed. I loved "To kill a mockingbird". But, Go set a Watchman is so oddly different, it doesn't even feel like the same author.
***There will be some spoilers here***
This focuses solely on Jean Louise, she no longer goes by Scout. Her brother Jem has died 2 yrs
Jean Louise returns to Maycomb, from New York, where she lives now, to find things have changed. Apparently Atticus, her father, is a racists now...yes, the same man that raised her to be kind and believe in equal rights for all. The same man that defended a black man named Tom Robinson against rape charges in TKAMB(To kill a mockingbird), the main plot and storyline of that book. Oh, and surprise!...Tom Robinson was acquitted in this book, although he was convicted and later shot to death while trying to escape in TKAMB. This bit of plot swap baffled me to the point that I actually went back to the TKAMB to make sure I hadn't missed something, had memory lapse, or lost my mind.
Atticus, his beliefs, how he raises his children, the trials and tribulations that the family endures to support their views, the wonderful man and father he is....these things are so integral to the story told in TKAMB, it feels like such an injustice, a disservice to his character to completely change him.
Not only is Atticus a racists, but apparently Henry is too. Henry? Who's Henry?? This is supposedly her brother's best childhood friend, whom they spent their entire childhood doing everything with, but wasn't even a character in TKAMB. Dill, who actually filled this role in the TKAMB, is entirely absent here and only briefly mentioned. Henry wants to marry Jean Louise, always has and has apparently proposed multiple times, another role Dill filled in TKAMB. Dill and Scouts relationship and Dills childhood proposal was one of the sweetest and cutest parts of the book and I was looking forward to seeing the dynamics of their relationship as adults. Why??!! Why create an entirely new character?? Henry serves no purpose and does nothing as a supporting character that Dill could not have done.
These aren't the only changes....Uncle Jack, a physician, made appearances in TKAMB, but lived in Mobile. Here, he lives in Maycomb and has played much larger role in Scout and Jems childhood. He also has a completely different persona and is supposedly a somewhat looney eccentric. Aunt Alexandra's storyline has changed as well, and she has always lived in Maycomb, as to where in TKAMB she moved in to help raise Scout with a woman's influence, but had a home in Finches landing, their families longtime homestead. The family no longer even owns the homestead in this book.
Calpernia......Cal was one of my favorites in TKAMB. She raised Jem and Scout and had a very close relationship with both children and Atticus. Cal was from Finches landing, where she and her family had always been in service for and a part of the Finch family. She moved to Maycomb with Atticus and his wife when they married and purchased a home there. She started as a nanny and ended up a Mother to the kids after their Mother died when Scout was 2. Cal, in this book, is not only no longer with the family, but apparently always harbored animosity and hatred towards them.
This book has an entirely different feel, an almost entirely different storyline, but still manages to mimic TKAMB in entire paragraphs that feel like page fillers. I found several of these, especially when describing Maycomb or giving family history, essentially copied and pasted directly from TKAMB.
A total disappointment. Supposedly, Harper Lee has said this was her original idea for TKAMB, but had changed it to appease her publisher or someone .... IMO she should have stuck with their ideas and left it at that.
***There will be some spoilers here***
This focuses solely on Jean Louise, she no longer goes by Scout. Her brother Jem has died 2 yrs
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prior to this book, the first of many confusing decisions Harper Lee made with this one.Jean Louise returns to Maycomb, from New York, where she lives now, to find things have changed. Apparently Atticus, her father, is a racists now...yes, the same man that raised her to be kind and believe in equal rights for all. The same man that defended a black man named Tom Robinson against rape charges in TKAMB(To kill a mockingbird), the main plot and storyline of that book. Oh, and surprise!...Tom Robinson was acquitted in this book, although he was convicted and later shot to death while trying to escape in TKAMB. This bit of plot swap baffled me to the point that I actually went back to the TKAMB to make sure I hadn't missed something, had memory lapse, or lost my mind.
Atticus, his beliefs, how he raises his children, the trials and tribulations that the family endures to support their views, the wonderful man and father he is....these things are so integral to the story told in TKAMB, it feels like such an injustice, a disservice to his character to completely change him.
Not only is Atticus a racists, but apparently Henry is too. Henry? Who's Henry?? This is supposedly her brother's best childhood friend, whom they spent their entire childhood doing everything with, but wasn't even a character in TKAMB. Dill, who actually filled this role in the TKAMB, is entirely absent here and only briefly mentioned. Henry wants to marry Jean Louise, always has and has apparently proposed multiple times, another role Dill filled in TKAMB. Dill and Scouts relationship and Dills childhood proposal was one of the sweetest and cutest parts of the book and I was looking forward to seeing the dynamics of their relationship as adults. Why??!! Why create an entirely new character?? Henry serves no purpose and does nothing as a supporting character that Dill could not have done.
These aren't the only changes....Uncle Jack, a physician, made appearances in TKAMB, but lived in Mobile. Here, he lives in Maycomb and has played much larger role in Scout and Jems childhood. He also has a completely different persona and is supposedly a somewhat looney eccentric. Aunt Alexandra's storyline has changed as well, and she has always lived in Maycomb, as to where in TKAMB she moved in to help raise Scout with a woman's influence, but had a home in Finches landing, their families longtime homestead. The family no longer even owns the homestead in this book.
Calpernia......Cal was one of my favorites in TKAMB. She raised Jem and Scout and had a very close relationship with both children and Atticus. Cal was from Finches landing, where she and her family had always been in service for and a part of the Finch family. She moved to Maycomb with Atticus and his wife when they married and purchased a home there. She started as a nanny and ended up a Mother to the kids after their Mother died when Scout was 2. Cal, in this book, is not only no longer with the family, but apparently always harbored animosity and hatred towards them.
This book has an entirely different feel, an almost entirely different storyline, but still manages to mimic TKAMB in entire paragraphs that feel like page fillers. I found several of these, especially when describing Maycomb or giving family history, essentially copied and pasted directly from TKAMB.
A total disappointment. Supposedly, Harper Lee has said this was her original idea for TKAMB, but had changed it to appease her publisher or someone .... IMO she should have stuck with their ideas and left it at that.
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LibraryThing member Beamis12
I decided not to re-read TKAM, which I last read many, many years ago. Thought it would be better not to compare these two books, a first draft is not a prequel or a sequel. As for how this book came to light, as a reader that is not my job either. The book is out there now to be read or not.
I
This book in no way changed the way I felt about Atticus, he is still a very wise man, in my opinion. Whether you agree with his opinions or not, they are easily understandable from his position and in keeping with his character. Since I did not live through this time, I feel I am unable to say if he was right or wrong.
A good novel that stands alone in its own right. I am left just wishing she had written more, it was and is a huge loss.
I
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liked it alot. Seeing Scout older, Addicus in his seventies was a bit strange but with it I went. Even in this unedited draft of her first manuscript, her love of Monroe County shines through, as do all her characters. Lee's sense of time and place is so very apparent and show in her writing. I loved her Uncle John in this one, such a very wise but eccentric man. Seeing Scouts growing pains, changes in her opinions and ability to articulate what it is she believes, was wonderful. At the end it got a bit preachy, but it clearly defined both her and Atticus's attitudes towards the South and its Black residents.This book in no way changed the way I felt about Atticus, he is still a very wise man, in my opinion. Whether you agree with his opinions or not, they are easily understandable from his position and in keeping with his character. Since I did not live through this time, I feel I am unable to say if he was right or wrong.
A good novel that stands alone in its own right. I am left just wishing she had written more, it was and is a huge loss.
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LibraryThing member bookworm12
I just want to start by saying I intentionally avoided articles and reviews of the book that came out before I had a chance to read it. There was way too much talk swirling around this book and I wanted to go into it without any preconceived notions. I actually tried to read it slowly, but it's not
Written before To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman is actually set after it. Scout is now in her 20s and living in New York City. She returns home to visit her family to find that not everything is how she left it. I don't want to compare Lee's two books, I think this one stands on its own. But I do love the style of writing that's prevalent in both, it's Harper Lee all over. You fall in love with the characters, particularly Atticus' brother Dr. Finch, who loves Victorian literature. You meet Jean Louise, not as the tomboy Scout, but as a 26-year-old woman who still trying to figure out who she is.
There are shades of The Help in this book. A girl returns to her Southern roots to find that her friends and some of her family members seem racist in light of her new education and experiences. But Go Set a Watchman's focus is more on how Jean Louise reacts to this than it is about the issue itself. I think this is particularly true when you think about the fact that this was written in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s, not in retrospect when we already knew the outcome.
Honestly, I think the story is timeless because the issue itself is interchangeable. If it was written in the early 1900s it might have been about women's suffrage, if it was written today it might be about gay marriage. The issue is what was being dealt with at that time. The story is about the people it affected and the hard truths you face when you grow up and realize your parents are human beings and have their own flaws.
It's something most twenty-somethings go through, but it's never easy, especially for someone who has a parent like Atticus who is easy to place on a pedestal. Seeing your parents as real people for the first time is so hard. It's important to think about the context of their lives and the way they were raised when considering their actions. It doesn't never justify their actions or beliefs, but it can help you understand them. Giving some context and perspective to their world is so crucial in understanding the people around us, flawed as they may be.
What I love the most is throughout the book everything so personal. We flashback to Jean Louise's childhood. There are glimpses of the To Kill a Mockingbird days and Dill. We see her as an awkward teen, misunderstanding things like pregnancy and periods. We even learn a bit more about Atticus' family history and his relationship with his deceased wife.
Family provides the eternal conundrum. We love them so deeply, they are a part of us, but that doesn't mean we always hold to the same beliefs. It's the respect that we have for each other that keeps us close.
BOTTOM LINE: I'm still processing the book and it's one that I'm sure I'll return to again in the future. It's not an easy book to think about, because it forces you to look at your own heroes and wonder about their flaws and how that changes your relationship with them. I really loved it though. The writing, the characters, the frank struggle, self-righteous indignation that it's so easy to feel when you're young. There was such a wonderful balance of nostalgia and new meat of a story. It was all that I was hoping and more.
"She was afflicted with a restlessness of spirit he could not guess at, but he knew she was the one for him."
"Love's the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There different kinds of love, certainly, but it's a you-do or you-don't proposition with them all."
"Any reference to her personal eccentricities, even from Henry, made her shy."
"She had never seen a shelter that reflected so strongly the personality of its owner. An eerie quality of untidiness prevailed amid order: Dr. Finch kept his house militarily spotless, the bookstand to pileup wherever he sat down."
"As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for his lessons."
"The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to."
"Remember this also: it's always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years, it is hard to see what we are."
"He was the only person she ever knew who could paraphrase three authors into one sentence and have them all makes sense."
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long and it's hard to put down. I was so nervous that it would be a disappointment and I'm so glad it wasn't!Written before To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman is actually set after it. Scout is now in her 20s and living in New York City. She returns home to visit her family to find that not everything is how she left it. I don't want to compare Lee's two books, I think this one stands on its own. But I do love the style of writing that's prevalent in both, it's Harper Lee all over. You fall in love with the characters, particularly Atticus' brother Dr. Finch, who loves Victorian literature. You meet Jean Louise, not as the tomboy Scout, but as a 26-year-old woman who still trying to figure out who she is.
There are shades of The Help in this book. A girl returns to her Southern roots to find that her friends and some of her family members seem racist in light of her new education and experiences. But Go Set a Watchman's focus is more on how Jean Louise reacts to this than it is about the issue itself. I think this is particularly true when you think about the fact that this was written in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s, not in retrospect when we already knew the outcome.
Honestly, I think the story is timeless because the issue itself is interchangeable. If it was written in the early 1900s it might have been about women's suffrage, if it was written today it might be about gay marriage. The issue is what was being dealt with at that time. The story is about the people it affected and the hard truths you face when you grow up and realize your parents are human beings and have their own flaws.
It's something most twenty-somethings go through, but it's never easy, especially for someone who has a parent like Atticus who is easy to place on a pedestal. Seeing your parents as real people for the first time is so hard. It's important to think about the context of their lives and the way they were raised when considering their actions. It doesn't never justify their actions or beliefs, but it can help you understand them. Giving some context and perspective to their world is so crucial in understanding the people around us, flawed as they may be.
What I love the most is throughout the book everything so personal. We flashback to Jean Louise's childhood. There are glimpses of the To Kill a Mockingbird days and Dill. We see her as an awkward teen, misunderstanding things like pregnancy and periods. We even learn a bit more about Atticus' family history and his relationship with his deceased wife.
Family provides the eternal conundrum. We love them so deeply, they are a part of us, but that doesn't mean we always hold to the same beliefs. It's the respect that we have for each other that keeps us close.
BOTTOM LINE: I'm still processing the book and it's one that I'm sure I'll return to again in the future. It's not an easy book to think about, because it forces you to look at your own heroes and wonder about their flaws and how that changes your relationship with them. I really loved it though. The writing, the characters, the frank struggle, self-righteous indignation that it's so easy to feel when you're young. There was such a wonderful balance of nostalgia and new meat of a story. It was all that I was hoping and more.
"She was afflicted with a restlessness of spirit he could not guess at, but he knew she was the one for him."
"Love's the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There different kinds of love, certainly, but it's a you-do or you-don't proposition with them all."
"Any reference to her personal eccentricities, even from Henry, made her shy."
"She had never seen a shelter that reflected so strongly the personality of its owner. An eerie quality of untidiness prevailed amid order: Dr. Finch kept his house militarily spotless, the bookstand to pileup wherever he sat down."
"As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for his lessons."
"The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to."
"Remember this also: it's always easy to look back and see what we were, yesterday, ten years, it is hard to see what we are."
"He was the only person she ever knew who could paraphrase three authors into one sentence and have them all makes sense."
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LibraryThing member heidip
Spoilers
Dear Harper Lee,
First of all, thank you for writing To Kill a Mockingbird. It is in my top 3 all time favorite books, and has been a guiding force in American Literature for decades. You made me love justice while enjoying the antics of a spunky little girl and her brother and friend Dill.
And thank you for Go Set a Watchman. I can't imagine how you got To Kill a Mockingbird from this initial book. You had to set aside a great deal of raw emotion and anger to write it. Thank you for the theme of this book too. You taught me to step outside of my culture and really look at it and tell what I see. "Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." Isaiah 21:6. You've shown me that not only the uneducated and poor are prejudiced, but also the educated and respected people of my life can have major flaws. You helped me see that I should be guided by what is right and wrong and that my watchman is my conscience. I was devastated along with Scout when she found out Atticus was a racist; I was equally devastated when Calpurnia rejected her and she saw the glaring hypocrisy of her religious leaders.
You were way ahead of your time. I don't think the world was ready for a Scout who swore, lived independently in NY, wore pants, and smoked. Nor were we ready to see Atticus as a racist. We could have justified his arguments. Horrors. No, all of us needed to have a stalwart Atticus to see what was possible. Now we're ready. We're ready to see ourselves as we really were. And we're happy that we have made some progress. We'll continue to go set a watchman.
Sincerely,
Heidi
Dear Harper Lee,
First of all, thank you for writing To Kill a Mockingbird. It is in my top 3 all time favorite books, and has been a guiding force in American Literature for decades. You made me love justice while enjoying the antics of a spunky little girl and her brother and friend Dill.
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You taught me to never kill a mockingbird for they do nothing to harm anyone, to treat all people kindly, even old ladies who are crotchety and society ladies who think they know everything. And you did it with funny wit and beautiful words. You showed me the ugliness of prejudice and abject poverty and the beauty of human equality.And thank you for Go Set a Watchman. I can't imagine how you got To Kill a Mockingbird from this initial book. You had to set aside a great deal of raw emotion and anger to write it. Thank you for the theme of this book too. You taught me to step outside of my culture and really look at it and tell what I see. "Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." Isaiah 21:6. You've shown me that not only the uneducated and poor are prejudiced, but also the educated and respected people of my life can have major flaws. You helped me see that I should be guided by what is right and wrong and that my watchman is my conscience. I was devastated along with Scout when she found out Atticus was a racist; I was equally devastated when Calpurnia rejected her and she saw the glaring hypocrisy of her religious leaders.
You were way ahead of your time. I don't think the world was ready for a Scout who swore, lived independently in NY, wore pants, and smoked. Nor were we ready to see Atticus as a racist. We could have justified his arguments. Horrors. No, all of us needed to have a stalwart Atticus to see what was possible. Now we're ready. We're ready to see ourselves as we really were. And we're happy that we have made some progress. We'll continue to go set a watchman.
Sincerely,
Heidi
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LibraryThing member atticusfinch1048
Go Set A Watchman – Amazing Read Given A Chance
Having seen all the media hype about this book over the last few months and then the early reviews when we are told that Atticus is a racist all I can say is poppycock to them. Read the book give it a chance and you will find an amazing read and
While condemning Atticus and this book many literary critics have forgotten the context and era that To Set A Watchman was written in, and that this book reflects that time. Let us not forget that it was only in 1955 that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person this novel written not long after reflects the fear of the white southern American. Scout who had moved to New York and had been immersed in the modern thinking that segregation was and is wrong, again one has to remember that in the 50s and 60s a black person was literally a second class citizen, slavery had been abolished but they were still not free.
I was also surprised that the criticism had not picked up on the biblical reference of the title which is Isaiah 21:6 which later in the book Dr Finch, Scout’s uncle, reminds us that our own conscience is our own watchman for our minds, and our thoughts. Something that this novel screams challenging our consciousness about racism and reminds us that no person is an island especially in Alabama in the 1950s.
We see that Scout, now 26, is returning home to Maycomb for a holiday, to visit Atticus who is now riddled with arthritis and being cared for by his sister Alexandra. It is on this return that Scout knows more often call Jean Louise rather than her nickname, notices the changes in the country and the fear of change from the residents. Even Atticus’ house is new as he no longer lives where she was brought up with Jem, now dead (sorry for the spoiler). Hank is her boyfriend who works for the ailing Atticus as a lawyer, and Atticus has been his mentor in every way possible since childhood.
On returning home she notices that her father and Hank seem to be deeply entrenched in the racist white supremacy thought and this comes as a deep shock to her. It is only later in the book when challenged that she realises that she does not know her father as an adult but had been observing him as child, as a hero. Part of this story is about knocking Atticus from the pedestal that Scout has built for her father and in a way for the reader also, and making you see that he is a reflection of the age and times around him.
Harper Lee’s reflection is in this book is Scout and this is how she must have felt when she returned home from New York to Alabama, feeling of horror at how out of touch people are, and how hypocritical. We are all hypocrites in different ways and our attitudes too race is one of the oldest forms of our prejudice against our fellow man.
There are also some wonderful touches throughout the book that will continue to make you smile that Scout the woman still has not changed fundamentally from Scout the child in challenging conventions.
This may seem like a difficult sequel to read, but one should remember really it is the prequel, written before and it is from this book the legend that is Atticus Finch was born. It is also this book that knocks him and us off our pedestals and challenges us to open our eyes and see that we all have flaws some we will detest.
I would say to any reader get over what a lot of the literary critics have written about Atticus, read it with fresh eyes, give the book a chance and it is an amazing read. You do not have to agree with what you consider racist just remember the era this book is portraying and mirroring and look to you own conscience. In the book Scout is challenged as a bigot by Dr Finch, if we believe the critics and condemn without reading Go Set A Watchman are we too bigots? Only the reader can decide and I would encourage you to read and make your own mind up and your conscience is the watchman to your mind.
Having seen all the media hype about this book over the last few months and then the early reviews when we are told that Atticus is a racist all I can say is poppycock to them. Read the book give it a chance and you will find an amazing read and
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remember it is from this book that gave birth to To Kill A Mockingbird and the characters we know and love.While condemning Atticus and this book many literary critics have forgotten the context and era that To Set A Watchman was written in, and that this book reflects that time. Let us not forget that it was only in 1955 that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus for a white person this novel written not long after reflects the fear of the white southern American. Scout who had moved to New York and had been immersed in the modern thinking that segregation was and is wrong, again one has to remember that in the 50s and 60s a black person was literally a second class citizen, slavery had been abolished but they were still not free.
I was also surprised that the criticism had not picked up on the biblical reference of the title which is Isaiah 21:6 which later in the book Dr Finch, Scout’s uncle, reminds us that our own conscience is our own watchman for our minds, and our thoughts. Something that this novel screams challenging our consciousness about racism and reminds us that no person is an island especially in Alabama in the 1950s.
We see that Scout, now 26, is returning home to Maycomb for a holiday, to visit Atticus who is now riddled with arthritis and being cared for by his sister Alexandra. It is on this return that Scout knows more often call Jean Louise rather than her nickname, notices the changes in the country and the fear of change from the residents. Even Atticus’ house is new as he no longer lives where she was brought up with Jem, now dead (sorry for the spoiler). Hank is her boyfriend who works for the ailing Atticus as a lawyer, and Atticus has been his mentor in every way possible since childhood.
On returning home she notices that her father and Hank seem to be deeply entrenched in the racist white supremacy thought and this comes as a deep shock to her. It is only later in the book when challenged that she realises that she does not know her father as an adult but had been observing him as child, as a hero. Part of this story is about knocking Atticus from the pedestal that Scout has built for her father and in a way for the reader also, and making you see that he is a reflection of the age and times around him.
Harper Lee’s reflection is in this book is Scout and this is how she must have felt when she returned home from New York to Alabama, feeling of horror at how out of touch people are, and how hypocritical. We are all hypocrites in different ways and our attitudes too race is one of the oldest forms of our prejudice against our fellow man.
There are also some wonderful touches throughout the book that will continue to make you smile that Scout the woman still has not changed fundamentally from Scout the child in challenging conventions.
This may seem like a difficult sequel to read, but one should remember really it is the prequel, written before and it is from this book the legend that is Atticus Finch was born. It is also this book that knocks him and us off our pedestals and challenges us to open our eyes and see that we all have flaws some we will detest.
I would say to any reader get over what a lot of the literary critics have written about Atticus, read it with fresh eyes, give the book a chance and it is an amazing read. You do not have to agree with what you consider racist just remember the era this book is portraying and mirroring and look to you own conscience. In the book Scout is challenged as a bigot by Dr Finch, if we believe the critics and condemn without reading Go Set A Watchman are we too bigots? Only the reader can decide and I would encourage you to read and make your own mind up and your conscience is the watchman to your mind.
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LibraryThing member JJbooklvr
I was really on the fence about reading this book. I loved To Kill a Mockingbird and didn't want this one to change my feelings in any way. Especially when I read some early reviews and how Atticus was different in this book.
I do work in a library and this is one of the biggest releases of the
This book has got some rather harsh reviews and comments online. After finishing it I am not sure why. Yes, it does change our perception of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it shouldn't ruin our love of it. Just as Scout needs to learn to separate her beliefs and feelings from her father's and become her own person we need to separate our feelings about To Kill a Mockingbird and this book and appreciate both of them for what they are.
I do work in a library and this is one of the biggest releases of the
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year so I felt I had to at least try it so I can talk to my customers about it if they ask. In the end I am glad I did read it. I will admit some of the parts were rather painful to read. Very painful when you take into account To Kill a Mockingbird. Once you get past that I felt it did a good job of representing what was going on in the South during this time period. Harper Lee's use of language was a plus and minus for me. Some of it I loved and some I thought she was going out of her way to show how erudite she is. I kind of felt like a young Scout trying to understand her Uncle Jack. This book has got some rather harsh reviews and comments online. After finishing it I am not sure why. Yes, it does change our perception of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it shouldn't ruin our love of it. Just as Scout needs to learn to separate her beliefs and feelings from her father's and become her own person we need to separate our feelings about To Kill a Mockingbird and this book and appreciate both of them for what they are.
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LibraryThing member jfe16
When Jean Louise “Scout” Finch returns home from New York City for her annual two-week visit, she is forced to face some unsettling truths about her family, her friends, and her home town.
Jean Louise finds herself questioning her own long-held beliefs. Can she reconcile what she believes in
Set in the mid-1950s, Maycomb, Alabama is a microcosmic view of the southern response to political and cultural transformations amid the tumult of the growing civil rights movement. Richly-drawn flashbacks of Scout’s growing-up years are a highlight, providing insight into the events that shaped the young woman she has become as well as speaking to the character of Atticus Finch.
There is humor, pathos, love, joy, melancholy, heartache . . . the stuff of life itself. Readers will find Jean Louise’s bittersweet coming-of-age story relevant both to the time period in which it occurs and to the characteristics and values of her father. Eight-year-old Scout’s hardscrabble 1930s Deep South life has morphed into Jean Louise’s adult world in which the burgeoning civil rights movement is taking hold. Atticus, once seen only through depthless childhood eyes, has become a more complex, more complete, multi-dimensional character. At seventy-two, he’s a man of the time in which he lives. And yet, in ways that matter, he remains essentially unchanged. “The law is what he lives by,” Uncle Jack tells Jean Louise. And if we somehow discover that perhaps our idols are somewhat less than pure perfection, we would be wise to remember the good they’ve done instead of tumbling them from the pedestals upon which we’ve enshrined them.
“Go Set a Watchman,” written with wit and humor and a wonderful lyrical quality, is absolutely outstanding. A narrative that is moving and often uncomfortable, its compelling story will remain with readers long after the final page has been turned.
Highly recommended.
Jean Louise finds herself questioning her own long-held beliefs. Can she reconcile what she believes in
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her heart with the disturbing facts that have been brought to light? How will these facts affect the relationship she has with her father? Set in the mid-1950s, Maycomb, Alabama is a microcosmic view of the southern response to political and cultural transformations amid the tumult of the growing civil rights movement. Richly-drawn flashbacks of Scout’s growing-up years are a highlight, providing insight into the events that shaped the young woman she has become as well as speaking to the character of Atticus Finch.
There is humor, pathos, love, joy, melancholy, heartache . . . the stuff of life itself. Readers will find Jean Louise’s bittersweet coming-of-age story relevant both to the time period in which it occurs and to the characteristics and values of her father. Eight-year-old Scout’s hardscrabble 1930s Deep South life has morphed into Jean Louise’s adult world in which the burgeoning civil rights movement is taking hold. Atticus, once seen only through depthless childhood eyes, has become a more complex, more complete, multi-dimensional character. At seventy-two, he’s a man of the time in which he lives. And yet, in ways that matter, he remains essentially unchanged. “The law is what he lives by,” Uncle Jack tells Jean Louise. And if we somehow discover that perhaps our idols are somewhat less than pure perfection, we would be wise to remember the good they’ve done instead of tumbling them from the pedestals upon which we’ve enshrined them.
“Go Set a Watchman,” written with wit and humor and a wonderful lyrical quality, is absolutely outstanding. A narrative that is moving and often uncomfortable, its compelling story will remain with readers long after the final page has been turned.
Highly recommended.
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ISBN
9780062409850