Sad. I still won’t read the recently published book. I did retread the wonderful Mockingbird.
BUMMER! What an awesome book and an amazing movie. Obviously I’m biased (look at my avatar), but still…
:’(
I always identified strongly with Scout and I know Harper Lee based her on herself.
I haven’t, and probably won’t, read “her” new book.
I started the “new” book but put it down about a quarter of the way through. I love TKAM (book movie, book-on-tape — everything) and it was ruining my memories of the book. Sorry I pre-ordered it.
I consider Go Set a Watchman an unfinished masterpiece. The writing is extremely rough in places. However, it perfectly captures a time and place some of us knew very well. Whether to stay and fight, or get the heck out, was a major life decision for many, and a decision some still struggle with decades later. Lee lit out for NYC, but ended up home again. My current social circle contains many with similar stories, including other writers. The very few white southerners I know of my generation, or older, who have read it responded as I did to the explanation and defense of the white patriarchy. It is almost unbearably painful, but very true to the times. IF this were a finished work, I think it would be much more “authentic” and worthwhile than To Kill a Mockingbird. The story of Scout discovering her seemingly heroic father to be a very flawed man, just as her beloved homeland contains unspeakable evils, resonates in a powerful way to me. I just cried over and over while I read it. And then I read it again. And then there was a dinner to discuss it with the few who would actually read it. Not everyone was as overwhelmed as I was, but no one discounted it. Everyone thought it an important book. None of us thought it was a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. We all had brought copies of every review and essay that had been published. And it definitely made us all rethink Mockingbird.
Most people I know, here in the south, refuse to read it, while they condemn it. To me, that is a story in itself.
RIP Harper Lee. I wish you had given us more, but thank you so very much for what you did give us.
I’m sorry to hear this.
I really like your post,alh. I have read both books (TKAM several times).
Yes, sorry to hear she’s gone. She was an artist.
@alh I read TKAM for the first time only a few years ago and thought it brilliant. I did go ahead and read Watchman and felt much as you did.
My favorite author. This is very sad.
I also read Go Set a Watchman. Knowing full well it was not meant to be a masterpiece like TKAM. I don’t understand how you can criticize a book you haven’t read. It was no where near as good although it certainly had potential but I’m still glad I read it.
Some folks I respect won’t read it because they think Lee never meant to publish it and advantage was taken of her when she couldn’t protect herself. They find it an invasion of privacy. I don’t know the truth. Given how much is about a beloved, if fictional, father I think it is fascinating it was published after her sister’s death.
I don’t think anyone would argue it is a finished/edited book. That does make the discussion more difficult, as to whether she wanted it published.
@alh …I love your review. It has inspired me to pick up my copy of GSAW and actually read the book. Early disparaging reviews made me not want to touch it. TKAM is my favorite book of all times and HLs writing style is just the best. The way she describes the south and her childhood…makes the dry hot dirt of the south almost palpable.
I have my own deep South legal story about my lawyer Dad and crazy southern small town politics and a death penalty case. I keep thinking I need to write my book but HL said it all so well…in my head I feel like I could never spill the words out on paper so richly.
RIP HL.
Mockingbird is so powerful. Like many others, I had Watchman in my hands but couldn’t bring myself to read it. Maybe someday, but for now, I hope she has found peace.
I’ve taught TKAM to 10th graders for many years, and I never tire of it, or of seeing my students being drawn into it. I truly do find something fresh to admire about it with every reading.
I read GSAW and found little to admire. I thought it was a joyless book - and there are surely enough of those. I will read TKAM again next year with my students and know Harper Lee is still with us.
In another literary death, I just saw the news about Umberto Eco, one of my favorite critics / scholars (and to a lesser extent novelist). I saw him once on a speaker’s panel at the New York Public Library and his joy in playing with ideas was electrifying.
Sorry to highjack this thread, but I didn’t want to start a new one and I thought we could extend this to all literary luminaries that died today.
:((