TKAM, another view

I have read Mockingbird so many times out loud to generations of students, and to four grandchildren. We have watched the film together and noted that the editing was deficient, but, on the whole we loved Gregory Peck and the passel of characters that were so familiar to us. We choked up as Atticus was going out of the courthouse after the trial and Jem, Scout, and Dill watched from the 'colored' balcony as their father was passing by and all the colored folks stood up.

This book was never preachy, and there were so many ideas to conjure with - not just the race issues, but justice in all forms. (And how many kids that I know to whom I have explained 'rape'?)  It was about the tension between Scout and her culture there in Macomb, Alabama. Most of all, kids from ten on up, could think about Boo Radley and his eventual coming into the light as a good and true person.

TKAM has been a touchstone for so many millions of young and old Americans. It was perfect just as it was. Kids got it that when Atticus shot the rabid dog surprising things can happen.

So, when the new book was announced I pre-ordered it, lined up to buy it, made time to read it.

The pundits had gotten there before me and they scorned this newly discovered novel. (Maybe they only read the first ten pages!)  Lots of folks, who, like me, have loved Harper Lee's first book unlike any other, said they would not read "Go Set a Watchman".

There is probably some back story about the discovery and publication of this newly discovered work we will not immediately know. No doubt greed in publishing is a factor.

Today, I finished "Go Set a Watchman".  I choose not to think of this excellent coming-of-age novel as connected to TKAM. Yes, there are references and expansions of some of the prior experiences of Jem and Scout in their Macomb childhood.

This novel can stand on it's own. In the light of recent events in Charleston and elsewhere, we need to think about these thorny issues of race. "Watchman" is sometimes shrill. I think of a young person whose thoughts and ideals just tumble out too fast with too many words. Jean Louise, at twenty-five,  now living in New York as a writer,  is inflated with so many emotions about her culture in both places, and making peace with her father and her origins, stumbles all over herself. The passage of Jean Louise's visit to her uncle Jack probably tells the whole story. It ints true.

This new novel has the signature Harper Lee's  excellent writing - sometimes spare, other times folding into pedantic literature.

This book is not TKAM. Don't expect it to be!

I love that this book has come out at a peak of our national interest in race relations. Something to think about!