Thanks for taking a serious look at an instantly dismissed book that obviously did not deserve to be so callously treated. One could write a contiguous essay on the cultural wince at this book’s revelation that our childhood heroes sometimes turn out to be weaker than we thought, and how difficult it is to accept our fallen angels, no matter how many of them we know, no matter how many of us there are.
Thank you! My thoughts exactly. I think is a much more serious - and better - book than it was given credit for. I hope that this piece might encourage some to take a closer look. Maybe now is the right time to absorb its message, now that the dust has settled from our grave disillusionments of last decade. I appreciate your kind words!
I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird in junior high. Although I enjoyed it, I was surprised to see that Atticus Finch was a racist, and nobody else seemed to notice. The movie version really puffed him up into one of the great heroes.
So yes, he’s a great father, and a good man. And a racist. I was glad when Watchman came out to see that the author knew what she had written that little me noticed.
I stumbled upon your writing of "Watchman" I was initially crushed as a much younger woman when I read it. To me as a young person, Mockingbird, was about injustice and also summer. I can still hear the theme song and it takes me back to poor Boo Radley, lightening bugs and Atticus. It probably always will.
This is a very convincing review about a book everyone seemed to be disappointed in. And I'm probably one of the few did not read Mockingbird as a fairly young person but I'm glad I waited until I was well past school. I was able to read it with a lot more understanding of the social commentary in the book that would have been way over my head if I had to read it even in high school. Mockingbird is a very rich novel and the whole Boo Radley subplot was another great element where he went from this childhood "monster" to a real hero in the end! So yes, Lee is a great author and Watchman will be on my list to read. And I can't believe that a writer as good as Flannery O'Connor was so dismissive!
Thanks! Yes, I've long felt that Lee has been underrated as an artist and her work, to a certain extent, misunderstood and underappreciated. Watchman is certainly not perfect but is moving and timely in its own right. Certainly worth the read!
I think I appreciate her more as a writer because I read her book long after the hoopla surrounding the movie! And also in an era where we still have racism but it’s no longer this dominant and toxic force in our society. I really got a lot the sharp social criticism that she was making about many levels of her area of the country.
"The killing of Michael Brown had happened the year before, and Trayvon Martin and others in the years prior." Of course, it turned out that Brown and Martin were the perpetrators of the violence . . . and "others" is covering up a lot of non-actual-events.
maybe I will or maybe I won't be scorned and shunned for saying this, but my reaction to 'To Kill a Mockingbird' has never changed and never will. what a lot of silly and really quite offensive and for no good purpose scolding. flannery o'connor quite rightly adjudged it to be altogether simple-minded and only fit for not very bright children. in many respects, it's outright propaganda for suggesting that the sort of thing that happened in it is somehow a uniquely southern thing, while anyone who has ever left the south to live in the northeast knows better than to tolerate finger-pointing from sanctimonious liberals who still long to keep newton and mattapan as far from one another as possible despite their continued proximity.
losing Atticus Finch is what caused many of us to need a new hero, like Trump. If Watchman had to be published to bring repubs down to earth, so did Dobbs to bring dems back to earth
Thanks for taking a serious look at an instantly dismissed book that obviously did not deserve to be so callously treated. One could write a contiguous essay on the cultural wince at this book’s revelation that our childhood heroes sometimes turn out to be weaker than we thought, and how difficult it is to accept our fallen angels, no matter how many of them we know, no matter how many of us there are.
Thank you! My thoughts exactly. I think is a much more serious - and better - book than it was given credit for. I hope that this piece might encourage some to take a closer look. Maybe now is the right time to absorb its message, now that the dust has settled from our grave disillusionments of last decade. I appreciate your kind words!
I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird in junior high. Although I enjoyed it, I was surprised to see that Atticus Finch was a racist, and nobody else seemed to notice. The movie version really puffed him up into one of the great heroes.
So yes, he’s a great father, and a good man. And a racist. I was glad when Watchman came out to see that the author knew what she had written that little me noticed.
He's a complicated character with a complicated worldview. He contains multitudes, as they say. Thanks for reading!
I stumbled upon your writing of "Watchman" I was initially crushed as a much younger woman when I read it. To me as a young person, Mockingbird, was about injustice and also summer. I can still hear the theme song and it takes me back to poor Boo Radley, lightening bugs and Atticus. It probably always will.
It may be interesting to note: the literal translation of ‘apartheid’ is ‘apartness’ or ‘separateness.’
This is a very convincing review about a book everyone seemed to be disappointed in. And I'm probably one of the few did not read Mockingbird as a fairly young person but I'm glad I waited until I was well past school. I was able to read it with a lot more understanding of the social commentary in the book that would have been way over my head if I had to read it even in high school. Mockingbird is a very rich novel and the whole Boo Radley subplot was another great element where he went from this childhood "monster" to a real hero in the end! So yes, Lee is a great author and Watchman will be on my list to read. And I can't believe that a writer as good as Flannery O'Connor was so dismissive!
Thanks! Yes, I've long felt that Lee has been underrated as an artist and her work, to a certain extent, misunderstood and underappreciated. Watchman is certainly not perfect but is moving and timely in its own right. Certainly worth the read!
I think I appreciate her more as a writer because I read her book long after the hoopla surrounding the movie! And also in an era where we still have racism but it’s no longer this dominant and toxic force in our society. I really got a lot the sharp social criticism that she was making about many levels of her area of the country.
"The killing of Michael Brown had happened the year before, and Trayvon Martin and others in the years prior." Of course, it turned out that Brown and Martin were the perpetrators of the violence . . . and "others" is covering up a lot of non-actual-events.
Love this piece and shared it with friends. Thank you!
Thank you! I truly appreciate it :)
maybe I will or maybe I won't be scorned and shunned for saying this, but my reaction to 'To Kill a Mockingbird' has never changed and never will. what a lot of silly and really quite offensive and for no good purpose scolding. flannery o'connor quite rightly adjudged it to be altogether simple-minded and only fit for not very bright children. in many respects, it's outright propaganda for suggesting that the sort of thing that happened in it is somehow a uniquely southern thing, while anyone who has ever left the south to live in the northeast knows better than to tolerate finger-pointing from sanctimonious liberals who still long to keep newton and mattapan as far from one another as possible despite their continued proximity.
losing Atticus Finch is what caused many of us to need a new hero, like Trump. If Watchman had to be published to bring repubs down to earth, so did Dobbs to bring dems back to earth