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.
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!
It may be interesting to note: the literal translation of ‘apartheid’ is ‘apartness’ or ‘separateness.’
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