Go Set a Watchman

[Vampyr]

To Kill a Mockingbird is my favourite book; I have probably read it 20 times. When GSAW came out, I couldn't resist, even though I knew that Harper Lee never wanted it published (and in fact never worked on it again after refashioning it as TKAM). Perhaps she recently gave permission, but I have the impression that her ability to communicate her wishes is limited, and that she has been taken advantage of. So, although of course I cannot unpublish the book, I feel very dirty. And more than that I feel:

 

"Go Set a Watchman has interest as a work in progress, the first step to a literary masterpiece. But perhaps it would have been a greater kindness to her reputation, and to the millions who cherish To Kill a Mockingbird, not to have published it at all." (Mick Brown, from here)

 

I suppose we all know the history of this book, but it is inevitable that future generations will see it as a sequel to TKAM. Perhaps the fact that GSAW refers to Tom Robinson as having been acquitted (and on the grounds that there was sex but it was consensual!) will give some readers pause. But sequels sometimes make mistakes, so that is what, I fear, readers in years to come will make of the discrepancy.

 

The novel actually starts out pretty good; Lee certainly had a way with words. The second half is boring and a little weird, and most of all tarnished Atticus' reputation forever. The worst part is that this "new" Atticus is not inconsistent with the Atticus of TKAM, and certainly not with his future self. Except that we know in our hearts that he was not like that and wouldn't be like that when he was older.

 

Not an important point I guess, but I feel that a grown-up Jem would have improved the novel enormously.

[kenberg]

Becky reads (a lot) more than I do so she has read TKAM while I have only seen the movie. Neither of us have read GSW. I am interested in the following possibility for the characters: It is possible for a person to prefer "his own kind" but still be opposed to someone being unjustly accused of a crime, and be willing to put himself on the line to contest this injustice. I gather Harper Lee modeled Atticus at least in part on her own father, so we are to some extent dealing with people as they really were, or at least as she saw them.

 

At the least, it opens up a possibility. One person, the saint in a garden of evil, may make no distinction between black and white. Everyone is just a person. Another person, no better than his time and place, thinks segregation is right. Either could be called upon to defend a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman. Suppose he steps up with courage and determination, at considerable risk to himself and his family. The second situation is perhaps more challenging to our comfortable views.

 

But I haven't read it.

[Winstonm]

I saw a PBS show about this and that show stated that the original publisher of To Kill a Mockingbird gave Harper Lee an extraordinary length of time (in today's standards) to revise and rewrite the book numerous times. Having written myself, I know that good writing is much more about re-writing than anything else, and I strongly suspect that if "Watchman" had been under the scrutiny and helpful advice of an editor for the same length of time as "Mockingbird", the story probably would not be the same one that ended up published.

[Vampyr]

I saw a PBS show about this and that show stated that the original publisher of To Kill a Mockingbird gave Harper Lee an extraordinary length of time (in today's standards) to revise and rewrite the book numerous times. Having written myself, I know that good writing is much more about re-writing than anything else, and I strongly suspect that if "Watchman" had been under the scrutiny and helpful advice of an editor for the same length of time as "Mockingbird", the story probably would not be the same one that ended up published.

 

I think the editor was a genius for seeing the germ of TKAM in GSAW. After this was extracted and expanded, I don't think the publisher or the author felt any need to go back and work on GSAW. It had served its purpose.