…and I’m not negative
Highlights: Read it, it may not live up to To Kill a Mockingbird, but it’s a good book AND you revisit old friends.
Like many of my generation, I was encouraged to read Harper Lee’s iconic ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ at school as part of the GCSE syllabus. I loved it. It is a book that has stayed with me and, almost like a comfort blanket, gives me that warm, fuzzy, safe feeling of childhood whenever I needed it.
Hearing of a potential sequel (through an announcement on Facebook earlier on in the year) screamed hoax to me. To my surprise the rumor was true. But, my expectations were low, given Lee’s first book is such a seminal piece. However, like (I expect) many fans of the original, I did not want to read it. In a moment of trigger happiness, I preordered it on the well known internet book site, it arrived on the day of publication. At this point I had read the first reviews and they had piqued my interest, so I opened the first page and devoured the book.
What are my thoughts? Despite initial caution, I am glad I read it and had gone to the trouble of a pre-order. It was like visiting old friends, growing up with Scout and realizing that the world as a young adult, when shades of grey appear around what were otherwise black and white memories of halcyon days. In fact found myself identifying with the mid-twenties Scout in many ways. Not least, because, personally, I found being a young adult difficult to comprehend. My head just took a little longer to get to grips with adulthood and the ways of the world. I could no longer be an idealistic dreamer, believing that the world acts rationally (naïve) and I could achieve whatever I dreamed of.
Back to the book! There was some elements that are genuinely sad…. that Scout’s childhood home is now an ice cream parlour, that Calpurnia, Scout’s surrogate mum, essentially refuses to acknowledge Scout as divisions are drawn across Maycomb. There are moments of pleasure however.
Did you ever wonder what would happen to the notorious tomboy that was Scout? How would she grow up. I guess there is always an old myth that those girls that are tomboys as children grow up to be the girliest girls. Would this happen to Scout? Her journey to adulthood, her detachment to people, and her tomboy ways are all satisfactorily resurrected in this book even if she complies (still kicking a little) to the constraints of her society. We also get the same anecdotes from Scout’s childhood, adding to that which we already know about the Finch family. There is an amusing childhood incident with the local vicar which left me with a large smile on my face and some quiet giggles (reading on the tube).
One character that doesn’t appear in the book is Boo Radley, which seems a shame. Given that anecdotally Go Set a Watchman was an initial version of TKMB, which Lee was asked to rework, perhaps it is not surprising there are some inconsistencies. The main youthful male character does not appear in the original book at all, despite appearing in flashbacks overlapping the original TKMB.
And on a more personal note… I am one of the many, I presume, that genuinely thought Atticus was the most level headed, forward thinking, Christian, good citizen that one could hope to meet. My own, dearly departed, father was described by many as a true ‘gentleman’ because whilst he was perceived as a the epitome of a gentleman… he truly was gentle and he was a lawyer, extremely rational and very forgiving. Reading the book was therefore cathartic for me in many ways. One of the most poignant themes that resonated, is that it is easy to idolize those that have a massive influence on your childhood. It is also really easy to put my dad on a similar pedestal as Scout, or should I say, Jean Louise, put Atticus on. It made me wonder if my dad hadn’t passed away when in my twenties, whether there would have been some similar event.
Okay so this was not part of my challenge this year… forgive the indulgence (I'm allowed some right) ... but I am continuing to read WolfHall – review coming shortly. I am also doing some research on Buddhism. I will get round to reading about Medieval kings towards the end of the month.