"To Kill A Mockingbird" Author Releases New Book

[Secular Elf]

Harper Lee has published a new book which is a sequel to her renowned "To Kill A Mockingbird," "Go Set A Watchman" brings back the much loved hero Atticus Finch but presents him as a racist who is opposed to desegregation.

I have never read "To Kill A Mockingbird" and have only seen clips of the film version starring Gregory Peck as Atticus. This has seemed to upset a lot of people. I guess I would be too if Atticus had been one of my favorite literary characters.

[Regina]

That makes absolutely no sense... unless maybe she's going to reform him back to how he was at the end

[Excited Penguin]

I never read the book either. I know about it though.


It seems this sequel was written even before Mockingbird. This is fascinating.

I dislike the reference to a bible verse in the title of Go Set a Watchman and also the fact that the author is a Methodist.


I will most likely never read these books.

[rexbeccarox]

I, for one, will definitely read it and make up my own mind. To Kill A Mockingbird was one of my very favorite books growing up.

[Mudhammam]

I'll go pick it up eventually. It's neat that the author wrote it in the same era that she created To Kill A Mockingbird, which was a phenomenal book, but I worry that she may have had good reason for withholding it from the public.

[Rev. Rye]

Here is my initial response to the news that Atticus Finch is now a racist:

THE FUCK

To be fair, from what I understand "Go Set a Watchman" was originally written before TKAM was, and, from what I understand, Harper Lee based Atticus on her father, racial opinions and all; apparently, he went through a change of heart about race between the writing of GSAW and TKAM. I hope to Hell Harper Lee made some modifications to GSAW in the intervening 50 years, because if she didn't, this will create serious plot and character holes between the two books.

Also, here's an interesting thought: Doug "The Nostalgia Critic" Walker once made a countdown on his Top 10 favourite characters in all fiction. #1 was a tie between Atticus Finch and Marge Gunderson from Fargo. I wonder how he's taken the news.

[Jenny A]

To Kill a Mockingbird isn't just a good book, it's a great book.  But it's an honest one and morally mixed.  It's not about the black experience of racism.  It's about the white experience of racism.  The "good" white people in the book are against mistreating black people.  But that doesn't mean they aren't racist.  And it certainly doesn't make them crusaders for equality. Her characters are ordinary people with the ordinary assumptions of their time and place.  The have their heroic moments but they are not generally heroic.  

Atticus is not a volunteer.  He's appointed to defend a black man accused of rape.  The accusers are poor white trash and no one really believes them, yet the black man is convicted.   All Atticus does is makes the jury think longer about it. 

And the trial is not the be all end all of the book.  Much of it is about a young man hidden away be his family for a minor crime until he is no longer really fit to be outside the house.  Like racism, response to the morality of that situation is muted. No one saves that young man from his family.  Their "right" to imprison their son is unquestioned.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I like the idea that Atticus is different in the 50s as opposed to the 30s. I haven't read the new release, but as a writer, I'm guessing that the message is that even our hallowed heroes have feet of clay, and are susceptible to downfall.

[BrokenQuill92]

I'm not sure what to think on this,
To Kill a Mockingbird was not the best book in the world but an honest one. I did think most of the character were intellectually lazy, and there wasn't any real character development but it does draw a good picture of the white experience.