Yet ANOTHER Harper Lee Novel!

Originally Posted by voracious71

I finished it a couple of days ago. I was expecting the scenes to be more controversial actually. The Atticus of GSAW was representative of how many Americans felt about race issues. And that holds true even today. Treats individuals of a differing race humanely and kindly, yet worries about them as a group. Also worries about his "way of life" going by the wayside. Atticus in this novel reminded me of many people I know.

I think this makes a bigger impact today, because we have already experienced the civil rights movement and people's thoughts and opinions are up for scrutiny in a way I don't think they were back then. I don't think GSAW and Atticus would have been half as "controversial" at that time. I'm sure Jean Louise would have been the controversial one.

Flashes of TKAM were evident. I agree that Jean Louise's childhood flashbacks were by far the strongest parts of the novel.

Originally Posted by BenG

Yes, the Atticus of the new book is not incompatible with the character from TKAM.

I certainly can understand why TKM was such a success. Overall it just tells a more uplifting story and sticking to Scout's childhood memories and hero worship depiction of Atticus has a lot to do with that. Also the use of Scout's first person point of view in TKM works so much better than the third person narrative of GSW.

I also agree with the character of Atticus in the two novels being consistent. In TKM we are presented with an Atticus whose sense of justice drives him to try and prevent the conviction of an innocent man. TKM really says nothing much about how Atticus views the system of racial apartheid that put the conviction of Tom Robinson in the range of probable to certain. His views revealed in GSW and that will make admirers of both Atticus Finch in the novel and Atticus Finch as portrayed in the film squirm a little. Of more interest is what GSM reveals about Jean Louise [Scout] Finch's racial views as an adult when one reads through to the very last page. I was reminded of the old Jesuit saying: "Give me a child until he (she) is seven and I will give you the man (woman)."

[shalym]

I don't think that Atticus is really any different in this book than he was in Mockingbird. I admit that scene with the meeting in the church felt like a punch in the stomach, but as the book went on, I think that the explanation makes sense--not that his explanation is "true", but that it's consistent for that time.

I also feel like it was definitely a book worth reading--When I finished it, I knew that I would be re-reading it, and that I would probably be re-reading it soon. For me, that only happens with a very few books. (Not that I only re-read a few books, but that there are very few that I re-read right away--Watchman will, I think, be one of them)

I'm very glad that I took the plunge and bought it

Shari

[AnemicOak]

New Harper Lee book already million seller
http://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainme...cid=ansentap11

Critics dismissed it as a rough draft for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and readers despaired over an aging, racist Atticus Finch.
But Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" is still a million seller.

HarperCollins announced Monday that "Go Set a Watchman" has already sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. and Canada, a figure which includes first-week sales and months of pre-orders.

[Sydney's Mom]

I loved it. I immediately recognized Harper Lee's writing, and liked the more nuanced story. May not be PC for 6th grade, which is when I read it. If this had gotten more editing (I read HL insisted it go out with minimal editing) it would reach similar heights to TKMB. I will say, I found the ending, with the physicality, could have most improved with editing, IMHO. Like TKMB, when I finished the book, I really wanted to know what happens next for the characters.

[Catlady]

I'm glad I read it; it's thought-provoking and well-written. I expected more of To Kill a Mockingbird in the flashbacks to Scout's childhood--I thought there would be scenes here that had been recycled into similar expanded scenes in Mockingbird, but there's really very little overlap. So many of the key players don't even show up here, or get only brief mention.

While I still love Atticus, I'm not sure what I would have thought of him in Watchman if I hadn't already seen the towering, heroic figure of Mockingbird. I like Jean Louise here less than I liked Scout.

I'm trying not to be too spoiler-y here, so I won't say any more.

[issybird]

I thought it mediocre. The editor who said it was unpublishable was right. We can't supress our knowledge of TKaM when reading it, so the characters aren't as flat as they would be if we read it in a void.

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Of more interest is what GSM reveals about Jean Louise [Scout] Finch's racial views as an adult when one reads through to the very last page. I was reminded of the old Jesuit saying: "Give me a child until he (she) is seven and I will give you the man (woman)."

Absolutely. Jean Louise congratulates herself on not being racist, and yet to the more enlightened reader, there's little difference between her views and Atticus's. Indeed, they explicitly agree on that bad old Supreme Court sticking its nose into Alabama's bidness.

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I will say, I found the ending, with the physicality, could have most improved with editing, IMHO.

I thought the dialogue at the beginning was artificial, but preferred it to Jean Louise's histrionics at the end. Jack and Atticus let her run at the mouth for paragraphs at a time, like no conversation I've ever heard.

I'm afraid that my enduring impression will be that GSaW only serves to attest to the level of editorial input required to transfer Mockingbird into a great book. A book stands on its own merits, so Mockingbird is unaffected, but Harper Lee's reputation is somewhat tarnished for me. She was right not to publish it for all these years and I can't help thinking that if she were in her right mind, she would have remained protective of her legacy.

[PatNY]

When I saw the first reports that Atticus was racist in Watchman, I was taken aback and decided I didn't really need to read this book. I didn't want to disrupt the memories of a noble and virtuous Atticus who was so wonderfully portrayed by Peck in the movie. There were also the reports that Lee may have been taken advantage of in her advanced age and senility.

After having read a few of the comments here, however, I changed my mind. If nothing else, the book seems to provide some insight into the author's life. So I went to the NYPL overdrive site and put it on hold. Apparently I am something like number 1,170 on the holds list. But thankfully, they have 292 copies -- so realistically, there are only 4 ahead of me.

Good to see so much interest in a book like this.

--Pat

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by issybird

...I'm afraid that my enduring impression will be that GSaW only serves to attest to the level of editorial input required to transfer Mockingbird into a great book...

I sympathize with that.

In my view GSAW could do with a good editor's work over. Apart from minor distractions such as Henry flip flopping backwards and forwards outside of dialogue, where one would expect consistency, to being Hank, the general lack of careful structuring of the prose is not what I would have expected.

I have relegated it to just finishing the last of it off between other things, and if it weren't for historical interest I would probably have given it a miss.

[frahse]

I am going to go along with the assessment that this "new" book is really a first draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by frahse

I am going to go along with the assessment that this "new" book is really a first draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that TKAM is an expanded version of a rather small section of GSAW. But yes, from from I've read, GSAW appears to be an unpolished work by an inexperienced writer which is, as such things almost without exception are, in dire need of a good editor.

[ApK]

Not read it yet, but here's what it's looking like from the comments:

If TKAM was nothing more than a decently successful novel, and some years later, the GSAW manuscript was rediscovered, and the author wanted to publish it, she would probably rely on her clout from the success of her first book to get her publisher to agree, have it edited, make some revisions, and it would be her next book, and that would be that.

But TKAM is a time-honored and respected classic, and its mystique has grown because of her one-great-book-than-decades-of-nothing reclusiveness, so because of its role in TKAM's origin, GSAW is more important for its history than for its story.

Like a "making of" DVD bonus feature, it's probably more interesting to see GSAW as her editor saw it way back when, to see the path her writing took, than to merely edit and craft its story into a decent second novel.

In other words, where AnotherCat said "and if it weren't for historical interest I would probably have given it a miss," I think if it weren't for its historical interest, it would not be published in the state it is. But I think that's a good thing, not a cheap cash grab.

In other other words, it would have been trivially easy to have an editor, or even a ghost, polish the novel, just as TKAM was certainly polished, but they chose to offer it mostly as it was instead, as an artifact of Harper Lee and TKAM.

Neato. It's on my TBR list.

[Catlady]

Do we know on precisely what grounds Go Set a Watchman was initially rejected?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Do we know on precisely what grounds Go Set a Watchman was initially rejected?

But Ms. Lee abandoned the manuscript after her editor, who was captivated by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, told her to write a new book from the young heroine’s perspective and to set it during her childhood.

“I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told,” Ms. Lee said in a statement released by her publisher.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/bo...ovel.html?_r=2

[frahse]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/bo...ovel.html?_r=2

Quote:
But Ms. Lee abandoned the manuscript after her editor, who was captivated by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, told her to write a new book from the young heroine’s perspective and to set it during her childhood.

“I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told,” Ms. Lee said in a statement released by her publisher.


Sounds reasonable.

And when you get the drift of the Family (Ms Lee's sister and her law firm) actions and then the sisters successor at the firm after the sister's death while Ms Lee is in a very fragile health state and for most purposes incapacitated, this whole charade makes perfect sense.

I particularly like it that the woman now peddling the manuscript is denying she stayed at the Auction house and never heard any of the brainstorming and thus the book is a brand new (just in financial time, I would like to add) discovery.

Surely that adds another half million in sales just based on the intrigue.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/bo...ovel.html?_r=2

Thanks, but I was wondering if there was anything more specific about what the editor's problem was with the ms., beyond just thinking that the childhood scenes were the most interesting. Did it strike the editor as too harsh? Too political and/or inflammatory for the time? Too angry and negative?

To Kill a Mockingbird is so much gentler and more hopeful.