Yet ANOTHER Harper Lee Novel!

[issybird]

Review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times:

Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side

http://nyti.ms/1Ml9FI6

Spoilers, unsurprisingly. And could be quite upsetting to lovers of Mockingbird.

[voracious71]

Originally Posted by issybird

Review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times:

Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ Gives Atticus Finch a Dark Side

http://nyti.ms/1Ml9FI6

Spoilers, unsurprisingly. And could be quite upsetting to lovers of Mockingbird.

Not particularly upsetting to me, because I look at GSAW as a first draft. She wrote the novel, and was encouraged to focus more on Scout's childhood. I view the two Atticus characters as separate, because they are. She went in a different direction with TKAM, that's all.

[pendragginp]

True. Atticus is a character, not a real person. Her reconsidered evolution of him and the story was better, IMO.

[kennyc]

The more I learn about this the more I believe it was the novel she had to write to get to the real novel - To Kill a Mockingbird.

[kennyc]

I watched this American Masters show on Harper Lee again last night (it is a rerun from a while back) they added a bit at the beginning about 'Watchman'

http://video.pbs.org/video/2194593065/

It's very well done IMO.

[Catlady]

I'm excited about this book and plan to get the audiobook version the day it comes out, but I don't necessarily have high expectations--after all, this is a book that was initially rejected. I reread To Kill a Mockingbird a year or so ago, so the details are fairly fresh in my mind, and I think it will be interesting to read a different version of the characters and the milieu.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I'm excited about this book and plan to get the audiobook version the day it comes out, but I don't necessarily have high expectations--after all, this is a book that was initially rejected. I reread To Kill a Mockingbird a year or so ago, so the details are fairly fresh in my mind, and I think it will be interesting to read a different version of the characters and the milieu.

Please be sure to post your review!

I won't likely read it, but will continue to be interested in the events around this issue....

There is an interesting article in the July issue of the Smithsonian Magazine about the real Monroeville, AL.


Regarding the shock many in the media and on discussion boards have expressed with Go Set a Watchman (a book I've not yet read except for the first chapter presented in the WSJ) I look at them as two different stories. To Kill a Mockingbird will remain a classic. It presents one view of the South in the time it was set and in Atticus Finch an almost mythical all round good character. Having read some of the reviews of GSW, I see the portrayal of Atticus Finch as a more realistic and complex character for a white male in a small town in Alabama in the period from the Depression through the Civil Rights struggle in the 1950s. I can relate that to memories of adults in my own family when I was a child (age about 6 through 13 and living in Texas) in the early through mid 1960s. By and large they were all in favor of removing the blatant discrimination in law and custom, but still did not want to live near blacks, socialize with them, and were open about considering them inferior.

Complimentary books to be evaluated on their own merits.

[eschwartz]

Does anyone want a free library checkout of GSAW? I'm afraid my usual library auto-checkout settings means it will only last for 7 days from about an hour ago...

[kennyc]

Well, here we go....

Entertainment Weekly:

"...Look, I’m very aware of the fact that no reviewer is going to be able to stop the Watchman juggernaut. I just want people to understand two things: First, this is all about the money. And second, reading Watchman will forever tarnish your memories of one of the most beloved books in American literature. D+"

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/07/14...-lee-ew-review

[ApK]

Originally Posted by kennyc

the Watchman juggernaut.

I thought Juggernaut was from the X-Men.

Video from PBS about the novel, including footage of Harper Lee at a lunch with friends, agents, and others when Lee was given a copy of Go Set a Watchman. Also links to a lot of other material on the subject:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmast...ilmmaker/3954/

People need to get a grip. Go Set a Watchman is another, the only other than To Kill a Mockingbird, novel written by Harper Lee. Of course it is at least in part of money. So it was for To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee did not have any obligation to preserve for others their memories of To Kill a Mockingbird, or their illusions about fictional Atticus Finch.

Anyone here recall the episode of the television program Frasier where Niles and Frasier meet a beloved author who has published one and only one book that both consider a life changing masterpiece, discover that he has an incomplete second novel, convince him to finish and publish it, and they are completely disappointed in the book?

[pendragginp]

Anyone here recall the episode of the television program Frasier where Niles and Frasier meet a beloved author who has published one and only one book that both consider a life changing masterpiece, discover that he has an incomplete second novel, convince him to finish and publish it, and they are completely disappointed in the book?

Actually, I think you're combining two Frasiers here. There was one Frasier where he and Niles meet an actor they thought was amazing when they were young, and they arranged for him to be back on the stage, only to find that he was dreadful.

The novelist with the life changing book had written a second novel which they read surreptitiously and thought was wonderful, but their comments caused the novelist to feel he had been derivative of his first book and he threw his second book away.

Sincerely, Frasier fan

[ApK]

Originally Posted by pendragginp

The novelist with the life changing book had written a second novel which they read surreptitiously and thought was wonderful, but their comments caused the novelist to feel he had been derivative of his first book and he threw his second book away.

Sincerely, Frasier fan

Correct:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...77#post3039577

Originally Posted by pendragginp

Actually, I think you're combining two Frasiers here. There was one Frasier where he and Niles meet an actor they thought was amazing when they were young, and they arranged for him to be back on the stage, only to find that he was dreadful.

The novelist with the life changing book had written a second novel which they read surreptitiously and thought was wonderful, but their comments caused the novelist to feel he had been derivative of his first book and he threw his second book away.

Sincerely, Frasier fan

Originally Posted by ApK

Correct:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...77#post3039577

Thanks for the correction to my memories of Frasier. Also an apology to ApK for missing his earlier post.