Literature Go Set A Watchman

Second Summer

Second Summer

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Anyone have thoughts on this book? It was published only yesterday, but has apparently already stirred up some controversy.

Go Set A Watchman is actually the first draft of what became Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird which was awarded a Pulitzer Price and has until now been Lee's only published work. Her publisher encourage her to rewrite the story from the daughter's perspective, and this turned into To Kill A Mockingbird. The story in Watchman takes place 20 years after the events of Mockingbird.

The most most shocking revelation reported so far appears to be that the hero in Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, harboured some racist / segregationist views. I've read that people had named their children and businesses after Atticus, so naturally there has been some weeping and gnashing of teeth after the news broke.

In Go Set a Watchman, however, the 70-something Atticus asks his daughter Jean Louise: "Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?"

"This is the conflict of the novel, Jean Louise's struggle to come to some accommodation with a father who is not who she believed he was," writes David L Ulin in the Los Angeles Times.
Click to expand...
More: Harper Lee novel reveals Finch as a 'bigot' - BBC News (12. July 2015)
 
A friend of mine, who is a retired English teacher, wrote a blog entry on this subject, which includes a forum entry for the local newspaper.

I think it is worth reading.

The Anti-Yale
 
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Joe said:
A friend of mine, who is a retired English teacher, wrote a blog entry on this subject, which includes a forum entry for the local newspaper.

I think it is worth reading.

The Anti-Yale
Click to expand...
Yes, some good points there, thanks for sharing. So, is the life lesson here, if there is one, that we might as well be more forgiving about certain character flaws in others? Since apparently we all have our own imperfections? How big a deal is it if someone holds moderately racist views without acting on them? (Don't know what the case is in Watchman.) Is it an extenuating factor that the person is elderly and grew up in a different time and society?
 
That whole story seems to hint that Harper Lees original version of the book might have been much less likely to win her the admiration of the masses, and that her editor did a hell of a job.

Also it somehow explains to me why Harper Lee (as other articles suggested) did not want to have that book published (while she was still lucid) and with good reason, too.

The stories I read was that the book had been published more or less over her head (or by herself, out of fear that she would run out of money in her old age). Harper Lee: 'she never wanted to publish another book' - Telegraph
The Suspicious Story Behind Harper Lee's 'Go Set a Watchman' | The New Republic
 
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Andy_T said:
That whole story seems to hint that Harper Lees original version of the book might have been much less likely to win her the admiration of the masses, and that her editor did a hell of a job.
Click to expand...
Maybe society at the time wasn't quite ready for Watchman? That doesn't mean it's not a good book, especially today.
Blobbenstein said:
maybe people shouldn't venerate fictional characters..?
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What about real people then, they often turn out to have skeletons in their closets as well?

I don't know about venerate, but it seems a safer option to name your children after gods, deities, ancient heroes and such, where our knowledge about them are unlikely to change.
 
This was probably on my mind as I saw Tiger Woods play yesterday :Dbut some people tend to idolize celebrities or sportspeople and then act surprised and disappointed when it turns out that they have feet of clay. I don't think it's healthy for adults to worship people as I think of it as a childlike trait, which most people should grow out of after their teenage years.
 
The house I live in now was purchased by my parents from previous owners. Those owners had a black "lawn jockey" on the lawn.

My house has three bathrooms and a commode in the laundry room. The commode in the laundry room was for the exclusive use of the colored maid. Yes, pretty much the same story as in The Help.

My girlfriend used to call me her "Yankee friend" and thus regarded me as a "foreigner," just as if I were a Frenchman, German, or Italian.

So the attitudes of the elderly Atticus Finch do not surprise me.
 
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