In the two decades since To Kill a Mockingbird everyone has aged. Lee is unsparing. She has
not merely moved her characters into the 1950’s. Atticus, at 72, is still
practising law but has ever increasing problems with rheumatoid arthritis. Some
days he can neither tie his shoes nor button his shirt. Atticus has a major
presence but not a major role in the book.
Jean Louise is courted by a young lawyer, four year her
senior, Henry Clinton who is employed in her father’s office. Her formidable
Aunt Alexandra, Zandra to her brothers, is dismissive of Henry as the offspring
of “white trash”. Jean Louise immediately engages in verbal battle with Aunt
Alexandra. The Scout who was always ready to let fists fly is still present in
Jean Louise though words have replaced fists for fighting.
In more than the above reaction Jean Louise realizes she
has changed as she looks at the young women she grew up with:
I
can’t think of a thing to say to them. They talk incessantly about the things
they do, and I don’t know how to do the things they do. If we married – if I
married anyone from this town – these would be my friends and I couldn’t think
of a thing to say to them. I would be Jean Louise the Silent.
Jean Louise does recognize and appreciate that Aunt
Alexandra’s willingness to live with and care for Atticus lets Jean Louise stay
in New York.
Her uncle, Dr. John Hale Finch, is a philosopher and
eccentric who is the most engaging character in the book. In ordinary conversation he invokes references
to his true love, Victorian literature.
Where much of the story is about how life in Alabama
continues to be lived by the genteel class of whites, Jean Louise cannot close
her eyes to relationships between whites and Negroes. She is no longer the
Scout who was oblivious as a child to the indignities endured by Negroes in the
American South.
The mid-1950’s are a time of great conflict and
resentment in the American South. White Maycomb residents are bitter about the
U.S. Supreme Court forcing desegregation of American schools.
Jean Louise remains genuinely colour blind as an adult.
Many people, even 60 years later, cannot make that claim. She is frustrated
when Henry is not colour blind. She is stunned when Atticus is not colour blind.
Her father is not the man she idolized. What do you do when family become
mortals?
Henry and Atticus try to explain. They live in Maycomb.
How do you do business if you overtly challenge the community? Who will bring
about change if not part of the Maycomb establishment?
I grew up in rural Saskatchewan in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Attitudes towards Canadian Indians were deeply set. I now cringe about how the
good people with whom I grew up referred to Indians. No one protested the pass
system which required Canadian Indians to get permission from the Indian agent
to go off reserves before 1950.
Atticus is a mythic figure to Jean Louise and readers. I admit
I struggled to deal with the image of Atticus as a man in Go Set a Watchman.
While the book is about Jean Louise Finch coming
of age it is also about readers coming of age. We are forced to confront our
own expectations.
Much as I sought to prepare myself that the characters
would be different a generation later in their lives I found myself wishing
Scout and Atticus were the people I had visualized while reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Such is the power of Lee’s
characterization in To Kill a Mockingbird
that it is hard to accept they are not the people I idealized.
My life has parallels with Atticus. I am now forty years
into my life as a lawyer in rural North America and but a decade younger than
Atticus. The book set me reflecting on what my sons, slightly older than Jean
Louise, think of me as a father, as a man, as a lawyer.
In her theme of exploring entrenched views of segregation
in the 1950’s South Lee has written a worthy successor rather than an imitation
of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Yet I think of So
Set a Watchman as only a good book. The ending had the power and
drama of the best of To Kill a
Mockingbird. It pounded to a climax. The writing of the opening section does
not flow with the style and ease of To
Kill a Mockingbird. Overall the writing was too often awkward. The plot
lines did not always come together. I felt it a book Lee had not completed. I
wished she had worked more upon Go Set a
Watchman. It could have been another special book.
I closed Go Set a
Watchman glad that I had read the book. It made me contemplate how we live
amidst the biases about us. How easily do we co-exist with the watchman of our
conscience?
****
The Go Set a
Watchman blogger tour, which I am co-hosting with Margot Kinberg at Confessions
of a Mystery Novelist, began yesterday with a fine analysis by Margot. Please
read her post if you have not read it. The tour continues as follows:
Saturday, 25 July – Tomorrow the tour goes to the UK at Clothes in Books.
Thursday, 30 July – The tour moves
along to India at Coffee Rings Everywhere.
Friday, 31 July – The tour ends in the
USA with a stop at Sue Coletta’s Crime Writer blog.
Thanks for the kind mention, Bill. And thanks for your own excellent post. I think you've hit upon something critical in this book. Just as Jean Louise has to confront her own idealistic (but inaccurate) impressions, readers must do the same. We have to see these people as, well, people, instead of mythic characters. They are human beings. It's a challenge, but Lee invites us to do no less.
ReplyDeleteI wondered about the trial, too, actually. I would have liked to see what it would have been like to see Atticus and Henry in the courtroom this time, and Jean Louise's reaction to it. I think it would have added to the book.
It's interesting that you see this as a less-finished book than ...Mockingbird. I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that, as I understand it, this was a first draft for Lee.
Margot: Thanks for your own kind words.
DeleteAs I wrote the review I could not remember another sequence of books where my expectations of a later book in the series had been so affected by how I saw the characters from an earlier book or books.
The trial in the first book gave a focus in To Kill a Mockingbird. I believe it could have done the same here.
Great review Bill, your experiences really added something to it. I hope you *will* do another post looking at courtrooms and lawyers in the books...
ReplyDeleteMoira: Thanks for the kind words. Both of Lee's books have connected with me personally.
DeleteBill, I enjoyed your review and more so in context of your thoughts with regard to people's attitudes towards Canadian Indians in the 50s & 60s and your own experience as a lawyer with forty years of practice behind you. It's nice to be able to connect with a book, as you did with "Go Set A Watchman." And, "How easily do we co-exist with the watchman of our conscience?" is a question I will be asking myself when I read the book.
ReplyDeletePrashant: Thanks for the comment. Go Set a Watchman can be unsettling as a reader considers their own prejudices and how we live our lives.
DeleteVery nice review, Bill. Before I had seen your review and Margot's review, I had not had any plans to read Go Set a Watchman. Now I feel that it will be a worthwhile read, regardless of how I like it overall.
ReplyDeleteTracyK: Thanks for the comment. I think you will find Go Set a Watchman an interesting book. As you grew up in the South I would be interested in your thoughts.
DeleteGreat post, Bill. I was pretty skeptical of this book until I started reading the posts that are part of this tour. It's always great to read something that resonates with you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteRebeccaK: Thanks for the comment. It was uncomfortable resonating at times but I remain glad I read the book.
ReplyDelete