Question for those who have read Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" (spoilers)

[mreilly]

... so, I re-read "To Kill a Mockingbird" in anticipation of reading GSAW. I'm about 23 pages in and the results have been underwhelming to say the least.

Lee has killed off Jem Finch, so no opportunity to see how the Tom Robinson trial impacted the man he became or what he did with his life.

Lee has introduced a new character named Henry and apparently rewritten the timeline so that he was "always there" when Scout was a child. This seems purely to pose as a love interest.

Scout's adult persona retains the same amount of stubbornness and disregard for authority as when she was a child, with no apparent added wisdom or expanse of knowledge.

No mention whatever of Dill, Miss Maudie, the Ewells, the Radleys, or many of the other characters from TKAM, nor even the Robinson case itself.

Oh, but there is PLENTY of exposition of Aunt Alexandra, the least likeable character from TKAM and her endlessly tiresome snobbery. More lectures from her to Scout about why "that boy is trash!" for instance. Done to death in TKAM.

Atticus has arthritis and thus far has been relegated as a bit player in the story rather than the central figure he was in TKAM.

Does it get better from here on out? Because at this point it seems like Lee dumped the best parts of Maycomb and kept the worst.

TIA

[GusBob]

1. I read it. Didn't like it.

There are a couple of flashback scenes that are good.

The central conflict arises in a flash and is contrived in my view. It has to do with the Civil Rights Act. You will be surprised at Atticus' take. The conflict is between black people and preserving southern heritage. There is a lot of pretzel logic about the heritage part that is frankly hard to follow.

But the way it is presented is a farce.....All of a sudden Scout finds out secrets about her boyfriend and father when this is her fifth trip home? Contrived and hard to believe.

The conflict is presented in an awkward manner without background, you will see, like a switch went on. I guess it was meant to be a shock and dramatic.

The end result was overall disappointing

You are right about Jem, he was taken out of the story line as an artifact. He wouldn't work in this tale. Henry was artificially inserted as a foil in the story. Again awkward

Edit to clarify: they are not really "secrets" she finds out about her father, but rather points a view which plainly should have been known prior to her fifth visit home given his role in the conflict

[mreilly]

2. Thanks

... I will stick with it since I hate to not finish anything, and often books have improved as they progressed (I realize 23 pages in is a bit early to jump the gun and assume nothing will be presented about the other characters fates after TKAM). What I want to see from this book is a reason to exist rather than just rehashing of stuff (one passage about the founding of Maycomb appears to have been directly lifted word for word from TKAM!)

[GusBob]

3. I fear that Ms Lee is a one-hit wonder

She tried make Scout grown up....but as you had indicated she is sassy but not wise. She comes to an epiphany of sorts, but it is a letdown compared to the magic of TKAM

To answer your OP question, only the bad things in Maycomb are present in this book

How bout this for a concept?, to steal a page from "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café".....an elderly Scout looks back upon her life in a flashback retrospective way, reviewing race relations over her lifetime

[avebury]

5. I don't think that you understand that Go Set A Watchman

is actually Harper Lee's first book. I think that if the Publisher had not asked for a second book dealing with Scout's childhood people would not be so harsh about GSAW. People should not be so quick to criticize Lee because GSAW is not a natural progression from TKAM. It would be more accurate to say that TKAM does not accurately reflect Scout's childhood as a prequal to GSAW.

[GusBob]

7. Holy shit the original Atticus Finch was a segregationist ?

You are right I had no idea! Thanks for setting me straight. Now it makes certain sense, the awkwardness of the storyline. The best part is the flashback to the baptism scene and the minister coming to dinner. Flashes of what was to follow.


The Sequel is much better than the prequel, the editors must be thanked for that.

[avebury]

4. I actually really liked the book.

Since it was written right around the same time period that the story is set in I doubt that it would have been well received at the time it was written. I found it to be pretty honest about the south in that time period and very relevant to the country we live in today. It shows that, in many ways, very little has changed and we are now in the 21st Century.

You complain that GSAW does not match adequately with To Kill A Mockingbird. But what you need to realize is that it is To Kill A Mockingbird that does match with GSAW. Although TKAM is set in an earlier time period then GSAW, you have to remember that GSAW was actually written first. The publisher asked Harper Lee to go back and write a book about Scout's childhood and that is what resulted in the publication of TKAM. TKAM was written to satisfy the publisher. What we don't know was whether Harper Lee ever went back to GSAW to adjust it to mesh better with TKAM. She probably didn't.

I am not going to trash GSAW because it is not TKAM. I read it as a separte book that has a lot of merits in its own right.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Dill and Jem ad etc characters DO show up in the book ...keep reading.

In fact, she writes of many more childhood memories, and it is clear in reading GSAW how much of the original manuscript was about childhood experiences.

Harper did have a brother who did die, as a young adult.