Harper Lee's sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird is set to be released next week. Mockingbird is one of those classics that pretty much everyone has read, and it's among my favorites. The first chapter was released earlier, if anyone wants to give it a read.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2015/jul/10/go-set-a-watchman-read-the-first-chapter

There's a pretty major surprise right at the start.

 

I adore TKAM, but I can't make up my mind about whether to read GSAW. If it isn't as good as TKAM, even slightly, I'd be really disappointed, and I don't want to tarnish my feelings toward TKAM. The chapter in the link was promising though.

 

All of a sudden, I am feeling very distressed.

That's a New York Times review of Watchman. I'm no longer certain whether I can bear to read it.

 

Holy shit.

 

Yep. Pretty much that.

 

I thought the excerpt was great, but then UGH MAJOR SPOILER from that book review.

In some ways, it makes intuitive sense. As kids grow up, we realize that parents aren't the flawless heroes we think they are.

 

But what the review talked about seems like a major reversal of Atticus' character, not just finding flaws in him. It goes against pretty much everything I took from Mockingbird in terms of who Atticus Finch is as a person, and what his morals and beliefs are.

 

The problem, I think, is that Watchman was written before Mockingbird, and it hasn't been edited to reflect the character changes and events of Mockingbird.

 

It probably helps if you think about it as a Dark!Atticus AU fanfic rather than a sequel/companion piece.

 

I remember my - freshman? - high school class when we read To Kill a Mockingbird, and how everyone was attached to Atticus, and thought he was the bomb... but I never really fell in love with the character.

And don't get me wrong, he's cool and all... but I don't think I'll be that bothered seeing a darker side to him. I'm not that attached. When we saw him, Scout was just a kid. As such, we only really saw the side that he would allow his child to see. And even then, her understanding of situations would be limited by the fact that she was, in fact, a child.

If anything, a darker rendition of Atticus will probably get me to appreciate him more.

The story not being edited to reflect TKAM doesn't bother me one bit. Taking into consideration the context surrounding its release, I expect it to not be as good or polishes as TKAM - Lee wrote it before TKAM, so obviously that will probably be the case. That said, I'm just going to take it as another piece of writing from one of my favorite authors, and leave it at that. Even if I don't like it, I doubt it's going to poison my view of TKAM.

 

Well, it was released today. I bought the hardback but haven't started reading it yet. I'll post my thoughts on it when I finish.

 

Got my copy also. Probably not going to read through it overnight, though.

First peeve: some of the passages (e.g., the description of Maycomb's origins) was identical to that in Mockingbird.

 

Which kind of gels with the idea that this was the manuscript for the book that her original editor told her to move away from.

 

I have absolutely no desire to read this.

I read TKAM in high school, like most of us, and I get it - it's well written, one of those tales that turns the town itself into a character (a technique I think only Stephen King does better) and it wasn't too heavy-handed with its messages, though it was obvious.

Thing is, I didn't get attached to it. I never read it again after I didn't have to. It didn't help that two of the girls in my class started calling each other Jem and Scout after, and thereby horribly twisted my interpretations. But the bottom line is, the book didn't speak to me.

The major part of the problem, I think, is that I simply didn't enjoy reading it. I considered it a chore taking me away from the books I wanted to read, which were about as far away as you could get - I was a sci-fi nut on high school, still sort of am, and I'd happily get lost in some Asimov or Clarke at the drop of a hat.

I take it as a classic, in the same way that Faulkner and Hemmingway wrote classics, but I don't enjoy reading Faulkner or Hemmingway, either.

I don't know, maybe it's the southern gothic genre in general that I don't enjoy. Maybe I just couldn't relate to the characters. Maybe I kept thinking it would be better if Scout got in a spaceship and just left that little shithole of a home town she was stuck in. Maybe it was that I didn't think Atticus was a realistic character - try calling your parents by their first names, see what a reaction you get.

Or, maybe I simply wasn't mature enough to 'get it.'

As for the new book... I honestly don't remember Jem at all, aside from the standard 'big brother gives me a hard time but still loves me' trope. I remember Boo, I remember Scout, and I remember Atticus, but I don't remember missing them when they were gone.

From what I understand, GSAW is rough, in need of an edit, and more or less nothing like TKAM. In other words, not a classic. In which case, I just don't see the point.