A great loss (Page 3 of 7)

I appreciate your citing the teacher's reasons for and against including To Kill a Mockingbird in a curriculum.

It was never part of a curriculum for me, so my calling it my favorite story for 40 years was based on what I gleaned from it at about 25 years old. Compared to Faulkner and other less accessible writers, some of the appeal to me was in how easily I became immersed in the story. Some of that could have been because Lee wrote characters that were cliches for the time. I had no real way of telling at the time whether there were such heroic figures as Atticus fighting racism in the small towns in the South.

You, at half my age, and with the passage of history, were probably more grounded in whether Lee's Atticus was believable or a puppet to satisfy her agenda.

Because it was accessible, and I entered the world Lee created with suspended disbelief, and I lived in a world she was writing about, I was deeply moved and inspired by it.

When I went back to To Kill a Mockingbird, having experienced 40 years of reading literature and leading my life, Atticus did seem like a puppet for Lee's agenda, but I still couldn't help reading the whole story without scrutinizing the writing. I was glad to get Lee's Go Set a Watchman about 5 years later. Go Set a Watchman told me that Scout did not know Atticus was a closet racist. And it told me that Atticus was beyond heroic in convincing Scout and the world in To Kill a Mockingbird that he was an enlightened champion for civil rights. In Go Set a Watchman, Lee undressed Atticus.

After you've read To Kill a Mockingbird again, I'd love to hear whether you think Lee redeemed the story To Kill a Mockingbird with Go Set a Watchman. I am more interested in your view of Lee's storytelling than I am interested in your view of her prose. Is the prose so flat and the voice so unappealing that you want to throw the book into the hedges?

Faulkner said, "The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again."

I'd love to know if the story, not the artificial means Lee used to arrest it, moves for you as a reader who wasn't forced to read it.

Memphis

I often have Georgia on my mind, too. However, Lee grew up in Alabama, I think. Truman Capote was her neighbor.

(I've read Capote's Christmas stories about his friendship with Miss Sook while in Alabama. Quite lovely.) x

I thought Dill was using a hybrid of "Tow the barge, walk the line."

Memphis

Well said.

Mad as a cobbler!

Oops! I was one state off;) Thanks for the heads-up, corra. Another fun rumor is that Harper Lee helped Capote research In Cold Blood.

Capote acknowledged Lee's assistance: https://dspace.iup.edu/handle/2069/757 But apparently not as much as she deserved.

Abstract:
Throughout the publication and promotion of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, Capote admitted his childhood friend, Harper Lee, accompanied him to Kansas as his research assistant, but he never explained in detail what she did to assist him other than to say she accompanied him on interviews. However, once the book was published, her name never appeared in the acknowledgement page of the book. Capote allowed people to believe that Lee was only in Kansas with him two months and she never returned during the five years he was there to conduct research. It is true that Lee was in Kansas the first few months with Capote; however, she returned to assist him with research at Hickock's and Smith's arraignment, and she returned to Kansas many other times. However, Capote never revealed this information or Lee's major role in the research for In Cold Blood. It was not until the publication of Charles Shields' unauthorized biography of Lee, Mockingbird (2006), the world began to understand Lee's research conducted for In Cold Blood. Shields briefly showed several passages of Lee's notes in one chapter, "See N.L.'s Notes." However, what Shields revealed was only a small part of Lee contributions. By conducting archival research at the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress, and by conducting interviews with people who knew Capote and Lee, I have discovered Lee's exact contributions to Capote's research.
By examining Lee's and Capote's research notes, and by juxtaposing both of the writers' notes, one can see that Lee conducted a majority of the interviews with the townspeople, while Capote focused primarily on Smith and Hickock. This dissertation explores both writers' research note and shows what notes Lee recorded were used in Capote's published book. Their notes not only reveal what research they conducted, but also reveal their personalities and show that the two had major creative differences. This dissertation also suggests possible theories as to why Capote did not acknowledge Lee, because he suffered from narcissism. Because Capote did not acknowledge Lee properly, I suggest that this is one reason Lee stopped writing.

Memphis

No, for the wet-noodle lasher you should definitely write ''craw', unless you mean to provoke a flaccid pasta flurry.

How is it not any of those things?

Interpretation translated into a personal opinion, I suppose.

In my opinion it is akin to a 'carer' saying 'Be kind to the little retard children. Remember the poor little dumb souls don't know they are a dribblin' so.'

Atticus's statement indicates that the originators sentiment is that “a white man” is a factor of ten times superior or more advantaged compared to the “colored folk”. Whether that be in terms of vulnerability, susceptibility, intelligence, privilege or whatever. It is an elitist and condescending mind-set.

“Atticus says cheatin‘ a colored man is ten times worse than cheatin’ a white man,” I muttered. “Says it’s the worst thing you can do.”

In my opinion (interpretation) it is a statement of pure bigotry but not from the mouth of a bigot character but from the mouth and mind of the supposedly un-bigoted character. It is scary because it shows the racism is inherent and deeply engrained or institutionalised and it shows that at his core Atticus is a racist and doesn’t even know it. In terms of the novel it a least gives the Atticus character some depth. Without it he is just a sounding board for ‘stock’ noble mantras.

I know this was written in the 60’s but I find it hard not to relate to the day-to-day and subliminally put this in the context of say, the white man, Hilary Clinton and the black man, Barak Obama and the solemn directive that one is ten times more superior to the other on account of skin tone and ancestory.

To me it seems that the statement is based purely upon the perspective of racial denominations and nothing else. The racist’s automatic, fundamental belief that an illiterate “white man” farm-hand of low IQ is ten times superior to the “black man” brain-surgeon purely upon the basis of their ethnicity. Essentially, to me, this is saying that one of those pair is a more important human being than the other.

I can’t read this book; I have neither the time nor the spirit. I’m half-way into the re-read but I’m done. If it were a paperback rather than a free-to-read pdf, it’d be lobbed it into a hedge to join my first copy of this dirge.

In my opinion the first few chapters are sort of okay, but it degenerates after that.

Sorry. No hard feelings; horses for courses and all that. It is simply not my bag. To me it reads as a shallow sounding board for anti-racism mantras. It is as an appealing piece of literature to me, as say a Mills & Bloom or Harlequin novel where the romance premise is swapped for a racisim premise.

In terms of a story I think the author should have had Maudie Atkinson murdered and Tom Robinson accused.  Much more of a whodunit with more depth and meat upon the bones.

But that’s just me. I love Dicken’s ‘A tale of Two Cities’ but others hate it. I really like ‘Gone with the Wind’ but plenty decry the novel. I am a great enthusiast of the novels of John le Carré and many of his titles are beloved to me, but there is a huge amount of readers who simply cannot stand his writing. Japanese eat dolphin and whale, the Koreans eat dog. Marilyn Manson and Slipknot are to some, as Beethoven and Bach are to others. An episode of ‘The Walton’s’ will make some viewers feel emotionally warm and glowing and others will be left with a splash of vomit in their mouths.

Preference and interpretation, we are all different, we all like different stuff. We all dislike different stuff. Likers like and haters hate.

I don’t like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and that is from my gut. Like a spoonful of dolphin soup it is distasteful to me.  Sorry, it just is what it is. The prose simply does not fly in my mind, it does not engage me, my attention wanders, I lose focus and become  bored.

Apparently, there is a movie and I might try that in order to see how the story and prose translates from the page into a script with actors and orators.

Anyway, I’m moving on from this conversation; this novel because I have nothing of value to add. I’m glad that ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’ exists, I feel that it adds to the rich tableau of Literature and I think this community has held a splendid conversation upon the novel and I’m richer for that. I fully respect anyone who likes or loves the the novel but I’ve discovered (or confirmed) that I really don’t like it.

As much as I don’t like the novel, I do respect the success it has achieved and I also acknowledge the joy it has bought to so many people. I would also like to express my respect for the author Harper Lee and my condolences to her family and friends.

Cheers! Dill

Don't hit a man when he's down? If only it were as unilateral as that in its basis.

The way I read it is that race is a consideration. Poor white trash being just as disadvantaged as black men, but assuming they are ten times better on account of their skin. A race apart.

Don't hit a man when he's down, implies (as it should) that a man is a man with no distinction between race or ethnicity.

Although what Lee is showing us through Atticus and her novel in general is that a man is not considered a man, he is (naturally) considered either a white man or a black man. It is her premise.

To make the distinction that there are two types of men (two different races) is of course racist in essence, but the shock to the reader is the automatic distinction between white and black is carried like an instinct in the liberal Atticus who probably considers himself non-racist.

I find it strange to be honest because Finch is not from the Southern American Slavery/Plantation linage (where racism would be inherent). Much is made in the outset of the novel of his forebear, the Methodist Simon Finch, from Cornwall England.

I know the novel is set "IN THAT WORLD" but it still makes my shit itch.

.... And as much as I don't like to wet-noodle thrash a man when he's down, I find you "guity" as charged.

Hey! No need to mock The Waltons!

The following offered is with respect to your point of view, Dill, and appreciation of your honesty! And also with a nod to your inclination to chuck the book and bow out of this conversation. You've said how you feel, and I understand you prefer not to belabor it. However, since I've just seen this, I'll tuck in a note on my thoughts, with no expectation that you'll continue to discuss it. I'm also quite busy and feel I've been only half-here. Sorry! Good conversation!!

I may be misunderstanding something, but are you suggesting racism was only a part of the plantation culture in the American South? The plantation system was the economic center of the South in its day, and cannot be considered some culture removed from the rest of the region. Racism was inherent and inherited all over the South. And the North, actually. I'm talking the blatant kind (which, I'm afraid, was all too common), as well as the implicit kind, such as the racism you sense in Atticus's remarks. Abolitionists were considered radicals in the North. This was not a plantation philosophy.

I love Margaret Mitchell (and like her!), but she says some questionable things in her letters which she'd have had no clue were offensive. Because she was from the 1930s in the Jim Crow South. Like my grandmother (raised in Georgia), who wouldn't have hurt a fly, but said some things upon moving North which made my grandfather roll up the car windows and shout at her to think before speaking. (I prefer not to repeat what she said, but it was intended as an innocent and even fond remark which was quite infantilizing.)

Simon Finch is reputed to be stingy (one can assume, also greedy) and cuts through Jamaica on his way to Alabama. He'd have seen the plantation system in full swing there. He buys three slaves and raises the Finches to follow. That's a racist foundation, and then some.

Atticus isn't intended to be the mouthpiece of the novel, imho. His perspective is a foil to the Jim Crow philosophy which puts Tom Robinson on trial. He's a guy from the 1930s living in rural Alabama. He's not going to sound like someone from the 21st century. (I see you acknowledge that the book is set in the 1930s and you don't care because it's an ugly philosophy. Fair enough!)

Just to say though: To Kill a Mockingbird isn't Atticus's story. It's a coming of age tale about a little girl trying to form her philosophy as she watches the adults around her, as well as the children. Atticus's viewpoint is one within the periphery.

I keep pointing out the story's opening quote by Charles Lamb (epigraph) because I believe it's a signpost: this is a novel about the American children of the 1930s who will become the American adults of the 1960s -- those who were raised in a Jim Crow South who were coming of age just as the Civil Rights movement began and the book was published. The central child in the story is Scout, who is being raised in a world she must rise above. This world contains a great many injustices, beyond the Tom Robinson trial, which is the center injustice within the tale.

I guess I've said that a few times, so maybe my remarks are negligible, or maybe I'm speaking gibberish.

I agree with this person's remarks on Shakespeare's villains, but I'm stunned that he overlooks one of the most complicated characters in this tale (Mayella). His reference to the "androgynous" Scout is particularly surprising, not because he points it out, but because he points it out as an apparent slam against her character which can be paired alongside "insipid." This is nothing but a person's knee-jerk inclination to believe that girls should behave like thus and thus, and since Scout doesn't, she's not only insipid but entirely genderless. That's not deep critical thinking?

All of which I point out because I searched him out and found his profile at Amazon (because he claimed in the review to teach English), and he holds a Masters in English, apparently?

Someone trained to study literature would know that the character's perspective is not synonymous with the author's, and would explore what is said beneath the surface. This guy would know that the depiction of "trailer trash" is through a child's viewpoint, and would contemplate the "why" behind this choice in perspective and its impact on the novel's theme. (Or its role as a signpost to the theme.)

Scout is having to pull herself out of a mindset that groups people according to labels like "trash" (I don't recall her ever using that phrase, but it's been a year and several books since I last read Mockingbird). The point is that somehow, against all odds, a little girl in Alabama in the 1930s is watching all of this, hearing perspectives, and speaks the line which makes this novel so famous (near the end of the book.)

Though people fixate on Atticus as the hero of the tale (I did the same on my first two reads), she is the one who reaches for Boo Radley's hand. She is the hero.

Anyway, I've loved / liked this conversation, Dill. I really appreciate your honesty and hope I haven't suggested otherwise in anything I've said. I've shared a few of my gut remarks on the novel between homework assignments, but I didn't revisit the book during this conversation, so my thoughts are a bit removed from the text. I really respect that you did revisit it. When I do reread, I'll be taking your point of view with me, because I value it, and because it sharpens my own perspective.

A hardy cheers and a few Waltons jeers! Best wishes for a better next book! x