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Ask again, she thought, for it means nothing -- but he had taken enough of her nothings, she knew, and with hat in hand, his heart gone to the shadows, he said only, "Goodbye, Virginia," until he was gone, leaving nothing, nothing all over again, bottomless, cowardly nothing.

I notice I've left a hole in my argument.

Likewise.

I certainly don't love it because it's politically correct to love it. I have a brain, thank you. I love it because it's a good story. 

Is this a conversation about whether or not To Kill a Mockingbird is "great literature," or whether or not we love it? Dill, you're listing lots of reasons why you don't love it (fairly enough.) I've been responding in kind with entirely subjective reasons why I do. If you were asking in your original question if it's great literature, that's hard to say because I still don't exactly know what great literature is.

One of the things that makes (me) love a work is my suspicion of its impact. I'm not saying that's universal greatness according to everybody. It's greatness according to me. Which is what I thought we were talking about -- all of our personal views on why WE love To Kill a Mockingbird.

I think it's a little close-minded and sweeping to suggest that everyone in the world who loves To Kill a Mockingbird loves it because it's politically correct to love it. Maybe some people do, but I work in a bookstore, chap, and the book flies off the shelves, still. Not by people auto-buying it because they should. These are mothers inspiring their children to read it. These are people who love the book because it is a friend. People whose eyes twinkle as they tug it up -- not because of some political agenda, but because the people in the story are friends.

I love the sink-in quality, I love Atticus both before and after Watchman, I love Scout. I love the fact that it's one of my mother's favorite books, so we share it. She was very young when she read it for the first time. When I read it, I feel that I've gone back in time to her generation, and that I'm there beside her, reading it along with her back in her childhood. When I read it, I can feel a ghostly sense of my childhood self reading it -- the sense that a smaller me read the words and thought even as I am thinking again. I love it for that reason.

I'm not sure this sort of personal affiliation with a novel is actually debatable? Absolutely, literary components are -- like theme, tone, writing style. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not reading it looking for all of that. It may have all of that? It certainly has theme, and if it's forced, thank goodness for that, because somebody needed to say it.

Great literature for me is made up of all sorts of things personal to my own tastes and passions. To Kill a Mockingbird fulfills whatever it is for me that simply clicks when I read. If I had more time, I could probably pull out passages that inspired me (the scene on the porch) for one -- but goodness, it's the characters, the simplicity of the coming of age tale, the grittiness of Scout's personality, her skepticism of her father which is surprised by his character, the line, "Stand up, Scout, your father's passing."  It's the way it's all a symphony, sort of, which comes together in the line about the mockingbird. It's Jem, who reminds me of my brother. It's the fact that every time I read it again, it is the same, and it all starts over, and it's all so -- I don't know, alive. It's the next door neighbor who stands in her ashes and decides to go on. It's the snowman on a winter morning. It's the books Atticus reads Scout. It's the way she has to apologize for learning to read too quickly, and how I feel like grinning with her as she does it because that's silly. It's the Cunninghams. It's the court scenes. It's Mayella. It's Tom. It's all of it.

You can't possibly know why people like the book. I'd absolutely pick it off the shelf based on the story description. This is the sort of book I'd have under my text book when I was supposed to be studying. This is the sort of book I pull to when I'm sick or sad and want a friend to keep me reading and sweep me away.

Not by me. Not for a second. It has voice, it has soul, it has grit.

"The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland." ― L.M. Montgomery, The Story Girl.

Dill! I was just listening to that Anthony Hopkins "J. Alfred Prufrock" reading and was going to share it here for you! I also had "The Raven" on the mind! "Dulce est Decorum est" is a favorite of mine, as is "Sonnet 116."

I'll share my favorite poem:

https://youtu.be/fwn6Xaz_uLM

I was never assigned this book in school. I would have LOVED a class discussion of it. I read it as a child because my mother recommended it, and again as an adult (twice), also voluntarily.

I love it! I can't take the time to say why because I've got too much going on offline right now, but I too would love to see the pros and cons discussed. I have a friend (lit scholar) who didn't like it much the first time, but read it again and completely changed his mind. For me, it's just the idea of such an enormous issue being viewed through the eyes of a child, who is still forming her character as the book comes to life. I've always loved the character of Boo: the final scene with Scout, and the active choice she makes in that final scene (I'm being vague lest I spoil it for folks), which none of the adults around her make. Before the novel begins, there's a quote about how lawyers were once children, too. I love that quote because I feel it sets the whole tone of the book: this little girl is going to be a grown-up one day, and impact the world, and this summer of apparent innocence will be part of her history.

I don't know. It means a lot to me, but maybe it wouldn't if I was forced to read it against my will.

You, sir, are skating perilously close. PERILOUSLY CLOSE. (She reiterates poignantly.)

I was just listening to Pandora, thinking of her, when this came on. x

Blockhead! x

There are so many things I could say to scientifically refute your remarks. Unfortunately, I am recently pledge-bound to never speak of The Martian again.
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