Atticus Finch: Racist

[Ecurb]

According to "Go Set a Watchman", Harper Lee's "new" novel due for release on Tuesday, Atticus Finch is a racist. Gregory Peck is turning over in his grave. Here's the New York Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/bo...side.html?_r=0

[Calidore]

It's worth noting that Watchman was not only written first, but was then itself revised into Mockingbird, in effect serving as an early draft of the latter book. I've been wondering if Watchman itself was ever subsequently finished by Ms. Lee suitably for publication on its own, or if it's just being released mostly as-is as a cash grab by the publisher.

[Ecurb]

It's worth noting that Watchman was not only written first, but was then itself revised into Mockingbird, in effect serving as an early draft of the latter book. I've been wondering if Watchman itself was ever subsequently finished by Ms. Lee suitably for publication on its own, or if it's just being released mostly as-is as a cash grab by the publisher.

You're not the only one wondering about that. Harper Lee has been certified "competent" to make the decision, but there are evidently some doubts (or such certification would have been unnecessary). ON the other hand, take the money and run (I vote). I also read an article that stated that Lee is still raking it in from "Mockingbird", to the tune of several million dollars a year.

[TRIGGERSIDEWYS]

I saw something on TV about this today, not even on channel 1000 too.

I wonder if it gets more publicity once it comes out? The times are changing in civil rights.

[ennison]

Racist hmm. Well in TKAM he was certainly an elitist. I doubt if I'll be reading this.

[Sancho]

I'll read it if for no other reason than to get a glimpse of the process that went into creating To Kill A Mockingbird.

[tonywalt]

"Go set a Watchman" is likely closer to reality (a place readers typically would prefer NOT to escape to) and although set 20 years earlier, "Mockingbird" is a very unlikely scenario(but a scenario the reader would prefer to believe).

[Bustrofedon]

Watchman is a draft, right? I'll go with the author's original decision to change it and accept what she published as the finished work. Taking a pass on Watchman.

[Pompey Bum]

Unfortunately the decision to change it seems to have been the publisher's. I believe Lee herself fought to keep a black student out of her college sorority (or maybe her entire school?) So much for that PC hero! This is why we need to understand people's minds rather than using the intellectually lazy concept of icons.

[ennison]

Hmm I find that a bit hard to believe. Wtf is a sorority? It sounds damnably like an ulcer.

[Eiseabhal]

It's a clique for American females. Like a coven.

[JBI]

It's been well discussed in publishing for decades now that Mockingbird is as much the project of great editors as a skilled author, still the contrasts may show what made a challenging, perhaps problematic book into a schoolroom book - that is, the most accessible book a white person can read to make themselves feel ok with their racist pasts. Editing genius right there, whitewashing hundreds of years of bigotry in the form of a brave lawyer and innocent child - now defrocked and dismembered publicly for posterity. Perhaps burning the manuscript would have been a better idea, or perhaps the problems with the new book encourage it into a place as being more mature, or wholesome and less didactic and proselytizing.

[Pompey Bum]

It's been well discussed in publishing for decades now that Mockingbird is as much the project of great editors as a skilled author, still the contrasts may show what made a challenging, perhaps problematic book into a schoolroom book - that is, the most accessible book a white person can read to make themselves feel ok with their racist pasts. Editing genius right there, whitewashing hundreds of years of bigotry in the form of a brave lawyer and innocent child - now defrocked and dismembered publicly for posterity. Perhaps burning the manuscript would have been a better idea, or perhaps the problems with the new book encourage it into a place as being more mature, or wholesome and less didactic and proselytizing.

That would be nice, but since the curriculum that brought these reader-identification characters to the classroom was didactic and proselytizing in the first place, I doubt its retreat will be very gracious. Maturity may be beyond educational administrators.

[Emil Miller]

I haven't read the book as I don't like preachiness in literature or anywhere else. Another reason to give it a miss is the name Atticus Finch which equates with that other ludicrous contrivance Bilbo Baggins in another book I have no intention of reading.

[UlyssesE]

Go Set a Watchmen has been such a trial for me. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my top ten books so naturally I would want to read anything else Harper wrote. But the whole situation of the books release, and circumstances, and the story changes... I am still torn over whether to read it.