Between surprising discoveries upon the publication today of Go Set a Watchman, Harper Lee’s long-awaited sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, and the announcement of the rumored possible discovery of yet a third book by Lee, these late-career books by the well-loved author are beginning to feel like a bad joke. We’ve loved Atticus Finch and what he represents all of these years. Now this? From The Independent:
The possibility of Lee having completed a third novel has been alluded to before, with some sources claiming the third manuscript was a draft of Atticus, the original name given to To Kill a Mockingbird.
It remains to be seen whether the third manuscript is indeed a novel, or an earlier draft of her other two books. Early reviews of Go Set a Watchman, which is set 20 years after Mockingbird but [was] written five or so years before its publication, suggest the book reads more like a draft than a fully formed novel.
One of this week’s lessons for Harper Lee’s longtime fans might be: careful what you wish for. As The New York Times review by Randall Kennedy points out, it’s been distressing, to say the least, that Atticus Finch, venerated for his heroism in defending a black man in Mockingbird, proves to be a white supremacist in Watchman, which takes place 20 years after Lee’s debut work.
Dismissed by some as the ravings of a curmudgeon, Freedman’s impression of Atticus Finch has now been largely ratified by none other than his creator, Harper Lee herself. The most dramatic feature of her “new” novel, “Go Set a Watchman” — written before “To Kill a Mockingbird” but published 55 years afterward — is the revelation that Atticus, the supposed paragon of probity, courage and wisdom, was a white supremacist. In the mid-1930s, when the events of “To Kill a Mockingbird” transpire, white dominance was so completely established that Finch could blithely disregard any political dissatisfactions blacks felt and still get credit from his adoring daughter — and from millions of readers — for defending an innocent man.
Two decades later, when the events of “Go Set a Watchman” take place, white dominance has been shaken. Blacks are demanding the vote and attacking racial segregation. Finch’s previous unflappable patrician calm now gives way to defensive anxiety. He defends segregationist propaganda with titles like “The Black Plague.” He derides the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.), especially its lawyers. He rails against the prospect of blacks leaving their “place.” “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters?” he asks his daughter, Jean Louise (also known affectionately as Scout). “Do you want them in our world?” He veers between expressing condescension — “Honey, you do not seem to understand that the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people” — and expressing contempt: “Can you blame the South for wanting to resist an invasion by people who are apparently so ashamed of their race they want to get rid of it?”
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