S.M. Pace's Blog

Cover Reveal & Release Date- The ... IWSG – Time and Writing

Go Set a Watchman – Thoughts (and Spoilers)

I read Go Set A Watchman, so allow me to present the most controversial opinion I have ever, and likely will ever, express on this blog.

First off, it hasn’t ruined To Kill A Mockingbird for me, anymore than a terrible movie adaptation would ruin a book that I love. My mind doesn’t work that way. I can be disappointed, certainly. The adaptation to Blood and Chocolate sucked, but I still love the novel. The novel remains unharmed, because I don’t think of the movie as an extension. It’s something else entirely; it’s own entity. Another universe, even.

That’s how I view Go Set A Watchman. It’s not a sequel. It was never meant to be one. It was a first draft, and any writer knows that a first draft can bare absolutely no resemblance to the final product. So, I enjoyed it as a study of Harper Lee’s process. It was fascinating to see who these characters were when they first emerged, and how the story evolved. I will not sit here and critique, because I am not a critic. I tried my hand and reviewing, and realized I’m no good at it.

So, here’s how I feel. Not a critique, but simply my opinion on what’s going on with Watchman and how it fits within the Mockingbird universe.

It’s a rough draft. Nothing more.

I’ve read that people are crying over the fact that Atticus Finch has devolved, sunk into racism and bigotry in his old age. No he didn’t. That was the Atticus Finch that came first. Through Harper Lee, he evolved into the character that so many people love, and idolize, a good, moral, wise man. Perhaps he might have aged into the man presented in Watchman, but we’ll never know, because that’s not what happened.

Watchman is a darker, even uglier book. That’s what happens with first drafts. When you first write, sometimes you have to bleed out some off kilter tone. You aren’t sure yet what story you want to tell, or how you want to tell it. You have let your characters spout a few monologues, so you can learn more about them, and decide whether they are the right characters for your story.

I think that’s what Harper Lee was doing. Here’s where I really skirt controversy. If Harper Lee had a real say in this (yeah, I said it) I don’t think she would have wanted to publish Watchman as is and call it a sequel to Mockingbird.

Harper Lee knew what good writing was. She understood that for Watchman to be a true sequel to Mockingbird, she could not have simply killed off or dismissed characters as important as Jem, Dill and Calpurnia. Or turned the Robinson trial into a barely mentioned footnote. But even fixing these errors in consistency would not have turned this novel into a sequel. I’m not sure there was a sequel here. If Harper Lee had ever entertained the idea of continuing the story of Scout Finch, I believe it would have been a entirely different story. Because again, this was the first draft of Mockingbird. Not a first draft of Watchman. Not a planned sequel to Mockingbird.

So, that’s my opinion. Treat the book as what it is. A first draft, a collection of notes and character studies. No more a part of the Mockingbird universe than the early draft scenes of the Harry Potter books that J. K. Rowling sometimes releases on her website. Or, if I may take a flight of fancy, a discarded early manuscript by Stephen King, in which Carrie, after surviving the horrific events of her high school prom, goes on to college, gets therapy and explores the ramifications of what she did and how she feels about getting away with it.

Cheers,