GO SET A WATCHMAN – LESSONS TO BE LEARNED

The recent publication of GO SET A WATCHMAN, Harper Lee’s precursor to TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, her much vaunted story of racial prejudice in the Southern States of America, has been hailed as ‘the literary event of the year’. The book’s publishers would certainly like to think so, as do many of the critics. Those of you who are regular visitors to my website will know that I’ve frequented an awful lot of bookshops in the past six months and on the basis of my personal observations I can vouch for both the book’s prominence and its popularity. Its only challenger to the title ‘Book of the Year’ would be GREY – but then, that’s not deemed ‘literary’ so the critics don’t give it a mention.

The general concensus amongst those whose profession it is to pronounce on such things is that GO SET A WATCHMAN is a ‘bad’ book. To gauge by the ratings on Amazon, readers views are mixed but I do note a significant proportion of 1 and 2 star reviews, more than I would expect for an author of Ms Lee’s status. (Who trusts Amazon reviews anyway?). I naturally want to come to my own view and as is usual on these occasions, I’ve studiously avoided looking at anyone else’s thoughts before forming my own. So, do I think it’s a ‘bad’ book? If so, why? And are there any lessons to be learned?

Well, this time I’m in accordance with the critics and yes, I do think it’s a ‘bad’ book. Having said that, many ‘worse’ books have been let loose on the public and have still been successful - let’s not go confusing ‘good’ with success. The problem for GO SET A WATCHMAN is that it will always suffer by comparison with TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. The latter is a literary masterpiece and ranks up there with the best. Many of you will have studied it as a standard English GCSE/A Level text. A common question on test papers in future years may be to contrast and compare the two. I’m going to try and do that now in abbreviated form.

Let me begin by saying that if you’re expecting the two books to be in any way similar, you’re in for a big disappointment. Although GO SET A WATCHMAN may have the appearance of being a sequel (it’s set 20 years later) it was actually written before TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD was ever invented. Plus, it’s a first draft. And as Ernest Hemingway once said ‘The first draft is always s**t’. No one ever publishes a first draft, so to do so now is terribly unfair on Harper Lee. Personally I’m glad it’s out and that I’ve read it because as a piece of literary history this is a precious document. What fascinates me as a writer is how this ugly duckling of a manuscript ever became the swan we’ve come to love today. Lee’s editor must have had untold amounts of foresight and patience. In the modern day and age where the book publishing industry demands instant success, it wouldn’t even make it to the slush pile. Why?

Beyond the conventionally obvious ie. no one is raped, murdered or dies in the first sentence, there’s firstly the matter of the writing. The prose is nowhere near as rich and rewarding as it is in TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. GO SET A WATCHMAN is written in the 3rd person rather than the 1st so it lacks the intimacy that goes with Scout’s childhood memories which are such an integral part of the story.

Then there’s the plot – or rather the lack of it. No real spoiler here as there isn’t much to spoil. Jean Louise Finch (Scout) returns to Maycomb from New York in her twenties to find her father (Atticus) in failing health. The Supreme Court has issued a contentious ruling concerning the rights of Negroes and a citizens council is held where bigoted views are expressed which Atticus seems to support. Jean Louise (one can hardly call her Scout any more) finds out and is incensed, causing her to challenge her father and change her views about him – he’s no longer the paragon of virtue she once held him to be. The ending is a messy compromise where Jean Louise appears to accept her own bigotry in failing to see her father’s point of view. It might have been more credible had she stuck to her principles and got on the train back to New York.

There’s no real sub-plot either. True, there’s Jean Louise’s relationship with Hank, the man most everyone (especially Hank) thinks she’s going to marry, but it doesn’t really develop and go anywhere. In MOCKING BIRD, there was that wonderful story going on about Boo Radley and the first 100 or so pages of that book were devoted to the mystery of his existence. It created what we call ‘narrative drive’, the impetus behind a story that makes everyone want to continue reading. The first 100 pages of WATCHMAN are taken up with a series of anecdotes about Maycomb and Jean Louise’s in/out relationship with Hank. I suppose you could argue that creates a certain level of interest but it lacks that essential tension. Nothing of any real significance happens until midway through the book and the meeting of the citizens council.

One thing that does unite the two books is the theme. What Lee was trying to portray on each occasion was the disconnect in the South between the white and the black communities and the racial tension and bigotry that produced. That comes across clearly in MOCKING BIRD but I find its expression in WATCHMAN muddled and confused. I suspect that race relations in America changed significantly in the two decades after MOCKING BIRD was set but I get no understanding from WATCHMAN as to how. Much of this may be due to the fact that I have little knowledge of American politics of the time and certainly nothing of the problems caused by the Supreme Court ruling which seem to lie at the heart of the book. Lee attempts to explain this to us by means of a conversation between Jean Louise and her erudite Uncle Jack – far too erudite in fact, as not only did I fail to understand his argument but so did Jean Louise, a situation which leaves all but the most knowledgeable American reader none the wiser. This is precisely the kind of mistake a good editor and a serious rewrite would rectify. But as we know, this is an unrefined first draft and so remains flawed.

This leads us directly on to the debate surrounding Atticus himself. Much has been made of how WATCHMAN destroys the virtuous image of him we were given in MOCKING BIRD. Again, I have a clear picture of his character as portrayed in the 1930s story but Lee has failed to flesh him out in the 1950s version. We get the impression that he’s changed his views but the inadequate exposition of the political background leaves us floundering as to how or why.

I have a theory which you may (or may not) find helpful. In MOCKING BIRD Atticus adheres to the belief that all men, black or white, should receive equal treatment before the law. So in the trial of Tom Robinson he is primarily concerned with upholding the integrity of the judicial system rather than the rights of Negroes per se. The book is not concerned as to whether he thinks the black and the white populations should be integrated – it wasn’t a subject of debate at the time. But by the 1950s it is, the Supreme Court ruling (whatever that said) has sharpened that debate and Atticus has formed the view that blacks and whites should remain apart. That doesn’t mean he’s changed his views – he still believes in the same impartiality of the law – but on the separate question of segregation he takes what is essentially the ‘Southern’ line. This naturally comes as a shock to Jean Louise who has spent the last few years in the far more liberal atmosphere of New York. WATCHMAN suggests she has been ‘blind’ ie. has fallen out of step with, or perhaps, in the innocence of her youth, never fully understood, what being ‘Southern’ means.

This may also explain why Lee’s editor persuaded her to take the story back 20 years. To have published WATCHMAN in the 1950s, containing what were undoubtedly contentious views at the time, would have risked an outcry – much safer to push things back into the past and represent Atticus in a far more ‘liberal’ and acceptable light, thereby making him a hero to ‘Northern’ opinion. What we should also remember is that we are looking at this another 50 years later. The social and political environment has continued to move on and we risk judging Atticus by today’s standards rather than those of his time. Does that make his views any the more acceptable? Perhaps this is the fundamental question the publication of GO SET A WATCHMAN asks us to address.

So, what can we learn from all this? Leaving aside the thorny problem of American politics and race relations (wise men fear to tread etc.) I feel able draw two major conclusions from an author’s point of view.

1.The metamorphosis of GO SET A WATCHMAN into TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD gives us great hope as writers in that it shows us it’s perfectly possible to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. If you’re like me, your first draft will be s**t and you will be tempted to consign it to the waste bin. We now know that the application of objective thought and significant amounts of work can transform that draft into a world-beating manuscript. I just wish I had an editor as insightful as Taylor Hohoff was for Harper Lee.

2.What we also know is that a ‘bad’ book can be a tremendous commercial success. I’m not going to invoke further argument by citing what I think are good examples of this (I’m sure we can all think of some ourselves) but WATCHMAN stands high on the list. The book-buying public will be the ultimate arbiter of this of course but at the moment it seems to be doing exactly what Harper Collins marketeers have told it to do and are flocking to it in their thousands despite any adverse publicity.

In summary, what this reveals to me is that you can write a ‘bad’ book, rewrite it and even if it’s still not good enough, with enough hype you can always sell it. Hmm... Is that a good thing or not? More of this next time...