Go Set a Watchman in Around the World

May 28, 2015 Jibran rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: brouhaha

If someone described the publication of this book as a money making racket I would find it hard to criticise.

Even if the senile author had been manipulated into acceding to its publication, the kind of money that was growing on the trees would make it a mere peccadillo. But I suspect had Mr Finch been fortunate to live as long as his creator-author, he'd have taken umbrage at the moral failure on the part of the agents and publishers no?

Be that as it may, this novel couldn’t have appeared at a If someone described the publication of this book as a money making racket I would find it hard to criticise.

Even if the senile author had been manipulated into acceding to its publication, the kind of money that was growing on the trees would make it a mere peccadillo. But I suspect had Mr Finch been fortunate to live as long as his creator-author, he'd have taken umbrage at the moral failure on the part of the agents and publishers no?

Be that as it may, this novel couldn’t have appeared at a worse time. Atticus Finch, the regressive sophist of this sequel, now retired and redundant, yet full of intellectual charm, has made his reappearance in the year when American streets are in the grip of a renewed racial rebound; the reality that once ironically hid behind rainbow songs that envisioned a colour-blind society has bounced back with its glaring contradictions and shoddy equivocations, while those who wield power have resorted to all manner of chicanery to suggest all is well.

By that I mean there are countless people around still blaming the victims of racial framing who are vindicated by Atticus’ intellectual (and inexplicable) metempsychosis from a young lawyer fighting for justice for the oppressed race to an ornery old man who is unsettled by the “slow pace” at which the blacks are making “progress.” Sounds familiar? Yes, the judgments are still in the coming; yes, the black community must still get a certificate of progress from their previous oppressors; yes, now that they have stopped treating them as subhumans, by opening an equal playing field before them (in theory), they want them to be quick to dissolve the weight of the past and join in the patriotic song-singing and nationalistic flag-waving, to live happily ever after, till kingdom come.

I did not think much of the first installment. Its flattened prose aside, its symbolic cardiac arrest apart, I have some strong objections to how it is conceptualised. In my opinion the character of Atticus Finch is an exhausted moral allegory for a tormented racial conscience that offers a saccharine palliative to assuage the collective guilt born of centuries of atrocities inflicted upon the "lesser races.” Yet at the same time he so plainly and obviously symbolises an internalised thought process social theorists have labelled the “saviour complex.” So Mockingbird series is not about human rights and equality for black people but something else entirely. I tried to look at it differently but couldn’t ignore the fine print even though my emotions had been manipulated into applauding the great “moral message” floating on the surface of the novel.

Mockingbird has failed me and I have failed the Mockingbird. Dear Harper Lee, I beg your pardon.

July 2015 ...more

170 likes · Like · see review

May 18, 2015 Stephanie rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction-other, book-club

It's hard to compare this book to To Kill a Mockingbird, because it's a whole different type of book. Mockingbird was a perfectly constructed young adult literary story with a plot that involved the unfolding of a trial and the mystery of Boo Radley, which came together beautifully in the end. Go Set a Watchman, on the other hand, is nothing more than a young woman's uncomfortable weekend with her family back home, if you just look at the plot. And yet, the conversations she has with people duri ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Aug 23, 2015 Shriya rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: a-link-with-the-past, books-i-own, tome-travelling, fiercely-feminist, favourites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Disclaimer: This review is more of a rant against all those who have been criticising this book so much! Please read this review if you hated the book! READ it especially, though, if you liked it!

Seriously, what is your problem? You did not like the book? Why?
- Because Jem's dead and there's no Dill, except for passing references?
- Because it was too political for you?
- Because Scout is now Jean-Louise?
- Because she has a fight with Atticus that eventually all of us have had with our paren ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 28, 2015 Kate Z rated it it was amazing

I read this book twice, cover to cover, back to back. I eagerly awaited it's release and I re-read TKAM the weekend before in anticipation. I do not do this. I do not re-read books for pleasure (I did, of course, for teaching) and I do NOT read second novels, prequels, sequels, whatever. But I did here. I not only re-read TKAM, I read GSAW and then I read it again.

There is little I can say about this book that hasn't already been said all over the Op/Ed and BookReview pages:

http://www.huffingt ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 15, 2016 Barbara (Bobby) Title rated it it was ok

I felt the book had three parts to it. The first contained what felt like stories that I had heard my whole live about things kids do. The second was the nitty-gritty of what a small southern town really felt about civil rights. And finally the last part was a fairly overblown frenzy of "I'm right and you're wrong."

I was bored through the first part, felt the second part a true picture of the folks I've known in those southern towns, and found the diatribe to be a sad way to end the book. And t ...more

Like · see review