To Kill a Mockingbird group discussion (June '15)

[Alexa]

This month's group read - To Kill a Mockingbird - both a timeless classic and very much in the current news! Who's reading this for the nth time and who's reading this for the first time?

[Alexa]

I'm reading this again this month. I can't actually remember when I first read it - sometime in my childhood. I find it disturbing that my memory of the movie is much stronger than my memory of the book.

[Alexa]

This looks like a really interesting article - I read the first chunk of it - and then decided that I would rather read it after I finish the book - but perhaps not everyone else will feel the same way. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

[Alexa]

So, all sorts of people said they wanted to read this - are you all just awed into silence? - or just haven't found the time yet?

Any reactions?

[Catherine]

I'm starting this today!

I've actually read it at least twice before, first when I was very young and then a second time in high school. But what is strange is while I remember liking it, I don't have very many concrete memories of it. I'm interested to see if I still like it as an adult.

[Alexa]

Have you seen the movie? I think it's really odd, the way my movie memories have eclipsed my book memories, that rarely happens to me!

[Catherine]

I saw the movie in high school too. I know what you mean. The little snippets of memory I have about the story are scenes I remember from both the book and the movie. I have no memory of the actual writing style at all, but that might just be the effects of time. I'm just concerned I won't like it this time around!

[Catherine]

One thing that strikes me is how humorous and somewhat convoluted Harper Lee's writing style is. And something I missed when I was younger was how much suspension of belief is necessary to believe that any child would talk like Jem and Scout do. Scout is supposed to be six years old when the book starts!

[Catherine]

But Atticus, whether he is believable or not, is still one of my favorite literary dads. (so I guess this is a good one to be reading over Father's Day)

[Alexa]

I'm still at the very beginning - he's a very hands-off kind of dad - and older than I remembered. Described as "middle-aged" when he got married - so do you suppose that means about 40? Possibly as young as 35?

[Alexa]

I'm quite enjoying this, she's a great story-teller, and quite funny!

Catherine wrote: "And something I missed when I was younger was how much suspension of belief is necessary to believe that any child would talk like Jem and Scout do. Scout is supposed to be six years old when the book starts!"

Do you mean the narrative voice or the dialogue? You're right, the narrative voice is very much an adult, but the day-to-day discussions feel very real to me. "I asked what the sam hill he was doing." Scout is such a brat! She's delightful, but so very very flawed!

[Catherine]

I felt that some of the conversations between Jem, Scout, and Atticus were a little unbelievable. The narrative voice is pretty spot-on.

At any rate, I found this jarring mostly only in the beginning of the book. Now that I'm almost through with it, I don't mind it.

[Alexa]

I'm enjoying this so much! It is just so, so, so good! It's an absolutely compelling story, I think the voice is perfect, and the subject matter is unfortunately just as important now as it was in 1935 or 1960.

[Alexa]

Catherine wrote: "But Atticus, whether he is believable or not, is still one of my favorite literary dads. (so I guess this is a good one to be reading over Father's Day)"

You're right, he's a pretty fantastic dad (and if we all just forever see him as Gregory Peck, isn't that because Peck did such a fantastic job of embodying what Harper Lee wrote?).

[Karen]

That was a great article in "The New Yorker". I first read TKAM in 1965. Reread this month in anticipation of publication of Harper Lee"s "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel." Gave it 4 stars the first time. Could not do the same second time. Not sure why. Kept thinking what it might be like for a black student to be sitting in a classroom with mostly white students discussing the novel. Believe I would be embarrassed. Again, I cannot explain exact reasons. I know that the situation was realistic
for the period (mid 30s); still I would want more outrage shown.

[Alexa]

Isn't a huge part of its power how little outrage IS shown? By the adult townfolks that is. Both Jem and Dill are driven to tears. The innocent unhardened ones see this as a crime. Scout is an interesting narrator, because she doesn't quite understand the story she's telling (yet the adult version of herself telling the story does - so she gives us the benefit of her later knowledge, but pretty much keeps us with the emotional tone she understood at the time).

Still interesting questions here - just how blind were even the "good" folks in 1935? In 1960? And what are white folks of privilege blind to today?

[Karen]

I am going to go page by page with this novel to check Atticus's behavior/speech each time the children upset others or each other. He just seems too calm, cool, and collected to be real! And in spite of the norm to let children wander freely in those days, I just think it is too unrealistic for Scout to have been able to walk Bo back to his house in the middle of the night after all that happened.

[Alexa]

There's a scene early on that underscores the racial disparities. Scout gets mad at Calpurnia for punishing her (for being rude to Walter Cunningham at lunch), and goes to her father and asks him to fire Calpurnia. While this scene shows just how bratty Scout could be, it also makes clear Scout's deeply ingrained awareness of the huge differences in status. Even though this is the woman who has raised her, the only mother-figure she has known (her father having a very full-time job with lots of travelling) Scout still can see that Calpurnia could be removed for a big enough crime.

[Karen]

Another viewpoint worth reading is this:

http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.co...

I do not feel as strongly as the writer, but understand why he feels the way he does.

[Catherine]

Interesting article! I can't honestly say I disagree, as much as I love this book in an emotional sense. The fact that Atticus is the hero we all remember from this story is pretty damning. That and how the black characters are more or less secondary characters there to teach two white children a lesson about injustice...I can see why people might be frustrated by how loved this novel is.

That being said, I still reserve the right to love To Kill A Mockingbird. I don't think the book itself is racist, just outdated. We need newer stories about race, preferably where the main perspective isn't solely a white perspective.

[Alexa]

Which is why it is perfect that July's read is The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness!