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Go Set a Watchman

by Harper Lee

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John said: " In ninth grade, I read To Kill a Mockignbird for English class and absolutely loved it. I have avoided reading this book since it was published, but curiosity finally got the better of me and I read Go Set a Watchman. It was worse than I feared it wo In ninth grade, I read To Kill a Mockignbird for English class and absolutely loved it. I have avoided reading this book since it was published, but curiosity finally got the better of me and I read Go Set a Watchman. It was worse than I feared it would be. To Kill A Mockingbird is a timeless classic that millions of students read and fall in love with every year. It is an American institution on the same level as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. Go Set a Watchman, its "sequel", is a soulless, pointless, cash grab whose very publishing is highly suspect and ethically questionable. The book, which is about Scout coming back to Maycomb as an adult, was sold by publishers as a sequel to the original. However, it is really an incomplete first draft of the classic. Back before To Kill a Mockingbird was released, Harper Lee, may she rest in peace, turned in this book to publishers, who were wise enough to reject it. After that Lee went in a different direction and expanded the flashback portions of the novel, which publishers loved, into a full book, giving us the To Kill a Mockingbird we all know and love. The original manuscript of Go Set a Watchman sat in a safe for several decades, gathering dust as To Kill a Mockingbird's popularity grew. It was never going to be published. That is, until Lee's sister, who was her attorney, died. It was not long afterwards that the publication this of this rough draft was announced. At the time there were many questions about Lee's mental competence and whether she was even aware of the fact that this was being published. I don't know whether these rumors were true or not, but there are several things that make it painfully obvious that this was written fifty-five years ago and has not been changed since. The most glaring example is the characters, who feel like completely different people than the characters in the original. The biggest casualty is Atticus, who, if this book is to be believed, is a bitter racist. This is so contradictory to everything in To Kill a Mockingbird that it could not possibly make sense unless it was written before To Kill a Mockingbird. Questions about the circumstances of its publishing aside, the book fails on its own merits. There is barely a thin outline of a plot, and what's there is weak, yet another sign that this is just a first draft of an unpublished novel. Overall, Go Set a Watchman is a tremendous disappointment that dishonors the legacy of Harper Lee. Fans of the original should stay away from Go Set a Watchman. ...more "

Mar 17, 2017 12:03PM · see review