The V&B Forum |
Each issue will present an article focusing on a controversial topic.
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Atticus Finch: Fallen Idol
Tired of the political clamor Donald Trump is gleefully stirring up? Had it with his relentless domination of television and print news? We offer a change of venue: the literary landscape. Usually an oasis of civility, a controversy is currently roiling the publishing world over the publication of Go Set a Watchman, a “new” novel by Harper Lee whose Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, continues to be one of the most cherished books in American literature.
The controversy centers around the timing of Watchman’s publication. Written before Mockingbird, it would have been Ms. Lee’s literary debut if her editor had not rejected it. The editor asked for a new version focusing on Scout’s girlhood two decades earlier. That rewrite became Mockingbird.
The concern is that Ms. Lee, who for many years has emphatically declared that she would never publish another book, might have been pressured or manipulated into publishing that rejected manuscript now. The fact that she has suffered a series of strokes in recent years and is reputed to be mentally infirm adds credence to the speculation.
There are other issues to be considered. When a book becomes a bestseller, the publisher is eager to print previous works by its author. Often an earlier effort doesn’t measure up to the quality of the acclaimed book, but it sells anyway. People are not buying the book now, they are buying the author.
The question is, why did Ms. Lee stand fast all these years, rejecting pleas for another book? Did she fear that publication of a lesser work would sully her legacy? Is that why she let Watchman sit in a bank vault for more than half a century? Her agent knew it was there. But Ms. Lee’s older sister Alice, a lawyer and a fierce protector of her sister, granted no one entrée to the vault.
In 2001, Marja Mills, a journalist for The Chicago Tribune, was given unprecedented access to the reclusive sisters. With their blessing, she moved into the house next door to them and joined their circle of family and friends for two years while she researched her book, The Mockingbird Next Door. Mills verifies that Ms. Lee often said she had no interest in publishing another book.
When Alice died in 2014, there was no one to stand guard at the vault. With the help of Ms. Lee’s agent, HarperCollins, a Rupert Murdock-owned publishing house, pounced on what Joe Nocera of The New York Times calls “one of the epic money grabs in the history of American publishing.” The book was published with a first printing of two million copies; more than a million sold the first week of release. Watchman now is on the bestseller lists of The San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times.
The book has been widely reviewed, both positively and negatively. There’s no denying it has literary merit. It is, after all, the voice of Harper Lee. But it asks too much of the reader. In Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is a role model for his children, the most potent moral force in their lives. In Watchman, Atticus is portrayed as a bigot and an adamant opponent of desegregation who once attended a Klan meeting.
“When it comes to explaining such a radical change,” says Michiko Kakutani, book reviewer for The Times, “The reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed. Mockingbird is a plea for compassion for outsiders, while Watchman asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus.”
What do you think? Should we rejoice that this long-hidden manuscript has come to light? Or should we be concerned that the wishes of its author may have been violated? Most important, will its release tarnish the legacy of Harper Lee? Send us your comments in the box below.
The controversy centers around the timing of Watchman’s publication. Written before Mockingbird, it would have been Ms. Lee’s literary debut if her editor had not rejected it. The editor asked for a new version focusing on Scout’s girlhood two decades earlier. That rewrite became Mockingbird.
The concern is that Ms. Lee, who for many years has emphatically declared that she would never publish another book, might have been pressured or manipulated into publishing that rejected manuscript now. The fact that she has suffered a series of strokes in recent years and is reputed to be mentally infirm adds credence to the speculation.
There are other issues to be considered. When a book becomes a bestseller, the publisher is eager to print previous works by its author. Often an earlier effort doesn’t measure up to the quality of the acclaimed book, but it sells anyway. People are not buying the book now, they are buying the author.
The question is, why did Ms. Lee stand fast all these years, rejecting pleas for another book? Did she fear that publication of a lesser work would sully her legacy? Is that why she let Watchman sit in a bank vault for more than half a century? Her agent knew it was there. But Ms. Lee’s older sister Alice, a lawyer and a fierce protector of her sister, granted no one entrée to the vault.
In 2001, Marja Mills, a journalist for The Chicago Tribune, was given unprecedented access to the reclusive sisters. With their blessing, she moved into the house next door to them and joined their circle of family and friends for two years while she researched her book, The Mockingbird Next Door. Mills verifies that Ms. Lee often said she had no interest in publishing another book.
When Alice died in 2014, there was no one to stand guard at the vault. With the help of Ms. Lee’s agent, HarperCollins, a Rupert Murdock-owned publishing house, pounced on what Joe Nocera of The New York Times calls “one of the epic money grabs in the history of American publishing.” The book was published with a first printing of two million copies; more than a million sold the first week of release. Watchman now is on the bestseller lists of The San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times.
The book has been widely reviewed, both positively and negatively. There’s no denying it has literary merit. It is, after all, the voice of Harper Lee. But it asks too much of the reader. In Mockingbird, Atticus Finch is a role model for his children, the most potent moral force in their lives. In Watchman, Atticus is portrayed as a bigot and an adamant opponent of desegregation who once attended a Klan meeting.
“When it comes to explaining such a radical change,” says Michiko Kakutani, book reviewer for The Times, “The reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed. Mockingbird is a plea for compassion for outsiders, while Watchman asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus.”
What do you think? Should we rejoice that this long-hidden manuscript has come to light? Or should we be concerned that the wishes of its author may have been violated? Most important, will its release tarnish the legacy of Harper Lee? Send us your comments in the box below.