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Harper Lee Dead
Harper Lee died at the age of 89, it was confirmed today, in the same small Alabama town where she lived most of her life, and the setting for her one and only masterwork of published writing, To Kill a Mockingbird.
I don’t know much about Harper Lee. She was such a private person, I’m not sure anyone does. But, I imagine she told us all she wanted to about herself in her semi-autobiographical character, Scout. That’s how I’m going to remember her, anyway. As Scout, all grown up and grown old, still at the heart of her beloved Monroeville.
And as a parting prayer, Miss Lee, thank you for the poignant glimpse into your hidden life in the American South. I’ll always treasure it. RIP.
Published in Literature
I’ll treasure TKAM, a great Southern novel, and honor her memory for it.
However, I think she was done a grave disservice in the last couple of years of her life. Watchman was an early draft of TKAM. When she originally submitted it for publication, her editor thought there was a good story to be had, but it needed serious reworking. There is no question they changed the perspective of the story (time), and they appear to have changed (reshaped) the characters a little too. The result of a hard re-working of the story was TKAM. According to family and friends, Lee had no plans to release a 2nd novel, including Watchman, the original draft.
However, in the last couple of years of her life, she lost her sister and lawyer – her protectors and caregivers. The new ‘caregiver’ in her life convinced this elderly lady to release this manuscript and call it a sequel. It wasn’t a sequel and was not intended to be a sequel. And I think the release of this early draft has done a disservice to the original novel.
I just saw. And as it so happens I’m in the middle of reading To Kill a Mockingbird. And I’m really enjoying it. I don’t know much about her personally but she seemed like a sweet soul. May she rest in peace.
As I just said above, I’m currently reading TKAM for the first time, and I’ll get to Watchman eventually. Even if Watchman turns out to be a disaster – and a lot of people say it’s a disappointment – it will not hurt her reputation in the long run. Over the course of history, only a writer’s best work is part of their historical evaluation. No one remembers the lousy Shakespeare plays. They just don’t count in the long run. If Harper Lee made some money with Watchman and handded it over to her heirs, so be it. It’s only a transient thing.
Yes, I am aware of the situation and, like you, believe it to have been manipulative and a disservice. Like so many things these days, I’m choosing to ignore the bad (the American people elected BHO twice, for example) in order to emphasize the good (we have an exceptional founding).
My favorite scene
It gets me every time—not that Atticus Finch is being shown respect—he gave it first. It is the recognition of that respect that spurred folks to stand up.
For someone who has always lived in the South and in the midst of racial divide, this scene gives me hope that one day, people will not be in the balcony and standing up for the innocent will not unusual.
Yes, that’s probably the healthy choice.
WC . . . Does the movie do the novel justice? Somehow I tumbled into my advanced years having never read it.
Yes, in my opinion, the movie is a beautiful rendering.
I only read the book for the first time a few years ago. I was shamed into it by the fact that both my kids were already required to read it in school before reaching high school!
It’s a short book and well worth your time. It’s very evocative of the American South, warts and all. Which makes it great American literature. I may have to pick it up again.
Harper Lee is the epitome of the idea that every writer has at least one good story in them. Like Margaret Mitchell, it was one and done. Makes you admire those that replicate the effort again and again.
I heard an anecdote from a reputable source that Harper Lee was so happy with Gregory Peck’s portrayal of her father that she burst into tears on the set.
I loved the book and loved the movie.
My daughter is obsessed with TKAM; she always has a copy in her purse. Against her teacher’s wishes she read it in one sitting in the 7th grade 13 years ago and hasn’t stop reading it since.
She enjoyed The Watchman (I haven’t read it yet so have nothing to add).
I don’t want to be a scold – but having read it as a Sophomore, I was less than enthusiastic about the book.
It seemed to me to be quite preachy, along the lines of so many other authors who were popular with High School Honors English teachers like Steinbeck.
I despised Steinbeck though.
I can still remember the sheer pleasure I took in reading that book one summer as a kid. She set the scenes and described the action and characters so well that it was all instantly seared into memory as if it were a movie and not a book that I was enjoying.
So when I did see the film, I couldn’t have been happier with it. I thought it was one of the best and most faithful to source translations from book to film that I’d ever seen.
A lovely tribute, WC. I second every word.
My daughter named her puppy Scout. I’ve always wished I had Atticus and Calpurnia in my life—for real, I mean, not just in my imagination.
My husband always say fathers shoot for Atticus as their role model but end up more like Homer Simpson.
I read TKAM when I was in the 8th grade; and honestly, I don’t remember that much about it. As for Steinbeck, I read most of The Grapes of Wrath either in high school or college. I found it way too depressing so I read about half and “finished”‘ it by reading the Cliff Notes. Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of classic literature.
Does Go Set A Watchman sound enough like To Kill A Mockingbird that people who have read both sense they’re reading the same author ?
You’re not the first Ricochetti to tell me this. Remember Glen the Iconoclast? He said the same. But, after I gushed over it, he went back and read it again and enjoyed it.
I think it improves with (the reader’s) age. And maybe not having an English homework assignment with it helps. ;-)
Harper Lee had a great quote in TKAM which I have tried in vain to find (tried everything but … you know … actually re-reading the book) about then “modern” education. Something about education just being silly and a series of projects. And that she (Scout) felt as though she had been robbed of the education her father and uncle had received.
I pointed that passage out to several of my children’s teachers who made book report assignments a form of torture: Make a scrap book about the book. A diorama from a scene in the book. For each chapter list 20 words you’ve never read before and find and note the definition. blah blah blah
I told one teacher if he tried he couldn’t make reading a great book a more miserable experience for his students.
Yes, I remember that part. I think it was near the beginning when Scout starts school.
Remember how Dennis Miller would play this line from the movie? Total chills . . .
Older Scout: [narrating] I was to think of these days many times. Of Jem, and Dill, and Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson, and Atticus. He would be in Jem’s room all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
I re-read the book just a few years ago and came to the same conclusion. I found it to be preachy and a little simplistic, with characters that were either all good, or all bad. I came to the conclusion TKAM is really a children’s novel. It just didn’t hold up for me as an adult reader.
I’m still here, Misssssy!, except so busy with two jobs I usually get only a couple hours a week to check the site and listen to maybe one podcast.
I read at the time of Watchman‘s publication the assertions and counter-assertions of Harper Lee being manipulated into publishing it. I have no strong opinion on that, but she looked so frail in the accompanying photographs, which likely sways me into the “manipulated” camp.
That said, it reads to me like the same voice. I bought a copy for a work-friend who told me Mockingbird is her favorite book. I haven’t gotten her opinion yet.
Listen to them. When I first started listening to audio books, I decided I should listen to the books I was supposed to read in high school, but didn’t. I listened to Dickens and Austen and Melville and Hardy and Kipling. They were uniformly good, with the exception of Melville.
Hey, Glenn (two “n”s, two “n”s)!! It’s been a long time. Good to know you’re around, even if you never call. ;-)
I admit, I only read TKAM because it was an assignment, and it didn’t have any significant impact on me. The only part I really enjoyed was my Sophomore English teacher, John Canary’s rant on what a bad parent Atticus Finch was. (“Feeling bad, kid? No problem- have some carbohydrates.”)
Nevertheless, I developed some new-found respect for the author upon seeing this tweet by Berkeley Breathed…
Why should audiobooks be a chore, or homework? I use my Audible (sponsor plug) account to listen to fun stuff, like the Great Courses (double sponsor plug) series on “History’s Great Military Blunders.”
I must have phrased myself badly. It wasn’t a chore. I enjoyed them all.
I think you’re on to something. I remember the novel for how well Lee captured a child’s voice and perspective . . . maybe the characters are simplistically good and bad because that’s how kids tend to see things.
For southern fiction, I prefer Flannery O’Connor or Charles Portis.
Yes, I think it is considered “young adult fiction” or something similar. However, there seem to be some books that should be read as part of cultural awareness – this book is often referenced in our culture.
One of my problems with Common Core is that it seems to be reducing instruction in ‘classic literature’ in favor of non-fiction reading, including the reading of government publications! They don’t want us to think – they want us to be ready for our government-controlled future.
I’m a southerner, so I’m obviously biased, but is there richer fiction coming out of any other region of the country? Too many great authors, too many great reads to name here…..