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To Kill a Mockingbird ( 1st/2nd ~ Pulitzer Prize ~ Film ~ American Classic ) Review

I had a bad upbringing, as far as reading went. Most of my teachers let me read whatever they wanted, and the few that assigned anything to me took the path of the-most-boring-is-best. I therefore was made to read "1984", which was over my 14-year-old head, and "Silas Marner", which the whole class thought was boring and badly written. In the last few years I've been slowly catching up with those classics I should have read when I was younger. I tried Scott Fitzgerald (and decided after "The Great Gatsby"--which I liked--not to venture any further), "The Catcher in the Rye" which I expected to hate and liked anyway, "A Confederacy of Dunces" which had me rolling in the aisles, and even Jane Austen, who I enjoyed a great deal more than I expected. Now I turn to "To Kill a Mockingbird". It's one of those books that everyone but me has apparently read. So I guess it's time I caught up with everyone else.

Janet Louise "Scout" Finch is a little girl, during the events of the story. I got the impression that the author was imagining Scout as a slightly older girl, writing this story down for posterity. She has an older brother, and the two of them live with their father, a lawyer, in a small town in Alabama. Their mother's dead. In the summer, a cousin named Dill visits them and the three of them play together. Supposedly, Dill is based on Harper Lee's real childhood friend, Truman Capote, but that's neither here nor there. They are the typical rural children of the era, playing in the street, and spreading rumors and innuendo about their neighbors. At the end of the block there's a strange family with a reclusive son who's in his thirties, but never leaves the house or says anything to anyone, named Boo Radley.

Scout knows her father's a lawyer, and has knowledge of a few things with regards to laws, but she's never really experienced a trial or anything. A third of the way into the book, when you're wondering if it's ever going to really have a plot, kids start to call Scout's father a n----r-lover. Ms. Lee doesn't bother with the hyphens. It turns out that what they're referring to is the fact that Scout's dad, whose name is Atticus Finch, has been assigned to defend a local black man who has been accused of raping a white woman. In Alabama in the 1930's, this is a capitol offense, and he'll surely be executed if he's convicted.

So of course there's the obligatory lynch mob (one of the strongest scenes in the book) where Atticus faces down the less-than-brilliant citizens of the town, followed by the courtroom scene that's rather short, given that the trial of course only takes one day. I won't give away the ending, but the author confronts the obvious issues of racism and class in the 1930's south with a great deal more subtlety and nuance than I expected, and the ending, if a bit surprising, is also very satisfying.

I do have one negative thing to say about this book: it killed the career of what could have been a great novelist. At least that's my opinion. Most any author wants to think the book they're working on is better than the last one they wrote, and this thing won pretty much every award it could, short of the Nobel Prize for literature. It's one of the best-loved books of the last century. It's my belief that this success was a double-edged sword: on the one hand the acclaim was probably pretty heady, but on the other hand, how do you top something as successful as this? It's almost inevitable that a second book wouldn't win another Pulitzer. Anything less would be a step down.

Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book, truly great, and I recommend it highly.

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Customer Reviews

truly brilliant - Maggie Hasbrouck - Atlanta GA
I read this in high school, it was the best book I had ever read. I read it again to my daughter when she was 11 and once again loved it. There was so much more to it than I remembered. It is such a stunning masterpiece on so many levels, this is one book worth reading again and again. My daughter and I have put it on our "books you must read in your lifetime" list (just four books long at this point).
This is a powerful book and one that will stay with you a good long time.

A lot to be learned from a classic..... - Kathy Ann Fautz - Louisville, KY
Even in this day and age, this book provides a tremendous opportunity to teach the age-old message of "do the right thing" and "do unto others"! Even kids of the current generation ar emoved by this story. Young and old alike will find it a valuable read ( including better_bargains.com who made purchasing this book a nightmare).

Boo - Doctor Moss -
If you are like me and remember the movie more than the book, or if you read the book long ago, you may not realize how much of the book focuses on Atticus as a parent. He is a great role model as a father, always looking ahead to how what his children do now will shape them in the future. I'm sure this was read as "permissiveness" at the time, but the wisdom is apparent if you pay attention.

The story of Boo frames the story, his continued, protected innocence as Scout and Jem are ushered out of their own innocence by Atticus and by the events of the story.

A great book -- deserves all the praise it has gotten.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 29, 2010 03:06:08

Books Reference

Sunday, August 29, 2010