To Kill a Mockingbird
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South--and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred
One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father--a crusading local lawyer--risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
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Community Reviews
It happens ever so promisingly, doesnât it, when a moment in time emerges and becomes time itself, (well, on purpose or by chance) dictating a progression of thoughts without which the dimension could not be defined. One sits back alright in order to witness the turn of events which has a child comes of age, treads upon new ground, attempting to discover the how of what in the why within the whole, through human experience:
âAtticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.â
Essentially delivered from the innocent point of view of a young girl, the story attempts to make sense of our fundamental choices and the clouds which get cast over those choices.
Early on in the book, the father talks to his daughter about âtheâ point of view; a sensibility he knows well that is going to come by and by, as a gradual process of being and not by itself. Scout eventually comes around knowing about her own by considering the standpoint of another.
Could it be said of the inquisitively brave protagonist-narrator, that looking at what is right or wrong, through a perspective, is the inevitable aspect of growing up as regards the relevance of being human and becoming human, for oneself and others.
Her universe is expanding all the time; even as she would wince at it once in a while. Into the yonder what is, would rather be waited for and beckoned.
She would share it all ⦠with her brother, talk through that which he missed; enable him to know what he knew before her. The momentous import of human experience has yet another mind to impress and let it know that it has windows that open up. Irrespective of the stakes, it would be trusted to come back; back from where it went around. Words teeming out of a young mouth would fill the landscape of thoughts, where the mockingbirds could fly; would fly fierce and high, to meet the ones that ceased their flight.
Why, even as change it does, something and someone is going to stick around ⦠Jemâs up. Atticus close by. And life wakes up alike ⦠Boo!
âAtticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.â
Essentially delivered from the innocent point of view of a young girl, the story attempts to make sense of our fundamental choices and the clouds which get cast over those choices.
Early on in the book, the father talks to his daughter about âtheâ point of view; a sensibility he knows well that is going to come by and by, as a gradual process of being and not by itself. Scout eventually comes around knowing about her own by considering the standpoint of another.
Could it be said of the inquisitively brave protagonist-narrator, that looking at what is right or wrong, through a perspective, is the inevitable aspect of growing up as regards the relevance of being human and becoming human, for oneself and others.
Her universe is expanding all the time; even as she would wince at it once in a while. Into the yonder what is, would rather be waited for and beckoned.
She would share it all ⦠with her brother, talk through that which he missed; enable him to know what he knew before her. The momentous import of human experience has yet another mind to impress and let it know that it has windows that open up. Irrespective of the stakes, it would be trusted to come back; back from where it went around. Words teeming out of a young mouth would fill the landscape of thoughts, where the mockingbirds could fly; would fly fierce and high, to meet the ones that ceased their flight.
Why, even as change it does, something and someone is going to stick around ⦠Jemâs up. Atticus close by. And life wakes up alike ⦠Boo!
Another book I'm reading for a Banned Book Club, or rather, re-reading since everyone my age read it in high school. Fifty years later, I'm very glad to have re-read it! Now, it hasn't been banned in very many schools, from what I can tell, but has been challenged and has been removed from required reading in quite a few areas. Reason? Because it doesn't represent a black experience from a black viewpoint and uses the N-word. My view is that the book never tries to show a black experience. While the movie is almost entirely about Atticus Finch and his defense of Tom Robinson, the book is not. The book is built around the trial, but it is so much more; in fact it sort of confused me when I started re-reading it because my memory had been tainted so much by my memories of the movie.
The book is about Scout Finch, and events which shaped her, from her fighting in the schoolyard to her aunt's insistence on becoming a "lady." It's about her bluntness about everything, her feelings of abandonment as her brother Jem grows up, her curiosity about Boo Radley, her anger at injustice and racial inequity.
Speaking of Boo Radley - he's practically ignored in the movie, and online speculations paint him as mentally challenged or autistic. Reading the book, you realize that he's "merely" abused by his father. In his teens, he was in with the "wrong" crowd, and released from jail to his father rather than being sent to the state school, and then wasn't seen again for 15 years. He allegedly stabbed his father in the leg with scissors at age 33, and was locked in the courthouse basement and then again released to his father. Boo's father died and his brother took the place of his jailer. The brother is the one who put cement in the knothole when Boo was trying to send little gifts to the kids, and keeps Boo isolated. Boo doesn't seem mentally challenged or autistic - just abused to the point that he can no longer deal with society, simply because the father wanted to punish him in the extreme for embarrassing the family. (Jem after opining on people not being able to get along even though they are alike: "Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time ... it's because he wants to stay inside.")
Unlike the movie, the book gave us Dill as a fully developed character, one who needed his summertime friends to be a valued, loved boy. It gave us Mrs. Dubose, with the children's justified dislike of her along with Atticus's explanation of her personality and depression. Through Lee's earlier incident at the school with the Cunningham child, we saw Scout's innocence as capable of bringing humanity to the standoff at the jail. One of my favorite characters is Mr. Dolphus Raymond - who pretends to be a drunk so that people basically leave him alone, which is probably especially important to him since he is in an interracial marriage.
Lee made us see Mayella as an isolated young woman who wanted a forbidden interaction (which the man did not want) but whether though disgust at herself or fear of her father, was willing to have a man killed to protect her self-image. Mr. Ewell is a man willing to kill to protect his family reputation despite the fact that his family is already at the bottom of the (white) social ladder. Maybe their low position exacerbated his need to keep himself separate and above black people in his mind. He mouths off at anyone, but when he wants to act against others, it's against women and children because he's a coward at heart.
When it comes to the trial - no, Atticus is not a "white savior." He is a man who believes in justice, in principle and in action. He sees the facts for what they are; that includes both the impossibility of Tom Robinson's doing the crime and the extreme unlikelihood that a jury of 12 white men (no women or black people were allowed on the jury) would side with a black man when a white man is calling him a liar. (It sort of reminds me of our view of policemen before we had cell phone cameras.)
There are some people who dislike Tom's escape attempt and death because they believe it casts Tom as irrational or inferior because he can't be patient for Atticus's attempt at an appeal. I don't see this at all - it comes down to a sentence on p. 269 "I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own." While Atticus tried to sound hopeful about an appeal, we all realistically know that the appeal would have been lost. Tom knew this as well as anyone, and it's not unreasonable that he might have tried to escape given that he was likely going to be killed in the electric chair. (BTW, Lee sneaks in a good commentary about circumstantial evidence and the death penalty here.)
Most importantly, the story is about Scout's transition from a first grader who fights with the boy she got in trouble for defending in her classroom to one who gently walks Boo Radley home. She's known right from wrong the whole time - whether explaining to the teacher about Walter Cunningham's situation or that all people deserve respect - but she's now able to see it even in the people she dislikes, like Mrs. Dubose. BUT - in many ways, I think it's more of a book about Scout seeing her brother's transition from a child who pesters neighbors to a young man who cries about the court verdict, who goes from destroying his neighbor's flowers to learning that even though she was viciously cantankerous, she had her own demons to address.
So no, the book isn't about the black experience. It's about two children growing up in the south, learning about respect and justice. It is about racial injustice from the point of view of a family that is willing to act on their principles when it would be easier to just fit in and accept oppression of others.
"They're certainly entitled to think that [they're right and you're wrong], and they're entitled to full respect for their opinion," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (p.120)
The book is about Scout Finch, and events which shaped her, from her fighting in the schoolyard to her aunt's insistence on becoming a "lady." It's about her bluntness about everything, her feelings of abandonment as her brother Jem grows up, her curiosity about Boo Radley, her anger at injustice and racial inequity.
Speaking of Boo Radley - he's practically ignored in the movie, and online speculations paint him as mentally challenged or autistic. Reading the book, you realize that he's "merely" abused by his father. In his teens, he was in with the "wrong" crowd, and released from jail to his father rather than being sent to the state school, and then wasn't seen again for 15 years. He allegedly stabbed his father in the leg with scissors at age 33, and was locked in the courthouse basement and then again released to his father. Boo's father died and his brother took the place of his jailer. The brother is the one who put cement in the knothole when Boo was trying to send little gifts to the kids, and keeps Boo isolated. Boo doesn't seem mentally challenged or autistic - just abused to the point that he can no longer deal with society, simply because the father wanted to punish him in the extreme for embarrassing the family. (Jem after opining on people not being able to get along even though they are alike: "Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in the house all this time ... it's because he wants to stay inside.")
Unlike the movie, the book gave us Dill as a fully developed character, one who needed his summertime friends to be a valued, loved boy. It gave us Mrs. Dubose, with the children's justified dislike of her along with Atticus's explanation of her personality and depression. Through Lee's earlier incident at the school with the Cunningham child, we saw Scout's innocence as capable of bringing humanity to the standoff at the jail. One of my favorite characters is Mr. Dolphus Raymond - who pretends to be a drunk so that people basically leave him alone, which is probably especially important to him since he is in an interracial marriage.
Lee made us see Mayella as an isolated young woman who wanted a forbidden interaction (which the man did not want) but whether though disgust at herself or fear of her father, was willing to have a man killed to protect her self-image. Mr. Ewell is a man willing to kill to protect his family reputation despite the fact that his family is already at the bottom of the (white) social ladder. Maybe their low position exacerbated his need to keep himself separate and above black people in his mind. He mouths off at anyone, but when he wants to act against others, it's against women and children because he's a coward at heart.
When it comes to the trial - no, Atticus is not a "white savior." He is a man who believes in justice, in principle and in action. He sees the facts for what they are; that includes both the impossibility of Tom Robinson's doing the crime and the extreme unlikelihood that a jury of 12 white men (no women or black people were allowed on the jury) would side with a black man when a white man is calling him a liar. (It sort of reminds me of our view of policemen before we had cell phone cameras.)
There are some people who dislike Tom's escape attempt and death because they believe it casts Tom as irrational or inferior because he can't be patient for Atticus's attempt at an appeal. I don't see this at all - it comes down to a sentence on p. 269 "I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own." While Atticus tried to sound hopeful about an appeal, we all realistically know that the appeal would have been lost. Tom knew this as well as anyone, and it's not unreasonable that he might have tried to escape given that he was likely going to be killed in the electric chair. (BTW, Lee sneaks in a good commentary about circumstantial evidence and the death penalty here.)
Most importantly, the story is about Scout's transition from a first grader who fights with the boy she got in trouble for defending in her classroom to one who gently walks Boo Radley home. She's known right from wrong the whole time - whether explaining to the teacher about Walter Cunningham's situation or that all people deserve respect - but she's now able to see it even in the people she dislikes, like Mrs. Dubose. BUT - in many ways, I think it's more of a book about Scout seeing her brother's transition from a child who pesters neighbors to a young man who cries about the court verdict, who goes from destroying his neighbor's flowers to learning that even though she was viciously cantankerous, she had her own demons to address.
So no, the book isn't about the black experience. It's about two children growing up in the south, learning about respect and justice. It is about racial injustice from the point of view of a family that is willing to act on their principles when it would be easier to just fit in and accept oppression of others.
"They're certainly entitled to think that [they're right and you're wrong], and they're entitled to full respect for their opinion," said Atticus, "but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (p.120)
Yes, I should have read this in high school; no, I didn't do so. I was a pretty big slacker, but I'm finally starting to make up for it.
It's a good story, and well told. I was a little disappointed, though, in a way that's not really fair: There's not much more here than there is in the movie. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that sticks quite so closely to the book. The problem being, of course, that I've seen the movie half a dozen times and I'm just now reading the book. I had hoped for a lot more here, something that would take it beyond the movie. Didn't get it. But like I said, that's not really fair.
My favorite part of the book, I think, was the characters. They are so fully developed. Had I not seen the movie, I'm sure I'd still be able to picture Atticus and Dill and Jem and the rest of them. The plot itself is also interesting, though I am left to wonder why Amazon has this on their "top-selling mysteries" list—it's not really a mystery, is it? I'd have a hard time categorizing it. On the back of the jacket it says that the author considered it "a simple love story." If she actually said that, I think she was being disingenuous at best. I'm hard pressed even to find the "love story" she might be referring to (Scout & Dill? Scout & Boo?), and obviously there's a lot more going on here.
It's a good story, and well told. I was a little disappointed, though, in a way that's not really fair: There's not much more here than there is in the movie. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that sticks quite so closely to the book. The problem being, of course, that I've seen the movie half a dozen times and I'm just now reading the book. I had hoped for a lot more here, something that would take it beyond the movie. Didn't get it. But like I said, that's not really fair.
My favorite part of the book, I think, was the characters. They are so fully developed. Had I not seen the movie, I'm sure I'd still be able to picture Atticus and Dill and Jem and the rest of them. The plot itself is also interesting, though I am left to wonder why Amazon has this on their "top-selling mysteries" list—it's not really a mystery, is it? I'd have a hard time categorizing it. On the back of the jacket it says that the author considered it "a simple love story." If she actually said that, I think she was being disingenuous at best. I'm hard pressed even to find the "love story" she might be referring to (Scout & Dill? Scout & Boo?), and obviously there's a lot more going on here.
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