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skes96's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
whaydengilbert's review
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
3.25
“All men are created evil.”
There are numerous controversies surrounding the release of this book: was Harper Lee taken advantage of? Is this a true sequel, or just a repurposed first draft of the original? If it’s the latter, why was it released with no context, and worse, misleading marketing? But the controversy that has interested me the most since the announcement is the that of the “character assassination” of a certain iconic literary hero. I must admit I’ve been insanely curious about the book itself and figured now, after having finally reread the original classic, was as good a time as any to finally find out what all the hubbub was about.
One of the nagging questions at the front of my mind while reading this was—what *did* the original book look like? What was the story? What was added and omitted during the editing process? There might be well-documented answers to these questions, but I’m unaware of them. Where did all of this fit around the narrative we know from To Kill a Mockingbird, and how much of that was added after the decision to focus solely on the narrator’s childhood? That first book as it exists now is such a beautiful work of hero worship. If the original draft was more of an even split, half-Scout and half-Jean Louise, was the original intention to provide Scout the hero she needed as a child, and then to bring him down to earth so that she could grow? What WAS the book to be? What would the book and Harper Lee’s legacies have been if this idea was pursued?
However they went about the transformation of the book, To Kill a Mockingbird is like pure liberal fantasy; the educated white man protecting the oppressed from the poor, uneducated, violent, disgusting, racist, inbred white-trash who, at best, know not what they do, and at worst…are Bob Ewell. I’ve always found it funny that a book that’s all about empathy, whose entire ethos is a plea to “walk around in someone else’s skin to understand them,” also contains one of the most irredeemable, vile villains in all literature. And opposing him is Atticus Finch, the ultimate Lib-Superman. And Atticus is awesome. There’s a reason everyone loves him. On the reread, the last chapter left me tearing up with its closing lines, letting you know your big, strong, liberal dad will never leave your side. But as I said before, I was fascinated with the idea of the big revelation of this book. Is Atticus a secret racist, or has he become one as he grew older? Scout’s disillusionment is the one we all have when we grow old enough to realize our parents are not just “Mother and Father”, but are also people. Complicated human beings who can be selfish and flawed and, yes, contradictory. And it came make the lessons they taught you early in life feel hollow in retrospect. If you knew *this* was of thinking was right, why didn’t you follow your own advice? And the answer to that is they always wanted us to be better than them.
Some of the most compelling stuff in the latter parts of Mockingbird are Scout grappling with her own unquestioned prejudices and racism, and now we see her disillusionment with what has become of the people closest to her. This book seems to beg the question, ‘is racism a curse doomed to swallow southerners whole?’ Is it something inescapable? The first book has a recurring theme that people are their last name. Their ways are their ways, and it is what it is.
In the end, though, it becomes pretty clear that this was not meant to be a book on its own. There’s a lot of philosophizing, and very little story. Around the halfway point, there is mention of a new court case: Calpurnia’s grandson has killed a white man in an auto accident, and Atticus takes it. The reader gets the idea that there might be a plot that begins to mirror that of the original, but no. It never gets that far. We instead jump back in time to a few memories of Scout as a teenager, and then follow Jean Louise over the course of a few days. The novel climaxes with Jean Louise confronting Atticus, and after the horrific conversation she has with her father about her discovery of him, the grand finale is a long, muddled conversation of ideas with her uncle that seems to resolve things. I’m just not sure how that happened. The last two chapters left me a tad confused. Is the book letting Atticus off the hook, saying he just took the racist side of the argument just to make his daughter destroy him as an idol in her life? Or is the idea a more complicated one? This ambiguity is my favorite part of the ending of the novel, as I’ll be thinking about it for a long time, grappling with it like Scout, but I’m not sure Uncle Jack’s lecture cleared much up for me.
I’m giving this a 3 star because it doesn’t stand on its own as a novel, but it was a fascinating read. I’m going to be thinking about it for a long time.
nishbaindur's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
5.0
katykelly's review
4.0
3.5 stars
This is a hard review to write. This book has possibly more expectation riding on it than any other in recent times (maybe excepting the seventh Harry Potter). It was never meant to be a companion to Mockingbird, and in many ways it is not fair to compare the two. But one sprung from the other, so to separate them completely also feels as though something will be lacking.
So I'm going to try and do both - look at Watchman as a novel in its own right first, and then looking at it alongside its more famous and beloved big brother.
To be completely honest, I actually found the first half of Watchman a little dull. Jean Louise is returning home for her obligatory annual visit to her small-town childhood home of Maycomb, where her ageing father Atticus, a lawyer, still resides. She reminisces about her father, the fate of her brother, her home, her sometime-boyfriend. The story only really started for me when she reaches the station. If I'd picked this up in a bookstore and browsed the first few pages, I might have put it down again unread. But it did pick up and become quite tense and interesting.
Jean Louise (once known as Scout of course), reminisces for us about her childhood with her brother and friends, and some of my favourite parts were the fondly remembered school anecdotes, very funny to picture.
One of the themes of the book is returning to your roots, going back to where you started, and perhaps finding some things are the same, but that things do change. Her father is getting older, something no child can watch without feelings of sorrow and guilt. Her aunt has 'taken her place' at remaining with him, allowing Jean Louise to leave the town when she was younger and forge a career for herself, something she is grateful for, but constantly reminded of. Set in the fifties, Jean Louise represents the generation of women who were some of the first who were able to do this, to experience the life than only young men before them had been able to, and we glimpse snippets of the life she has in New York that is free of the small-town influence.
Her roots start to choke though, as they twist themselves around her idealised portrait of her family when she discovers new things about her father that shock her. It is in this section of the book, the last third, that Lee's voice, through Jean Louise's uncle and father shines through, as both sally back and forth speeches with the upset and angry young woman about truth, integrity and the small-town way of life.
Towards the end, this feels like a stage play, with two characters in a back-and-forth debate, with both at times earning your sympathies. Nobody is as you thought them earlier, everyone has their faults, decency takes many forms and has many guises.
I enjoyed Uncle Jack's speeches, with lots of Victorian literature quoted (some of which passed me by), and Jean Louise's aunt is a strong character, unlike the boyfriend Henry who didn't feel well-enough drawn to me. I quite liked him, but he's no match for Scout, as was.
Atticus plays a minor role until halfway, when he manages to show his lawyerly bearing and take centre stage, making the chapters into his courtroom and his talks with his daughter a closing speech worth listening to.
It definitely picked up, and I'm glad I persevered with it, I wasn't sure if I would. I enjoy books that take a character back to their childhood, it's something that resonates with me, especially when you see scenes from their past.
By itself, Watchman is of interest for those who like novels that portray a time and place - here, the era of the first independent women, small-town ways changing, family revelation and confrontation in a newly-integrated America.
To the second aspect of my review - a comparison to To Kill a Mockingbird.
I've known and loved Mockingbird since the age of fourteen. I studied it and took it apart for GCSE, I adore the film. But I knew that this book WASN'T Mockingbird, more a first draft and source material. Still, I could hear Lee's tone from it in Watchman, the language at times mirrored Mockingbird, references popped up that came from her published novel.
I got a real feel for Maycomb again in Watchman, at a later period you can still feel the old-town quaintness of it, as if the modern world of the fifties hasn't quite taken a hold yet and shaken them up. Though it's starting to...
It was lovely to see little Scout again, though she's not instantly recognisable as the girl we remember most of the time. In her recollections however, I found the Scout I remember, the innocent and beautiful voice of childhood that I loved. There is sadness in her recollections of Jem, and the mother we never really heard about in Mockingbird plays a larger role in her memory here as her history with Atticus is developed a little.
I really did like the recollections she narrates of her school escapades, a few years after the events of Mockingbird - teenage Scout is wonderful. And Lee's description of her adventures makes me think some might stem from real incidents. Will we ever know?
Of course, the major section of Mockingbird was Tom's court case. This really only gets a brief mention here, and the details of which were obviously changed for Mockingbird to make it fit her theme and how she needed the characters to appear to us. Tom, we learn here, was a black man defended by Atticus in a 'rape' case, a one-armed man tried but found innocent of statutory rape of a white minor. We learn that consent was proved. This isn't a spoiler - it's a paragraph in the book and not referred to again. I find this fascinating, that originally Lee planned this minor recollection of an old case as an example of Atticus's work, but made it into the basis of one of the most incredibly emotive court cases in literature. An excellent decision by her and her editors at the time.
We get mentions of little Dill, Calpurnia of course. Boo Radley must have been created especially for her second draft as he doesn't appear here at all.
I did find a few lines that could be quite memorable, in Lee's signature style, but Watchman is nowhere near as quotable as Mockingbird, it just doesn't feel as worked through and polished, Lee's passion clearly came out the more she wrote through Atticus.
Atticus still is - Atticus. Just as convincing, just as quietly considering behind his glasses. He's older, but stoic in his infirmities. Still a loving father, but he IS still the moral heart of Jean Louise's world, even when her loyalty to that is tested.
We get to see, through the publication of Watchman, how beloved characters from our own youth, when many of us would have read Mockingbird, how those we admired and put on our own pedestals changed over time, maybe slip from them, take new directions. Just seeing Scout grow up is a shock, seeing Calpurnia elderly. Change is something we all have to accept and come to terms with.
The theme of racial prejudice is not as passionately argued or as beautifully characterised as in Mockingbird, but still, "what is the brave thing to do" is still the core of the story. It's also a father and daughter story about them each changing and accepting that change in each other.
I can't justify 5 stars for this, but it definitely deserves more than an average 3. I've tried to look at it as a novel in itself, but it really should be read alongside To Kill a Mockingbird (after it though, never before), to try and appreciate just how the writer developed both her ideas and her craft in constructing one of the most beautifully written novels of the 20th century. We all need to accept that nothing stays the same forever, and Watchman, with the ideas of conscience, morality and change, encapsulates what each of us need to consider in our own 21st century families.
I am glad this was published - it's amazing to see the author's original ideas, and what she was able to turn them into. Jean Louise is not Scout, though Atticus's self never changes, at his core. You can admire him still, have no fear.
This is definitely worth reflecting on, if you love Mockingbird and would like to see inside the writer's mind. A rare privilege.
This is a hard review to write. This book has possibly more expectation riding on it than any other in recent times (maybe excepting the seventh Harry Potter). It was never meant to be a companion to Mockingbird, and in many ways it is not fair to compare the two. But one sprung from the other, so to separate them completely also feels as though something will be lacking.
So I'm going to try and do both - look at Watchman as a novel in its own right first, and then looking at it alongside its more famous and beloved big brother.
To be completely honest, I actually found the first half of Watchman a little dull. Jean Louise is returning home for her obligatory annual visit to her small-town childhood home of Maycomb, where her ageing father Atticus, a lawyer, still resides. She reminisces about her father, the fate of her brother, her home, her sometime-boyfriend. The story only really started for me when she reaches the station. If I'd picked this up in a bookstore and browsed the first few pages, I might have put it down again unread. But it did pick up and become quite tense and interesting.
Jean Louise (once known as Scout of course), reminisces for us about her childhood with her brother and friends, and some of my favourite parts were the fondly remembered school anecdotes, very funny to picture.
One of the themes of the book is returning to your roots, going back to where you started, and perhaps finding some things are the same, but that things do change. Her father is getting older, something no child can watch without feelings of sorrow and guilt. Her aunt has 'taken her place' at remaining with him, allowing Jean Louise to leave the town when she was younger and forge a career for herself, something she is grateful for, but constantly reminded of. Set in the fifties, Jean Louise represents the generation of women who were some of the first who were able to do this, to experience the life than only young men before them had been able to, and we glimpse snippets of the life she has in New York that is free of the small-town influence.
Her roots start to choke though, as they twist themselves around her idealised portrait of her family when she discovers new things about her father that shock her. It is in this section of the book, the last third, that Lee's voice, through Jean Louise's uncle and father shines through, as both sally back and forth speeches with the upset and angry young woman about truth, integrity and the small-town way of life.
Towards the end, this feels like a stage play, with two characters in a back-and-forth debate, with both at times earning your sympathies. Nobody is as you thought them earlier, everyone has their faults, decency takes many forms and has many guises.
I enjoyed Uncle Jack's speeches, with lots of Victorian literature quoted (some of which passed me by), and Jean Louise's aunt is a strong character, unlike the boyfriend Henry who didn't feel well-enough drawn to me. I quite liked him, but he's no match for Scout, as was.
Atticus plays a minor role until halfway, when he manages to show his lawyerly bearing and take centre stage, making the chapters into his courtroom and his talks with his daughter a closing speech worth listening to.
It definitely picked up, and I'm glad I persevered with it, I wasn't sure if I would. I enjoy books that take a character back to their childhood, it's something that resonates with me, especially when you see scenes from their past.
By itself, Watchman is of interest for those who like novels that portray a time and place - here, the era of the first independent women, small-town ways changing, family revelation and confrontation in a newly-integrated America.
To the second aspect of my review - a comparison to To Kill a Mockingbird.
I've known and loved Mockingbird since the age of fourteen. I studied it and took it apart for GCSE, I adore the film. But I knew that this book WASN'T Mockingbird, more a first draft and source material. Still, I could hear Lee's tone from it in Watchman, the language at times mirrored Mockingbird, references popped up that came from her published novel.
I got a real feel for Maycomb again in Watchman, at a later period you can still feel the old-town quaintness of it, as if the modern world of the fifties hasn't quite taken a hold yet and shaken them up. Though it's starting to...
It was lovely to see little Scout again, though she's not instantly recognisable as the girl we remember most of the time. In her recollections however, I found the Scout I remember, the innocent and beautiful voice of childhood that I loved. There is sadness in her recollections of Jem, and the mother we never really heard about in Mockingbird plays a larger role in her memory here as her history with Atticus is developed a little.
I really did like the recollections she narrates of her school escapades, a few years after the events of Mockingbird - teenage Scout is wonderful. And Lee's description of her adventures makes me think some might stem from real incidents. Will we ever know?
Of course, the major section of Mockingbird was Tom's court case. This really only gets a brief mention here, and the details of which were obviously changed for Mockingbird to make it fit her theme and how she needed the characters to appear to us. Tom, we learn here, was a black man defended by Atticus in a 'rape' case, a one-armed man tried but found innocent of statutory rape of a white minor. We learn that consent was proved. This isn't a spoiler - it's a paragraph in the book and not referred to again. I find this fascinating, that originally Lee planned this minor recollection of an old case as an example of Atticus's work, but made it into the basis of one of the most incredibly emotive court cases in literature. An excellent decision by her and her editors at the time.
We get mentions of little Dill, Calpurnia of course. Boo Radley must have been created especially for her second draft as he doesn't appear here at all.
I did find a few lines that could be quite memorable, in Lee's signature style, but Watchman is nowhere near as quotable as Mockingbird, it just doesn't feel as worked through and polished, Lee's passion clearly came out the more she wrote through Atticus.
Atticus still is - Atticus. Just as convincing, just as quietly considering behind his glasses. He's older, but stoic in his infirmities. Still a loving father, but he IS still the moral heart of Jean Louise's world, even when her loyalty to that is tested.
We get to see, through the publication of Watchman, how beloved characters from our own youth, when many of us would have read Mockingbird, how those we admired and put on our own pedestals changed over time, maybe slip from them, take new directions. Just seeing Scout grow up is a shock, seeing Calpurnia elderly. Change is something we all have to accept and come to terms with.
The theme of racial prejudice is not as passionately argued or as beautifully characterised as in Mockingbird, but still, "what is the brave thing to do" is still the core of the story. It's also a father and daughter story about them each changing and accepting that change in each other.
I can't justify 5 stars for this, but it definitely deserves more than an average 3. I've tried to look at it as a novel in itself, but it really should be read alongside To Kill a Mockingbird (after it though, never before), to try and appreciate just how the writer developed both her ideas and her craft in constructing one of the most beautifully written novels of the 20th century. We all need to accept that nothing stays the same forever, and Watchman, with the ideas of conscience, morality and change, encapsulates what each of us need to consider in our own 21st century families.
I am glad this was published - it's amazing to see the author's original ideas, and what she was able to turn them into. Jean Louise is not Scout, though Atticus's self never changes, at his core. You can admire him still, have no fear.
This is definitely worth reflecting on, if you love Mockingbird and would like to see inside the writer's mind. A rare privilege.
alexis_ebert21's review
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
n0tg4b's review
1.0
dnf at 38%
I can go on a whole spiral about elder abuse and how Harper Lee said she never wanted to publish another book after mockingbird and was not cognitively there enough to consent to publish this in 2015, but let's just go around that. before you read this, know that this is a manuscript called watchman, which is a very very early version of mockingbird. and yet it was edited like it was to be a sequel.
this book is just blurbs and bubbles of decent ideas. it's barely cohesive. it's extremely obvious that Lee has had these characters dancing around in her head for a long time, and this is obviously a very early version of them.
•spoilers•
scout is portrayed as a major rebel, which is not new. however, this is more of a bratty rebellion than it is little girl stubbornness rebellion. I was not a fan at all.
the severe lack of jem just makes me sad!! I'm not really sure why it was like that but it leads me to believe that the manuscript was edited in the context that mockingbird was already released. I hated the fact that there wasn't much about how jem ended up but that's whatever.
this story is also set in the idea that atticus won the Robinson case. this book was advertised as a sequel, and yet we got that?? not cool. I would've taken a "tkam story" or whatever but this is very obviously not a sequel.
atticus is also a raging racist. just gonna leave that there.
this book was really obviously published just to get more money into Lee's estate before she died. there is no way she was cohesive enough to actually consent to publish this! and knowing that watchman is an early manuscript of mockingbird, it becomes more and more clear that this had to be heavily edited to suit the idea that it was a "sequel", and that this was never meant to be seen by the public. this publication of this book was total elder abuse. her legal representative failed her and tarnished her legendary name by giving this to her publisher. the publishers failed her by editing it so heavily (to make it a sequel) that Lee's charm and control of the reader that we see so clearly in mockingbird is not there.
the entire shroud of confusion and disarray and editing and failure that hangs over this book makes it impossible to enjoy. this is not Harper Lee's.
I can go on a whole spiral about elder abuse and how Harper Lee said she never wanted to publish another book after mockingbird and was not cognitively there enough to consent to publish this in 2015, but let's just go around that. before you read this, know that this is a manuscript called watchman, which is a very very early version of mockingbird. and yet it was edited like it was to be a sequel.
this book is just blurbs and bubbles of decent ideas. it's barely cohesive. it's extremely obvious that Lee has had these characters dancing around in her head for a long time, and this is obviously a very early version of them.
•spoilers•
scout is portrayed as a major rebel, which is not new. however, this is more of a bratty rebellion than it is little girl stubbornness rebellion. I was not a fan at all.
the severe lack of jem just makes me sad!! I'm not really sure why it was like that but it leads me to believe that the manuscript was edited in the context that mockingbird was already released. I hated the fact that there wasn't much about how jem ended up but that's whatever.
this story is also set in the idea that atticus won the Robinson case. this book was advertised as a sequel, and yet we got that?? not cool. I would've taken a "tkam story" or whatever but this is very obviously not a sequel.
atticus is also a raging racist. just gonna leave that there.
this book was really obviously published just to get more money into Lee's estate before she died. there is no way she was cohesive enough to actually consent to publish this! and knowing that watchman is an early manuscript of mockingbird, it becomes more and more clear that this had to be heavily edited to suit the idea that it was a "sequel", and that this was never meant to be seen by the public. this publication of this book was total elder abuse. her legal representative failed her and tarnished her legendary name by giving this to her publisher. the publishers failed her by editing it so heavily (to make it a sequel) that Lee's charm and control of the reader that we see so clearly in mockingbird is not there.
the entire shroud of confusion and disarray and editing and failure that hangs over this book makes it impossible to enjoy. this is not Harper Lee's.
k_shanahan's review
3.0
I really don't know how to feel. I loved the flashbacks. The ending made me genuinely upset in a way books rarely do. I think the only way I can summarise how I feel is that I really appreciated the story and I value it, but also kind of wish I never read it.
I'll place it at 3 stars for now until I figure out what to do with it.
I'll place it at 3 stars for now until I figure out what to do with it.
chailady's review
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
elliehash's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
cloudyobservations's review
5.0
No matter what century we are in, the combination of this and To Kill Mockingbird will always have the ability to resonate with the reader so long as they are wise to the words.