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A review by katykelly
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
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.