UB Libraries Book Group discussion

October's book is Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. We will begin discussing it on Oct 26. There has been much talk about the publication of this book. Perhaps one thing to keep in mind is that it appears that this was the manuscript originally submitted by Harper Lee to her publisher. Looking forward to a lively discussion!

Hi all,

A few things I found in the following articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Kill...
- Harper Lee was born in a small town in Alabama, her father was a local lawyer who once unsuccessfully defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper.
- She moved to NYC in 1949 when she was 23 and wrote in her spare time.
- Her hometown friend Truman Capote introduced her to his agent who read some of her vignettes and was impressed with her writing. Friends funded her so that she could write full time for a year.

To me, all this informs her first attempt - Go Set a Watchman. Having moved from the very segregated south to NYC as a young woman, I believe she realized that what she assumed to be normal as a child was wrong. On her visits home, I can imagine that she might have been horrified to see that her father was an "enlightened southerner". In the 1950s, this would be a person who believed that integration should move slowly (as if 100 years was not slowly enough). As I suspect we all know, there is that time in early adulthood when we discover we are all flawed human beings in some way. I think that she wrote about this with all the passion of a person making this discovery.

A few questions -

- Was the perspective of Watchman too raw for the late 1950s and early 1960s?
- Apparently Watchman was published without editing - could it have been a better book if it had been cleaned up a bit?
- And of course the big question - did Harper Lee really want this book published, or did her lawyer take advantage of the death of Harper Lee's sister and railroad her?

I agree, Rena, that there are many autobiographical similarities here between Harper Lee and Scout -- I feel that is not uncommon with an author's first work.

I think the book could have used a little editing. It felt to me like two separate books: the first 100ish pages were snippets of Scout's current life and reminiscences of her childhood. A little disjointed but I enjoyed the writing here though was also likely influenced by the fact that I had already established an idea of the characters and their backstories from reading To Kill a Mockingbird previously. I'm not sure it would have stood on its own without that.

For the rest of the book, I found Scout's reaction to the Citizen's Council very intense and her acceptance/surrender more of a fizzle at the end. Again, maybe an editor would have helped here. I also didn't realize (until researching afterward) that Citizens Councils were actual white supremacist groups; I initially assumed it was just a generic civic organization who in this story had invited a racist speaker.

On that topic, there were some big rationalizations about Southern identity put forward, Hank touched a bit on Scout's naivete (seemed to me describing white privilege) and there was definitely some offensive/disappointing conversations between Atticus and Scout about black people where they "agreed that they're backward" and unable to share the full responsibilities of citizenship. As you say, Rena, I expect this was very much what Harper Lee experienced in her own life. I didn't like that Scout several times proclaimed that she would never understand men -- felt like a cop-out somehow.

I am a little suspicious of this being published now; it seemed strange that Harper Lee intentionally kept it from being published for 50+ years and suddenly changed her mind...

I've heard the explanation that you give, Michelle, as the exact explanation for how TKaM was published. And it makes perfect sense to me. The only real life that this book had was in the childhood memories. I agree the rest was a confusing, unedited mess.

The parts that really brought home the fact that it was unedited was where she basically strung together lists of concepts, separated by ellipses. Like on p. 108 where she describes Mr. O'Hanlon and his view of African-Americans. She does this many times, probably 6-8 times throughout the book.

I don't know whether Ms. Lee agreed to have this published, but I really wish it had not made it into print. It has nothing to do with Atticus being portrayed as racist, which is mostly debunked by the end of the book IMO. It has to do with the sorry shape this book is in. I doubt any author would want to have a very early draft of her book published in this way.

I think this could have been another interesting book about Scout growing into an adult that would co-exist nicely with TKaM, but alas, that is not the case.

Great comments everyone! I think that the most interesting thing about Watchman is seeing how Mockingbird started - sort of like looking at James Joyce's notebooks for Finnegans Wake. I certainly understand why Harper Lee never wanted it published and I believe her sister protected her and her wishes. Once the sister was gone (November, 2014 at age 103) I think that her unscrupulous lawyer saw her way clear to publish the book. It is convenient that the lawyer is a trustee of Harper Lee's estate. I strongly believe that Harper Lee never wanted this to be published.

This book needed a lot of editing and I think that Harper Lee found a great agent and editor when she first submitted it. It apparently went through many iterations before it became the literary giant that Mockingbird is. The editor saw the germ of something great and helped Lee to get it out.

I agree with all of your comments regarding this book, but I still found it interesting to read the first draft of a great book.

What happened with Henry at the end? Scout was upset because he was at the meeting with Atticus. Then she came to understand a bit better why Atticus was at the meeting. I wasn't sure if that also applied to Henry. Then her aunt called him "trash" and I wasn't sure how Scout reacted to that.

This goes to the confusion of reading an early, unedited draft I think. Or maybe it's me, which is entirely possible :-)

I don't think we learned what happened with Henry at the end. Nor did we find out if Scout stayed or went back to New York. It was a pretty disjointed ending and I can understand why Harper Lee and her sister would not have wanted it to be published. It was a first draft of a first novel.

I thought Scout was still done with Hank. In the last few pages when she went to pick Atticus up there was a sentence that discussed them making "a date for their leave-taking" and how she was useless to him as anything other than his oldest friend.

Also, I do still think Atticus was racist; he gives many rationalizations why he feels the way he does but at the end of the day he felt black people to be backward, in their childhood as a people and unable to understand citizenship and be responsibly engaged. He greatly feared them mobilizing as voters and electing black people to county offices; he didn't want them in his theaters, schools or churches. He very much wanted segregation to hold.

I also agree with previous comments that Lee's editor was right; the better story (and much better told one) was of Scout's childhood.

I cringed often when I read this book. The confusing writing and lack of editing were a good part of it. Also the very racist views.....while I bore in mind it was actually written over 50 years ago, the conversations were disturbing. To boot, I was disappointed Scout herself espoused racist attitudes, not as bad as her dad, but she agreed with him too easily on many comments.
I loved the scenes from her childhood, and I actually enjoyed her wacky uncle. My favorite passage was the whole story of the falsies stuck to the tree, and how it was resolved. My second favorite was the play baptism when the minister came upon them when visiting for dinner. Any favorite scenes/stories for the rest of you?

As Michelle points out, what we call racism was just "normal" southern life back then, abhorrent as we may find it now. And it was ingrained to a certain degree in Scout, Atticus, Henry, etc. I think the only reason it took on a different form for Scout was because she lived in New York and was able to see things from a different angle.

I agree with all your comments about editing. There were times that I was really confused and had to re-read parts. I liked the "Coffee" scene but again the conversation at times was very hard to follow. I think Rena has a point when she said that it was seeing how TKaM got started. With so much talk of the racism issue when the book first came out, I took it as a given that we would see a lot of the 50's racism of the south.

What I liked about the book is that Scout finally saw her father as a person with all his flaws. I think many of us, when we are kids, see their parents as the people who know everything. With Scout it just lasted much longer. (Although her outburst at the end of the book was overly dramatic.) For Atticus, the beginning and the end had to do with the law. Atticus' defense of Tom Robinson in TKaM had more to do with Atticus believing Tom to be innocent, thus, the law trumps any of his southern views. In GSaW, Calpurnia's grandson is another story, not because he is black but because he believes him guilty. That was a story line I'm sorry she left hanging. I would have liked to see what Atticus would have done in that situation (although Lee did allude that he was not going to do anything to help the grandson).

In the end, I think Scout finally sees her hometown for what it is and just decides to accept it. It was sad that a character who was so strong to begin with doesn't really grow but just seems to accept everything that was told to her. I think she accepts that she will never be with Henry because she goes along with her aunt's views that it wouldn't be proper and accepts the small town mentality even after living in the big city turning into one of those people who can overlook the injustice instead of fighting it...going against who she is.....conforming.

Very interesting and thoughtful comments from everyone. I wondered if Scout accepted how people were because she was planning to go back to NY. Or was she planning to stay there and take care of her dad? If the latter, I think she would have been pretty miserable. All in all, I think it was such a good thing that she had a great editor!

I realize that Harper Lee isn't in any shape to work on this book now, so it probably had to be released as is. But now that it's out there, wouldn't it be interesting if someone else could get the rights and reedit it into a better representation of what Lee intended?

Thanks for suggesting this, Rena. It had its faults, but I am glad to have read it and the comments shared throughout this week.

I feel the same as Ellen -- I'm glad to have read it despite its shortcomings. Good pick, Rena!

I was thinking about this again today and it occurred to me that if it weren't for the existence of and connection with TKaM, I'm pretty sure I would have stopped reading GSaW as a confusing mess.

I think that would be true for many of us. It's the transformation that is most interesting to me.

I listened to Slate's Audio Book Club discussion of Go Set a Watchman over the weekend and found it interesting. A lot of it mirrored our discussion.

http://www.slate.com/articles/podcast...