Play Book Tag discussion

Go Set a Watchman, which was written before To Kill a Mockingbird, is what I'd call a strong debut novel, despite it's being published 55 years later. There have been a myriad of reviews discussing the storyline and plot, discussing great disappointment in Atticus and so on. I would say that one of the key features of this story is that it is 26 year old Jean Louise's coming of age story.

Let's go back to Mockingbird. The point of view is that of 6-8 year old Scout, and that's how we learn about Atticus, although we forget this in the grip of the brilliance of that novel and the justice that he stands up for. But we are viewing him through the eyes of someone who has not yet learned that her father isn't perfect, and it takes her a very long time to realize this.

Another thing is that there are some rather uncomfortable dialogues that I think are rather well done (yes, I loved the memories of her later childhood the best because they remind me so much of Mockingbird, but that's not the main point of the novel, although they are important). This was first penned in the 1950s, and captures nuances we don't often hear. Well, I certainly didn't, but I grew up in a little corner of Canada with no one of African descent (that has changed over my lifetime, naturally, as the area grew) where the entire American Civil Rights movement was far away, but which my parents agreed with.

This book deserves 4 stars, I think, due to its many strengths, but it is clearly not as well done as her second novel (first published, as has been mentioned about half a zillion times already).

I agree that this book clearly had merit. It many ways, I found it a more honest book than To Kill a Mockingbird.

I also liked how< I could imagine her editors seeing her strengths and encouraging her to change and edit the story so that it morphed into To Kill a Mockingbird.

I kept wondering as I read it if it would have had a different reception if not for all the comparisons to TKAM.

I also gave it 4 stars based on the key theme - an adult child realizing that her parent is a man and not a god; that fall from the pedestal is more distressing to the child than to the parent (who knew, all along, he was not perfect).

I wish the editors - or Lee, herself - had at least changed the names of the characters. Keeping the same characters almost forces people to compare the two books. If they had been named:
James (atticus), Princess/Betty Mae (Scout), George (Jem), etc ... we wouldn't be constantly comparing.

Oh well, no one asked me before it was published .... Just my opinion.

LibraryCin wrote: "I kept wondering as I read it if it would have had a different reception if not for all the comparisons to TKAM."

I have wondered the same.

Book Concierge wrote: "I also gave it 4 stars based on the key theme - an adult child realizing that her parent is a man and not a god; that fall from the pedestal is more distressing to the child than to the parent (who..."

Interesting. And yet having read TKAM you can see so well how Scout saw Atticus, and even stripping away her POV that he had many fine qualities. Also, as I've been mulling this over, if we'd read Go Set a Watchman first, it might have lessened TKAM in some ways.