At the encouragement of several of you, I inserted into my reading list Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird between Anna Karenina and my current read, Ex Libris. I’m grateful to those who urged me to do so.
I’m probably one of a dozen people who managed to make it through high school and college (BA in English education, mind you) without ever reading this book. What a loss.
So for you eleven others, this: the book is told through the eyes of a precocious young girl, as she tells of life in a small Alabama town and the impact of her attorney father defending a young black man against a spurious charge of rape.
Sounds depressing, but it’s not. There is life here, the life of young children coming to understand the gray world we inhabit, yes, but children enjoying the delights of childhood. There are fussy, nosy, hypocritical old ladies, but ones we come to understand and with whom we sympathize as well. Depressing? How can a book which portrays a father and his children in a deep relationship of love and respect be depressing? How can a book who has its character dress as a ham be depressing?
There is sadness, yes, but not a sadness devoid of hope.
The remarkable thing is how well Lee inhabits the skin of her characters, be they white, black, young, old, sympathetic, or scoundrel. I grew to love Scout (the narrator), to pity Tom Robinson (the accused), to despise Bob Ewell (the accuser), and to want to be Atticus, the attorney/father/Hero, (aka Gregory Peck).
The movie is wonderful. But it cannot match the power of the book.
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I must make note of the view that nine year old Scout takes of her fifty year old lawyer/father, whom she calls by his first name, Atticus.
Atticus was feeble; he was nearly fifty…. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries….
Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.
Besides that, he wore glasses….
He did not do the things our schoolmates’ fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read.
I wonder how I, a fifty-three year old bespectacled pastor/father, appear to my nine year old son?!
Anonymous
The book is a favorite of mine. It evokes both laughter and tears. I love the lessons the children learned from Atticus and Calpurnia on showing respect to all persons. I re-read it recently and I'm certain I'll read again — and again. I've heard of people who read it once a year; not a bad idea.
Rebekah
It's a beautifully written book–the comic elements that the author puts into such tragedy are remarkable. It's such a sad book too–so much hasn't changed. We have too many many that sit in prison for crimes that they likely didn't commit. It's easy to think that a broken justice system is a thing of the past.
Randy Greenwald
A good reminder, Rebekah. Thanks.
Gail and Keith
Ditto, to what everyone else said.Saw the movie long before I read the book and loved both. G
TulipGirl
The first time I reread "…Mockingbird" as an adult, I totally saw my own father in Atticus. A few years later, I read it again and it wasn't quite so pronounced. . .I'm looking forward to reading your comments on Ex Libris, as I've read Fadiman's "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." (And I so regret that title was used for a book on cross-cultural medical and family issues, when it would be perfect for a contemporary history of the Charismatic movement!)