'Go Set a Watchman'

I’ve just finished reading a novel that, until very recently, I didn't dream I’d ever read – that one written by Harper Lee which isn’t To Kill a Mockingbird.  And despite all the controversy surrounding this publication and despite the fact that Lee filed it away and allowed it to gather dust for more than fifty years, Go Set a Watchman is in no way a shabby offering.  Far from it.  In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s a bit of a gem.  Here’s why:

First, forget if you can that it’s written by Harper Lee and it still stands up as a very readable and interesting novel.  It provides a perspective on race that must surely have as much resonance with today’s readers as any intended earlier audience.  The long uncomfortable conversations between the ‘colour-blind’ Scout and her much more colour-conscious relatives seem horribly relevant.  It’s hard not to leave Lee’s fictional world for a moment and to think instead of what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri.  Or in Europe where words like immigrant and Eastern European are increasingly used when the word person would actually do just as well.

Second, it provides us with a fascinating insight into the creative processes that eventually gave us To Kill a Mockingbird.  Many of the characters from that novel are already here in this one and are recognisably the same people.  Scout the adult is as strong-minded and individual as Scout the child.  Jem and Dill exist but only as unexplored memories.  Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose has a small mention and her one line of dialogue – remembered from childhood by the older Scout – brought a smile to my face:

Don’t you say hey to me, Jean Louise Finch, you say good afternoon!

Mrs Dubose is already horrible.  But she’s not yet as horrible and rude as she becomes.  Somewhere between manuscripts, Harper Lee decided to ratchet the nastiness up a level.

And Atticus is there too, of course.  But, yes, the beautiful man we all think we know and love, says awful things.  In his educated and calm manner, he rationalises racial segregation and inequality, and just as Scout is disappointed and appalled, so are we.  But this is still recognisably the same man we love from TKAM – and that’s what makes this Atticus so fascinating.  He is still the widower who loves his children and raises them to be free-thinking and independent.  He is still the brilliant lawyer, still the short-sighted expert marksman who hates violence and still capable of saying some breathtakingly wise things.  But he is also real.  Scout’s uncle Jack tells her, ‘...you confused your father with a God.’  And in TKAM, this God is the Atticus we see - his young daughter’s air-brushed, idealised hero.  The uncomfortable truth is that the perfect Atticus we all want to identify with was never a very likely character.

It also shows us how much better the first person voice worked for Harper Lee than the third person.  And how viewing the world from a child’s perspective provided a much warmer and more engaging tone than the angry, jaded one which underpins Go Set a Watchman.  God, what a shrewd and patient operator Harper Lee was to wait!  And how shrewd and patient of her editor too!

Third, just as Harper Lee’s remarkable insight into human nature shone so brightly throughout TKAM that almost every sentence became a classroom quotation, her same insight was already apparent in this earlier effort.  OK, it’s not quite so packed with showstoppers but there are still some beauties.  Here are a few of my favourites: 

“Do you want your children going to a school that’s been dragged down to accommodate...[the next word here is Negro but it works just as well with any label you like]... children?’

“... They’re entitled to the same opportunities anyone else has, they’re entitled to the same chance-”

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience.  There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

“What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions?  He doesn’t give.  He stays rigid.  Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.”

So is Go Set a Watchman as good as To Kill a Mockingbird?  Of course not.  Harper Lee is well aware of that and that’s why she put it in a box for yonks. 

Did I expect it to be as good?  No. 

Did I expect it to be as good as it actually is?  No. 

Am I glad I had the chance to read it?  Damn right I am.  Thank you, Harper J

Go Set a Watchman

Yesterday I had one of those ‘I’ll never forget where I was’ moments.  It went like this:

I’ll never forget where I was when I discovered that Harper Lee is going to publish another book - the one that’s been hidden away in a drawer for more than fifty years.  I was sitting in a café and scrolling through Twitter and there it was.  ‘Harper Lee to Publish Second Novel.’

My coffee went cold. 

This is a big thing. 

I knew Lee had a second book hidden away; I knew she wasn’t happy with it and I never expected to read anything by her ever again.  But now I shall.  And I can’t tell you how exciting that thought is.  I first read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was at school.  I quite liked it.  But to be brutal, the supply teacher killed it.  Our regular teacher was off having a baby – there’s no way she would’ve wrecked it – and this other stand-in teacher kept stopping every two seconds to say stuff like, ‘Hands up if you know what a sidewalk is.’  What with all the stopping and starting, the book went on forever - and there were soooo many different characters...

But some years later, I came back to that book because I was now teaching it myself.  And this time I saw it in a whole different light and loved every word and every character.  Of course, I knew I had a responsibility and I tried my best not to ruin it for any of my students.  I hope I didn’t!  I certainly didn’t keep doing quick hand-polls to check that my top set students had correctly decoded the word ‘sidewalk’.  I’m pretty sure my enthusiasm was clear.  I know for sure I did a fairly decent job of recreating a barkingly-mad Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose complete with nasal southern drawl because when the class and I sat down together to watch the classic black and white film, one of the kids – she was called Gemma and memorably funny – looked at me and sighed and said, ‘I prefer your version of Mrs Dubose to this one.  She ain’t doing it right.’ 

:)

But it wasn’t hard to make TKAM sound good.  The characters are fantastically three-dimensional and believable and almost every sentence of that book is a quote you want to keep.  Nuggets of wisdom like this from Judge Taylor:

‘People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.’

And from Calpurnia:

‘There's some folks who don't eat like us," she whispered fiercely, "but you ain't called on to contradict 'em at the table when they don't. That boy's yo' comp'ny and if he wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?’

And, of course, that most famous of lines from Atticus:

‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.’

 It’s a book which makes very perceptive observations and, in spite of its brutal realism, it still manages to radiate an extraordinary warmth. 

So YES I’m excited about this ‘new’ book.

But already the doubts are circulating on the internet.  Why is this book being released?  Has an elderly woman been duped into an agreement she doesn’t understand?  How is it that this ‘lost’ manuscript has only now been found?  And by her lawyer?

I sincerely hope there’s nothing shady in it.  The part of my brain which deals with criminal logic tells me that a douchebag wouldn’t risk this sort of fuss.  Why hoodwink Harper Lee into signing something which will then play out before her own eyes?  The truth is that she’s a very old lady.  Wouldn’t it be so much easier to get her signature where it matters and then just... well, wait?  

Harper Lee says she is ‘humbled’ and pleased and so am I.  This book cannot damage her reputation.  No sensible person can really be expecting it to be as perfect as TKAM.  It is, after all, the book Lee put aside in order to write TKAM.  And no sensible person is ever going to read Go Set a Watchman and think, ‘Oh, that was rubbish – so is Harper Lee.’  Anyone who loved TKAM will still love it and still respect its author.  And is a second book really going to put pressure on this quiet, publicity-shy woman who is nearing ninety?  Will she be expected to write another?  I don’t think so.  Nobody expected this one.  And let’s not forget, it was written more than fifty years ago. 

Whatever the motives behind this announcement, it’s a gift - a gift to readers and a gift to the publishing world.  Not many writers can create the sort of buzz that warrants an initial print run of two million copies.  And yes, it’s out on e-book too.  But e-book shmee-book.  I think most of us would rather have the object, thank you very much.  It’s Harper Lee!  Do we really want to read her as a digital file?  The truth is that a very old woman is passing on an enormous cash-gift to the book industry.  And that won’t just benefit publishers, it will benefit editors and authors and booksellers and anyone who relies on the basic idea that good words should be paid for.

So thank you Harper Lee - for letting me read about Scout as a grown-up and for giving a big big bonus to those who want to live in a world with bookshops still in it.      

P.S The TKAM in the picture is Grand Central Publishing edition which wears a lovely cover designed by Inkymole – aka Sarah Jane Coleman.  I know her because she designed the original Lottie Biggs covers too and once pointed out Gary Linekar’s dad’s fruit and veg stall on Leicester market to me.  I KNOW SHE’D VERY MUCH LIKE TO DESIGN THE COVER OF GO SET A WATCHMAN.  Just saying.