WWTBAM Bored

Harper Lee, the author of the classic book "To Kill a Mockingbird" which has been read by many (me included) is finally going to write another book. It's due out in July, and according to various media reports it will be a sequel. I hope it's a good read.

Kazoo65 wrote:Harper Lee, the author of the classic book "To Kill a Mockingbird" which has been read by many (me included) is finally going to write another book. It's due out in July, and according to various media reports it will be a sequel. I hope it's a good read.

Actually she wrote it before "To Kill a Mockingbird"!

Wow! I'm looking forward to reading more about Jean Louise and her life as an adult!

The article I read said that the newly published novel was finished first, and the publisher was so entranced with the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, he asked for a book with Scout at the center and got To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee thought it had been lost, but some attorney or other found it attached to a manuscript of Mockingbird.

It's called Go Set a Watchman, and I hope my book club chooses it next year. The article also said that even though it was finished first, it does indeed read like a sequel to Mockingbird.

Thanks for the tip, Kazoo!

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wir ... y-28687808

I just heard from one of my book club members; there will be two of us lobbying for this one next year.

PBS did one of their "American Masters" bios on Lee last year; they went into detail about Lee's relationship with her editor, saying the editor had greatly shaped Mockingbird by telling Lee to weave her detailed vignette's of the character's childhood into a more coherent novel. I was disappointed to hear this; I like to think great books like Mockingbird sprang full blown from the author, kind of like the "birth of Athena from the head of Zeus". I've always loved Mark Twain's response to an editor who told him his punctuation, particularly use of commas, could use improvement; Twain is said to have sent his editor a page full of commas, with the note saying something much like "put them where you want them".


What I don't recall is the PBS piece saying "Lee actually wrote a different novel, & the editor told her to take the stories about Scout's childhood & make a novel out of that instead" which is apparently what happened. As we're now told.


I look forward to reading this new book when it comes out, but I wish there were books written after Mockingbird, too. So does everybody.

ghostjmf wrote:PBS did one of their "American Masters" bios on Lee last year; they went into detail about Lee's relationship with her editor, saying the editor had greatly shaped Mockingbird by telling Lee to weave her detailed vignette's of the character's childhood into a more coherent novel. I was disappointed to hear this; I like to think great books like Mockingbird sprang full blown from the author, kind of like the "birth of Athena from the head of Zeus". I've always loved Mark Twain's response to an editor who told him his punctuation, particularly use of commas, could use improvement; Twain is said to have sent his editor a page full of commas, with the note saying something much like "put them where you want them".


What I don't recall is the PBS piece saying "Lee actually wrote a different novel, & the editor told her to take the stories about Scout's childhood & make a novel out of that instead" which is apparently what happened. As we're now told.


I look forward to reading this new book when it comes out, but I wish there were books written after Mockingbird, too. So does everybody.

This book may go a long way towards answering how much of Mockingbird was Lee and how much was her editor because I don't think they're cleaning it up for publication.

Plus, there are conflicting stories as to whether she's really on board with it being published.

I've read an article by some author who loved being edited by some famous editor & even they didn't say the editor rewrote their stuff; just told *them* what to rewrite, move around, leave out.

Reportedly Lee's editor told Lee what to do to make Mockingbird a more coherent narrative; they didn't write sentences or create characters.

Another now-famous author never got their autobiography, Pioneer Girl, published. It just came out long after their death. After about 18 rejections, an editor suggested they could publish segments rewritten for children. Thus the "Little House" series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, was born.

I always heard Truman Capote did most of the polishing on Mockingbird and that Harper Lee did most of the research on In Cold Blood.

Ritterskoop wrote:I always heard Truman Capote did most of the polishing on Mockingbird and that Harper Lee did most of the research on In Cold Blood.

Truman Capote did the interviews for In Cold Blood. The movies are supposedly very accurate.

It's already #1 on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/best-sellers-book ... _dp_ts_b_1

Cover reveal:

I was RONG!! The trial in To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in the thirties. Scout will be looking back from the mid-50s, same time as Lee was writing the book. As always, we thank you for your support.

I am so looking forward to this book. July 14 . . . I'll be in Alaska. I think I'll pre-order it from Amazon, so it will be waiting for me when I get home.

This explains a lot.

http://www.theonion.com/article/harper- ... care-50840

Ha! That Onion cover is pretty funny.

I have not seen one of those threads for Summer 2015 reading so I'll put this here.

Choices, choices.

MarkBarrett wrote:Ha! That Onion cover is pretty funny.

I have not seen one of those threads for Summer 2015 reading so I'll put this here.

Choices, choices.

My copy of "Watchman" was delivered today, so that will be my first priority for summer reading. The most recent addition to my Kindle is "Infinite Jest," by David Foster Wallace, so -- with something like 1100 pages -- that may last me through part of autumn reading, too.

Just started Go Set a Watchman. So far so good.

Well, I was going to start a new thread, but since this one already got revived:

Spoilers follow. I am not going to encase the whole whatever I write here in spoiler-hide. Oh, maybe I will. Stay tuned.


At any rate, I haven't read Watchman yet, but I've read the myriad reviews. And a radio piece read a whole chunk about how Atticus is now old & arthritic but doesn't complain.


That part is fond, & is before the bomb drops.


The reviews (here's the spoiler part) have been warning everyone that in this version, the Watchman version, Atticus is a racist. He's been to at least one Klan meeting, say the reviews, & says disparaging stuff about '60s Civil Rights issues. He states he doesn't want to live in a South with "busloads of Negroes in it", "& you won't either". It is the central issue of the novel; the grown-up Scout, now calling herself by her given name of Jean Louise, is horrified, calls him out on this.


And there's also a section where she goes to visit Calpurnia, the lady who essentially brought her up, along with Atticus of course, & finds of Calpurnia "she only saw a white woman; she didn't see me".


I can ache along with Jean Louise, & presumably Harper Lee, here, as this is so obviously autobiographical. And very 1960s, when it was written. I'd like to think the real-life model for Calpurnia was just having a bad day herself, with stuff like arthritis that JL didn't know about, & didn't really feel that coldly toward her old charge.


What none of the reviews I've read so far, including the NY Times say is what I'm going to say here:


This all explains why Harper Lee never finished another novel. The novel she originally wrote, if she'd put down her foot, & probably would never have gotten published, would have interposed the then-current Atticus with the father from Scout's childhood. Maybe with editorial prompting it would have been a very long book. And maybe not won any prizes.


But it seems the issue of Watchman is that Scout's father, modeled by Lee's father, grew bitter with time. None of the reviews have suggested this. But I think the original editorial guidance brought that out, when they urged & encouraged Lee to rewrite the book entirely from the perspective of Scout as a child.


I don't think Atticus was a racist back her childhood days. I think the Atticus/Mr. Lee she remembers is not idealized, but was living by his own ideals back then, in the 30s.


What happened to him happened to a lot of people.


I can remember my own father, who several times told me the cautionary tale about how he once called someone some slur, he didn't ever say what, & his mother slapped him silly, saying "don't ever think you're better than anybody else". In point of fact Polish Jews did think they were better than everybody else, but not in the way you think you're better when you use ethnic/racist slurs. And they thought they were better than everybody else, including WASPs, which term hadn't been invented yet (or if it had they didn't know it). And used an "everybody-else" all-inclusive slur, "goyisha kupf", literally meaning "non-Jewish head", meaning "fuzzy thinker, non-pragmatic mind". Not actually "dummy!", though some Yiddish dictionaries might give you that, but definitely "non-pragmatic mind". That would have been all-right with his Mom, but not something based on ethnicity or race.


But in later life, my Dad expressed bewilderment that African-Americans didn't act like they appreciated all the support they'd gotten from Jews over the years, completely forgetting that African-Americans were color-coded in a way that made them stand out to the people who hated them & we Jews, for all the ethnic stereotyping various racists have done on us over the years, often do not. That's why the Nazis made Jews wear large yellow stars sewn onto their clothes. Because, stereotype as they would, we just didn't all otherwise stand out enough to be an easy target.


I think Atticus/Mr. Lee went into a similar polarization as he aged, & as the Civil Rights movement gained momentum. And being a mainstay of his own community in a small Southern town, it took the evil turn it did. I really think there can still be two Atticuses, the one we know from Mockingbird & the one Scout/Jean Louise finds herself repulsed & heartbroken by in Watchman.


Maybe Lee spent the rest of her life trying to rewrite Watchman. As a companion to Mockingbird, not the 1st-draft we now get to read. I guess we'll know when she dies, unless she managed to actually destroy those papers. People are describing Lee, since her stroke, as not really being all-there. For pity's sake, she's 89, can't hear or see much any more at all, reports say. But maybe she knows & is in some way satisfied that what she originally tried to write, how her father not being the person he'd raised her to know him as hurts her so much, has seen the light of day.


But I wish her editor(s) had had the insight I think I have here, & gotten her to juxtapose both Atticuses, & both times, in the original work. Maybe it would have worked after all.


One thing that has finally been put to rest with Watchman is the idea that Capote really wrote, or even polished, Mockingbird.

Ghost, a most insightful analysis.

Beebs, thanks. At some time I will have to actually read Watchman. I have to say, sadly, I'm not looking forward.


Another sad thing (big spoiler here too)

is that in Watchman, Jem is dead. People are mad about that too. But in real life, Nelle Harper Lee's only brother, Edwin, died at age 30. Her mom, who I don't remember being in Mockingbird at all, in real life was someone who got "politely" referred to in her day as having "a nervous disposition", which had developed after her 1st child "failed to thrive", said the article I read. She & Edwin died within a few weeks of each other. This stuff is so obviously taken from Lee's real life.

ghostjmf wrote: The reviews (here's the spoiler part) have been warning everyone that in this version, the Watchman version, Atticus is a racist. He's been to at least one Klan meeting, say the reviews, & says disparaging stuff about '60s Civil Rights issues. He states he doesn't want to live in a South with "busloads of Negroes in it", "& you won't either". It is the central issue of the novel; the grown-up Scout, now calling herself by her given name of Jean Louise, is horrified, calls him out on this.


And there's also a section where she goes to visit Calpurnia, the lady who essentially brought her up, along with Atticus of course, & finds of Calpurnia "she only saw a white woman; she didn't see me".


I can ache along with Jean Louise, & presumably Harper Lee, here, as this is so obviously autobiographical. And very 1960s, when it was written. I'd like to think the real-life model for Calpurnia was just having a bad day herself, with stuff like arthritis that JL didn't know about, & didn't really feel that coldly toward her old charge.

If the official story can be believed, it was written in the 1950s.

Text mining analysis yields some interesting stuff about Lee's writing in both Watchman and Mockingbird.

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/ ... an-capote/

There are so many things screwed with this approach (text-mining).


I'd frankly be more interested if they'd compare Lee's early stories with her completed novels. Heck, I'd so love to read Lee's early stories. There were a few published, bios mention them, but I haven't found them available as yet. They're said to be vignettes of small-town life.


If the text-miners ever get around to actually publishing results on Lee's editor, I'd be interested in those. But I doubt they're going to find anything notorious. If editors could write novels, they'd be writing them (some do, I know). Editors are famous for, well, editing. Taking out what they consider extraneous stuff. Asking the author to "tighten this section up". With Lee, they reportedly wanted more continuity between sections in TKAM. All the bios say Lee & her editor discussed & argued, not that the editor wrote whole sections.


I can think of no other famous book where so many people seem to want someone else to have written it. I've read 3 books by Capote, & am not in particular a fan. I just don't see/hear Capote's style in Lee's. if anyone's got those childhood stories its said they co-wrote, let the text-miners analyze those. (For Pete's sake.) Various features on Lee quote letters from Lee. I'm no text-miner, but they sure read like they were written by the author of TKAM.


What the readers got in TKAM was a book that was equal parts legal case & the account of kids, well, being kids. If TKAM had not had the legal case it of course wouldn't have been the era-defining book it was, but it would have been a much-loved memoir of childhood, I'd bet. Still.


I should look it up before mentioning it (I know, lazy) but there is a story "Mary Margaret Road-Grader" in which one sci fi writer parodies, supposedly lovingly, the style of another sci fi writer. I think it was Zelazny doing the # on Sturgeon. For me it went way beyond. (Its a story about a sentient road-grader, if anyone's interested.) Even people's buddies, supposedly lovingly, can't get the voice of another writer exactly right. Yes, there are many examples of stuff that was actually co-written (a lot in SF, of which I used to read a lot). Be interesting to see what text-miners make of stuff that they know ahead of time is co-written. Because, of course, the stuff isn't actually written by both writers at once.

Well, prelim lookup of MMRG shows it's written by Howard Waldrop, & doesn't mention the parody/tribute aspect at all. Which I remember quite clearly from the preface in the anthology I read it in, way back when.

ghostjmf wrote:I should look it up before mentioning it (I know, lazy) but there is a story "Mary Margaret Road-Grader" in which one sci fi writer parodies, supposedly lovingly, the style of another sci fi writer. I think it was Zelazny doing the # on Sturgeon. For me it went way beyond. (Its a story about a sentient road-grader, if anyone's interested.) Even people's buddies, supposedly lovingly, can't get the voice of another writer exactly right. Yes, there are many examples of stuff that was actually co-written (a lot in SF, of which I used to read a lot). Be interesting to see what text-miners make of stuff that they know ahead of time is co-written. Because, of course, the stuff isn't actually written by both writers at once.

I'd never heard of this story, but according to Mr. Google it was written by Howard Waldrop.

When I read Red Thunder by John Varley, my immediate reaction was that it was a homage to Robert Heinlein and written in his style. --Bob

No such thing as bad press:

Barnes & Noble and Book-A-Million have both pronounced that Go Set a Watchman had the largest first day sale of any adult fiction book in the history of both retailers. B&N noted that Watchman sales topped those of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol which held the title of fastest first day sale since its release in 2009. The book also knocked E.L. James’ Grey off of the top of B&N’s bestsellers list and the company expects that Watchman will be its biggest seller for the year. “Go Set a Watchman has proven to be one of the most exciting publishing events in our history,” said Mary Amicucci, v-p of adult trade and children’s books. “We could not be more pleased to see customers of all ages from across the country flocking to our stores to get their copy of Go Set a Watchman.”

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