(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Fascinating review of Harper Lee's Go Set the Watchman by Ursula Le Guinn. (Yes, the one who wrote The Wizard of Earthsea series, and The Dispossessed.)

This bit in particular caught my eye:

It appears that the New York editor who handled the book was uninterested in the human and moral situation the author was attempting to describe, or in helping her work through the over-simplifications and ineptitudes of that part of the book. Instead, she apparently persuaded Lee to enlarge on the very charming, nostalgic early parts of the book, when Jean Louise was Scout. Lee was encouraged to go back to childhood, and so to evade the problems of the book she wanted to write by writing, instead, a lovable fairytale.

I like to think of the book it might have been, had the editor had the vision to see what this incredibly daring first-novelist was trying to do and encouraged and aided her to do it more convincingly. But no doubt the editor was, commercially speaking, altogether right. That book would have found some admirers, but never would it have become a best-seller and a “classic.” It wouldn’t have pandered to self-reassuring images of White generosity risking all to save a grateful Black man.

Before Watchman was published, I was skeptical and unhappy — all the publicity made it sound like nothing but a clever lawyer and a greedy publisher in cahoots to exploit an old woman. Now, having read the book, I glimpse a different tragedy. Lee was a young writer on a roll, with several novels in mind to write after this one. She wrote none of them. Silence, lifelong. I wonder if the reason she never wrote again was because she knew her terrifyingly successful novel was untrue. In taking the easy way, in letting wishful thinking corrupt honest perception, she lost the self-credibility she, an honest woman, needed in order to write.

Reminds me a bit of things I've read about James Joyce, JD Salinger, and John Henry O'Toole. And other artists over the years.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I was discussing this a lot with my mother - who is in her 70s, and she related to some of what Harper Lee was going through at the time. She said that her parents were, while kind people, also racist. They didn't want change. And I know my father's were the same. And I've personally had experiences with people I loved who were bigoted. My uncle, who is dead now, was a bigot and a bit of redneck, but a loving man. My father could barely stand to be in the room with him at times, nor could I without flinching. (He wasn't, thankfully related to my father.)

It's not clear cut. And each generation experiences it differently. When I was a kid - I experience the desegregation of schools in West Chester County PA. We changed schools in the fifth grade, and were bused 1-2 hours out of the way to a new integrated school. I didn't mind it so much. Loved the new friends I made. And the two African-Americans I met, were wonderful. My parents also supported it. But we also moved to Kansas that year - and to a school that was white, and in a white neighborhood. There were a few POCs in the area - but maybe one or two went to our school. And when I went to college? About 20%? I had a black roommate and dated a black man briefly, who was one of my best friends. This was in the 1970s-1980s. My father had a black roommate in college and had traveled through the south in the early 1960s with him. Also, my father had gotten his Masters in Social History, specializing in African American History.

For me? Most of the big stuff in college, the controversial stuff - was gay rights, and women's rights. Although I was always aware of the racial divides.

So, I related to the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" differently, as did my parents. My parents related more to it than I did. I loved the book, but it felt to me, a bit romanticized. Reminded a little of Carson McCuller's Member of the Wedding, which I also loved.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I thought it was totally romanticized. Nothing like that could possibly have happened.

Flannery O'Connor was the real south, though.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

As was Margaret Mitchell, whose "Gone with the Wind" was published in 1936, around the same time that To Kill a Mockingbird takes place. It's a creature of its time as well. If you think the 60s and 70s were bad, the 1930s were even worse.

A friend of mine used to say that she read Flannery O'Connor to better understand how the racist's think. Which I found insightful.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Exactly--not that Flannery O'Connor was a racist herself, but that she really saw into that mindset.