GO SET A WATCHMAN BOOK DISCUSSION

I'll start out by saying that I, personally, was very happy that this book was one of the submissions. I was also a little relieved. Here's why: I was having an internal ethical conundrum about reading this book, but the book being selected for book club took the pressure off of me to decide since I "had" to read it for book club. The source of my internal struggle was the shady origins of this book. Harper Lee has only published one book, the very successful and famous TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which I really enjoyed. Since that time she has purposefully avoided the limelight and has not published any further works.  Then, suddenly, when she was in her eighties and reportedly (possibly) suffering from cognitive deficits, she supposedly decides to publish the "sequel" to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which was written before TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and served as its source material. Something definitely seemed fishy about this reverse of course after a lifetime of refusing to publish ANYTHING, let alone a book that dealt with the beloved characters of her iconic novel. Long story short, I just wasn't sure if Harper Lee ever wanted the world to see GO SET A WATCHMAN, so I really had a hard time deciding between giving into my curiosity and reading this book or respecting what may or may not have been the author's wishes and not reading it. Another problem solved by the Novel Spirits.

This book turned out to be perfect book club material (in my opinion) because there was plenty to debate and discuss. Indy had some great book club questions, none of which were fully recorded due to the absence of our note-taker, Diesel, but I got the gist of the conversations in my notes, at least. We talked about how Maycomb's isolation affected the viewpoints of the characters who lived there in contrast to the views of Scout, who had lived in New York. Cat brought up the Mark Twain quote: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." The residents of Maycomb put a lot of stock into an individual's family history rather than the merits of the person themselves (i.e. Aunt Alexandria's view of Hank), however, when someone lives outside of a small town, they realize how unimportant these preconceived ideas really are. 

The relationships in the story, and their evolution throughout the book, provided plenty of fodder for discussion. Scout's relationships with Hank, her uncle, and probably most significantly her dad, Atticus, evolved through the story. Scout idolized Atticus at the beginning of the book, but their relationship shifted when she realized that he was not "perfect," but had prejudices and shortcomings that she had not previously detected. 

Some points of at least near unanimity: we all seemed to enjoy Scout's "flashbacks" to being a young girl in Maycomb and the hijinks she and her brother and friends got into.  These were lighter points in the book, and may not have served much purpose in furthering the story, but they were enjoyable. We were also all in agreement that Scout's uncle slapping Scout toward the end of the book served no real purpose and seemed gratuitous. Finally, I think we all were disappointed in the end of the book, in which Scout seemingly "caves" to the points of view of her father, uncle, and Hank, and seems to acquiesce that she was the unreasonable one for being upset about seeing her father and Hank at a "council meeting" that was all about keeping black people from "rising up." 

Which brings me to our discussion of whether Atticus was condoning the views of Mr. O'Hanlon, the racist, by presenting him as a speaker to the council. Although Atticus never outwardly approved of Mr. O'Hanlon's message and argued that he was just allowing him to speak, I, personally, think that in those circumstances, Atticus was tacitly approving of his message.  He certainly would not have showed the same courtesy to a speaker from the dreaded (in his view) ACLU.  

The majority thought that the title referenced Scout's role as one who was there to document the turmoil in Maycomb regarding the changing nature of relations among the races. In other words, Scout was the "watchman." I think I was the only one who viewed the title as a reference to the watchman as Scout's conscience. In my view, Scout had always seen Atticus as the voice of her conscience, but when she observed him doing something that was against her own conscience, she had to readjust and discovered that she had her own independent conscience that was no longer tied to Atticus's views. 

We talked about the scene involving Calpurnia, and how sad it was that Calpurnia had witnessed all the "good" people of Maycomb show themselves to be racist bigots, so she assumed Scout was like all the rest.

We discussed the history and questionable origin of this story and wondered how much was written by Harper Lee and how much was changed or added by editors.  Did Harper Lee never want this story to be read because of the similarities to her own life (Harper Lee's father was a lawyer) and she did not want it to negatively reflect on the character of Atticus, and thus by extension her father?

The book ratings were on the high end, with a low of 3.5 and a high of 4.5, which is good for the tough Novel Spirits crowd.  

I look forward to our next meeting and discussing Son of the Wilderness.  I hope everyone has been staying cool and having a great summer! 

JUNE MEETING NOTES

First off, I must apologize for my terrible grammar. Sometimes I look back through my posts and comments and realize how bad I am at writing. My posts are like the candy corn of grammar: made too quickly, cheaply and sold for way too much. Sorry Spirits. I'm sure you'll find some errors even in this very post.

Old Business: "Stinkin T-shirts". Oh dear, the T-shirts. I feel like the subject of the T-shirts deserves its own blog post. Its starting to become like a soap opera. Like the sands of the hour glass, so are the days of our lives without T-shirts. The Bold and the Beautiful, yet non-existent T-shirts. The So Young They're Not Even Born Yet and the Restless. I could go all day but you get the idea. Word on the street is, the owner of the printing place was trying to woo Deuce back into his web of deception with apologies, yet no offers of discounts. We'll see what happens in the next exciting episode. Will she go back to the unsatisfactory printer?? It's almost as if Deuce is a candidate for political office right now isn't it?? "I support my local screen printer!" "I no longer support my local screen printer!!!" Well what is it Deuce? You are flip flopping on issues that are important to the American people!! Here's another bomb you dropped on all of us poor, hard working Americans: "I have committed to one book for my book club submission!".........."No wait, I don't want that one anymore, I'm still deciding, I'll get back to you......." I don't know Deuce, it doesn't look like your numbers will be so great in the next public opinion poll. I can't wait for the next episode of As the World Without T-Shirts or Book Submissions Turns.....

ANYWAY. Dues are paid. We are all paid up to what we owe and the club now possesses $159 or maybe its $157. I'll give you a range of 157-159.

New Business: We decided to start creating a Novel Spirits Cookbook. Cat was tasked with being the OIC (Officer in Charge) of that project. May the Force be with you Cat. The final product at some point down the road will be a physical, bound cookbook to sell on Amazon, get put onto Oprah's book of the month club, become the New York Times #1 Bestseller, make the Novel Spirits richer than J.K. Rowling and Warren Buffett combined, and become THE Big Brother of the New World Order!!!! Muhahahaha! Or not, we'll see how it goes. But for now, we'll start up another Novel Spirits Pinterest board specifically for food and drink recipes. I guess for now, we can pin the ones we've already made up to this point, and continue with ones we think are really good. And no mediocre recipes go on this board Spirits!! Remember who we are, REMEMBER!!! There was my movie quote from THE LION KING. Alternatively, you can email or text recipes to Cat.

And our resident T.C. Boyle Fandom president, JB, once again gave some of us an eye twitch. He just won't let us push T.C. Boyle down into our subconscious with all other traumatic emotional experiences. I don't keep bringing George Orwell back up into your heart JB!!! Leave my poor damaged heart alone!!!! Apparently, Boyle wrote another book called A FRIEND OF THE EARTH, which is about climate change and how it could affect the Earth long term. If I were ever to delve into another Boyle book, this could be the one. I do like reading about the topic of climate change, BUT its still Boyle, so we'll see. But I am but the selfless messenger to all the Spirits, so please don't let me stop you from subjecting yourself. Enjoy.

Sharyn McCrumb was another topic of discussion. Someone mentioned that McCrumb likes to conduct research and set books in northeast Tennessee rather than her home of Kentucky, since she knows this area better. It is a memorable place so who are we to argue?

JB read GHOST RIDERS, which is set in and around Grandfather Mountain. Nothing follows.

Indy read THE SUN ALSO RISES by Ernest Hemingway. Nothing follows. Note: Diesel did not do the note taking this meeting.

I, Baron, read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. "Depressing". That about says it all. True story written by one of the most important Holocaust authors about his own experience as a holocaust survivor. Incredibly sad story and really opened my eyes to that time period. Puts things in perspective I must say.

Next meeting is at Deuce's Home Place, Sunday July 3rd at 2pm (unless flip-flopper Deuce needs to change the time)

Looking forward to seeing everyone again

Baron

Special post for Chief!

Just happened to notice while at Barnes and Noble today that Robert Beatty, author of Serafina and the Black Cloak will be there for book signing on July 11th!  I know Chief read this recently and thought mom and dad might accommodate him for this. I believe the time was 6:00 pm start but this might need to be verified.

HALF-ZOMBIES AND MORE SCOUT

Hello Spirits, I'm looking forward to our meeting this Sunday. I'm anxious to get every one's opinion on GO SET A WATCHMAN. Since I haven't blogged in awhile, I figured I'd better put something up before our meeting. Archimedes and I have been busy as usual, however we have still made time to keep reading. And Chief and Boss have been reading still as well. Although, since school is out, they haven't been reading at quite the break-neck pace as during the school year. But they both seem to have an intrinsic interest in reading so we are happy about that. But we really don't push them too much during the summer. So I'll give a brief update on what everyone is reading. Well, maybe not Chief since Archimedes gave a thorough update on him recently.

Archimedes is completely addicted to the DIVERGENT series. She read the first book in less than two days! And its almost 500 pages. And she's almost done with the second book, INSURGENT, once again in less than two days. I am jealous of these books since she no longer pays any attention to me at home. 😭 😭 😭 Poor, poor Baron.

Boss (and Chief) has been listening to the audio books of the ORIGAMI YODA series of books. Archimedes and I have been listening to them too and they are actually very good. In a nutshell: there is a kid in middle school who is very socially awkward so he makes an origami Yoda finger puppet. But this puppet seems to have its own identity and brain etc. Yoda gives outstanding advice and makes all the students' lives better. So there are many entertaining stories and there is much debate about Yoda is real, the force is real or if the kid is just really smart and trying too hard for attention. Hilarity ensues...

Boss is also very interested in military and war books. Also, science and animals. It's complicated. He's a lover and a fighter.

For my part, after the book club book, I finished up THE SCORCH TRIALS. Then I read NIGHT by Elie Wiesel. True story about the author's own holocaust experience. Very, very sad but eye opening and all true. Unbelievable.

Then I figured I should read the book that came before GO SET A WATCHMAN. I've never read TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, so I decided why not now right? So I'm about halfway through that right now.

Hope everyone is doing well and we'll see you soon!

Baron