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!