Whereas To Kill a Mockingbird has been my favorite book since the first time I read it many, many years ago, it was always safe to say that I love Harper Lee. That being said, It is almost as if I have been waiting for Go Set a Watchman for the past 16 years. While Harper Lee wrote Go Set a Watchman before To Kill a Mockingbird, it wasn't released until just this past Tuesday (July 14, 2015).
Here's what I have to say about Go Set a Watchman. If you value To Kill a Mockingbird even half as much as I do, do not read this book. I really hate saying that, but you will only be disillusioned and disappointed.
Go Set a Watchman takes place 20 years after the events that unfolded in Maycomb, Alabama in To Kill a Mockingbird. The story is told from the third person point of view, but mostly focuses on Scout Finch -- who has dropped her nickname and now goes by Jean Louise. Jean Louise returns to Maycomb for a visit from New York. The book has familiar characters such as Atticus, Aunt Alexandra, and Uncle Jack, but things are very different. First of all, Jem is dead. I hate to break it to you so quickly, but we find out in the first chapter, so it's not giving away much. Dill is absent from the story besides a few memories. Cal can't even bare to look at Jean Louise. There are no Radleys. And Jean Louise is dating a man named Henry who apparently grew up across the street from her.
Now, going into this book, I was trying to stay open minded. I mean, I understand that this book was written before the other and didn't exactly expect everything to line up perfectly. However, when Jean Louise remembers "the trial," Tom Robinson isn't even mentioned by name, Atticus has only agreed to take the case because Calpurnia knows Robinson, and Atticus gets him acquitted by proving they had consensual sex instead of it being a rape. I mean, all of To Kill a Mockingbird was centered around this trial, and none of it matches up here.
Jean Louise is very much the same. She is independent and smart and unwilling to settle down. She is honest and in-your-face. She does what she wants, says what she wants, goes where she wants, and wears what she wants. She is the only character who is unchanged. The most horrific part of this book is Atticus. As you all know, Atticus is the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird. His unfaltering ethics and moral standards make him someone that is respected and adored by everyone (not just his family). In Go Set a Watchman, he is not the same man. He supports efforts to keep segregation in the county. He allies himself with people who Jean Louise labels "nigger haters." To me, this is simply unacceptable. I refuse to take Atticus as this character. When Jean Louise figures this out, Lee writes, "The one human being she [Jean Louise] had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her; the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, 'He is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentleman,' had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly." Need I say more?
Jean Louise eventually lashes out at Atticus on this and he tries to explain and give reasons for his behavior, but it is not okay. As she grabs her luggage and plans to head back to New York 10 days early, it is Uncle Jack (known here as Dr. Finch) who lays everything out for her. He leads her to believe that she has always thought of Atticus as God and to see him with any fault is too outrageous for her mind to comprehend. Like everything she has built herself around has been a lie.
There are a few parts in this book that I did enjoy. These were all memories that Scout had. Memories of time spent with Jem and Dill. The other thing I liked was that Jean Louise calls herself color blind. She comments on the fact that she never sees people as black or white, she only sees people. And perhaps my favorite quote from the entire novel goes like this, "Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends."
While I was very excited for this book to come out, ultimately I am choosing to pretend that it never happened. I am going to continue to love Atticus as the gentleman hero that he is in To Kill a Mockingbird.
I can't even give it a star rating. Maybe because I have already started blocking it out.