"The time your friends need you is when they're wrong, Jean Louise. They don't need you when they're right." - Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
DISCLAIMER: This
review is, first and foremost, constructed upon my personal reaction to the
book. I can’t forecast whether or not you will like it, since I’m quite
terrible at recommendations because I always assume that people will like
everything I like. If you decide to read this book because of this review and
end up not enjoying it, I humbly apologise. Please don’t get your hopes up if
you think they might be let down. I think the book is great, but that’s a
matter of opinion. A lot of people are really hating it. So it goes.
I have to admit: I was excited,
but incredibly nervous when I was first informed about Go Set a Watchman. Harper Lee hadn’t released a book since 1960, when
To Kill a Mockingbird came out; what could I possibly expect from her second novel, the first in
fifty-five years? Then, of course, came the terrible rumours that Atticus
Finch, my humble hero, had turned on me, gone dark side (or, more
realistically, white side), and become racist. Atticus Finch, racist? The world
tipped off its axis. How on Earth was Lee going to pull that one off without making me want to toss Go Set a Watchman directly into the ninth circle of Hell? Thankfully,
however, she managed it, and I don’t have to sacrifice my beautiful hardback to
the Muses. Yes, Atticus is racist (although he does mean well; that’s no
excuse, but I’ll acknowledge it), and yes, it breaks my heart to say that the
former champion of civil rights would do this to me, but in the context of the
story, and in the context of Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch’s narrative arc, I think
it works, and I think it works well. Add on top of my begrudgingly-accepted
heartbreak the keen nostalgia this trip back to Maycomb made me feel, Scout’s razor
sharp wit, and the ana-chronological storyline, and you’ve got a book that
makes you feel all the feelings, good and bad and somewhere in between.
This is supposed to be a book
review, so I’ll start with all the things I like about Go Set a Watchman before I dive into the blow-by-blow analysis I’m
simply dying to pen. One of my favourite things about Go Set a Watchman is how god damn timeless it is. Maycomb, while a bit of a dump, is so rich in
interesting and diverse (at least in terms of personality) people, that to be
able to visit it and them again when I never thought I’d have the chance was quite honestly magical. Harper
Lee’s unique style of writing made the nostalgia hit all the more dizzying; I didn’t
know I’d missed Maycomb until I began reading in Scout Finch’s classically comedic, but also newly retrospective, voice, and felt joy unlike anything I have
ever experienced. (I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea.) I enjoyed how the
narrative jumped from its prerogative – third person – to first person, dipping
directly into Scout’s mind and mental processing for brief periods to
illuminate how Scout was deciphering each moment, and I also loved and loathed
in equal amounts the parts of the story that flashed back in time, giving the
salivating reader a long-desired taste of Scout’s childhood after To Kill a Mockingbird (loved because how
could I not?, loathed because it reminded me of a certain character in To Kill a Mockingbird who is no longer
with us in Go Set a Watchman, which
hurts like a knife in the chest). It’s an undeniable fact of life: Harper Lee is
good at what she does. She’s good at drawing an emotional response from the
reader, and while admittedly, nostalgia did a lot of the work for her, I’d argue
that wielding it as a weapon was one of the smartest things she could have
done.
Enough
beating around the bush: it's time for analysis. Sure, Go Set a Watchman is surface-level great – timeless, funny,
exciting and dramatic, it’s exactly what a Harper Lee novel should be – but it's
also one of the most controversial novels I've ever read, because oh my God, Atticus is racist. Atticus Finch, protector of the Negro
and do-gooder extraordinaire, is racist. This goes so heavily against
the Atticus we came to know and love in To Kill a Mockingbird that when I first heard the rumours, I simply
didn't believe them. How happy was the blameless vestal's lot! My blissful
ignorance was short-lived: I, too, had to come to terms with the fact that I
had named multitudes of stuffed animals after a pretentious bigot. Godspeed,
old friends. Discovering Atticus' change of heart was the second most heart-breaking
moment in the story (I won't say what took first place, but if you've read the
book, you know. You fucking know),
but as the book comes to a close, you realise -- and I'm not bringing anything
new to the table analytically, this is all discussed in the story -- that
Atticus hasn't really changed at all. In To
Kill a Mockingbird, we see Atticus as some mighty crusader of civil
rights, but think about it: his court case with Tom Robinson was never
specifically about protecting a black man from a biased white court. It was
about protecting an innocent man from incarceration that he hadn't earned: "Shoot all the blue jays you want, but
remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." Atticus was probably
racist all along; it was his sense of criminal justice that coerced him into defending Tom
Robinson, not his belief in racial equality. Yet fear not,
dear reader: you're not the only one who was duped. Scout was, too, and it's
for this reason that Atticus actually needed to show his dark side. Half the reason readers
of To Kill a Mockingbird believed in
Atticus as the son of God was because Scout did, too, and since we see To Kill a Mockingbird through her eyes,
we assume that she knows what she’s talking about. Atticus is her father, after
all, but consider this: Scout is only a child in To Kill a Mockingbird. She’s young and naïve, and in a
story constructed on bias, she’s the most biased character of all. Atticus is two-dimensional to her, and she absorbs his ‘worldviews’ like a sponge. She becomes,
in short, a mini Atticus, and that’s no way to live. In the context of literary
devices, Atticus needed to be revealed as someone we don’t recognise in Go Set a Watchman so that
Scout could move out of his shadow and, in the words of the Buddha, become her
own lamp. She had to “kill [herself], or Atticus had to kill [her] to get [her]
functioning as a separate entity”. Atticus, unfortunately, didn’t change; he
just let his true colours show. Scout, however, changed almost entirely. Go Set a Watchman is ultimately a
coming-of-age tale, and considering how many people named their children after
Atticus and are now sorely regretting it, I believe that it was long overdue.
TL;DR: I did not think that Go Set a Watchman would be a coming-of-age story, and I did not think coming-of-age
stories could be written about twenty-eight-year-olds, so Harper Lee's second
book in fifty-five years surprised me to no end, because it's the most cutting-edge
– and cut throat – coming-of-age story I've read since The Perks of Being a
Wallflower. A lot of people are giving Go
Set a Watchman bad reviews – if you've
read it already, you'll know why – but I couldn't help but love every second of
this sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird.
Like its predecessor, Go Set a Watchman
is smart and fun and witty and oh-so-potent in its social commentary, but with
the added advantage of hardcore nostalgia: those of us who never thought we'd
ever see Maycomb again can revel in how it is exactly the same, but also
entirely different, for better or for worse. In short: I'll stand by you,
Harper Lee, even when the rest of the world stands against us. I missed Jean
Louise Finch too much to write you off, but even without the nostalgia, Go
Set a Watchman earned from me five stars
that I feel are well-deserved.
