Sunday, 23 August 2015

GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee (2015)


"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.

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