Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'
bbc.com
bbc.com
After doing a bit of digging, however, I'm a bit concerned. Now, Lee is almost 90, and has suffered a stroke that seems to have had lasting effects. She filed a lawsuit in 2007 against the son-in-law of her former agent, claiming that he took advantage of her mental state during her recovery and duped her into assigning him the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird[1]. For much of her adult life, her sister handled press relations and shielded Lee from these pressures. Her sister passed away three months ago, and suddenly this new book comes to light[2].
I really hope these suspicions are wrong, and that there's nothing shady at play here. I'm excited to read the book, but I can't help but be skeptical of the timing.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#After_To_Kill_a_Moc...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harper_Lee#Lawsuit_to_regain_c...
[2] (I dislike linking to Gawker Media sites on principle, but Jezebel actually wrote a good post digging into the details of this - "Be Suspicious of the New Harper Lee Novel".)
I do hope there's nothing untoward going on here and that this book lives up to the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the possibility is at least worth examining.
You might compare it and the original to the work of other authors, such as Truman Capote.
I'm hoping for a happy ending here, though.
I was forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird for school. I started reading it with a bad attitude. After I finished it, I immediately turned back to the first page and reread it, not with a school mindset but with a "this is amazing literature that I need in my life" mindset.
If she was writing this "sequel" at the same time she was writing the original, they're likely to contain the same themes and the same timeless way of looking at life, society, and what it means to be human. I don't know if any novel could survive the pressure of being a long-delayed sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'm definitely willing to let it try!
I think it'll be great.
I can't remember exactly who the writer was, but he spoke about his experience interviewing Kurt Vonnegut for his biography, so it was probably Charles Shields.
I'm pretty sure a book can't get on those lists any more without a theme of oppression or alienation. I'm not joking. Almost everything they make kids read any more is somehow about injustice or bigotry.
Apropos Southern Gothic lit, I'm chuckling at the thought of a typical 9th grade english teacher trying to tackle a much better book like Flannery Oconnor's "The Violent Bear it Away." Doesn't quite fit the essay templates they raise the kids on.
I think "Catch-22" is as well.
Say what you will about those books, they're not necessarily essay-ready in the same way "To Kill A Mockingbird" is.
At the time, many people did see race relations as 'black or white', and people thought there was a perfectly legitimate debate to be had about whether someone that was black was 'less of a man' that someone that was white. What Scout really shows us is that children are not born with this pre-conceived notion, and are generally confused by it... and we should be too.
To address your specific points: the black people were not supposed to have much of a voice in the novel, because black people didn't have much of a voice back then. There wasn't much insight (in terms of speeches or things said) around race relations, because to a six year old girl the insight doesn't matter. All that matters is one of fairness - that a child cannot fathom how crazy adults must be to not give black people a voice or to treat them differently, just because of their skin.
PS: In response to your comment about Finch, you're right. Finch is perfect - because he's Scout's father - and most six year old girls do think of their father as perfect; if Scout hadn't been written that way then her character would have seemed shallow and wrong.
PPS: I've clearly thought about this too much and what I've wrote seems a bit preachy - as with any book, it all comes down to personal taste.
You need to read it again bub.
The book has been banned from many schools.
Racial slurs, profanity, and blunt dialogue about rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms so often that, today, the American Library Association reports that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most challenged classics of all time and still ranks at number 21 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 2000–2009. Even as recently as 2011 and amid 326 other book challenges for that year, it ranks in the top ten more than 50 years after seeing print.
http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2012/07/30/banned-books-awarene...
http://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/books/killmockin...
Interestingly, there is a list of gaps between film sequels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_longest_gaps_betwee...), and the longest gap is over 63 years, but there is no such list for books!
As far as gaps go, I'm still hoping GRRM won't break any records
And I think that he will progress faster nowadays with the show. Not that I have high hopes for the series after book four and five.
I ask as a fan of The Expanse who has not jumped into GoT, and who wouldn't like to see The Expanse side-tracked because of it. Is there some piece of this relationship I'm not seeing, or is Ty Franck more involved in GoT writing than I would have expected?
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/11/george-rr-martin-no-more-ga...
So a huge gap between publications, but I would expect the writing to be similar.
I look forward to the new book.
My girlfriend reads the book at least once a year. She says it keeps her grounded and optimistic. I started doing the exercise last year and I have to say, she is right.
"I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it (the original book) had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."
Also i remember thinking that jean was a boy till i was 20-30 pages in realizing that she was in fact a girl.
It's too bad. Because it probably is a good book. The bible might be as well. But I'll never know because suspicion of indoctrination ruined it for me. Maybe this is a personal failing. But putting books on the high school required reading list is a good way to make thinking people suspicious of motive in my view.
(Of course, its worth noting that that the problem goes back further than that and that "the Bible" is itself a combination of the Hebrew Scriptures and a -- of disputed provenance, like the others -- sequel to that work.)
http://www.theonion.com/articles/reclusive-deity-hasnt-writt...
Hence my question, why is this here?
EDIT: Now that I think about it, I'm wondering if you are just agreeing with me.
Actually, To Kill a Mockingbird perpetuates the idea that racist drunken white dads in the deep south in that era made false accusations and beat their daughters when their daughters hit on black men. Which is something that, you know, actually happened sometimes.
"Some women don't make false rape accusations" -- true. My mother is a woman who has never made a false rape accusation. So is my wife. That's some women who don't make false rape accusations.
"No women make false rape accusations" is what you probably meant to say. That's demonstrably false -- some women do.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/09/false...
It varies by country but in the US, it's estimated that 8% of rape cases are false accusations.
> Not all reports classified as unfounded are necessarily false. In some cases, women who were victims of rape were disbelieved, pressured into recanting, and charged with false reporting only to be vindicated later on—the kind of awful story that adds to people’s skittishness about discussing false accusations. Some police departments have been criticized for having an anomalously high percentage of supposedly unfounded rape charges: Baltimore’s “unfounded” rate used to be the highest in the nation, at about 30 percent, due partly to questionable and sometimes downright abusive police procedures, such as badgering a woman about why she waited two hours to report a street assault. By 2013, an effort to provide better training and encourage full investigation of all complaints reduced that rate to less than 2 percent.
The problem is that you cannot rely on a police officer's opinion that a rape accusation is false. It could too easily be based on a sexist perception of the woman reporting the crime. The rape of sex workers, women who use drugs and alcohol, and women who have many sexual partners has never been taken as seriously by law enforcement.
On the other hand, we have actual scientific data from the CDC showing that 20% of women have been raped: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=...
What we need is an equivalent study that asks men if they have ever been falsely charged with rape. My guess is that the number is quite small.
> On the other hand, we have actual scientific data from the CDC showing that 20% of women have been raped: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm?s_cid=.... What we need is an equivalent study that asks men if they have ever been falsely charged with rape. My guess is that the number is quite small.
What are you arguing? Since false rape accusations can't be measured well, they shouldn't be considered a problem and they should be ignored?
I also think it'll be great.