GO SET A WATCHMAN (Harper Lee)

I vacillated quite a bit about reading this novel.  The reviews were mediocre, the book was described as badly in need of editing, and people were disappointed in how Lee's characters, especially Atticus Finch, seemed to have "evolved."  Then a very intelligent and articulate friend of mine shared her thoughts on the book and suddenly it became a priority to read it.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you will know that Go Set a Watchman was actually written before To Kill a Mockingbird.  It was suggested to Lee that she take her original characters into their pasts and write a novel set 20 years earlier, in the 1930's, which she successfully accomplished.  This, her first manuscript, was recently rediscovered and Lee agreed to its publication provided that no edits were made.  Well. she is apparently a pretty good writer!  Yes, there were areas that obviously needed work, where the language needed sprucing up and the flow didn't work, just as there were pages that glowed with the same light and life as To Kill a Mockingbird.  The difficulty for the reader is to successfully separate the 2 works.  This was not intended as a sequel; the characters here have not developed nor evolved.  They were here first!

One of the things that struck me about this novel (in my apparently simple minded prioritization of what's important to note), was that the Atticus Finch described here looks JUST like an older Gregory Peck.  How strange is that?

I have heard that people were disappointed in the story because Jem was dead and because Atticus seemed to be a racist.  I didn't see the character of Atticus as racist in this novel, but rather as an intellectually curious product of his time, a time when civil rights for people of color were still in the formative stages and society as a whole had still not accepted racial equality after being brainwashed about the intelligence and abilities of black people for 150 years. Atticus didn't join the KKK or work against the NAACP because he hated black people, but because he wanted to be sure that they were NOT treated in a hateful and bigoted way.  Perhaps he was misguided in some of his thinking about the black race, but he definitely was not a racist.

As for Scout, I can imagine her growing up to be just as she was portrayed in this novel.  She reveres her father and is distraught and disappointed when she discovers that Atticus and Henry are consorting with racists.  She is a modern young woman in a changing world, having trouble deciding between the lure of her tradtional southen family and hometown and the culture of New York City.
I think that anyone who enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird should consider reading Go Set a Watchman. It will be well worth the few hours you devote to it and you'll still be thinking about it days after you reach the last page.