WHY I LIKE GO SET A WATCHMAN

WHY I LIKE GO SET A WATCHMAN

          Suraksha Giri (11 Sept ’15)

    I wonder I have the temerity to actually think I can comment on the book and writing of my reading goddess Harper Lee who’s “To Kill A Mocking Bird” I idolised far more than Scout idolised Atticus Finch. “Go Set A Watchman” unshackled both Jean Louise and me from idolatry and I am not sorry to be free and I imagine neither is Scout though we are forty years apart.

   It would be gauche to comment on the writing, the plot or the characters in “Go Set A Watchman” since there are none. There is only one central protagonist, “the conscience” titled a Watchman from the biblical reference. We, the readers are served the many colours and hues of our conscience which is most often cloaked under layers and layers of moral righteousness, political beliefs, social snobbery and economic wealth all sanctioned and cemented by the upholders of religion. After being treated to a fictional masterpiece in “To Kill A Mocking Bird”, its easy to understand the sense of disbelief to its sequel which is a hard hitting socio-political commentary barely disguised as fiction. It’s also easy to understand why the agent and publishers urged Lee in the ‘50’s to create a great piece of fiction from the glimmerings of the shadowy characters Atticus, Jem, Scout, Dill, Cal and Boo Radley in Maycomb Alabama and if the book needed that extra push Gregory Peck was the finishing touch in the movie version. So believable was the screenplay that many saw the film and only years later read the slim volume always claiming what a great book it was just from the movie. So while Scout had just one Atticus Finch as her iconic model, I had two, Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch and Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch. The two have been deeply embedded.

     Again the agents and publisher of Ms Lee have been extremely wise. They allowed a real time of half a century and more to pass, before they allowed Scout to be her own person at the end of a gap of fifteen notional years. When I read that there was to be a sequel I wondered why now? Ms. Lee lives quietly, there could be no big blitz on sales and promotions so why now? The previews put out stated that Scout was now Jean Louise, Atticus Finch was afflicted and a racist, Jem had died and Dill was no where on the scene. As for Calpurnia, she had yielded her place to Aunt Alexandra. So what would make the sequel worth reading, I wondered?

      I have very little knowledge of American history particularly after the Civil War and that was largely fuelled by another novel “Gone with the Wind.”  I decided to read some background on the 50’s and 60’s in the Southern states to understand how Atticus Finch could be a racist.

     After the civil war, I imagine scores of slaves were freed but found it hard to survive without any skill or education. The first fifty years after the war would have been a period of great adjustment; they were free but not equal. Segregation was practised and state laws made it difficult for the black person to get education and livelihood. I think that changed in the next fifty years and Dr King leading the crusade for equal rights and opportunities must have shaken up the southern states. Rosa Parks’s act of defiance threw up a movement till segregation was banned.

       This is the time that Harper Lee writes about, the change of time in Maycomb, Alabama and other south states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky. In the fiction model which we know as “To Kill A Mocking Bird” we have a soft filter version where there is goodness and the flow of the milk of human kindness. The black is not a slave; he is poor and illiterate and therefore deserves charity. Atticus Finch defends the black man to prove his competence in jurisprudence while Scout, I and tens of millions believed it was from a higher ideal. The documentary style of “Go Set A Watchman”, disproves our surmise. Atticus Finch is as troubled by the rising claim of the black man to his rights and opportunities as are the white thrash or the Klan. Though it is Scout who gets called a bigot though “only a turnip sized one,” Atticus Finch reasons with his daughter, “What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? ….”Honey, you do not seem to understand that Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Through the careful explanation of her uncle Dr. Finch, Scout, Jean Louise is made to realise that personal conviction of conscience is not the same measure for everyone and each man has a measure that is true for him and none other. Equally important not to be blindfolded to others ideas which would make the person with a conscience as bigoted as one who has muffled his.

      Finally at twenty six, Jean Louise is ready to meet her father, Atticus Finch.

     The fifty five years since To Kill a Mocking Bird was published made one come face to face with the realities of icons, many crumbled like card board cut outs. Its only when the icons gilt rubs off, we are mature to face the reality of the situation, only when idolism drops can we learn to respect the ideal.

     Go Set A Watchman does a great service in making the reader question their beliefs, their conscience. Is it their own or a dogma, a platitude from an icon? Ms Harper Lee does a Julian Assange WikiLeaks with this novel. Read It.