Our avid readers had approached reading Harper Lee's long anticipated 'second' novel with some intrepidation. A couple of our readers had read and studied Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird in great detail and it had been an important part of their life journey. They had a great fondness and respect for this classic novel. It had helped mould their values and like Scout (Jean Louise) they had perceived Atticus' concept of justice as a worthy benchmark.The original movie starring the 'perfect Atticus' Gregory Peck also resurrected fond memories for many. Go Set A Watchman had a legendary child with a passionate loyal following to compete with.
A couple of our readers had heard of but not read To Kill A Mockingbird so they were in some ways better equipped to read Go Set A Watchman more objectively.They did not have to cope with the same level of expectation.
Most of our readers admitted to enjoying passages of exceptional writing but on the whole felt the book needed far more editing. There was much discussion of how a book left in draft form for 55 years could be effectively edited. The author would have changed so much style-wise and the audience and context would also have changed so dramatically that modern editing would have been glaringly obvious and continuity would have been difficult to maintain. The downside of this of course, was that our readers generally thought that Go Set A Watchman felt like a draft. Moments of magic were separated by large gaps in the narrative.
There was also discussion about whether racism was still as widespread in the US and depressingly it seemed from our discussion which considered recent events in the United States, that really not that much appeared to have changed on the North American societal landscape.
They spoke of To Kill A Mockingbird being peopled with a vast array of well drawn characters, many of whom were quite idiosyncratic, and a great deal of coming and going whereas the fewer folk in Go Set A Watchman were less clearly delineated and our readers had trouble connecting with them. Many of our readers found the grown Jean Louise quite irritating and did not consider her character as believable in light of her upbringing and background. Our readers spoke of the story line being very slow to start and then everything at the end happening at breakneck speed. One of our readers was very cross with the ending and just could not consider it as plausible.
Overall there was an atmosphere of palpable disappointment hovering over our meeting this week. Discussion seemed more muted than usual. When our readers were asked to rate our read out of ten, most suggested 5 or 6 and felt they were being generous at that. The isolated passages of beauty made reading it worthwhile but some commented that they would be reluctant to recommend this novel to anyone.
There was discussion about whether Harper Lee was wise to publish Go Set A Watchman and some were curious as to her motivation for publishing. There was a general consensus that the person who had recommended not publishing Watchman was probably wiser than the person who went ahead with its publication.
Some readers commented that they liked the book title and were more satisfied when they uncovered the origins of the title. They also liked the cover design that reflected the connection to To Kill A Mockingbird.
Apparently Harper Lee considers Go Set A Watchman as the parent novel of To Kill A Mockingbird. Life could prove a difficult journey for the parent of such a famous, well-loved child who has had fifty years to dwell in people's hearts.
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