Go Set A Watchman
by Harper Lee · first published 2015
7% recommend93% neutral
Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch -- "Scout" -- returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young
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Harper Lee eviscerates it herself in Go Set a Watchman. However you approach her second novel, it's worth the read to understand her outlook on life in the South.
on “Harper Lee has died” ↗…re-releases; just because they own the copyright I don't think whatever Nintendo slaps together really represents the intent of the artists themselves, in the same way that I don't think, say, the release of Go Set a Watchman says anything about the intent of Harper Lee.
on “What made the NES so interesting?” ↗Especially given the extremely shady way in which "Go Set a Watchman" was released, possibly against Harper Lee's desires, it would be fair to say that "Atticus Finch" should refer to the character in "To Kill a Mockingbird."
on “Harper Lee has died” ↗…was treated with such human dignity and respect that Card had to fend off scathing criticism from his own church (and others') for doing so. Orson Scott Card is like Atticus Finch and we're all reading Go Set A Watchman. If all we can find for either of these characters today is hate and loathing and calls to pirate books, what kind of a future are we really setting ourselves up for?
on “Ask HN: What book have you given as a gift?” ↗How dare you question a woman's lived experience. Not to mention the hate Harper Lee got for Go Set a Watchman showing what happened to the characters 20 years later.
on “IMDB deleted all negative user reviews for The Rings of Power” ↗…you convey an undertone that outcomes for blacks are for white people to choose. The message we want to teach kids is deeper than racism is bad. This is vaguely addressed in the book's pseudo sequel, go set a watchman, in which Atticus reveals a bigoted side opposing integration. > You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There…
on “'To kill a mockingbird,' other books removed from Burbank schools' curriculum” ↗I take it you haven't read "Go Set a Watchman"...
on “Harper Lee has died” ↗"In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called 'Go Set a Watchman,'" the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper. "It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks…
on “Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'” ↗Thanks for posting that link - I hadn't read it before. I can't find anything, but I wonder if Malcolm Gladwell's opinion changed because of Go Set a Watchman?? I've only read Go Set a Watchman once, but it seems to me like Gladwell's critique of To Kill sort of predicted its plot.
on “Harper Lee has died” ↗For sure. Having read a fair amount about the circumstances surrounding the release of Go Set a Watchman, it's sad to see that the widespread opinion is that it should be canon.
on “Harper Lee has died” ↗Printed book sales have gone up in the U.S. over the past two years, though this was largely driven by 'adult coloring books' and (in 2015) Go Set a Watchman.[0] In my experience, the Strand in New York[1] is every bit as crowded as it ever was. While some smaller stores have failed, others[2] remain hectic with popularity, and while I don't have their sales…
on “American Literature Needs Indie Presses” ↗Publishers do this every time a famous author dies or becomes incompetent (in the legal sense of the word). Go Set a Watchman was a very early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird but sold to the public as an uncovered sequel novel a short while after Harper Lee's sister Alice died.
on “Maurice Sendak Picture Book Discovered” ↗…movie, for instance. I don’t know about that. George Lucas has managed to butcher his own movies after the fact, and newer audiences would never know. Hundreds of thousands of people still believe that “Go Set a Watchman” is a new book as opposed to the first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
on “The tragic rape of Charles Bukowski’s ghost by Black Sparrow Press (2013)” ↗Reminds me of Go Set a Watchman.
on “Gabriel García Márquez: Sons publish novel that late author wanted destroyed” ↗