Go Set A Watchman

Sequel Sensational

Harper Lee’s To Kill To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless classic (its popularity undoubtedly helped along by the Academy award-winning movie starring Gregory Peck) which did a good job of wringing white America’s conscience over its rampant racism. The Pulitzer award-winning novel about a lawyer’s defence of a black boy accused of raping a white girl, gave the country a hero in Atticus Finch. The remarkable man stood up to the intolerant white community of the deep South, the part of the US where slavery flourished before the Civil War’ and ‘nigger’-hating groups like the Ku Klux Klan popped up afterwards.

So, when over a half a century later a sequel appears, it naturally becomes a publishing sensation. It also comes at a time when the US is facing an increasing number of racism scandals and so, the issue isn’t quite dead yet.

Go Set A Watchman was reported to be a first draft of TKAM, which was discarded on the advice of the editor. It certainly reads like a bunch of rough notes. Reports say that GSAW was the book Lee set out to write, about a young girl’s disillusionment with her father, whom she hero-worships as a righteous man. But she rewrote it as TKAM telling the story of racial tension exploding in the sleepy Southern town of Maycomb, as seen through the eyes of a young child, Jean Louise aka Scout. She is spending a blissful summer with her brother Jem and friend Dill (who was supposedly inspired by Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote), when the ugliness bursts through the seams of a town divided over the case.

 In GSAW, 26-year-old Jean Louise returns to Maycomb from New York; the short trip is meant to be vacation, but one that will decide if she will marry her long-time suitor Henry Clinton and stay on in Maycomb, or leave it forever.

Being raised “colour blind” by her father, Scout is shocked to see that the racism is still entrenched in Maycomb. Her exposure to life in New York makes her judge people of the town—including her Aunt Alexandra—as narrow-minded bigots.  But what shocks her almost out of her mind is that Atticus Finch and Henry are also out-of-the-closet racists. Her beloved brother Jem is dead, Dill has left for good, so she has no confidant except her eccentric Uncle Jack, who first spouts a bizarre lecture at her when she tries to talk about her father, and much later, punches her in the face for misunderstanding the situation.

In between, the book has several strange and unrelated passages, like a flashback about Scout’s fear of pregnancy and attempted suicide. But the scenes in which she tries to understand how the town functions—like the cruelly funny Coffee her aunt gives in her honour—are full of perceptive details and sharp dialogue.

Atticus, now suffering from a painful ailment of the joints, is a somewhat distant figure, treating Scout’s tantrums with paternal patience that borders on indifference.  Henry comes out as a wimp who only wants to leave his white trash past behind and gain social status by marrying a Finch girl. He does love Scout, but that is secondary to him.

Scout cannot comprehend just what is going on, why her nanny Calpurnia is aloof (“She sat there in front of me and she didn’t see me, she saw white folks”), why the black people she grew up with close have closed ranks against her, why the race issue has become so bitterly politicized that a man like Atticus has to abandon his progressive stance. (He says things like, “Do you want your children going to a school that's been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?”) Or perhaps, on re-reading TKAM the signs will show up, that he was never as principled as Scout imagined him to be. If as a child Scout was rebellious and tomboyish, the grown up Jean Louise seems a little too strident and inflexible—not a very likeable character.

The first book (based on an incident in Lee’s own childhood) was about loss of innocence, the second is about maturity, compromise and unconditional love.  It’s nowhere near the old masterpiece, and at best, can be read out of curiosity—like a forgotten diary lying in the attic—but still an important chronicle of American life.

Incidentally, the title of the book comes from the Old Testament, : "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth" (Isaiah 21:6)

Go Set A Watchman

By Harper Lee

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 278