I had an editor years ago who said, “There is no such thing as great writing, only great editing.” That’s a pretty goddamn self-serving thing for an editor to say. But it’s true that a skillful editor can guide a writer toward greatness, seeing past the superfluous to recognize the sublime.
That appears to have happened in the 1950s when Harper Lee’s editor read a draft of “Go Set a Watchman” and suggested that Lee make the flashback sections the heart of the book and narrate the novel from the point of view of the child, Scout Finch.
Lee took her editor’s advice, and her fresh take on a work in progress became the classic American novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which was published in 1960. “Watchman,” the draft Lee put aside to write her masterpiece, is set to be released in its entirety on Tuesday.
Reviewers who’ve seen advance copies of “Watchman” seem horrified that “Mockingbird’s” heroic attorney and ideal father, Atticus Finch, is portrayed as a deeply prejudiced man who once attended a Klan meeting and isn’t happy about the prospect of integrated schools.
The shock occasioned by this news is palpable around the internet. People seem almost angry that their idealized Southern man turns out to be a racist, if a genteel one.
As an admirer of Ms. Lee, I was apprehensive about the controversial release of “Watchman.” She maintained her silence for 55 years after “Mockingbird” in the face of incredible pressure to follow up on her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut. Maybe she had good reason to remain silent.
But the reaction to the news that Atticus Finch had a dark side may indicate that Lee still has something to teach us after all. Here’s how the NYT review of “Watchman” concludes:
One of the emotional through-lines in both “Mockingbird” and “Watchman” is a plea for empathy — as Atticus puts it in “Mockingbird” to Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” The difference is that “Mockingbird” suggested that we should have compassion for outsiders like Boo and Tom Robinson, while “Watchman” asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus.
If “Watchman” illustrates the duality of Atticus Finch’s nature — how he could be so admirable an advocate for truth and justice on the one hand and a bigot on the other — it will have conveyed something of value. This duality has been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve followed the reaction to the Confederate flag controversy online and in real life.
How can people be patriotic — even jingoistic — Americans and still revere the Confederate flag? It doesn’t make sense, but they do. How could Thomas Jefferson write about equality with such soaring eloquence while holding human beings in bondage and raping young women who were captive in his home? It doesn’t make sense, but he did.
Atticus Finch is good and pure in “Mockingbird.” Mr. Ewell is an ugly racist with no redeeming characteristics. A child would see the world that way, and “Mockingbird” is narrated by a child. Having read the already released first chapter of “Watchman,” I doubt it is a better novel than “Mockingbird.” But it might be a truer one.
J.D. Rhoades
One wonders if “Mockingbird” was originally the story of how Atticus learned to be better.
sheldon vogt
george rr martin could sure use an editor
JPL
To kill a mockingbird was required reading when my sons were in 8th grade. What happens now?
I’m not purchasing the book and wish the transcript had been burnt.
Cain
@sheldon vogt:
He would have killed off the editor at some point anyways.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: I don’t understand that reaction.
Elizabelle
Betty: that’s what got me to commit to the pre-order. That “Watchman” might be less lyrical and uplifting, but a truer book and depiction of Alabama in the late 1950s/early 1960s.
To be released the same day (this Tuesday, July 14) as Watchman: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book.
WSJ blog from June 25, and if you check out the first few “reader” comments, you will see why Coates’ book is needed, and both books are likely timely.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
I used to think so. Then I started slogging through this year’s Hugo nominees.
Zinsky
If J.D. Salinger published something today, I think it’s fatuous to believe it would be any where near as engaging or insightful as The Catcher In the Rye. We all have one bright, shining moment and then it is gone.
Elizabelle
Here’s the first chapter of “To Set a Watchman”, published by The Guardian. Interactive, with graphics of travel by train (albeit, looks like the western US in some frames. Quite odd.)
Link enclosed if you would prefer to hear Reese Witherspoon read it to you (takes about 23 minutes).
Emma
@JPL: I really don’t understand that reaction. History is full of monsters with a human side and humans with a monstrous side. It’s our inheritance as human beings. None of us are so pure that we cannot catch ourselves doing something godawful and none so monstrous we cannot do a kindness. We spend way too much time tearing down human beings for not being perfect.
I agree with the comment that “Mockingbird” is a child’s view; maybe “Watchman” is the adult’s “real” world. What I wish she had written as a sequel was Scout’s discovery of reality. Maybe Watchman will show some of that.
(edited several times)
JPL
@Betty Cracker: Since it is required reading for many students in the south, To Kill a Mockingbird shows a side of a character that exhibited great empathy. The new book is just the opposite.
As a lawyer, Atticus could probably defend someone who he thought was innocent, no matter the color of the persons skin. I get that part but personally, I’d rather remember the person who I thought was a morally outstanding character.
Amir Khalid
Atticus Finch is a more complete fictional character for having this darkness to him. It gives the reader something to explore and consider, rather than merely to venerate. And Atticus has been venerated like few other fictional characters in the past half-century. People talk of being inspired by his example, and in Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning portrayal he’s been hailed as the greatest movie hero ever. Now he’s a more three-dimensional character, rather than just a hero. I look forward to reading the book.
Similarly, I have always considered Snape the greatest Harry Potter character by far. No one else was as delicately poised between good and evil. His feelings towards Harry were complicated by his unrequited love for Harry’s mother Lily, his resentment towards James Potter, and his own involvement with Voldemort. Until the very end of Deathly Hallows, you never quite knew if he was a good’un or a bad’un.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
The work of a British artist, very likely.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Did you ever post about the Sanders rally? If so, can you share a link?
JPL
@Amir Khalid: ha! You’re a better person than I am.
Emma
@JPL: Empathy is a greatly overrated emotion, I think. I can be full of empathy and still sit on my hands and do nothing.
dedc79
Re the importance of the editor, see, e.g. the stories of Raymond Carver pre and post edit.
Elizabelle
Interesting question. Nelle Harper Lee’s late sister, Alice (who died last year at age 103), may have fended off publication because she knew the hit Atticus’s reputation would take, and was not sure how her sister’s unedited manuscript would be received.
One wonders if Harper Lee approved publication because she is absolutely still of sound mind to this day (if with reduced hearing and sight), and realized how much work still needs to be done on racial healing in 2015. She would have observed closely the craziness that came out into the open after Obama’s election, and the murders of Trayvon Martin and other innocents.
From The Telegraph UK:
Harper and Alice Lee, a story of two sisters
There was a remarkable bond between the author of To Kill a Mockingbird and her sister, neither of whom married or had any known romantic interests; one who could not wait to leave Alabama, the other who never left.
p.a.
@Amir Khalid: Snape as written + Alan Rickman= A++.
Mr. Prosser
Good post. I remember a few months ago reading one of TNC’s blog posts in which he asks how a white American would react if they saw a photograph of their grandfather, whom they loved and remembered as a kind, fair and just man, smiling into the camera at a group photo of a lynching. Perhaps Watchman will be better than Mockingbird for that very reason.
Elizabelle
@dedc79: Or anything by Patricia Cornwell.
Anything after the first 4-5 novels is an assault on her readers’ time and patience.
One book more preposterous than most (about the werewolf swimming around Paris and Louisiana) ended so abruptly you could just imagine the Fedex courier arriving in 2 hours: Patricia: “got to wrap this one up and get to the next one I’m contractually obligated to. It’s enough pages.”
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
It’s well known that Atticus is a fictionalised portrait of their father.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I did not yet, and I took copious notes! Will pull something together later today. It was interesting; talked to some folks who attended for their reactions.
Thank you for asking.
notorious JRT
@Zinsky:
We all have one bright, shining moment and then it is gone.
So not true.
p.a.
@Emma: That’s where guilt comes in. I doubt those without empathy can feel guilt.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: That’s what I thought. And calling the sister “Atticus in a skirt”: the second generation got it right.
And then Harper Lee sees current events, the past is never past, and her beloved sister can no longer worry about reaction to publication.
TaMara (BHF)
I read the first chapter last night and I’m intrigued. Atticus having a dark side…well welcome to my family, my mom who taught me that all humans are equal is also a raging tea party republican. And she’s my mom. It’s complicated and not pretty, but there it is.
I’d rather it were different, but if I were writing it, what a colorful, complex character she would be.
Emma
@p.a.: True, but I still don’t know if that would translate into action. A relative of mine has been feeling massively guilty about something she did decades ago but still refuses to do anything to fix the lingering problem. Give me a good old fashioned bastard who still can say “that’s not right’ and jump into action.
notorious JRT
@Emma:
. I can be full of empathy and still sit on my hands and do nothing.
That is not empathy’s fault, is it?
Ultraviolet Thunder
Finch is a lawyer. It’s his job to defend a client to the best of his ability no matter his personal feelings. Maybe Mockingbird is Atticus doing his job and Watchman shows the real man.
Probably not that simple, but wouldn’t it be a kick in the pants? I’d still respect him I guess.
Baud
@notorious JRT:
I often portray my apathy as empathy because, well, they sound close enough alike.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Looking forward to it.
p.a.
@Ultraviolet Thunder: like the ACLU defending the Nazi march in Skokie.
Of course, there’s this.
johnnybuck
@Mr. Prosser: I think it will be. It’s pretty much what growing up white, in the south, is all about assuming you don’t just “embrace” the heritage. At some point you have to square things, by which I mean, unlearning some ideas, and unknowing those who promote them, while maintaining ties with friends and family and community.
Citizen Alan
It is also possible to imagine someone in the 1930’s who is progressive enough to think a black man shouldn’t be railroaded into jail on false charges, but who, by the 1960’s, still thinks that blacks and whites shouldn’t go to school together or eat together in the same restaurants. Moving on to the present day (and especially here in Mississippi), I have observed that there are a lot of white people here who really don’t have a problem interacting with blacks as equals … but who lose their shit at the thought of a black person being in authority over them. I’ve always thought that’s the biggest driver behind the hysterical overreaction to Obama’s election.
Elmo
I don’t see any disconnect at all between Finch as committed advocate, passionate about getting an acquittal for an innocent man, and Finch as man of his times, believing as his fathers did that black people are inferior children who need to keep their place.
Even inferior children shouldn’t be unjustly executed. You can buy into the whole universe of racist thought about black people, and still believe they should be protected from injustice.
It’s part of TNC’s whole point about the way we think about “racism” and “racists.” Racists don’t have horns and eat babies, and it’s a lazy caricature to suggest that every racist is, or was, Sheriff Clark without the badge.
Xenos
This all makes perfect sense to me.
Atticus in TKaM is a reflection of the idealism and adoration of his young daughter.
The Atticus in GSaW is the reality – whoever he may have been as a young widower presenting the best father figure he could be for his children, either bitter experience has changed him, or an ugly side that was repressed has revealed itself. Two volumes in the same story, and the whole is a much more complete and better work than TKaM by itself.
And if we are angry, disappointed, and yes, a bit bitter about how it turns out, imagine how Harper Lee felt, as an adult, coming to understand her father. It is no surprise that she never felt like publishing it.
How would people have taken this publication in, say, 1975? It would have been damn prescient if it had been published then.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
What’s the saying? “In the North, they don’t care how high they get as long as they don’t get too close; in the South, they don’t care how close they get as long as they don’t get too high?”
ShadeTail
So, basically, the “real” Atticus Finch believed strongly in justice and equality, and also believed that “separate but equal” was a good and legitimate philosophy. There’s nothing particularly shocking about that.
What really caught my attention in the first chapter was the line, near the end, about how Gem “dropped dead in his tracks one day.” I’m pretty curious to see if the book elaborates on that at all.
cckids
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
But in Mockingbird Atticus goes beyond just “doing his job”. Isn’t there a line somewhere in the book about people being astonished because “he really means to defend” Tom Robinson? I.E., not just be a token, but try to present the white accusers as liars.
Atticus may well have a dark side, but he has a bright one as well. Hopefully the two books together will give a more nuanced, adult, hopeful view of him. One the rest of us imperfect humans can aspire to.
PST
I think these last posts really resolve the apparent contradiction in the character of Atticus Finch. Perhaps the key phrase is “man of his times.” A sense of justice that won’t let you see a fellow human hounded to his grave out of racial prejudice doesn’t imply that you see him as an equal. How many older white men in 1950s Alabama would have?
Beatrice
I highly recommend this insightful piece about the discussion of race in America. It really resonated with thoughts I have been having lately. “I, Racist” by John Metta
Germy Shoemangler
Serena Williams has officially secured her sixth Wimbledon championship.
The athlete beat 21-year-old Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday, nabbing her fourth Grand Slam championship in a row and 21st major overall.
JPL
A son just stopped by and I mentioned the new book which showed a dark side to Atticus, and how disappointed I was. His comment was that it would make sense for the times, and you shouldn’t forget the good that he did defending Tom.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler: Awesome. She is amazing.
Ken Pidcock
Because they both allowed him to live in considerable wealth. How’s that hard to understand?
raven
My old man was a WWII combat vet and a high school coach. When he was the North Chicago High School varsity basketball coach he had African- American and white kids on the team and they would all come over for Sunday breakfast after Saturday night games. He often talked about how unfair it was how AA sailors were relegated to menial tasks aboard ship during the war. After he retired he moved to Phoenix and things started to shift in him. He had always been a DuPage County Republican but the he saw NFL taking the Super Bowl away as highly hypocritical and it was reflected in his thinking. He taught at a community college in Phoenix until 6 months before he died and he became more and more alarmed by the immigration situation in Arizona and that did not help his attitude. There were many more competing aspects to who he was but it really saddened me to se the direction he took. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love and look up to him but it did make me see that people are complex. “It’s the duality of man thing sir”!
shell
They say that Lee declined editing the old manuscript. I wonder if she had, she would have modified Atticus character.
bystander
The Times was full of disturbing news today. I don’t know if I’m ready for a racist Atticus, if only because it makes Mockingbird Atticus seem more like a flimsy literary character. Or more like a relative of mine.
I found Omar Sharif’s NY Times obit troubling since it refers to a son but no grandson named “Omar Sharif Jr.”
Germy Shoemangler
Never judge a book by its cover. Or its first chapter.
@J.D. Rhoades:
Best analysis I’ve seen.
pamelabrown53
@Beatrice:
Hi Beatrice, Sorry to say but your link doesn’t work.
BTW, I’m really enjoying all the thoughtful comments in this post. It’s indicative of why I enjoy Balloon Juice so much. Carry on.
Beatrice
@pamelabrown53: Well, shoot, thanks for letting me know. Here’s the URL without trying to get fancy about it:
medium.com/@johnmetta/i-racist-538512462265
Hopefully that works. I also don’t know if you have to sign up for Medium to read it.
Betty Cracker
@Ken Pidcock: Jefferson died so deeply in debt that his heirs had to sell off Monticello. Slavery was about economic plunder (duh), but white supremacy was and is justified by an intricate and often contradictory system of beliefs and traditions. The point is, people can hold what appear to be mutually exclusive views and be driven by contradictory principles, as Jefferson was.
WereBear
I’m sure Atticus Finch was only so much good and pure… lest he be hounded out of town.
Here’s one man’s story of how he lost a career because of his religious affiliation.
And this was in the last couple of years.
Or has anyone forgotten what happened to Scout as a result of her father’s actions?
James E Powell
@Elmo:
I don’t see any disconnect at all between Finch as committed advocate, passionate about getting an acquittal for an innocent man, and Finch as man of his times, believing as his fathers did that black people are inferior children who need to keep their place.
Totally agree with you. I’ve never seen Finch as the unalloyed hero that some others seem to believe he is. He fights for truth in Robinson’s case, but he is not about to take on Jim Crow.
That is, he doesn’t say that the deeply embedded prejudices of the community ought to be changed. He just says that those prejudices are not a reason to hang Tom Robinson.
I am pretty sure that the general understanding of Atticus Finch is also a product of Gregory Peck’s performance in the film. He was very charismatic and the darker implications of his acceptance of the community’s ways are not emphasized in the film. Both he and Heck Tate are part of Jim Crow, but they have some degree of humanity. Is that enough to make them “the Good Guys”? Well, you tell me.
Linda
My initial reaction to the reaction of the first chapter made me think editors earned their keep, too, but for a different reason: they know what people want to read. The American public has an easier time with an uncomplicated, shining hero than a racist who did brave, good things in the past.
I find it quite easy to believe that Atticus Finch bravely defended a helpless black man, but was unhappy and uncomfortable with seeing blacks as his equals. The change in power has that effect on people, an they may not even know it until it happens.
Cacti
I think this follow up book sounds fascinating. Every real world hero has feet of clay in some way or other, and it sounds like it could be an interesting take on how a man can rise above his own history and do the right thing.
A good real life example is SCOTUS Justice Hugo Black. A former Alabama Klansman, who authored the opinion in Chambers v. Florida (1940), reversing the death sentences of two black Florida men, that were given on the basis of coerced confessions from the Broward County Sheriff.
Also joined the unanimous majority in Brown v. Board of Education.
Betty Cracker
@Beatrice: Interesting essay — thank you for sharing it. I think there’s a lot of truth to the idea that it’s impossible to have an honest and productive discussion about race because it hurts white folks’ feelings. (I know this from personal experience as a white person.)
What’s the solution? Well, the author suggests that white people need to become better allies by using their privilege to dismantle white supremacy. True. But I’m not sure how realistic that is.
Maybe focusing on economic issues, not to the exclusion of addressing systemic racism but devoting equal or greater emphasis to economics, is a better way to make true progress. I don’t know.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So what’s so shocking about Watchman? People learn and grow and aren’t cartoon villains.
Cacti
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Real life is messy. People like fiction that is neat, tidy, and emotionally unambiguous. Good guys in the white hats, bad guys in the black hats.
WereBear
For another example, it was an editor who launched the juggernaut that began with Little House on the Prairie.
Her first attempt at writing about her childhood was unvarnished truth; drunks in the streets, children dying of disease, grinding poverty. Her editor told her that wouldn’t sell, so she rewrote it to the stuff we know today.
And the editor was right.
Elie
Wonderful discussion today. I personally applaud acknowledging and confronting our racism straightforwardly.
Also, Betty while I agree that talking to white folks about racism realistically can be tough it is also very important to understand that black people ourselves can hold racist views about black people.
The whole reality is complex. Filled with anger guilt shame and enough moral confusion to acknowledge that we all need to work at getting clean but it’s all a continual work in progress
Cervantes
Both polities — the USA and the Confederacy — have perpetrated (what you might call) evil. The (non-Confederate) American flag even flew quietly over slavery for a long time.
The parts of the American ideal (and experience) that you value may not be the parts that every “patriot” (or “jingo”) values. In this light it’s not surprising to me that some enjoy waving both flags.
Plus you have to account for the background level of sheer ignorance, which is pretty darn high (as a look around will reveal).
Cacti
@Cervantes:
Many non-Confederates were more than happy to let the south have its “Lost Cause” hagiography.
Because while they might have disagreed with slavery, they certainly didn’t think free black people were or should be equal to whites in social standing. Restrictive housing covenants were how the Yankees kept “undesirables” out of their neighborhoods.
raven
@efgoldman: me too
maya
Duality of an evolving personality in a fictional character from Alabama? Wow! How earth shaking.
How about one from real life – George Wallace.
Don’t know why this is such a BFD.
poleaxedbyboatwork
@Citizen Alan:
Don’t member zackly who said it time long gone but in paraphrase gist is:
In the North, white folks don’t mind how big black folks get just so long’s they don’t get too close. In the South, black folks can get close as a whisper so long’s they don’t get big.
Kropadope
@maya:
Speaking of which, I just had a lovely conversation with my roommate about whether businesses should be allowed to turn away customers for non-business-related reasons. Sigh
pete
@bystander:
Sounds to me — and I look forward to reading the whole thing — that it is a tribute to Lee’s skill in writing Mockingbird from the PoV of an adoring child, knowing all along (as we should have done) that the narrator was unreliable. To assume that a lawyer in a racist town could have reached middle age without being at least touched by and acquiescent in racism was always naive. Knowing that people can be both racist and committed to justice, now there’s a lesson to be learned. I think the whole thing (probably) makes Atticus a much less flimsy character. Like a relative of yours? I wouldn’t know, but that complexity is good. I can love and hate some of my relatives.
Chris
@Kropadope:
The fact that these arguments – i.e. the platform Reagan and Goldwater ran on in the sixties – are still so popular today is something that makes me shy away from “man of his time” assessments of people like Atticus.
Kropadope
@efgoldman:
I’m sure that will be excellent for their business prospects. That’s an “own goal” if I ever heard of one.
He was angry about the people who got sued for refusing to prepare a wedding cake for a gay couple. I said that businesses serve the public and are obliged to do so because they are licensed and protected by public authorities. He said any business should be able to refuse service at any time for any reason.
I listed as a counter-example the case of Chik-Fil-A, whose owner is against gay marriage. To the best of my knowledge, though, they haven’t been accused of discriminatory hiring practices or turning away customers; so when then Mayor of Boston, Tom Menino refused to license them to open a franchise in Boston, he was violating their civil rights. Roomie went quiet since then.
Cervantes
@maya:
George was an interesting case. We have indications that he did X and Y despite knowing they were wrong, because he also knew they would be popular; and when X and Y ceased being sufficiently useful to him politically, he stopped doing them. A George who behaved in this way may not have been as much “an evolving personality” as you think.
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Chris
@Cervantes:
Yeah, I have to agree with this. What we know of Wallace seems less like “evolving personality” and more “politician who blew with the wind.”
Frankensteinbeck
That had better have been a joke.
Tree With Water
I wonder if Lee’s decision to publish now is the result of calculation, or whim? Whatever the case, I admire her imagination in presenting her creation and its characters again in a separate narrative, and apparently from a vastly different point of view. It might explain why she (wisely, I think) laid low all these years, rather than share herself and her insights about race in America- which she could very well have turned into a money making cottage industry for herself had she been so inclined. Perhaps her self awareness about herself and the South humbled her from taking that path. Anyway, it’s a fantastic literary happening, and I’m going to read that book.
Bobby Thomson
It’s questionable whether Harper Lee even wrote this.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: and Rowling accidentally wrote such a complex character and doesn’t understand why he gets so much attention. She’s a great human being but not as good a writer.
Tree With Water
@Bobby Thomson: Why do you say that? She’s still alive, and able to refute any such suggestion.
Bobby Thomson
@Tree With Water:
Fixed.
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson:
Are you saying it’s questionable just on principle or is there a particular reason you have for questioning it?
karen marie
@Tree With Water: Yeah, I thought there was some controversy, back when publication was announced, whether Lee had authorized use of the manuscript, that she isn’t all there mentally because of age, but that unscrupulous people were taking advantage.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
This.
As one ages it becomes easier to look back rather than forward, after all it’s easy to see there may not be that much more but even easier to look back and see how much was and maybe what could have been. And it’s even easier to find others to blame for things which you would have liked to see go another way, even if those things are fiction. And if there is re-enforcement for that blaming, from someplace like faux news…..
Betty Cracker
@Bobby Thomson: The question that article raises is whether Lee gave consent to publish the draft, not whether she wrote it. The consent question is an interesting one, and I agree the publisher’s statements are fishy as hell.
Kathleen
@Beatrice: Excellent article. Thanks so much for sharing that.
SFAW
@Cervantes:
There’s a rumor that Mockingbird was actually written by Capote. I have no idea whether it’s true, or even makes sense (from a literary/stylistic point of view), but it’s something I heard from someone whose favorite book EVAH is Mockingbird.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Can’t we just send you to a FEMA re-education camp instead? Losing you would be such a waste.
Kropadope
@SFAW: One of the few books I actually finished in high school. I mostly passed English by paying attention to book discussions in class, but Mockingbird held my attention.
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Yes, and …?
Not sure how that relates to my response to Cervantes.
Kathleen
@Cervantes: I saw a documentary about Shirley Chisholm, the first African American female congressperson and first major party candidate to run for president in 1972. She and George Wallace became close; the link to the Salon article talks about this and provides an interesting perspective on sentiments expressed on this thread.
salon.com/2012/09/09/shirley_chisholm_the_democrats_forgotten_hero/
Kropadope
@SFAW: Not exactly favorite book EVAH, but I was just agreeing that it was a good book. Why you grumpy?
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: I’ve heard that rumor too. I don’t believe it. Not only are the styles miles apart, but it just strikes me as unbelievable that Capote would be capable of keeping such a secret.
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Why you clueless?
The longer version of the above response is: Your reply made no sense, in the context of my reply to Cervantes. Sorry if having someone question your too-abstruse-to-be-of-any-use-in-an-intelligent-conversation response upsets you to the point of you casting aspersions for no good reason.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Your comments seem to make sense. I’m not enough of a literatus (or whatever the proper word is) to comment on Capote’s style vs. Lee’s – especially since about all I’ve read of Capote was about 60 pages of In Cold Blood, when I was about 13 (lo, these 40-odd years ago). But your point about Capote being able to shut up about it seems like a clincher.
Kropadope
@SFAW: I latched on to a part of your comment that was not the overall focal point of it, but the part most relevant to me. I had nothing to say about Capote, I don’t know much about that. I was drawn to the “best book EVAH” part (the all-caps word helped with that) and that was the portion of your comment I could relate to.
I was trying to be friendly, you responded in a way I thought was rude. Sorry for trying, I guess.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
Booyah. That’s it. Who knows, maybe Capote himself started that rumor, after a few extra cocktails? Out of sheer jealousy, although he himself was blessed with talent.
Did you ever read his “Other Voices, Other Rooms”? Mesmerizing. A Southern childhood stays with you, until it’s exorcised, apparently.
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Being a poor immigrant from Noo Yawk, and apparently not having a proper command of the fucking English language, I obviously mistook the “Why you grumpy?” for something other than an attempt “to be friendly.” I guess, were you TRYING to be antagonistic, it would have been “Why the fuck are you so fucking grumpy, motherfucker?”
I will try to be more sensitive vis-a-vis your future attempts to be “friendly.”
Kropadope
@SFAW:
No, that wasn’t my attempt to be friendly, this was.
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
Non-sequiturs are often the best way to be friendly, apparently.
ETA: And when I pointed out that your “attempt to be friendly” bore no apparent relation to the comment which inspired your “attempt to be friendly,” you chose to personalize it (“Why you grumpy?”).
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
For what it’s worth, I understood both of you. Your echoing the “EVAH” while negating it might have been misinterpreted as mockery, perhaps — but the way I read it, your comment was not gainsaying anyone else’s.
@SFAW:
Had not heard that rumor. In any event Capote did not write it.
(We were neighbors occasionally at a hotel in Manhattan not far from the United Nations complex. He pretty much lived there when he was in the city and did a lot of writing there, but not Mockingbird or anything like it.)
SFAW
@Cervantes:
Well, unless you were neighbors 50-plus years ago, then, yes, I would not have expected him to have written it while you were there.
THAT BEING SAID: not disagreeing with your assessment re: whether he wrote it. Just was passing on a rumor I heard recently, seemed to be relevant to this discussion, since there had been some questions re: whether Lee actually wrote it.
Had nothing to do with it. Kropadope wrote a response which bore no apparent relation to my catalyzing comment, I could not see how it related, and said as much. I can usually play inside baseball as well as most people here, but doing so is tougher with non-sequiturs, or references to the least-important phrase in the comment.
Cervantes
@SFAW:
Glad the misunderstanding is cleared up.
That rumor of yours is interesting. Would be fun to know what (or who) started it!
Have a great evening!
Kropadope
@SFAW: I tried to explain, but if it bothered you that much, you could’ve ignored it. Whatever, I have a new rule for internet engagement now. I’ll try to adhere to it after this post.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
He was a veritable fountain of misinformation, it’s true!
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Oh, quit whining.
Instead of posting your explanation FIRST, as would have been reasonable/rational, you chose to pull the “Why you grumpy?” shit first. Had you used your SECOND (or perhaps it was the third) response first, that probably would have been the end of it, because it would have answered my “Not sure how that relates to my response to Cervantes.” comment.
Or perhaps if you had blockquoted the “EVAH” portion of my comment to Cervantes, and then noted that it was also yours, that would have resolved the issue/confusion. But, instead …
ETA: Oh, and the “bothered you that much” shot was a nice attempt at “Who, me?”, as if your own inability to construct a logical and coherent response was not at the center of all this.
Kropadope
@SFAW:
The bolded part is a shorter version of the same explanation. But you got it, next time I need to explain something to you, I’ll go straight to walking you through it like I would a two-year-old.
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Good one! Why, that may be the single best put-down ever-Ever-EVER on The Intertoobz. Or maybe it’s just projection.
Look, moron, you started with the “why you grumpy?” bullshit, personalizing it when there was no need. All I said was “Not sure how that relates to my response to Cervantes” — no ad hominem. But your delicate fee-fees were hurt because I had the temerity to point out that your initial comment did not relate to the point (such as it was) that I was trying to make to Cervantes.
You want to be treated like an adult and a rational commenter? Then learn to respond in a clear fashion the first fucking time, and not get your panties in a bunch because someone tells you if you’re not doing so.
rea
The Atticus Finch of Watchman is a rough draft of the character of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird–and a rough draft the author ultimately rejected.
Kropadope
@SFAW: Yeah, because you were so polite.
Despite the fact that I was reading it, I could practically hear the disdain. If what I was saying wasn’t worth your time, why bother responding at all? I’m not the first person to write something that wasn’t totally clear to the person reading it; but if you took half a moment to even try to understand, you would’ve recognized that I was referring to the portion of your comment about the book being awesome.
You didn’t, though, and you responded with a dry, sarcastic response that was way more pointless and ignorant as to the purpose of the post you responding to than what I wrote. That I asked why you were grumpy was me trying to gloss over the fact that you’re a rude asshole.
SFAW
@Kropadope:
Glad you could read my mind, except there was no disdain.
People say “yes, and .. ” all the time when they feel a previous statement was incomplete or not (apparently) on topic.
I’m an asshole, sure, but I wasn’t in my initial response to you. But you really need to grow up a little.
And although your second paragraph certainly uses all the words in their correct manner, your whiny, self-serving attempt at putting me in my place (or whatever the fuck it was that you thought you were doing) was just another example of your inability to handle anything other than “Yes, Kropadope, dear, everything will be all right, and you’re a good boy/girl!”
Now sod off.
lou
@SFAW: This allegation really riles me, it’s so exquisite in its sexism. Do people know that Truman Capote consulted with Harper Lee on some of his best work and she edited it and made a lot of suggestions?
sharl
Betty, this is an excelling post, as was much of the commentary in the early going. Thanks!
Cervantes
@Kathleen:
Thank you.
What does that article suggest to you about Wallace?
And yes, Shirley was an amazing person. When looking at her eventual connection with Wallace, it may be useful to remember that some of her earliest opponents were African-American men. As she once put it:
Tehanu
@Elmo:
Exactly. I think it’s always a mistake to take another human being as superhumanly good or bad all through. Even the best of us has darkness inside somewhere. Honoring and respecting someone doesn’t mean believing that he or she is perfect.
Betty: I always enjoy your writing but this is something special. Thank you.
Gavin
Betty:
“How could Thomas Jefferson write about equality with such soaring eloquence while holding human beings in bondage and raping young women who were captive in his home?”
Because he’s a sociopath. He thinks it’s appropriate for him to do one thing and tell everyone else to do something else — because in his mind, the fact that he is getting away with it makes it OK.
The sad part about recognizing this is.. his real-life definition of “good” and “bad” is based purely on power [If it was wrong/bad, someone else would stop me] rather than the morality he eloquently spoke of.
Cervantes
@Gavin:
Radical truths.
Plus what made it really OK for him and others is that it was necessary. The culture and the economy were based on it. It was foundational, the way “capitalism” is in our day.
Full metal Wingnut
@Bobby Thomson: I’ve always found the suggestion that Truman Capote wrote Mockingbird…troubling. There’s an undercurrent of sexism in that theory.
Mayken
Actually, TKMB is not narrated by a child. It is clearly narrated by an adult Jean Louise looking back on the events in question.
The controversy surrounding whether or not Ms. Lee really is able to meaningfully consent to the publication was more than enough to have me less than enthusiastic about the novel. Destroying the character of Atticus was for me just the cap on my choice not to bother.
Mayken
@rea: this! I really don’t buy her conveniently changing her mind just after control of things passed from her sister to this new lawyer.