This will be an unusual post for me, since this blog is usually about teaching, learning, #edtech and curriculum, but I felt compelled to write about Harper Lee's "new" book Go Set a Watchman. Here's the disclaimer....I haven't actually read the book. I tried to. I pre-oredered it from Amazon months ago. I started reading it the day it arrived in my mailbox. Then, I stopped, barely past the first dozen pages. I just couldn't bring myself to tarnish my love and memory of To Kill a Mockingbird with these words. I also realized that the message of TKAM, that of justice, of commitment to what's right and for standing up for one's beliefs - the importance of the now famous quote "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." (Lee). These are the lessons from Harper Lee's seminal work. And those are exactly the lessons that the new book threatens to destroy. By transforming Atticus Finch into a segregationist, America loses the hero of equality and justice that we still need the most. The issues of racism and segregation are all too apparent in the United States of 2015 - we need heroes like the Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird to show us the way, we don't need yet another reason to lose faith in humanity.
As a former English teacher I can see the merit of showing the evolution of Lee's writing to students - the purposeful choices that an author makes during the writing process (credit to Sandy Beguin for a brief but meaningful conversation about this). The fact that Go Set a Watchman was actually written BEFORE To Kill a Mockingbird speaks volumes as to the powerful decision to publish only the latter at the time. However, I completely agree with EW's review here that states that money is the driving factor here - more like exploitation. I can not and will not allow my own memories of To Kill a Mockingbird and the transformative power that it held for myself and my former students to be ruined by this new work, and the sad thing is, I don't think it was ever meant to see the light of day. What do you think of the new book? Have you read it? Will you?
