Just Finished Reading - To Kill a Mockingbird

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Although I was told that this book centred on the trial of a wrongly accused black guy, it wasn't all preachy as I was expecting. It managed to be about kids growing up and not understanding what a shitty place the world could sometimes be, and did it with a grace and presence that, despite being enormously subtle, managed to stay with you for a while. By the time the book finishes, I felt that the book was about a lot more than just social injustice.

It helps that all the characters are stereotypes, but in the best possible way. The upstanding lawyer, the smelly recluse, the jolly negr0 cook, those pesky kids . . . but you never feel the burden of the stereotype; you're amazed that a stereotype can exist in such a detailed way. Atticus mentions about "getting inside other people's shoes and walking around in them", and you really end up doing that, really by the end of the first chapter.

Highlights include - the trial itself (I was up far too late one night reading this) as the tension racks up. Was the evidence too one sided to make the outcome believable? Maybe, but perhaps that's the point. Actually, any of the scenes with Atticus in (shouting the dog, the trial, holding off the mob at the prison) are fantastically written.

This is a goodie. For those who haven't yet, sort it out and read the bloody thing.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Thursday, 12 February 2004 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Good film of it too. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. She never wrote another novel, did she? The only other thing I have of hers is a Christmas story set in New York.

― MikeyG (MikeyG), Thursday, 12 February 2004 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

It's the only book I read at school that I voluntarily read again later. Haven't looked at it in a long time but I used to love it, being a grumpy old fart now I've a feeling I might find it a little too cute.

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

It should read fine to you, Lee. There's an underlying sadness to it that avoids cloying cuteness: Atticus being a widower, Tom Robinson's trial and post-trial fate, Ewell's cowardly attack, Dill's sad life, etc. The only cuteness that comes to mind is the scene with Scout and the mob, where she confronts her father's poor client.

Man, that movie gets to me, particularly the scene with Robert Duvall as Boo. Doesn't the book say that's the only time they get to meet him?

― Chris Hill (Chris Hill), Thursday, 12 February 2004 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

The scene in the movie that gets me is after the trial and Atticus is leaving the empty courtroom and all the black people on the balcony stand up out of respect for him. That "stand up Scout, your father's passing" brings a tear to my eye every time. I'm not such a grumpy old fart really.

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Thursday, 12 February 2004 16:51 (twenty-two years ago)

The courtroom scene in "Pleasantville" is an homage to that scene. Definitely moving ("TKaM", that is).

― Chris Hill (Chris Hill), Thursday, 12 February 2004 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I only read this book a few years ago and it's not cloying or cutesy at all, Lee, so don't worry about it.

Am I the only one who thought that Donna Tartt was trying to inject a little bit of the po southern childhood magic from this book into her amazingly tedious The Little Friend?

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Monday, 16 February 2004 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

she never did write/release another book ... some interesting details about her life here - http://mockingbird.chebucto.org/bio.html

I have read the book many times and am always sadly amused by Dill being the young Truman Capote.

I find the film to be one of the very few books to film that is worthy of the book.

― K A Howlett, Tuesday, 17 February 2004 05:58 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

How did I never read this? I have no idea where I got the impression that it was a tortured, stuffy classic, maybe I expected more Of Mice and Men and less The Watsons Go to Birmingham, although it was better, even, than THAT. What a joy. I think I've just found another book to re-read for years and years and isn't it funny that I know that already?

― Laurel (Laurel), Sunday, 4 December 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

I read this in bed with a summer fling, many years ago. It is a lovely book and a creditable film.

WI seem to have lost my copy.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Monday, 5 December 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

I mean 'I seem to have lost my copy'. The Womens Institute are blameless.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 09:03 (twenty years ago)

'Creditable' film? I think it's remarkably beautiful -- enough that it's on my Top Films of All Time list.

― remy (x Jeremy), Tuesday, 6 December 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)

I love this book. Beyond english class, it's classic and it makes you feel lovely to read it. I guess my handle is silly posting on this thread, eh?

― scout (scout), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

Wake up it's a beautiful morning, sang the Atticus Finches.

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

it's a fine book, too much hyped though. I hate the fact that a judje sentenced a convict to read it. I mean that makes the book less attractive. It's a fine book but nothing more. Havent seen the movie yet.

― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 16:46 (twenty years ago)

"[T]too much hyped"?? I don't think anyone ever told me about TKAM in a way that made me even SUSPECT I would like it. I mean, clearly I had never asked any of YOU who love it and would have been more appreciative but even in fairly bookish circles I've made it to almost-thirty without even reading the cover copy. So I dunno about "hyped".

Then again, I sort of appreciate the media blackout because I didn't have any expectations from the reading.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

In India it's hyped.

― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

In India everything's hyped. Look at all the gods they have, for starters.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Wednesday, 7 December 2005 22:47 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

happy 50th birthday "To Kill A mockingird". For shame, I've never read this!

― jed_, Tuesday, 6 July 2010 20:12 (fifteen years ago)

I just saw the movie the other week! Not as affecting as the book, I feel it's missing a certain untwee-but-still-quaint quality of Scout's voice, but "Stand up, Scout; your father's passing" still killed me.

― the soul of the avocado escapes as soon as you open it (Laurel), Tuesday, 6 July 2010 20:20 (fifteen years ago)

aw I thought the little girl was amazing in the movie, tbh. she nailed it.

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 6 July 2010 21:28 (fifteen years ago)

I read this for school a couple of years ago, and it actually became one of my favourite books. Only time my school actually made a good choice on assessable English novels...

The language in it is gorgeous, and the messages it conveys are timeless. I don't think it matters what age you are when you read it, there's something to be gained from it.

― nicepockets, Wednesday, 14 July 2010 04:40 (fifteen years ago)

four years pass...

Harper Lee to publish second novel New
To Kill A Mockingbird author Harper Lee to publish a second novel later this year, her publishers say.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 3 February 2015 15:55 (eleven years ago)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31118355

At time of posting, no further news. But it will be added on this link, I guess.

― Mark G, Tuesday, 3 February 2015 15:56 (eleven years ago)

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