Saturday, 11 July 2015

Go Set A Watchman: Go Set My Excitement to 5,000,000 Then

As you may have noticed since you're probably a fairly literate person (you're reading a book blog, hello!), Harper Lee's sequel-that-was-actually-written-before To Kill A Mockingbird is due to be released next week. My feelings about this have swung grandly from OH MY GOD to ohhhh crap old lady exploitation, but since it was first announced, I really haven't thought about it too much. I can't really pick a favourite book because OH GOD THE STRESS, but if absolutely forced to, I'd probably pick To Kill A Mockingbird, so both my expectations, and my readiness to be disappointed are kind of high for this book.

Yesterday, The Guardian published the first chapter of Go Set A Watchman, and GO AND READ IT NOW because we are going to discuss this thing. Intently. You good? Good. SO. (And, this should really go without saying but SPOILERS APPROACHING) my initial reaction to anything in this chapter was OMG WTF JEM IS DEAAAAAAAAD! I honestly and truly, upon reading that sentence, felt like someone had killed one of my really good friends. It's almost unbearable to think that, as Lee was writing To Kill A Mockingbird, and making Jem awesome, that she knew he was going to die young. That he had already, in fact, died young. Atticus is old and frail, Scout is a grown up and kisses boys... It's a lot to take in!

Above all else, I think what this one chapter has made me realise is that everything from To Kill A Mockingbird- the characters, the setting, the general fricking amazingness- has been internalised into my entire being so that the death of a fictional character (a death that happened before his childhood was even written) could actually come as a great shock. I settled into chapter one of Go Set A Watchman so easily because these are my people, and I love them, and regardless of what might happen to them, I just want to know what that might be. They've travelled so far beyond the page in my mind that they've become almost like real people, and as long as they act consistently and comprehensibly, I want to see how that unfolds.

Immediately after reading chapter one, I preordered the book. My ambivalence and unease about reading it has been replaced with the desire to JUST KNOW what happens to these people (characters... Whatever...), and I'm really excited to neglect my dissertation once again to read it. Just this morning, I've kind of swung back the other way since I read this fuller idea of the plot (Atticus, whyyyyy?) but I reserve the right to filter out of my mind any undesirable things that might happen. There is a reason, after all, that this is not the version of these characters we were really meant to see, and whilst I'm excited to read it, I will do so with a protective layer of bubble wrap around my mental concept of these characters and their 'real' story.

To summarise: my excitement is now high, and my potential for heartbreak is through the roof. And yet, this is why we read, amiright? I know I'm right.
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23 comments:

  1. Unknown11 July 2015 at 12:56

    Excellent article in last weeks Sunday Telegraph about book and furore surrounding its' publication.

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    1. Laura11 July 2015 at 22:15

      Well thanks for sharing it with me then!

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  2. Hanna @ Booking in Heels11 July 2015 at 15:09

    Oh God, I hadn't realised it was due out so soon.

    Do I want to read this? DO I!? I'm absolutely terrified of spoiling To Kill A Mockingbird because I love it so very, very much. What if this doesn't match up and it taints TKAM forever?

    On the other hand, it's written by Harper Lee, not some random stranger of the street, so it MIGHT be amazing!?

    I am so genuinely stressed out about this.

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    1. Laura11 July 2015 at 22:17

      I mean... You read TKAM quite recently, didn't you? Cause that baby's been in my brain for 10+ years, so if I read this and it's not great I can just brush it off and pretend it didn't happen because I *know* these guys and they'd never hurt me THE WAY I THINK ATTICUS IS GOING TO. It's very difficult though, I get your feels. I'm happy to be your guru on the subject!

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    2. Up Down Left Right12 July 2015 at 10:32

      Yes and no. I read it when I was 18, 21 and then also last year, so I read it recently, but not for the first time. It was Ellie, I think, that has only just read it.

      I'm just not sure I'd be able to brush it off. I feel like I'm happy to leave Scout and Jem as children, and Atticus as a bad-ass.... but then what if the book is AMAZING!?

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    3. Ellie12 July 2015 at 14:21

      I've decided to try to see it as a completely separate novel since it seems to have a lot of parallels to TKAM but also a lot of differences even with the same characters. I mean, it's written about an older Scout and Atticus, but Harper Lee never went back and pulled the two stories together to make GSAW a sequel in its proper 'this follows the same characters in the same universe later in life' sense.

      Then if it looks like it's still going to damage my inner love of TKAM I'm just going to pretend it's one of those modern fanfictiony sequel knock-offs that writers like to produce sometimes for beloved classic books, and just never go near it again. At least I'll have satisfied my curiosity, right?

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    4. Hanna @ Booking in Heels13 July 2015 at 22:53

      Up Down Left Right is me, btw. I was working on Lewis' website and forgot to swith over.

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    5. Ellie14 July 2015 at 19:02

      I KNEW THAT BECAUSE YOU MENTIONED MEEEEE. :P

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  3. Anonymous11 July 2015 at 17:20

    I'm still unsure about the whole Go Set a Watchman thing. I've read the first chapter. It hasn't settled my mind either way

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    1. Laura11 July 2015 at 22:17

      Yessssssss it's a tricky issue! I'm pretty excited to read it, but I'm also scared... Don't let me down, guys!

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  4. Unknown11 July 2015 at 17:34

    Yeah having just read that plot outline, no I never want to read this. I just cant cope with having the ultimate hero ruined. Cant,wont,whatever. Why would she doooooo this???

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    1. Laura11 July 2015 at 22:20

      I mean... Technically she did this first. So like, what you mean is, THANK YOU for giving us an Atticus we could believe in and love, Harper! If you believe that she was essentially forced into agreeing to have this published, thennnnn it's very possible that she has been trying to shield us from the bad Atticus for a longing time! Bless her.

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    2. Ellie12 July 2015 at 14:23

      I was kind of like that but I ALSO know that eventually curiosity would get the better of me and I decided I'd rather read it NOW than get completely and utterly spoilered beforehand. The stuff that's already going viral is spoilery enough without everyone else having read it already too!

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    3. Hanna @ Booking in Heels13 July 2015 at 22:53

      That's half how I feel as well. I don't want the characters to be ruined. What if I think of this every time I read TKAM?

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  5. Unknown11 July 2015 at 17:35

    Also its bex. My phone won't let me stop being the Ninja Swap :-/

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    1. Laura11 July 2015 at 22:21

      Hahaha, duh! You will be a ninja foreverrrrrrrr!

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  6. Ellie12 July 2015 at 14:16

    I'm sad that Jem is dead and that Atticus is a douche in this one - but I think I'm just going to read it as a novel with different characters that just happen to have the same names. It sounds like it's less of a sequel and more of an alternate story, so I'm going to read it that way and keep 'I Want To Marry This Man' Atticus completely separate from 'What a Fucking Bigot' Atticus. :(

    In other news, according to the email I got yesterday my copy of GSAW might actually arrive tomorrow. Amazon Prime being all "EMBARGO SHMEMBARGO HERE YOU GO EVERYONE". I can't wait to get stuck in. :D

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    1. Ellie12 July 2015 at 14:25

      P.S. Don't you feel sorry for all the parents of little Atticuses who have had to look up from their computers this week, stare sadly at their little boys and say, "Oh fuck no she didn't..." :(

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    2. Unknown13 July 2015 at 22:51

      I'm now thinking I might try to read it like that instead. Basically because I've just realised there's no way I can not read this, I don't know who I thought I was kidding. Although there is no way of me actually reading it til next year anyway because there will be a million holds on it at the library and I obv cant buy it til January. I guess that solves the problem then :-p

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    3. Ellie14 July 2015 at 19:05

      Exaaaactly. Also, the racism part comes in over 100 pages through, by which time you've already settled into a whole new novel enough that it doesn't necessarily feel like the Atticus in this is THE SAME Atticus, if that makes sense? It's like reading really, really awesome fanfiction in that sense. It feels like Harper Lee but it also feels different to TKAM which means that so far (I'm two thirds of the way through) it hasn't changed my feelings about TKAM at all. It's actually been fun seeing how the two tie together and where the changes and big shifts were made. :)

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  7. Katie Edwards13 July 2015 at 14:17

    I'm feeling very uneasy about this one. Any assurance that Miss Lee approved the publication has come third-hand, and I don't know what to believe. I will be reading it, though, because whatever her wishes, it will be published, and everyone will be talking about it. Even if I decided not to read it, I wouldn't be able to avoid it, so I'd rather examine the evidence myself. I'm kind of annoyed with myself for even skimming the reviews beforehand (I've avoided the extract; I'd rather read it for the first time in the book itself) but it's prepared me to be cautious. I'll be engaging my literature-brain and putting a bit of distance between me and the novel, so I can decide whether to accept it as canon or view it as a first draft which evolved into To Kill a Mockingbird and the characters we love.

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    1. Ellie14 July 2015 at 19:09

      This sounds sensible... and given the fact that the novel HAS been published, and the authorities seem to have determined that Miss Lee has enough mental faculties to have okayed it, I decided it would be daft not to read it really. It's out there, there's no putting that cat back in the bag now, so bring it on! We're so far removed from the publishing decision and knowing the details that I personally felt like it would be more disrespectful to assume she'd lost her mental capabilities and NOT to read it now she's taken the step of releasing it to the world. I don't feel 100% easy about it, but I feel better than I did a few months ago! :)

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  8. Red21 July 2015 at 02:05

    I am torn on reading this but also yes, I will be reading this. OBVIOUSLY. Even if I want to keep the Atticus of TKAM the only one I know

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