A Review of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Scout’s Honour
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the original publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, and I can tell you that an anniversary edition of the book is on its way from looking at available book titles in NetGalley. It’s too late to review that particular edition — I can’t download from NetGalley in this pandemic for one thing (long story) and I already bought the book for my Kindle before finding this piece of news out. However, it is with some sadness and trepidation that I must say that this book is still as relevant as it was during the Civil Rights era in which it was originally published. We still have racial prejudice, perhaps not on the same scale as it was during the Great Depression in the American South, which is when and where this novel is set. But I also have to be happy that this is a book still worth reading, for it is a bona fide classic — a novel so pitch-perfect that a second reading might do it even more justice.
To be honest, even though this is my first time reading To Kill a Mockingbird, I’m a little hesitant about giving it a review. Wildly popular and taught in high schools, there doesn’t seem to be much to say about this book in the year 2020. You either know the story, or, if you’re like me, have lived in blind ignorance to the book’s existence. All I had known before my recent read of this title was that a courtroom drama was central to the book, and it involved a black man, it possibly involved murder, and a character was named Boo Radley — and this I knew because in the ’90s there was a band called The Boo Radleys that was part of the Britpop scene. I feel so embarrassed that I didn’t know anything else about the book. I suppose that if I did have any trepidation to reading To Kill a Mockingbird, it might have been because this novel was, at the time I was growing up, taught in the General level stream of learning in high schools — while I was in the Advanced stream. Thus, I kind of thought the book might be beneath me.
However, I have to admit that while there’s not too much to chew on outside of the themes of racism and prejudice, this is one well-crafted book. I can understand why its author, the late Harper Lee, never wrote a follow-up in her lifetime — writing this novel might have taken a piece of her soul from her, it’s that good. (Let’s just forget about Go Set a Watchman for a few moments, shall we? It’s a book that is just a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird and had no business of ever seeing the light of day while the author supposedly had her senses about her.) The sentences in this book hum with vibrancy and Lee understood what it was like to be a child — the novel’s protagonist, Scout, never feels older than the age she is, though, by the book’s close, she has come of age to some degree.
To the ignorant, such as me — and I’m assuming you don’t know very much about the book itself proper if you’re reading this — To Kill a Mockingbird is a genuine page-turner. There might be some who quibble that the book could be pared down somewhat — the Boo Radley angle at the front of the story does drone on for quite a bit — but for all of its serious themes, this is a fun book. However, it’s also a serious read; it won the Pulitzer Prize for a reason, after all. The word “timeless” probably gets bandied about a little too often, but you can apply the adjective to this masterpiece (also bandied about far too often) for this is just about as perfect of a book that could be written.
In reviewing classic works of fiction (that may have no business being reviewed because they’ve already been etched in the firmament), you have to ask yourself the question, would this book have any business being published today? As noted above, in an age when justice is denied black people by racist police officers of North America, sadly, yes. At the same time, I have some trepidation about the book because it is a work that seems to suggest that only white people can be the source of solving African American problems. That said, I don’t think To Kill a Mockingbird goes out of its way to suggest this too whole-heartedly, given the period of which the book is set. (Things were a lot different back then.) Still, the feeling lingers a bit and I’d be curious to read a book from the other vantage point if one were to exist.
That all said, To Kill a Mockingbird is a killer coming-of-age story with an unforgettable protagonist in Scout, who is enough of a tomboy to be amusing but enough of a lady to (somewhat) grounded. Lee seemed to understand something about the psychology of children, as Scout does progress as a character as the novel takes its years to unspool. The real delight, though, is watching Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, go about his business. He is another reason why you might want to pretend that Go Set a Watchman doesn’t exist. (Now, I haven’t read that book, but I understand that Atticus turns into a bit of a racist in this would-be sequel.) In the end, I was glad I put aside my prejudices of the novel as being “too simple” or beneath my station. There’s a message in this book that is golden, but, at the end of the day, it is simply a knock-out read. That’s all the recommendation one needs. If you haven’t read this already, go out of your way to find a copy. And if you have read it, read it again. I have a feeling that I’ll be revisiting this one at some future point when I’ve let the outcome marinade over me.
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was originally published in 1960.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
