July 16, 2015

"So the idea that Atticus, in this book, 'becomes' the bigot he was not in 'Mockingbird' entirely misses Harper Lee’s point—that this is exactly the kind of bigot that Atticus has been all along."

"The particular kind of racial rhetoric that Atticus embraces (and that he and Jean Louise are careful to distinguish from low-rent, white-trash bigotry) is a complex and, in its own estimation, 'liberal' ideology: there is no contradiction between Atticus defending an innocent black man accused of rape in 'Mockingbird' and Atticus mistrusting civil rights twenty years later. Both are part of a paternal effort to help a minority that, in this view, cannot yet entirely help itself. Atticus is simply being faithful to one set of high ideals in the South of his time. 'Jean Louise,' Atticus says in the midst of their argument, 'have you ever considered that you can’t have a set of backward people living among people advanced in one kind of civilization and have a social Arcadia?'"

Writes Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker.

48 comments:

Anonymous said...

Atticus is simply being faithful to one set of high ideals in the South of his time.


I have not and will not be reading the new book, but IMHO, I may have more respect for Mr Finch, Esq. than I did for him in the original book.

Isn't that faithfulness to a Professional Code of Ethics that most all the professions hold out as honorable?

After all, one can argue that Atticus sees his duty to his profession and to his black client as being more important than his personal feelings.

After all, Who do we have more respect for, the Doctor that treats a wounded rapist in the ER, or the one that lets him bleed out on the table.

Regardless of ones personal feelings, "Duty is heavy as a mountain but Death is lighter than a feather"

Michael K said...

"have you ever considered that you can’t have a set of backward people living among people advanced "

The contempt for blacks is staggering but I wonder how many recognize it ? Those that do are known as "conservatives."

great Unknown said...

So Atticus is a prototypical Progressive.

Known Unknown said...

I'm beginning to think this is dumbest book ever written, or re-written.

tim in vermont said...

I am going to be old fashioned about this and finish both books before commenting further. The culture uses up art so fast, its amazing. She writes two novels, maybe three, and they get summarized by others with an agenda, then we all talk about what others tell us her books are about. It's sort of amazing really, what we have become.

Maybe one day novels will be written on 3X5 cards and we will all discuss them ad nauseum.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

How can you ascribe any point to Harper Lee's different presentation of Atticus when, after Mockingbird was published, she never went back and tried to publish Watchman?

tim in vermont said...

We could call these new 3X5 novels "blog posts."

Ignorance is Bliss said...

In other words, do we have any reason to believe that Harper Lee regarded the presentation of Atticus in Mockingbird and the presentation of Atticus in Watchman as a single, unified character?

Matt Sablan said...

Ignorance: If anything, given that Harper Lee was very positive about the portrayal of Atticus in the movie [in which there's no hint of racial animosity and he is exactly the paragon we think of him), it seems clear to me Lee thought of the two Atticusses (Attici?) as different. Haven't read GSAW yet, so I can't say much more than a guess.

Eleanor said...

My dad, born in the south in 1919, but transported to live in the north in 1945, was a loving and kind man. He was a model citizen when it came to how he treated black people who came into his life. There weren't that many. But I would call his attitude toward black people "patronizing". That they needed help from the government to do things white people do for themselves. When he hired the first black person to work for him, he offered him an alarm clock to help him get to work on time. The guy took it. I don't know if he was offended or not. The third time he was late in his first month, Dad fired him, which, fairly or not, validated my dad's prejudices. So while I haven't had the opportunity to read the book yet, I can see Atticus Finch in that light. A kind, loving, 50s Democrat.

David Begley said...

Weird review. Nearly unreadable.

The author kinda/ sorta suggests that the book is fake in the sense that someone else wrote it or it was largely rewritten by someone else.

What? The New York liberal media elite are liars? Say it ain't so.

Cornroaster said...

Where are the calls to have the novel removed from high school reading lists and public libraries because Atticus was a racist?

rhhardin said...

Maybe civilizing influences are better than uncivilizing influences on a backward people.

Bring it up with race agitators.

Robert Cook said...

"So Atticus is a prototypical Progressive."

No, he is a prototypical cultured white southerner of his era.

"The contempt for blacks is staggering but I wonder how many recognize it ? Those that do are known as 'conservatives.'"

I'm not sure I know what this means, but if it intends to say what "great Unknown" said, that the real bigots are the progressives and liberals and the real champions of racial equality are the conservatives, it is equally self-serving baloney.

This is not to assert that "progressives/liberals" have never been, are never, can never be bigoted; to the contrary. (This is also not to assert that all "conservatives" are racial bigots.) All humans that live in the world are subject to believing the cultural biases of their time and place, and we all tend to be wary or fearful of strangers or those who are different from us, as they, being unknown to us, may be dangerous to us. We are animals after all--violent animals--and this is simply adaptive behavior shaped by our drive for self-preservation. We all learn to be biased, and we call can and should learn to recognize our biases and look past them to appraise reality as it is.

pdug said...

"have you ever considered that you can’t have a set of backward people living among people advanced in one kind of civilization and have a social Arcadia?"

People always sputter and shake their heads at that question, but nobody takes it head on. Does Scout do that in the book?

Tank said...

That article was more interesting than I anticipated. My problem or quibble with it is referring to Atticus as a "bigot." He is, rather, a person with the more or less normal outlook of other people living in his time. It is one of the odd things about the way so many people analyze things, that people living 100 or 200 or 300 years ago be judged by standards we use today. People live in their own times. A person who grows up in a house where there are slaves is likely to accept that as the normal way things are. It doesn't make slavery right, but it doesn't make that person a bad person either. We all know that people still live their lives the way Atticus talks, they just don't talk about it. I live in white suburbia. Half the people here moved here for "the good schools." It's not that different. Virtually all of the politicians in DC send their kids to private school. It's not that different.

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

Shorter version of real race relations is that there are good black skin men and there are bad black skin men and there are good white skin men and there are bad white skin men.

The politicians figure we are too lazy to get to know others except by skin color stereotypes. The stereotype voiced byMr Finch was wrong then and it is wrong now.

What Lee is saying is that the segregation was a self fulfilling prophecy by lazy White leaders that needed a scapegoat for their losing the war.

Anonymous said...

Tank said...
That article was more interesting than I anticipated. My problem or quibble with it is referring to Atticus as a "bigot." He is, rather, a person with the more or less normal outlook of other people living in his time. It is one of the odd things about the way so many people analyze things, that people living 100 or 200 or 300 years ago be judged by standards we use today. People live in their own times.


Hell, The entire Democrat Party including Obama would call the Obama 2008-2012 a bigot or worse on SSM. Same with Hillary 2008 on gays, and the Stars and Bars.

Anonymous said...

There is a saying on race that goes something like:

"Southerners dislike blacks in general, but love the ones they know."

"Northerners like blacks in general, but hate the ones they know"

gerry said...

"Both are part of a paternal effort to help a minority that, in this view, cannot yet entirely help itself."

This explains the bigoted threshold of low expectations that permeates Progressivism.

Robert Cook said...

"There is a saying on race that goes something like:

'Southerners dislike blacks in general, but love the ones they know.

"Northerners like blacks in general, but hate the ones they know.'"


The first part of this couplet is believable, and may, at times, be true, as we do tend to see the people we know as individuals and not as representatives of a category. The second part is nonsensical, (for the same reason the first part is believable.)

Carol said...

All humans that live in the world are subject to believing the cultural biases of their time and place,

But that's moral relativism, which liberals accept in every other context but this.

Anonymous said...

The first part of this couplet is believable, and may, at times, be true, as we do tend to see the people we know as individuals and not as representatives of a category. The second part is nonsensical, (for the same reason the first part is believable.)

How about hate many they come in contact with in reality, rather than warm fuzzy feel good theory?. Hence NIMBY, Muggers, etc

SeanF said...

Oh, all this proves is that Atticus is an unrepentant sexist. Despite his racism, when it came time to choose between a black man and a white woman, he chose the black man!

Known Unknown said...

I'd change the second half of the couplet to be:

"Northerners like blacks in general, but don't know any personally."

The North, in general, is more segregated than the South.

Clayton Hennesey said...

How are the various racial/ethnic cohorts currently performing with respect to one another in today's social Arcadia?

William said...

I read Mockingbird decades ago. I remember that it was a good book, but I never had any wish to reread it. The movie was more memorable. Lots of people apparently bonded with the book and can't wait to read this new-old book. Whatever the literary merits of the work, the book will be a commercial success.....I wonder which has changed more radically: our opinions of white, southern gentlemen or black, southern field workers. Maybe Harper Lee by portraying Atticus as a bit of a racist in her earlier book is now more attuned to the current gestalt.......... Some books have values beyond the values their authors wish to propagate. Gone With The Wind was a huge best seller in both Germany and Japan after WWII. These foreign readers learned that if you were conquered by the Yankees and your whole civilization was radically transformed, then life went on and it was possible to adjust. If GWTW had been a big best seller in Iraq, it would have been a helpful sign.

Hagar said...

This is an even more than normally silly reaction among the gentry.

It has now come to this, that they apparently think "using the n-word" is even worse than a lynching.

virgil xenophon said...

There is also the old adage:

"Northerners don't mind how high blacks get as long as they don't get too close."

"Southerners don't mind how close blcaks get as long as they don't get too high."

Titus said...

Do you think Harper Lee ever wanted this book published?

Of course not.

She is in poor health and I think releasing this book is kind of sad.

Matt Sablan said...

The fact I'm not sure if Harper Lee wanted this book released is one reason I haven't bought it yet. I'm kind of torn on the ethics of that. Why not wait for the next few years for her to be have died and then publish it? Why publish it now?

I'll still buy it, but I'm always going to wonder "Is this really what the author wanted?"

Michael McNeil said...

Aristotle outright declared that some men are “natural slaves,” and went on to say things like: “Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave.”

Can't you just hear the southern racist “gentleman” drawling that blacks were better off as slaves (and are still better off), so it was “just” to enslave them, and ship them to America?

Surely the time has arrived to remove Aristotle — as an unrepentant racist and slaver-supporter — altogether from the bookshelves. Books that discuss his ideas should also be combed through and be cleansed of them.

Michael McNeil said...

Oh, and /sarc.

Anonymous said...

Michael McNeil said...

I'm not condoning slavery at all, but I remember a line for one of the Clancy novels, (Executive Orders IIRC) where a Black US Army Colonel is griping about being the Military Attache in some East Africa Country. Somalia, Sudan or some such. The line went like:

"This place is a $hit hole. Don't tell anybody, but I'm glad my ancestors went South. South Alabama is heaven compared to this dump."

Are there many of the poorest blacks in this country that don't have more than any Africans except the ruling class?

Sammy Finkelman said...

SEE ALSO:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/opinion/atticus-finch-offers-a-lesson-in-southern-politics.html

In “Watchman,” Ms. Lee shows a deft understanding of political realities that go unmentioned in “Mockingbird.” In that novel, Atticus defends Tom Robinson because it is the decent thing to do. It is only in “Watchman” that we learn of an ulterior motive, one shared by politically astute segregationists throughout the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s: If white Southern officials didn’t pursue local justice in crimes involving African-Americans, then the federal government or the N.A.A.C.P. would.

The book is more true to life than Mockingbird maybe, but it indeed needed to be rewritten to align the history of events, as "Ignorance is Bliss" said in another thread.

The character of Atticus may not be all that different, because he was based on a real person: Nelle Harper Lee's father, who was a lawyer.

They probably thought the book would be more valuable, if no changes were made, and probably also, they felt thenselves incompetent to doso, and then maybe also would have felt vulnerable to criticism for retaining certain words.

It should have bene re-written, but by someone who really was familiar, and liked, Mockingbord, and familiar with the south of taht time, and with agoodf understanding of other peopel's intents, and careful.

Robert Silverberg expanded 3 short stories of Isaac Asimov into novels, and he did it very very well, and someone could have been found. For that matter, Robert Silverberg, who, while maybe not the person for this himself, but who would have understood what was required, could have been asked to find such a person.

Then it would have been a real sequel. And Shakespearean in its truth.

But the people in charge were just too mediocre to do anything like that.

Anonymous said...

I'm not at all interested in the book, but have been amused by all the NPR cat-lady presentist angst about it. So Gopnik's article caught my interest as a more measured response, albeit one that manifests a (higher-grade) version of that presentism, in his digression on the Southern Agrarians. He is sure that the they were entirely deluded about their own society, but that his own views of that time and that place, the views of a late-20th-early 21st century New York/northeast intellectual, are entirely correct - the history is settled. He does note in passing that these delusional views "were not regarded as ridiculous by intellectuals at the time", an acknowledgment that ought to make any thoughtful person less than perfectly confident of his own understanding of the past (or the present).

The problem is not people who think wrong thoughts, since we all think what will, retrospectively, turn out to be wrong thoughts about something or other. The problem is people who give their implicit endorsement to violence or intolerance in the pursuit of wrong thoughts.

What an odd statement. Just about any "wrong thought" in hindsight can be construed as an implicit endorsement of violence or intolerance, if those thoughts had any connection to violent or intolerant behavior. (Indeed, nowadays one doesn't even need hindsight, as calls for the prosecution of "hate speech" attest.) Is one supposed always to be able to predict this, so that one's wrong thoughts are not the wrong kind of wrong thoughts? Or is the wrong kind of wrong thinker supposed to be conscious that his wrong thoughts are an implicit endorsement of violence or intolerance, in which case he must be aware that his wrong thoughts are in fact wrong? Or is "endorsement to violence and intolerance" only wrong when implied by a wrong thought, but not a right thought? There are, and I'm sure Gopnik would agree, right thoughts that lead to (defensible) violence and intolerance.

I get the impression that Gopnik is too intelligent and sophisticated not to notice the gloppy presentism of the cat-ladies. But he can't really extricate himself, at least on this topic, which touches on so much of the contemporary holy writ of people who think the right thoughts. Thus these peculiar sentences.

Sammy Finkelman said...

I think it was mainly Harper Lee's late siser, Alice, who considered herself some sort of a guardian or protector, who didn't want this released. Harper just thought it would not be considered good. Also, she wanted her privacy.

As has been said, this book is not abad idea, even though it was acxtually the parent, not the child of "To Kill a Mockingbird" but it needed to be rewritten somewhat to align its reality better with the other book.

The two books even differ on the outcome of the 1930s case.

In "To Kill a Mockingbird" Tom Robinson is convicted, even though he is innocent, and in "Go Set a Watchman" he was acquitted.

Well, that could be fixed, with a bit of imagination. The Scottsboro Boys had more than one trial.

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scottsboro/scottsb.htm

Anthony said...

Atticus was obviously not only a racist but a sexist women-hater after browbeating that poor white woman who could not possibly have lied about being raped.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"The fact I'm not sure if Harper Lee wanted this book released is one reason I haven't bought it yet. I'm kind of torn on the ethics of that. Why not wait for the next few years for her to be have died and then publish it? Why publish it now?"

Don't own any Hendrix compilations, eh?

mikee said...

I've never read the books, but I remember Cary Grant putting down the rabid dog with an old Krag-Jorgenson rifle from the Spanish-American War. If you can watch that scene and not realize what a decent man Atticus Finch is, you have problems bigger than an inability to analyze characters.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Gregory Peck.

Paco Wové said...

"The second part is nonsensical"

You might want to consider that perhaps you just don't understand it.

Unknown said...

Attaicus may always have been scum, but I would have preferred not to learn that that was true. He was one of my fictional heroes for nearly 50 years and now moves firmly to the category of " hateful putz"

Fritz said...

Atticus was a lawyer? Well, they're expected to do the best they can for the clients whether they like them or not.

Robert Cook said...

"You might want to consider that perhaps you just don't understand it."

Can you provide an explanation of it that isn't nonsensical? Do you suggest that Northerners do hate any blacks they know? That's certainly nonsensical.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Cook, if you deny anti-black prejudice north of the Mason-Dixon line, you forfeit any right to be taken seriously. I say this as a native New Yorker. It is far from universal and it is far from rare. I've heard it from society dames and I've heard it in guinea social clubs. You lead a remarkably sheltered life. Are you a trust fund baby? I can't imaging how else you so assiduously avoid ever discovering any fact that would conflict with your weltanschauung.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Yeah, I thought so. You're wise to shut up.