Harper Lee: To Kill A Mockingbird

I took my cue from blogger Tasker Dunham who lives in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England in the U.K. and decided to re-read a book I had not read since my youth just to see how I reacted to it today and whether it was as I remembered it.

The book I chose was To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

Published in 1960, it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and in 1962 the story was made into a motion picture starring Gregory Peck. Many generations of American schoolchildren have been given the book as a reading assignment. I suppose it is to the late 20th century what Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn was to the late 19th century.

In both books, the n-word figures prominently. It could hardly be otherwise in any authentic depiction of life in the American South during the 19th and much of the 20th century. Encountering the word nowadays upsets people, and rightly so. There is no place in our society or any other for such ignorance and bigotry. The word has disappeared from our culture entirely, as well it should have. Still, the story of that era is worth telling, and it is done so through the eyes of a child.

To Kill A Mockingbird is set in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the 1930s (the author modeled Maycomb after her own hometown of Monroeville) as seen through the eyes of 6-year-old Jean Louise Finch, who is called "Scout" by her father, lawyer Atticus Finch. Other major characters include her older brother Jem; their friend Dill who comes to Maycomb every summer from Meridian, Mississippi, to visit his aunts; Calpurnia, the Finch family's cook; Boo Radley, a reclusive neighbor; Bob Ewell; Bob's daughter Mayella; and Tom Robinson, a Negro accused of raping Mayella. There are several other inhabitants of Maycomb who are minor characters, and their descriptions ring true. I knew these people.

If you have never read To Kill A Mockingbird, I will not spoil it by revealing the plot, but I recommend that you get a copy and read it, the presence of the n-word notwithstanding. Having grown up in the South (granted, Texas is the Southwest, but it seceded, if that is any qualification), I recognized Harper Lee's description of that time as disturbingly accurate.

The film version is one of the few I can think of that very much captures the book on which it is based. (Aside: Another book that I thought made the transition to film well was Pat Conroy's Prince Of Tides, except that great portions of the plot were left out and Barbra Streisand, who directed it, unfortunately cast herself in a major role.)

I almost forgot to tell you. The book was exactly as I remembered it, but this time around I noticed a couple of sentences, widely separated, that contained fine examples of alliteration. Unfortunately, I didn't jot them down at the time and cannot remember them to share with you now. Even the semantic brain fails at times.

I read the paperback edition that was published for the book's 50th anniversary; it belongs to one of my grandchildren.

The girl on the cover is Mary Badham, the young actress who portrayed Scout in the 1962 film.

Using Tasker Dunham's system, I gave To Kill A Mockingbird a 5* rating.