Books

Standard Of Review: Go Set Go Set A Watchman On Your Shelf (And Never Read It Again)

Arts columnist Harry Graff don’t really care how Go Set a Watchman was released; he merely cares that it is a subpar novel, one that he probably won't read again.

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Unless you have been spending all your waking hours listening to the hilariously dour singer at the one bar that everyone seems to frequent in Season 2 of True Detective (seriously, there aren’t any other bars that the characters could go to?), you have likely heard about the controversy regarding Harper Lee’s new novel Go Set a Watchman (the pseudo-sequel to the classic legal novel To Kill a Mockingbird (affiliate links)), most of which has nothing to do with the merits of the book itself.

First, some critics posited that Harper Lee had been taken advantage of; the Watchman manuscript was purportedly found in a safe deposit box, and the book was published shortly afterwards, despite Lee’s repeated insistence over many years that she would never publish another novel after Mockingbird. Then, when the book was released, many cried foul over the fact that Atticus Finch (everyone’s favorite do-gooder lawyer) is portrayed in Watchman as a racist. But putting that controversy aside, is the book actually good? Having now finished Watchman, I can definitively say that it may well be better than Season 2 of True Detective, but not much else.

Like Mockingbird, Watchman tells the story of Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, hailing from the fictional Maycomb, Alabama. Watchman takes place roughly twenty years after the events of Mockingbird (in which Scout is forced to confront Maycomb’s prejudices while her father Atticus unsuccessfully defends Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman). Jean Louise (who has dropped the “Scout” moniker) now lives in New York, and visits Maycomb for a two-week long vacation. While there, Jean Louise reconnects with Henry Clinton, a young lawyer who works with Atticus (and, as a child, became friends with Scout and her brother Jem after the events of Mockingbird). Jean Louise and Henry have a coquettish relationship, and in the beginning of the book go for a barely-clothed night swim that has some of the more conservative citizens of Maycomb up in arms.

Jean Louise’s world is shaken when she surreptitiously attends a meeting of the Maycomb Citizens’ Council, attended by both Atticus and Henry, in which Maycomb residents decry desegregation. Jean Louise is startled to learn that Atticus and Henry are both segregationists and are both loathe to give equal rights to Maycomb’s black citizens. Jean Louise is equally appalled to learn that Atticus and Henry decided to take the case of a black man (the grandson of Calpurnia, the Finches’ housekeeper in Mockingbird) not because they want to present a robust defense, but merely to prevent lawyers from the NAACP from infiltrating the town.

Not much else happens in the novel. After Jean Louise learns this horrifying new information regarding Atticus and Henry, she becomes upset and then subsequently has to listen to numerous characters – including Atticus, Henry, and her Uncle Jack Finch – repeatedly lecture her as to why she is wrong (Jack even calls her a “bigot” at one point). I don’t love the word “mansplaining,” but Watchman is full of it. More problematic is that – with the possible exception of an argument between Atticus and Jean Louise that Atticus of course “wins” – these lectures are tedious to read.

There are also few flashbacks, depicting Scout, Jem, and their friend Dill playing as kids, as well as later episodes such as Jean Louise almost committing suicide because she mistakenly believes that she is pregnant and the story of Jean Louise’s first dance with Henry. While these scenes might be somewhat interesting standing alone, they had virtually no relevance to the larger narrative.

Part of the greatness of Mockingbird is that, while ostensibly a bildungsroman containing various vignettes of children at play, the trial of Tom Robinson and the disappearance of recluse Boo Radley are the central storylines that bind the plot together. That is not the case in Watchman, which mostly meanders for its 300-page length. I was hoping that the case of Calpurnia’s grandson could be important, but it is barely mentioned in the second half of the novel.

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Obviously, many Mockingbird fans are upset at Atticus’s racist actions and statements in Watchman. The bigger problem is that Atticus is not consistent between the two novels. Of course, Mockingbird is told through the eyes of a small child, presenting a classic “unreliable narrator” problem (interestingly, while Mockingbird uses first-person narration, Watchman is told via the third person). But despite this, it is difficult to square the Mockingbird Atticus with the Watchman Atticus. In my review of Mockingbird from a few weeks ago, I complained that Lee presented Atticus as too much of a paragon of moral virtue, but Watchman swings way too hard in the other direction. Lee could have given Atticus shades of grey in Watchman without making him a virulent racist. Even worse, I find it hard to believe that the Atticus of Mockingbird would take a legal case solely for the unethical purpose of preventing the NAACP from becoming involved. I think Lee would have been better served by aiming for some middle ground, having Atticus take the case (even for the sole purpose of trying to help Calpurnia’s family) while feeling uneasy about certain changes to society.

Lee does no better by Jean Louise. For most of the book, Jean Louise is either sputtering with outrage or passively listening to someone lecture her. These scenes do not provide much depth to Jean Louise’s character, and Jean Louise never truly grapples with the tension between one’s political and moral views and one’s love for a family member. The best part of Jean Louise’s story are the flashbacks to her as a young teenager, despite the tenuous connection with the rest of the novel. Instead of this story, I wish that Lee had written another bildungsroman, depicting Jean Louise as a teenager.

Ultimately, I don’t really care how Go Set a Watchman was released; I merely care that it is a subpar novel, one that I probably will never read again. Even though Watchman was technically written before Mockingbird, hopefully we can just chalk this up to a classic “sophomore slump,” alongside U2’s October and Season 2 of Friday Night Lights (and, hopefully, Season 2 of True Detective).

Go Set a Watchman [Amazon (affiliate link)]
To Kill a Mockingbird [Amazon (affiliate link)]

Earlier: Standard Of Review: Going Back to High School (Not Literally) To Revisit ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’
The Road Not Taken: Go Set A Watchman
I Don’t Give A Good God Damn If Atticus Is Racist Now

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Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

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