Dare I ...

    ... read this book?

    I've written before about the significance to me of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and it's a book in a category all of its own. So special is it that I don't know if I dare read Go Set A Watchman, the novel Miss Lee wrote before it but which features Scout and Atticus in later life - a book that has never been published, was thought to be lost, has been rediscovered and is now to come out in July.

    What to do? Let the reviews decide me?

Comments

[Penny L]

Be brave! I,too, think that "to kill a mockingbird" is a wonderful, life- changing tome that adolescents everywhere should be compelled to read! I'm going to approach it with the view that if I don't like it I will stop reading it and will refuse to le it colour my opinion of Mockingbird!
Penny L

[Mary]

This really sorts out the glass half-full from the glass half-empties, doesn't it! I'm afraid I immediately thought, 'Best not!' but I could be swayed.

[Susan in TX]

I'm sure I will try it - I always like to read the backlist when I discover a "new" favorite author, so being able to read Harper Lee's first attempt will be the same...with low expectations. After all, it had to have been forgotten for a reason. ;) It's actually pretty unbelievable that it could've been forgotten in the first place.

[Cornflower]

I so hope it's good, Penny!

[Cornflower]

That's an interesting way to look at it, Mary.

[Cornflower]

Good point about the expectations, Susan, and yes, amazing that it was lost.

[Pam]

I know just what you mean! I think I'm going to be a coward and wait to hear what others have to say.

[Chris]

I was excited to hear about it, and then felt nervous about reading it all at the same time! Daft isn't it.

[Claire]

I haven't even read To Kill a Mocking Bird. It wasn't on the curriculum when I was at school and has passed me by ever since. Nor have I seen the film. Now is the moment I think!

[Gillie]

I only read TKAMB last year, at the persuasion of grandson who was horrified that I never had. There seem to be mixed reviews, one point was made that it is being published not long after the death of Harper's sister, Alice, who apparently guarded her sister's privacy heavily.

[Henrietta]

I am intrigued but also worried. Would the manuscript really have been "forgotten" all these years? Wonderful news for her publishers certainly.

[Liz Davey]

Yes, but without reading the reviews first. No point in having your impression tainted by the critics

[Di McDougall]

hello...I have been mulling this over too as this novel was such a presence in my reading life as a young person....but this morning saw online that there is some talk around the authenticity of this novel. Miss Lee , it is said, had envisaged a trilogy and that has lead to speculation that number three might be "found". Have you heard any bookish news re this?

[Desperate Reader]

I've yet to read TKAMB too, same reason as above - it wasn't on my curriculum and have never quite got round to it. If I understand correctly this rediscovered manuscript is a sort of early draft so if it's approached in that light even if it disappoints as a novel in it's own right it should still be fascinating to see it in terms of the development of a classic.

[patrick powell]

Don't read it. I can tell from the tone of your posting that you suspect you should do the same thing. It will simply tarnish, if not spoil your feelings for To Kill and those, once tarnished, can never be recovered.

Ask yourself: why hasn't it been published until now? If Lee thought it was of any worth, she most likely would have attempted to have it published and had a publisher agreed with her, it most certainly would have been published.

Perhaps she thought it was worth publishing, but no one else agreed? Has it suddenly 'become better' in Lee's opinion? And was Lee, possibly like Salinger basically a one-book writer. My advice is leave it well alone: if nothing else it might well set you apart and you could always dine out on 'I rejected Harper Lee'.