To Kill A Mockingbird: Fathers, Scout and Me
The Romantic Novelists’ Association is not the only one with a 50th birthday this year. So does TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. I admit that surprised me, maybe because the book is actually set in the thirties and the Depression stalks through it. To celebrate, there are loads of events being planned in the US and Harper Collins are publishing a book of ‘How Important the Book is to Me’ with contributions from notables, including Scott Torow and Oprah Winfrey.
That made me think of my own first reading of the book. It was given to me by a cousin of my father’s who read voraciously and said, ‘This is probably too old for you.’ I read it in a sitting, even though there were moments when I could hardly bear to read on. For a couple of weeks, maybe more, it knocked everything else out of my head – school, friends, hobbies, the lot – and I worked on autpilot, while in my head I wandered around in Maycomb, Alabama, desperately trying to work out how that trial could have gone right, instead of so appallingly, heartbreakingly wrong.
Maybe I was too young to read the book, certainly I was too insular. I knew nothing about racial tensions in the US or anywhere else, still less the Civil Rights Movement. What got me by the throat was the tragedy of Tom Robinson, completely helpess as things get out of hand, when a white woman fancies him and the forces of received opinion go on the rampage. And Scout, tomboy, confident, hopeful Scout, who believes her father can do anything and slowly realizes that he can’t. And Atticus. Oh, Atticus, the first character who made me understand that being honest, and compassionate and logical is sometimes not enough.
I broke my heart over Atticus, in way I didn’t over Tom. Tom was the victim of a natural disaster, as if he’d been standing in the way of an avalanche. There wasn’t anything he could do to prevent it or, once it had happened, to deal with the consequences. He had to have a Champion and the Champion was Atticus.
So Atticus wasn’t supposed to be a victim, he was the Knight Errant, Robin Hood against the wicked self-servers. He was supposed to defend the innocent and restore right. By all the rules of justice, chivalry and story telling, Atticus should have been able to get that jury to see the truth. And he failed. Atticus’s defeat was my defeat. His integrity was inspiring but not a consolation. I wept for both of us.
Later, when I was older, I could see that everything was more complicated than I had first though, Atticus included. Even today, if I re-read the book, I find new things to think about, new characteristics which explain people’s behaviour, including the most appalling.
But what I took away that first time, was the shocked realisation that right doesn’t always prevail and fathers, even the most heroically rational fathers who try to do their best, aren’t all-powerful. As a result, in a shuffling, embarrassed and not very articulate way, I grew very tender of my own father. Up to then, we had simply fought.
So yes, it opened my eyes to racism and the southern USA and the narrowness of small towns and the bullying that happens in small communities and how poverty makes people bitter and how bitter people look for people to blame and … and … and … But the big thing for me was compassion, especially between father and daughter, and it slipped into the way I think about life, the universe and everything.
A wonderful book.
Happy Father’s Day.
Thanks for that, Jenny. I’m not sure I can face reading it again just at the minute (!) but it’s made me focus on the wider picture. x
I loved your post, Jenny, it mirrored some of my own thoughts when I realised the book was fifty years old. When I was a kid I thought my dad was Atticus and that he could solve all the ills of humankind but alas he was only human, too.
I absolutely adore the book, Jenny. It’s one of my all-time favourites. Scenes in it are unbearably moving.
It also gave birth to one of the rare occasions where the film (with Gregory Peck) captured the essence of the book. It couldn’t live up to the book – what film can ever live up to a good book – but it had a pretty good try.
Liz x
Jenny, TKAMB is my ALL TIME favourite book. I studied it for O level and it just blew my mind, for all the reasons you say. For me it was a seminal book, and made me grow up and think about the world in new and different ways. I come back to it again and again, and like you, I always find something new in it. I made my oldest read it and she loves it too. I don’t think I will ever stop wanting to be Scout, one of my favourite heroines.
Hi Jenny, you’re right it is a wonderful book. I must go back and read it again. Interesting how it changed your view of your own father – what a compliment to Harper Lee to have achieved that!
TKAMB is one of my favourite books ever. I’ve read and reread it and I was lucky enough to teach it for many years.
You might be interested in my own story about this book, though apologies if I’ve told it to you before. I first read it in 7th grade, and my English teacher in 7th grade was a man who’d taught my mother before me. In my mother’s day, Mr Andrews was a dashing, handsome, young teacher and all the girls had crushes on him. In my day, Mr Andrews had become a drunk. (He was probably one back then, too, but he covered it up better.) He put on a clean suit on the first day of school, and he wore the same suit until Christmas without changing or washing it, and then did the same thing again in the new year until the summer. He was missing most of his teeth, he smelled bad and he slurred his words, especially if your class with him was in the afternoon. Everyone used to dread him coming over to your desk and looking at your work, because you’d have to hold your breath until he went away again. Today you’d think he’d be fired, but in the 80s apparently they turned a blind eye.
This man stood in front of us with a copy of TKAMB in his hand. “This story,” he said, “will change your life. Atticus Finch is an example of what a true man should be.” His voice shook as he said this—not because of the vodka or whatever, but because of his passion for this story. And we read it, and he was right.
Every time I read that book, I think about the lessons about Boo Radley or about Mrs Dubose or especially about the character, I can’t remember his name, who drank coke from a sack and let everyone think he was a drunk because it helped people understand why he’d married a black woman. That you have to walk around in someone else’s shoes before you make up your mind about them.
Mr Andrews was a joke to us kids, but he passed on his passion for this book to us. This book taught us how to think about Mr Andrews, too. I’ll always be grateful to him.
Thanks, Jenny.
Thanks for sharing the passion!
Lesley – what you need at the moment is B Wooster.
Sheila – but, interestingly, Atticus is quite a remote dad by today’s standards. He treats Scout and Jem with ‘a courteous detachment’ – and they like it. (Not sure of the exact quote, can’t find my copy.)
Liz – Gregory Peck and that part were just made for each other!
Jane – so glad it’s still working its magic for yet another generation.
Cara – yes I want to reread it too but see above. Guess how long before I go out and buy another copy . . .
Julie – so agree about that lesson. As a (rather timorous) child I loved the way that Scout and the others stopped being afraid of Boo and Mrs Dubose the more they found out. Well done Mr Andrews and You.