What I'm reading now

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

Yes Mique, I've vaguely heard of the book "Madame Bovary" and so I looked it up in an online search (sometimes I use Wikipedia, as in this case) and here is the first thing that I found:

"Madame Bovary (1856) is the French writer Gustave Flaubert's debut novel. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. "

It seems like a book with a lot of pointless conflict.

Mike Burke

2015-07-15 03:43:22 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

Yes Mique, I've vaguely heard of the book "Madame Bovary" and so I looked
it up in an online search (sometimes I use Wikipedia, as in this case)
"Madame Bovary (1856) is the French writer Gustave Flaubert's debut
novel. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has
adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the
banalities and emptiness of provincial life. "
It seems like a book with a lot of pointless conflict.

You're kidding, aren't you?

--
Mique

m***@hotmail.com

2015-08-13 14:26:42 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.

-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html

"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30. ("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones from their list that I've read").

Mike Burke

2015-08-13 15:35:41 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivalling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

We should make our own RAM list.

--
Mique

m***@hotmail.com

2015-08-13 21:32:45 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivaling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

Yes, and someone such as myself, with my particular brand of curiosity is probably annoying. But to see a female American author admired as such in so many much-older places is ... don't you think odd, Mique?

I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

Mike Burke

2015-08-13 23:18:54 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivaling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

Yes, and someone such as myself, with my particular brand of curiosity is
probably annoying. But to see a female American author admired as such
in so many much-older places is ... don't you think odd, Mique?
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

I'm not sure it's odd. Perhaps it is from an American perspective, but my
copy of 'Mockingbird' is an early 1960s British Penguin edition which I got
while I was working in Papua New Guinea from 1964, so it was quite widely
popular even then. Other female American authors that were then equally or
even more popular in the British half of the English-speaking publishing
world that come readily to mind were Grace Metalious and Francis Parkinson
Keyes and, perhaps a bit later, Mary McCarthy. Others will remember many
more.

These sorts of lists will always tend to be debatable because even a top
100 will necessarily exclude many acknowledged classics, and even lists
limited to authors' names will omit people at least equally deserving.

I have several thousand books painstakingly collected over the last 60
years, and that collection has been culled many times. Someone like Francis
who is a dedicated bibliophile will have many thousands more. I have 5000+
Ebooks on my computer as well. Life is great when your worst problem is to
decide which book to read next. Since joining this group 20 years or so
ago, I've never been short of suggestions from people whose judgement I've
come to respect.

--
Mique

Francis A. Miniter

2015-08-13 23:48:37 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivaling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

Yes, and someone such as myself, with my particular brand of curiosity is
probably annoying. But to see a female American author admired as such
in so many much-older places is ... don't you think odd, Mique?
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

I'm not sure it's odd. Perhaps it is from an American perspective, but my
copy of 'Mockingbird' is an early 1960s British Penguin edition which I got
while I was working in Papua New Guinea from 1964, so it was quite widely
popular even then. Other female American authors that were then equally or
even more popular in the British half of the English-speaking publishing
world that come readily to mind were Grace Metalious and Francis Parkinson
Keyes and, perhaps a bit later, Mary McCarthy. Others will remember many
more.
These sorts of lists will always tend to be debatable because even a top
100 will necessarily exclude many acknowledged classics, and even lists
limited to authors' names will omit people at least equally deserving.
I have several thousand books painstakingly collected over the last 60
years, and that collection has been culled many times. Someone like Francis
who is a dedicated bibliophile will have many thousands more. I have 5000+
Ebooks on my computer as well. Life is great when your worst problem is to
decide which book to read next. Since joining this group 20 years or so
ago, I've never been short of suggestions from people whose judgement I've
come to respect.

"Life is great when your worst problem is to decide which book to read
next."
----------------------------------------------
Yes, indeed. I have seven books on my bed in the process of being read,
let alone all those lying around the room shouting, "Read me next!"

Francis A. Miniter

erilar

2015-08-14 20:48:39 UTC

Post by Francis A. Miniter
"Life is great when your worst problem is to decide which book to read
next."
----------------------------------------------
Yes, indeed. I have seven books on my bed in the process of being read,
let alone all those lying around the room shouting, "Read me next!"

Only seven? Oh, the current seven 8-) I have a pile, a couple odd
magazine racks, and a shelf full shouting at me.

--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist

Francis A. Miniter

2015-08-16 14:21:17 UTC

Post by erilar

Only seven? Oh, the current seven 8-) I have a pile, a couple odd
magazine racks, and a shelf full shouting at me.

I also have a TBR bookcase and the top of one bureau is covered in books.

Francis A. Miniter

Joan in GB-W

2015-09-01 17:18:06 UTC

I'm just about finished with "The Taming of the Queen" by Philippa Gregory.
If there is a mystery there, it is how could she have stayed with that
smelly old arrogant insane man for as long as he did. But then, the
consequences of leaving are none to pleasant to envision.

Joan

Mike Burke

2015-09-02 10:21:24 UTC

Post by Joan in GB-W
I'm just about finished with "The Taming of the Queen" by Philippa
Gregory. If there is a mystery there, it is how could she have stayed
with that smelly old arrogant insane man for as long as he did. But
then, the consequences of leaving are none to pleasant to envision.
Joan

--
Mique

Joan in GB-W

2015-09-02 19:25:09 UTC

Leaving alive would have been impossible, and would probably never entered
her head. Back in those days, I doubt whether personal hygiene as we
understand it would have been all that common in younger, fitter, saner
people of both sexes either. In fact, the daily tub and scrub didn't become
anything like the norm until well into the 20th century.

Life back in those days doesn't bear thinking too hard about. Did you
catch the TV series "Wolf Hall" with Damian Lewis as Henry VIII?
Brilliant.
--
Mique
--------------

No, I didn't, Mike. Don't know why I missed it.

Much in the book covered the sores/ulcers on Henry's leg (or legs). The
ulcers were infected and would close over (and stunk horribly) - and
according to the book, the doctors would open them if they healed to drain
the infection, thus insuring they would never heal. By opening them, they
thought they would drain the infection, which would be fatal if it did not
drain. Henry was in pain for a good portion of his life, which led to some
of the God-awful choices he made and his silly dilly-dallying back and forth
over the questions of religion.

Francis A. Miniter

2015-08-14 00:52:44 UTC

<big snip>
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

Some post-2006 books that I would add to the list:

Philip Roth, The Human Stain
(and in this connection, one would do well to first read Nella Larsen's
Passing, and don't leave out the dedication).
Luther Blissett, Q [Note: Luther Blissett is a name of convenience]
Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna

My original list should have included:

Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost
Ian McEwan, Atonement
A. S. Byatt, Possession
Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

Francis A. Miniter

Mike Burke

2015-08-14 08:55:40 UTC

<big snip>
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

Philip Roth, The Human Stain
(and in this connection, one would do well to first read Nella Larsen's
Passing, and don't leave out the dedication).
Luther Blissett, Q [Note: Luther Blissett is a name of convenience]
Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost
Ian McEwan, Atonement
A. S. Byatt, Possession
Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept
Francis A. Miniter

Yes, A.S. Byatt would be on my original list, too. "Possession" is one of
my all-time faves. So many books, so little time.

--
Mique

Francis A. Miniter

2015-08-14 00:32:43 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivaling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

Yes, and someone such as myself, with my particular brand of curiosity is
probably annoying. But to see a female American author admired as such in
so many much-older places is ... don't you think odd, Mique?
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

I found it a very strange list. I would not have included "The Lovely
Bones" or "The Time Traveller's Wife" or "The Alchemist" (and some of
the others) but I would have included - at the least, and in addition to
Mique's suggestions:

Marguerite Duras, The Lover
John Fowles, A Maggot
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Peter Matthiessen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes
Kobo Abe, The Ruined Map (I consider the two should be read together)
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye
Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
Robertson Davies, The Deptford Trilogy
Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude
Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Other Stories
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate

I have left out books that were not published in 2006 and others that
may not have made a clear impression by the time the list was created.

The Guardian list is very, very Anglo-centric, not to mention extremely
conservative, e.g., Gone with the Wind.

Francis A. Miniter

Mike Burke

2015-08-14 13:14:05 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivaling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

Yes, and someone such as myself, with my particular brand of curiosity is
probably annoying. But to see a female American author admired as such in
so many much-older places is ... don't you think odd, Mique?
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

I found it a very strange list. I would not have included "The Lovely
Bones" or "The Time Traveller's Wife" or "The Alchemist" (and some of the
Marguerite Duras, The Lover
John Fowles, A Maggot
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Peter Matthiessen, At Play in the Fields of the Lord
Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes
Kobo Abe, The Ruined Map (I consider the two should be read together)
Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Margaret Atwood, Cat's Eye
Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
Robertson Davies, The Deptford Trilogy
Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude
Kate Chopin, The Awakening and Other Stories
Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
I have left out books that were not published in 2006 and others that may
not have made a clear impression by the time the list was created.
The Guardian list is very, very Anglo-centric, not to mention extremely
conservative, e.g., Gone with the Wind.
Francis A. Miniter

I've missed the South American writers. Don't have a rational excuse,
except too many already on my "must read" list. Apart from the previously
listed 'All Quiet On The Western Front', there are whole libraries of
worthy novels about war. Leon Uris, Norman Mailer, James Jones, Herman
Wouk, Nicholas Monsarrat, and, yea, even Alistair MacLean whose 'HMS
Ulysses' would hold its own in any company, are all authors with serious
novels about war crowding the best-seller lists. Richard Condon's brilliant
'The Manchurian Candidate' deserves a mention. The Vietnam War produced
many good books. 'The 13th Valley' comes immediately to mind, and Nelson
DeMille's 'Word of Honor' examined the war crimes conundrum. The spy genre
includes many thoughtful writers who had serious things to say about the
Cold War shenanigans. John LeCarré and Len Deighton are just two of many.

It would be fun to make a RAM list by genre.

--
Mique

Francis A. Miniter

2015-08-15 01:28:02 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I've read 21 of the 30 listed. I doubt if 'Madame Bovary' would have made
the top 500 of a British librarians' list. It was a 19th century French
novel and, as Francis noted earlier, somewhat controversial - tame by our
modern standards but not quite fit for general readership at the time. I
notice that Rudyard Kipling didn't rate a mention, which is not surprising
as he's persona non grata for Guardianistae, but in the context of his
times he was immensely popular throughout the English-speaking world,
rivaling Dickens. I'd have include Boris Pasternak's 'Doctor Zhivago',
James Jones's 'From Here To Eternity', Nabakov's 'Lolita', and some others
on the list in front of some of those listed, but I'm an auld phart and my
tastes are centred more in the past than the present.

Yes, and someone such as myself, with my particular brand of curiosity is
probably annoying. But to see a female American author admired as such in
so many much-older places is ... don't you think odd, Mique?
I mean as an alternative, this list by these librarians excluded so much.

I like that idea. How about these categories for must read lists:

Mystery (fiction)
True Crime
Espionage/Thriller
War

Francis A. Miniter

erilar

2015-08-14 20:46:07 UTC

In article

Post by Mike Burke
I've read 21 of the 30 listed.

What list? Judging from the books mentioned, it's not mysteries.

Post by Mike Burke
We should make our own RAM list.

That list would interest me and fit.

--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist

m***@hotmail.com

2015-12-05 16:50:23 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I noticed that the Guardian Newspaper has had several rankings for top 30 (as in this case) or 100 novels. That 2006 list of 30 books was as follows:

The list in full

1 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2 The Bible
3 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
4 1984 by George Orwell
5 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8 All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9 His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
10 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12 The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14 Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15 Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
16 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17 The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
18 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
19 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
20 The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22 The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25 The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27 Middlemarch by George Eliot
28 The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30 A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

But now, I see 100 of the best novels are listed for 2014 and 2015 in "The Guardian": ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list ).

Here are the first 30. Currently, I'm trying my hand at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, why? I don't know. The book seems less than mature, so far.

1 The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678)
2 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
3 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
4 Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1748)
5 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)
6 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (1759)
7 Emma by Jane Austen (1816)
8 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
9 Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818)
10 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
11 Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (1845)
12 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
13 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
14 Vanity Fair by William Thackeray (1848)
15 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)
16 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
17 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
18 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
19 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)
20 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (18
21 Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-2)
22 The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875)
23 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884/5)
24 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
25 Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)
26 The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)
27 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
28 New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)
29 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)
30 The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895)

Mike Burke

2015-12-05 22:45:13 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

The list in full
1 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2 The Bible
3 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
4 1984 by George Orwell
5 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8 All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9 His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
10 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12 The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14 Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15 Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
16 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17 The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
18 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
19 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
20 The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22 The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25 The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27 Middlemarch by George Eliot
28 The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30 A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

Of this list, I've read 8 of the top 10, 9 of the next 10 but only one
or two of the third 10.

Post by m***@hotmail.com
But now, I see 100 of the best novels are listed for 2014 and 2015 in "The Guardian": ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list ).
Here are the first 30. Currently, I'm trying my hand at Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, why? I don't know. The book seems less than mature, so far.

It was written for a child is perhaps the reason that it seems less
than mature. Or at least it was the written version of stories that
were told to Alice Liddell when she was a child by Charles Lutwidge
Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll. Why has it taken you so long to get
around to reading this absolute classic?

Post by m***@hotmail.com
1 The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678)
2 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
3 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
4 Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1748)
5 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (1749)
6 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne (1759)
7 Emma by Jane Austen (1816)
8 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
9 Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818)
10 The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
11 Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (1845)
12 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
13 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
14 Vanity Fair by William Thackeray (1848)
15 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)
16 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
17 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (1851)
18 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
19 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868)
20 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (18
21 Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871-2)
22 The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875)
23 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884/5)
24 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
25 Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome (1889)
26 The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (1890)
27 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
28 New Grub Street by George Gissing (1891)
29 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)
30 The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895)

I've read 7 of each of the groups of 10 of this list.

Mique

Francis A. Miniter

2015-12-06 00:23:51 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I noticed that the Guardian Newspaper has had several rankings for top 30
The list in full
1 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
2 The Bible
3 The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
4 1984 by George Orwell
5 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
6 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
7 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
8 All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
9 His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
10 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
11 The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
12 The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
13 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
14 Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
15 Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
16 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17 The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
18 Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
19 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
20 The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
21 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
22 The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
23 David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
24 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
25 The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
26 Life of Pi by Yann Martel
27 Middlemarch by George Eliot
28 The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
29 A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
30 A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

I have read 12 of those (plus quite a few books of the Bible). Planning
to read The Master and Margarita.

Post by m***@hotmail.com
But now, I see 100 of the best novels are listed for 2014 and 2015 in
"The Guardian": ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list ).
Here are the first 30. Currently, I'm trying my hand at Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, why? I don't know. The book seems less than
mature, so far.

I agree with Mique. But I would also add that simple as it looks, it
hides some very sophisticated logic and math. I recommend that after
you read it the first time, you go get _The Annotated Alice_ .

Read 13 from that batch. A very different list.

BOTH lists suffer from Anglo-centrism, while eschewing the Irish and
Canadians.

My own list of novels would include:

1. Cervantes, Don Quixote (bks. 1 and 2)
2. de Sade, Justine
3. Stendhal, The Red and the Black
4. Flaubert, Madame Bovary
5. Balzac, Pere Goriot
6. Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
7. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
8. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
9. Kafka, The Trial
10. James Joyce, Ulysses
11. Marcel Pagnol, Jean de Florette
12. Marcel Pagnol, Manon Des Sources
13. Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy [Palace Walk, Palace of Desire,
Sugar Street]
14. Camus, The Stranger
15. Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation
16. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
17. Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
18. Iain Pears, An Instance of the Fingerpost
19. Luther Blissett, Q
20. Herman Hesse, The Glass Bead Game aka Magister Ludi
21. Herman Hesse, Siddharta
22. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Hundred Years of Solitude
23. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
24. Jose Donoso, The Obscene Bird of Night
24a. Jose Donoso, The House in the Country
25. Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
26. Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle
27. Mikhail Sholokhov, And Quiet Flows the Don
28. Mikhail Sholokhov, The Don Flows Home to the Sea
29. Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz
30. Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
31. Isabel Allende, The Island Beneath the Sea
32. Kobo Abe, Woman in the Dunes
33. Kobo Abe, The Ruined Map
34. A. S. Byatt, Possession
35. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
36. Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride
37. Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
38. Robertson Davies, The Deptford Trilogy [Fifth Business, The
Manticore, World of Wonders]
39. Laura Esquivel, Malinche
40. Otohiko Kaga, Riding the East Wind
41. Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone
42. Giogio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
43. Manil Suri, The Death of Vishnu

Francis A. Miniter

w***@post.com

2015-12-06 20:34:11 UTC

在 2015年12月5日星期六 UTC-5下午7:23:47，Francis A. Miniter写道：

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

You're kidding, aren't you?

Changing the subject slightly Mique, I see Joan mentioned here, about
seven years ago, the top 30 British librarian reading recommendations.
-- http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1721526,00.html
"To Kill A Mockingbird" with its American author, was actually their
number one recommendation. I haven't read "Madame Bovary". I wonder
where it would have ranked, since it didn't make this list of 30.
("Grapes of Wrath" and "1984" and now some of "Middlemarch are the ones
from their list that I've read").

I have read 12 of those (plus quite a few books of the Bible). Planning
to read The Master and Margarita.

Post by m***@hotmail.com
But now, I see 100 of the best novels are listed for 2014 and 2015 in
"The Guardian": ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list ).
Here are the first 30. Currently, I'm trying my hand at Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, why? I don't know. The book seems less than
mature, so far.

Read 13 from that batch. A very different list.
BOTH lists suffer from Anglo-centrism, while eschewing the Irish and Canadians.

Right, that is a righteous melting pot tradition; including all the best from all backgrounds But should the people who work with all of the newspapers and organizations in England always observe when english ground-breaking authors aren't included in similar observations, say other parts of Europe , n Korea, Nigeria, parts of South America or Russia?

This is a British Newspaper concerning the english language we remember - the Kings english. So the centrism could be justifiable.

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-15 05:35:12 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years ...

"Madame Bovary (1856) is the French writer Gustave Flaubert's debut novel. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life."
It seems like a book with a lot of pointless conflict.

No. I see it as a feminist novel, in that it highlights the social trap
of upper middle class women in France (and Europe generally) at that
time. Doing anything, especially work, was forbidden. The wife was
supposed to stay home and just be there for the husband. Desperate for
escape from the monotony, she enters into a series of affairs. The
novel also has a considerable amount of sex in it and was considered to
be obscene by the authorities when it came out.

Francis A. Miniter

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-15 05:27:46 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years when Amazon dropped Go Set A Watchman in my Kindle. So here I am.
Looking good so far.

By a curious coincidence, I recently came across Flaubert's last novel
(in French) _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ published in 1881, a year after his
death. I too had read Madame Bovary nearly 50 years ago, and this is a
very different work indeed. It reads more like Pagnol's Jean de
Florette than Madame Bovary, with gushes of words piling on top of one
another.

As for _Go Set a Watchman_ , I got up early on Tuesday to be at Barnes
& Noble by 7 AM. I wanted to be sure to get a first printing, and the
first 20 customers (oh, yes, there was a line when I got there) got 40%
off the price, a free tote bag, and a cup of Starbuck's coffee. I
squeaked into the 20.

I have read that Go Set a Watchman is not as well edited, not as tight,
as _To Kill a Mockingbird_ . I have a theory. Harper Lee grew up with
Truman Capote. In fact, Capote is the annoying neighbor child in
Mockingbird who is always saying his father is going to come take him
away to New York. On the back of the dust jacket of the first printing
of Mockingbird is a very nice photo of Harper Lee, taken by Capote. Go
Set a Watchman was written first, but rejected again and again even
after repeated editings by Lee. And, as the films Capote and Infamous
have made abundantly clear, Lee accompanied Capote on his extended
research trip to Kansas to write _In Cold Blood_ . So, I think Capote
edited Mockingbird for her, making it the tight drama that it is. And
when it became a bigger success than anything he wrote, he was reluctant
to be her editor any long. Professional jealousy, despite their close
personal relationship.

In this regard, it is interesting to also note that the only other
published words we have of Harper Lee's are those comprising one
paragraph in the Preface to the Anniversary Edition of Mockingbird. I
think that without the editorial assistance of Capote, she was afraid to
write or publish anything because she knew it could not live up to
Mockingbird. Even now, she is 83 years old, and the publication of
Watchman is really the effort of her attorney who found the manuscript
that she stored but never released.

Francis A. Miniter

Mike Burke

2015-07-15 07:44:15 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years when Amazon dropped Go Set A Watchman in my Kindle. So here I am.
Looking good so far.

By a curious coincidence, I recently came across Flaubert's last novel
(in French) _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ published in 1881, a year after his
death. I too had read Madame Bovary nearly 50 years ago, and this is a
very different work indeed. It reads more like Pagnol's Jean de Florette
than Madame Bovary, with gushes of words piling on top of one another.
As for _Go Set a Watchman_ , I got up early on Tuesday to be at Barnes &
Noble by 7 AM. I wanted to be sure to get a first printing, and the
first 20 customers (oh, yes, there was a line when I got there) got 40%
off the price, a free tote bag, and a cup of Starbuck's coffee. I squeaked into the 20.
I have read that Go Set a Watchman is not as well edited, not as tight,
as _To Kill a Mockingbird_ . I have a theory. Harper Lee grew up with
Truman Capote. In fact, Capote is the annoying neighbor child in
Mockingbird who is always saying his father is going to come take him
away to New York. On the back of the dust jacket of the first printing
of Mockingbird is a very nice photo of Harper Lee, taken by Capote. Go
Set a Watchman was written first, but rejected again and again even after
repeated editings by Lee. And, as the films Capote and Infamous have
made abundantly clear, Lee accompanied Capote on his extended research
trip to Kansas to write _In Cold Blood_ . So, I think Capote edited
Mockingbird for her, making it the tight drama that it is. And when it
became a bigger success than anything he wrote, he was reluctant to be
her editor any long. Professional jealousy, despite their close personal relationship.
In this regard, it is interesting to also note that the only other
published words we have of Harper Lee's are those comprising one
paragraph in the Preface to the Anniversary Edition of Mockingbird. I
think that without the editorial assistance of Capote, she was afraid to
write or publish anything because she knew it could not live up to
Mockingbird. Even now, she is 83 years old, and the publication of
Watchman is really the effort of her attorney who found the manuscript
that she stored but never released.
Francis A. Miniter

I've seen speculation about Capote's alleged role in the editing of
Mockingbird before, and pretty much exactly as you recount it, Francis. I
guess we'll never know for sure unless Lee breaks her silence. As for
Watchman, I'm about halfway into it, and my impressions are all over the
place. It's set in the 1950s, and Atticus is well into his 70s while Scout
is in her late 20s. Now I remember the 1950s pretty well, at least from an
Australian perspective, and I get an occasional whiff of anachronism in the
language which makes me suspect that in editing the book for its current
release modern idiom has insinuated itself into it.

More when I finish.

Congratulations on your grabbing the first printing, and on the last
Flaubert.

--
Mique

David Matthews

2015-07-16 03:30:14 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years when Amazon dropped Go Set A Watchman in my Kindle. So here I am.
Looking good so far.

By a curious coincidence, I recently came across Flaubert's last novel
(in French) _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ published in 1881, a year after his
death. I too had read Madame Bovary nearly 50 years ago, and this is a
very different work indeed. It reads more like Pagnol's Jean de
Florette than Madame Bovary, with gushes of words piling on top of one
another.
As for _Go Set a Watchman_ , I got up early on Tuesday to be at Barnes
& Noble by 7 AM. I wanted to be sure to get a first printing, and the
first 20 customers (oh, yes, there was a line when I got there) got 40%
off the price, a free tote bag, and a cup of Starbuck's coffee. I
squeaked into the 20.
I have read that Go Set a Watchman is not as well edited, not as tight,
as _To Kill a Mockingbird_ . I have a theory. Harper Lee grew up with
Truman Capote. In fact, Capote is the annoying neighbor child in
Mockingbird who is always saying his father is going to come take him
away to New York. On the back of the dust jacket of the first printing
of Mockingbird is a very nice photo of Harper Lee, taken by Capote. Go
Set a Watchman was written first, but rejected again and again even
after repeated editings by Lee. And, as the films Capote and Infamous
have made abundantly clear, Lee accompanied Capote on his extended
research trip to Kansas to write _In Cold Blood_ . So, I think Capote
edited Mockingbird for her, making it the tight drama that it is. And
when it became a bigger success than anything he wrote, he was reluctant
to be her editor any long. Professional jealousy, despite their close
personal relationship.
In this regard, it is interesting to also note that the only other
published words we have of Harper Lee's are those comprising one
paragraph in the Preface to the Anniversary Edition of Mockingbird. I
think that without the editorial assistance of Capote, she was afraid to
write or publish anything because she knew it could not live up to
Mockingbird. Even now, she is 83 years old, and the publication of
Watchman is really the effort of her attorney who found the manuscript
that she stored but never released.
Francis A. Miniter

Have you read this Francis?

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman

Dave M

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-16 04:00:00 UTC

Post by David Matthews

Post by Mike Burke
There I was happily re-reading "Madame Bovary" for the first time in 40-odd
years when Amazon dropped Go Set A Watchman in my Kindle. So here I am.
Looking good so far.

By a curious coincidence, I recently came across Flaubert's last novel
(in French) _Bouvard et Pécuchet_ published in 1881, a year after his
death. I too had read Madame Bovary nearly 50 years ago, and this is a
very different work indeed. It reads more like Pagnol's Jean de
Florette than Madame Bovary, with gushes of words piling on top of one
another.
As for _Go Set a Watchman_ , I got up early on Tuesday to be at Barnes
& Noble by 7 AM. I wanted to be sure to get a first printing, and the
first 20 customers (oh, yes, there was a line when I got there) got 40%
off the price, a free tote bag, and a cup of Starbuck's coffee. I
squeaked into the 20.
I have read that Go Set a Watchman is not as well edited, not as tight,
as _To Kill a Mockingbird_ . I have a theory. Harper Lee grew up with
Truman Capote. In fact, Capote is the annoying neighbor child in
Mockingbird who is always saying his father is going to come take him
away to New York. On the back of the dust jacket of the first printing
of Mockingbird is a very nice photo of Harper Lee, taken by Capote. Go
Set a Watchman was written first, but rejected again and again even
after repeated editings by Lee. And, as the films Capote and Infamous
have made abundantly clear, Lee accompanied Capote on his extended
research trip to Kansas to write _In Cold Blood_ . So, I think Capote
edited Mockingbird for her, making it the tight drama that it is. And
when it became a bigger success than anything he wrote, he was reluctant
to be her editor any long. Professional jealousy, despite their close
personal relationship.
In this regard, it is interesting to also note that the only other
published words we have of Harper Lee's are those comprising one
paragraph in the Preface to the Anniversary Edition of Mockingbird. I
think that without the editorial assistance of Capote, she was afraid to
write or publish anything because she knew it could not live up to
Mockingbird. Even now, she is 83 years old, and the publication of
Watchman is really the effort of her attorney who found the manuscript
that she stored but never released.
Francis A. Miniter

Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Thank you, I had not. I had heard about some of the factual statements
made in the article, and had wondered about Harper Lee's competency to
authorize anything. The article brought to mind the Clifford Irving
fiasco about an authorized (auto)biography of Howard Hughes. I don't
think we are in that territory here, but I must question the ethics of
Lee's attorney in moving forward on this without having a Conservator
appointed for the poor lady. I note that Harper Lee never married, has
no children, and that all of her siblings pre-deceased her. (I do not
know if any of them had children.) So, when she dies, it will be
interesting to see what happens with the estate. I wonder if such
considerations prompted the attorney to act while she is still alive.

Francis A. Miniter

Mike Burke

2015-07-16 10:01:16 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)

No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

--
Mique

Mike Burke

2015-07-16 10:06:23 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.

--
Mique

David Matthews

2015-07-16 20:56:25 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.
--
Mique

This may be of interest also:

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/16/8974447/harper-lee-go-set-a-watchman-racism-controversy

Dave M

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-17 00:19:36 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.

I am about to start it tonight.

Francis A. Miniter

David Matthews

2015-07-17 12:11:15 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.

I am about to start it tonight.
Francis A. Miniter

Some enterprising company has just sent me a complimentary "interactive" first chapter of _To Set a Watchman_. Certain words are highlighted in blue, I clicked on the words sleeveless blouse thinking I would get some notes on their significance - what I got was a slew of names of places that sell sleeveless blouses. Is this a new trend in epublishing I wonder?

Dave M

David Matthews

2015-07-17 15:38:46 UTC

Post by David Matthews

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.

I am about to start it tonight.
Francis A. Miniter

That should have been _Go Set a Watchman_

m***@hotmail.com

2015-07-17 16:39:03 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.

And Mique, do feel free to go ahead and comment. Maybe you can just precede everything by typing "spoilers ... spoilers" about four or five times.

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-22 13:42:51 UTC

Post by David Matthews
Have you read this Francis?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122290/suspicious-story-behind-publication-go-set-watchman
Dave M

Like the author of the New Republic piece, I have wondered whether Harper
Lee was somehow manipulated into consenting to the publication of
"Watchman", and I'm inclined to think he's probably right in suggesting
foul-ish play. (I do wish he'd restrained himself from dropping in his
sarcastic little "of course they did" asides as if we are all too thick to
make up our own minds from the narrative itself.)
No doubt literary critics and other experts will analyse the book and
attempt to place it in its context with "Mockingbird", but even as I
approach the end, the whiff of anachronism has still not faded. I think
the book has been tampered with to make it read as if it were written to be
consistent with our contemporary views of racial issues. I'd like to know
what American Southerners who lived through the era think about the
contemporaneity of the views expressed.

Well, I finished it. I'll hold more detailed comment until others have had
a chance to read it. Suffice it to say at this point that I'm glad it was
published and that I've read it.

Hi Mique,

Well at least two of us have finished it now.

My first reaction - until somewhere beyond page 100 - was that there was
no plot, just a sketch of Southern life. Reading until then was slow.
But then, the book lit up as if a match had been set to it, and the
point of the preceding pages became clear. The author was setting up a
dynamic tension within Scout (Jean Louise) about her new (northern)
perspective about the South, tensions especially poignant about change.
On the one hand, she wants to preserve the place the way it was when
she was a child (in To Kill A Mockingbird); on the other hand, she wants
to change the unfairness that she sees, first to people of color, but
also to women (that aspect is there though the narrator de-emphasizes it
somewhat).

This tension is then reflected in her bifurcated response to Brown vs.
Board of Education (the setting for the story has to be shortly after
the Supreme Court decided the case in 1954). On the one hand, she
wanted a hands off approach because of the Tenth Amendment to the
Constitution (which says that unnumerated powers go to the people and
the states). On the other hand, she recognizes that legislatures are
simply not going to provide equal rights to black Americans, and that it
was necessary for the Supreme Court to act as it did. It should be
noted that the Tenth Amendment was indeed a major consideration at the
Supreme Court. In Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court
declined to apply the 14th Amendment in view of the 10th Amendment. In
Brown, the court explicitly overruled Plessy and the 14th Amendment has
since triumphed over states' rights arguments.

Further, the tension is also reflected in her shock at learning her
father is a racist and that he is opposing equal rights for black people
coupled with her lifelong devotion to him as her ideal. The love-hate
that springs from the conflict is very accurately portrayed. I myself
have observed it in a strikingly similar situation. Resolution of such
conflicts is not easy, and though peace is established at the end of the
novel, such peaces are unstable as factual situations from time to time
push one aspect or the other to the fore.

All in all, it is a much better novel than I had expected. It feels as
though it were written after To Kill A Mockingbird, not before, though I
can see how the author of Watchman could have chosen to extract from it
the Mockingbird episode, placing love for the father above the hate. On
a personal level, it goes some way to explain Lee's choice never to marry.

Francis A. Miniter

Mike Burke

2015-07-22 18:04:25 UTC

On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Post by Francis A. Miniter
Well at least two of us have finished it now.
My first reaction - until somewhere beyond page 100 - was that there was
no plot, just a sketch of Southern life. Reading until then was slow.
But then, the book lit up as if a match had been set to it, and the
point of the preceding pages became clear. The author was setting up a
dynamic tension within Scout (Jean Louise) about her new (northern)
perspective about the South, tensions especially poignant about change.
On the one hand, she wants to preserve the place the way it was when
she was a child (in To Kill A Mockingbird); on the other hand, she wants
to change the unfairness that she sees, first to people of color, but
also to women (that aspect is there though the narrator de-emphasizes it
somewhat).
This tension is then reflected in her bifurcated response to Brown vs.
Board of Education (the setting for the story has to be shortly after
the Supreme Court decided the case in 1954). On the one hand, she
wanted a hands off approach because of the Tenth Amendment to the
Constitution (which says that unnumerated powers go to the people and
the states). On the other hand, she recognizes that legislatures are
simply not going to provide equal rights to black Americans, and that it
was necessary for the Supreme Court to act as it did. It should be
noted that the Tenth Amendment was indeed a major consideration at the
Supreme Court. In Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court
declined to apply the 14th Amendment in view of the 10th Amendment. In
Brown, the court explicitly overruled Plessy and the 14th Amendment has
since triumphed over states' rights arguments.
Further, the tension is also reflected in her shock at learning her
father is a racist and that he is opposing equal rights for black people
coupled with her lifelong devotion to him as her ideal. The love-hate
that springs from the conflict is very accurately portrayed. I myself
have observed it in a strikingly similar situation. Resolution of such
conflicts is not easy, and though peace is established at the end of the
novel, such peaces are unstable as factual situations from time to time
push one aspect or the other to the fore.
All in all, it is a much better novel than I had expected. It feels as
though it were written after To Kill A Mockingbird, not before, though I
can see how the author of Watchman could have chosen to extract from it
the Mockingbird episode, placing love for the father above the hate. On
a personal level, it goes some way to explain Lee's choice never to marry.

Yes, I agree with all that. Those were pretty much my impressions,
but I'm not so sure how the conflict between Jean Louise and her
father could have existed at the time this novel was set in around
1954-ish (The Pajama Game was on Broadway then-ish), as it must have
done. According to the mythology surrounding this novel, it was
written before Mockingbird, some say as a drafte of that novel. If
so, the conflict between Jean Louise and her father must have been in
Harper Lee's head from the outset. To the extent that Mockingbird is
supposed to have been partly, perhaps significantly autobiographical,
I think many if not most people have seen it as something of an homage
to her father. I remember the furore over Brown although I was only a
teenager at the time.

I'm finding it hard to set out in words my reservations about Watchman
in the context of Mockingbird. One aspect is how could Lee write
Mockingbird knowing all along and having previously written Watchman
showing that Atticus was just another Southern racist albeit one with
a veneer of civilization that others lacked? There was no hint of
these clay feet in Mockingbird. Secondly, I still have this vague
lingering feeling that Watchman is anachronistic, ie that the
anti-racist judgementalism is written in terms of more modern idiom
and attitudes than seem to me to have been in keeping with the times.
(Here I am basing my feelings on memories of contemporary books,
movies, magazines and other news media available in Australia at the
time. I didn't live there so have no personal knowledge to form a
more accurate impression. I first started to actually meet real live
Americans in the early 1960s, and it wasn't until 1967-ish that I met
any African-Americans. It's perhaps of interest that the
African-American US Navy sailors that I knew were adamant that given a
choice they preferred to live in the Deep South. They were not
comfortable living in the north, and I got the impression that they
thought that the racism there was more sinister. They knew where they
stood in the South and managed accordingly.)

Perhaps the reason Lee did not publish Watchman was this apparent
disconnect between the "two" Attici. There is a review in the
Spectator that is interesting. They didn't like it. I'll post it if
I can find it again.

Mique

Mike Burke

2015-07-22 18:28:28 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
There is a review in the
Spectator that is interesting. They didn't like it. I'll post it if
I can find it again.

I found it:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/books-feature/9581982/go-set-a-watchman-should-never-have-been-hyped-as-a-landmark-new-novel-says-philip-hensher/

Mique

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-23 01:41:11 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Yes, I agree with all that. Those were pretty much my impressions,
but I'm not so sure how the conflict between Jean Louise and her
father could have existed at the time this novel was set in around
1954-ish (The Pajama Game was on Broadway then-ish), as it must have
done. According to the mythology surrounding this novel, it was
written before Mockingbird, some say as a drafte of that novel. If
so, the conflict between Jean Louise and her father must have been in
Harper Lee's head from the outset. To the extent that Mockingbird is
supposed to have been partly, perhaps significantly autobiographical,
I think many if not most people have seen it as something of an homage
to her father. I remember the furore over Brown although I was only a
teenager at the time.
I'm finding it hard to set out in words my reservations about Watchman
in the context of Mockingbird. One aspect is how could Lee write
Mockingbird knowing all along and having previously written Watchman
showing that Atticus was just another Southern racist albeit one with
a veneer of civilization that others lacked? There was no hint of
these clay feet in Mockingbird. Secondly, I still have this vague
lingering feeling that Watchman is anachronistic, ie that the
anti-racist judgementalism is written in terms of more modern idiom
and attitudes than seem to me to have been in keeping with the times.
(Here I am basing my feelings on memories of contemporary books,
movies, magazines and other news media available in Australia at the
time. I didn't live there so have no personal knowledge to form a
more accurate impression. I first started to actually meet real live
Americans in the early 1960s, and it wasn't until 1967-ish that I met
any African-Americans. It's perhaps of interest that the
African-American US Navy sailors that I knew were adamant that given a
choice they preferred to live in the Deep South. They were not
comfortable living in the north, and I got the impression that they
thought that the racism there was more sinister. They knew where they
stood in the South and managed accordingly.)
Perhaps the reason Lee did not publish Watchman was this apparent
disconnect between the "two" Attici. There is a review in the
Spectator that is interesting. They didn't like it. I'll post it if
I can find it again.
Mique

I feel that I can understand the conflict in Scout and the disconnect
between the two Attici, as you put it. The reason lies in the
strikingly similar situation I mentioned. There too there was an absent
mother, a father who has started with little and achieved much, a
daughter who worshiped her father, an egregious wrongdoing by the father
while the daughter was growing up though she was unaware of it, and a
shocking revelation decades later, which struck this woman much the way
Scout reacted. Rage and hatred were the immediate result, followed by
confrontation and demands for answers. But eventually that was followed
with the recollection of the father's achievements, of the excellent
advice that he gave her as she grew up, and of his continued love for
her when she herself stumbled along the way. Still further along, she
was able to realize that she still loved him, although she remained
repulsed and horrified at what he had done. In reality, the process of
attempting to reconcile such conflicting emotions is one of months and
years, though the novel compresses it into hours - for the sake of
dramatic unity.

Given all that, I can understand a novelist choosing, after working
through the anger, to write a book that portrays the father in the light
that she wants to remember him and him to be remembered by others, the
light that reflects his best and her worship of him. The more painful
dual reality got buried in a desk drawer.

Francis A. Miniter

Mike Burke

2015-07-23 06:58:45 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Yes, I agree with all that. Those were pretty much my impressions,
but I'm not so sure how the conflict between Jean Louise and her
father could have existed at the time this novel was set in around
1954-ish (The Pajama Game was on Broadway then-ish), as it must have
done. According to the mythology surrounding this novel, it was
written before Mockingbird, some say as a drafte of that novel. If
so, the conflict between Jean Louise and her father must have been in
Harper Lee's head from the outset. To the extent that Mockingbird is
supposed to have been partly, perhaps significantly autobiographical,
I think many if not most people have seen it as something of an homage
to her father. I remember the furore over Brown although I was only a
teenager at the time.
I'm finding it hard to set out in words my reservations about Watchman
in the context of Mockingbird. One aspect is how could Lee write
Mockingbird knowing all along and having previously written Watchman
showing that Atticus was just another Southern racist albeit one with
a veneer of civilization that others lacked? There was no hint of
these clay feet in Mockingbird. Secondly, I still have this vague
lingering feeling that Watchman is anachronistic, ie that the
anti-racist judgementalism is written in terms of more modern idiom
and attitudes than seem to me to have been in keeping with the times.
(Here I am basing my feelings on memories of contemporary books,
movies, magazines and other news media available in Australia at the
time. I didn't live there so have no personal knowledge to form a
more accurate impression. I first started to actually meet real live
Americans in the early 1960s, and it wasn't until 1967-ish that I met
any African-Americans. It's perhaps of interest that the
African-American US Navy sailors that I knew were adamant that given a
choice they preferred to live in the Deep South. They were not
comfortable living in the north, and I got the impression that they
thought that the racism there was more sinister. They knew where they
stood in the South and managed accordingly.)
Perhaps the reason Lee did not publish Watchman was this apparent
disconnect between the "two" Attici. There is a review in the
Spectator that is interesting. They didn't like it. I'll post it if
I can find it again.
Mique

I feel that I can understand the conflict in Scout and the disconnect
between the two Attici, as you put it. The reason lies in the strikingly
similar situation I mentioned. There too there was an absent mother, a
father who has started with little and achieved much, a daughter who
worshiped her father, an egregious wrongdoing by the father while the
daughter was growing up though she was unaware of it, and a shocking
revelation decades later, which struck this woman much the way Scout
reacted. Rage and hatred were the immediate result, followed by
confrontation and demands for answers. But eventually that was followed
with the recollection of the father's achievements, of the excellent
advice that he gave her as she grew up, and of his continued love for her
when she herself stumbled along the way. Still further along, she was
able to realize that she still loved him, although she remained repulsed
and horrified at what he had done. In reality, the process of attempting
to reconcile such conflicting emotions is one of months and years, though
the novel compresses it into hours - for the sake of dramatic unity.
Given all that, I can understand a novelist choosing, after working
through the anger, to write a book that portrays the father in the light
that she wants to remember him and him to be remembered by others, the
light that reflects his best and her worship of him. The more painful
dual reality got buried in a desk drawer.
Francis A. Miniter

Yes, that explains it nicely. Thanks, Francis.

It will be interesting to see if, and how, they rationalise the decision to
publish Watchman against Lee's lifelong reluctance to do so. It has a
strong smell about it.

--
Mique

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-23 12:56:54 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Yes, I agree with all that. Those were pretty much my impressions,
but I'm not so sure how the conflict between Jean Louise and her
father could have existed at the time this novel was set in around
1954-ish (The Pajama Game was on Broadway then-ish), as it must have
done. According to the mythology surrounding this novel, it was
written before Mockingbird, some say as a drafte of that novel. If
so, the conflict between Jean Louise and her father must have been in
Harper Lee's head from the outset. To the extent that Mockingbird is
supposed to have been partly, perhaps significantly autobiographical,
I think many if not most people have seen it as something of an homage
to her father. I remember the furore over Brown although I was only a
teenager at the time.
I'm finding it hard to set out in words my reservations about Watchman
in the context of Mockingbird. One aspect is how could Lee write
Mockingbird knowing all along and having previously written Watchman
showing that Atticus was just another Southern racist albeit one with
a veneer of civilization that others lacked? There was no hint of
these clay feet in Mockingbird. Secondly, I still have this vague
lingering feeling that Watchman is anachronistic, ie that the
anti-racist judgementalism is written in terms of more modern idiom
and attitudes than seem to me to have been in keeping with the times.
(Here I am basing my feelings on memories of contemporary books,
movies, magazines and other news media available in Australia at the
time. I didn't live there so have no personal knowledge to form a
more accurate impression. I first started to actually meet real live
Americans in the early 1960s, and it wasn't until 1967-ish that I met
any African-Americans. It's perhaps of interest that the
African-American US Navy sailors that I knew were adamant that given a
choice they preferred to live in the Deep South. They were not
comfortable living in the north, and I got the impression that they
thought that the racism there was more sinister. They knew where they
stood in the South and managed accordingly.)
Perhaps the reason Lee did not publish Watchman was this apparent
disconnect between the "two" Attici. There is a review in the
Spectator that is interesting. They didn't like it. I'll post it if
I can find it again.
Mique

I feel that I can understand the conflict in Scout and the disconnect
between the two Attici, as you put it. The reason lies in the strikingly
similar situation I mentioned. There too there was an absent mother, a
father who has started with little and achieved much, a daughter who
worshiped her father, an egregious wrongdoing by the father while the
daughter was growing up though she was unaware of it, and a shocking
revelation decades later, which struck this woman much the way Scout
reacted. Rage and hatred were the immediate result, followed by
confrontation and demands for answers. But eventually that was followed
with the recollection of the father's achievements, of the excellent
advice that he gave her as she grew up, and of his continued love for her
when she herself stumbled along the way. Still further along, she was
able to realize that she still loved him, although she remained repulsed
and horrified at what he had done. In reality, the process of attempting
to reconcile such conflicting emotions is one of months and years, though
the novel compresses it into hours - for the sake of dramatic unity.
Given all that, I can understand a novelist choosing, after working
through the anger, to write a book that portrays the father in the light
that she wants to remember him and him to be remembered by others, the
light that reflects his best and her worship of him. The more painful
dual reality got buried in a desk drawer.
Francis A. Miniter

Yes, that explains it nicely. Thanks, Francis.
It will be interesting to see if, and how, they rationalise the decision to
publish Watchman against Lee's lifelong reluctance to do so. It has a
strong smell about it.

I agree. The rationale will certainly be the "realization of the assets
of the estate". But it is cruel indeed to put wealth above the wishes
of the person. Money never seemed to matter to her.

Francis A. Miniter

w***@post.com

2015-07-30 18:29:33 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Yes, I agree with all that. Those were pretty much my impressions,
but I'm not so sure how the conflict between Jean Louise and her
father could have existed at the time this novel was set in around
1954-ish (The Pajama Game was on Broadway then-ish), as it must have
done. According to the mythology surrounding this novel, it was
written before Mockingbird, some say as a drafte of that novel. If
so, the conflict between Jean Louise and her father must have been in
Harper Lee's head from the outset. To the extent that Mockingbird is
supposed to have been partly, perhaps significantly autobiographical,
I think many if not most people have seen it as something of an homage
to her father. I remember the furore over Brown although I was only a
teenager at the time.
I'm finding it hard to set out in words my reservations about Watchman
in the context of Mockingbird. One aspect is how could Lee write
Mockingbird knowing all along and having previously written Watchman
showing that Atticus was just another Southern racist albeit one with
a veneer of civilization that others lacked? There was no hint of
these clay feet in Mockingbird. Secondly, I still have this vague
lingering feeling that Watchman is anachronistic, ie that the
anti-racist judgementalism is written in terms of more modern idiom
and attitudes than seem to me to have been in keeping with the times.
(Here I am basing my feelings on memories of contemporary books,
movies, magazines and other news media available in Australia at the
time. I didn't live there so have no personal knowledge to form a
more accurate impression. I first started to actually meet real live
Americans in the early 1960s, and it wasn't until 1967-ish that I met
any African-Americans. It's perhaps of interest that the
African-American US Navy sailors that I knew were adamant that given a
choice they preferred to live in the Deep South. They were not
comfortable living in the north, and I got the impression that they
thought that the racism there was more sinister. They knew where they
stood in the South and managed accordingly.)
Perhaps the reason Lee did not publish Watchman was this apparent
disconnect between the "two" Attici. There is a review in the
Spectator that is interesting. They didn't like it. I'll post it if
I can find it again.

I feel that I can understand the conflict in Scout and the disconnect
between the two Attici, as you put it.

There is an article in the ABA Journal titled: "FareWell, Atticus" that praised Mr. Finch as something of an idol along with 25 of fiction's other favorite lawyers I guess. I wonder how their article would change regarding the new Lee publication.

-- http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_25_greatest_fictional_lawyers_who_are_not_atticus_finch/
-- http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/farewell_atticus

w***@post.com

2015-07-30 19:51:17 UTC

The article says and asks this: "Who is your favorite fictional lawyer? Vote here.

Hollywood loves lawyers. TV loves lawyers. And literature? Well, from Shakespeare to Dickens to Grisham, there is no shortage of fictional lawyers for us to admire, disdain or, above all, simply remember.

We wondered how the fictional lawyers of film, television and literature would stack up against each other. Of course, in some cases they are the same. The Perry Mason of Erle Stanley Gardner's popular novels is lost in Raymond Burr's television portrayal. John Mortimer's Horace Rumpole will forever have the face of actor Leo McKern. But whatever the medium, it is the character we come to love or loathe--whether as a lawyer, a detective, a hero or a human being.

In our survey of this literature of lawyers, however, we feel obliged to recognize a great divide--ante-Atticus and post-Atticus.

From Dick the Butcher's famous pronouncement to Jack Cade in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2--"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."--through Dickens' Mr. Tulkinghorn and Galsworthy's Soames Forsyte, literature (with a few exceptions) treated lawyers poorly.

That all changed with Harper Lee's unflappable, unforgettable Atticus Finch..."

They name as the 25 top fictional lawyers starting with first the character Frank Galvin from "The Verdict", Paul Biegler Anatomy of a Murder, Perry Mason Perry Mason, Charles W. Kingsfield Jr., The Paper Chase, Henry Drummond Inherit the Wind, Lawrence Preston The Defenders, Jack McCoy Law & Order, Horace Rumpole Rumpole of the Bailey, Chief Judge Dan Haywood Judgment at Nuremberg, Sir Wilfrid Robarts Witness for the Prosecution, Alan Shore Boston Legal, Vincent "Vinny" Gambini My Cousin Vinny, Lt. Daniel Kafee A Few Good Men, Arnie Becker L.A. Law, Arthur Kirkland And Justice for All, Hans Rolfe Judgment at Nuremberg, Mitchell Stephens The Sweet Hereafter, Ally McBeal Ally McBeal, Sandy Stern Presumed Innocent, Patty Hewes Damages, Michael Clayton Michael Clayton, Jake Brigance A Time to Kill, Rusty Sabich Presumed Innocent, Forrest Bedford I'll Fly Away and Jonathan Wilk Compulsion

(From the article, the opinion of ten contributing "popular culture experts" to the August 2010 issue of the ABA Journal)

David Johnston

2015-07-27 02:52:39 UTC

Post by Mike Burke
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Oy, oy, there's a world of difference between being opposed to
integration and being willing to let an innocent man go to the gallows
without a fight.

Francis A. Miniter

2015-07-27 18:07:11 UTC

Post by David Johnston

Post by Mike Burke
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 09:42:51 -0400, "Francis A. Miniter"

Oy, oy, there's a world of difference between being opposed to
integration and being willing to let an innocent man go to the gallows
without a fight.

Yes, there is, but I also see another aspect to it. There were/are many
people like Atticus Finch, who in a one-on-one situation, treat the
other as an equal, despite racial/gender/etc. differences. One-on-one
is not threatening. But, when it comes to giving a group of those
people rights, e.g., voting rights for women or integrated education for
black children, their view of the "other" changes instantly.
Immediately, they start talking about how such people cannot handle the
intellectual burdens of voting or competing with white children. They
throw up bogeymen about the "other" being childlike (people of color) or
unfamiliar with business and politics (women) and so unqualified to vote
or otherwise get equal treatment.

All of this comes down to a very nasty situation. The United States of
America was founded by propertied (i.e., wealthy) white males for the
benefit of themselves. Women and people of color were considered
inferior then, and are considered inferior now - at least in the South
and by GOP conservatives. GOP policy, in its anti-woman,
anti-immigrant, anti-equal voting rights legislation across the South
and mid-West, expresses the conservative desire to keep things the way
they were in 1789, with the political power in the hands of the wealthy,
white males.

And, of course, there are the wives of these controlling men, wives we
meet at the Coffee in _Watchman_ , wives who don't bother their heads
with any of this and simply parrot what the husband says, even if it
makes them look foolish. If the husband tells them it is too
complicated for them to understand, they will repeat that with a smile
when talking to the other wives. (So, maybe Lee was doing a little
stereotyping herself there.)

Such wives and the underpaid black men of the community who wear
overalls would then serve as the models on which stereotyping is
founded. In any case, the sad thing is that, though there is the
occasional breakthrough with a law or court decision furthering equal
rights, none the less, changes in underlying attitudes - not just in
1954, but now - have a long way to go before our society can give itself
a grade of A.

Francis A. Miniter

Nancy2

2015-08-16 13:00:12 UTC

I saw a recent news item which said disappointed readers were returning Lee's book
to Barnes and Noble and getting a refund because they didn't like the book.
Whaaaaat? I would never think of doing that, nor would I ever do it.

N.

Mike Burke

2015-08-16 14:00:34 UTC

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 06:00:12 -0700 (PDT), Nancy2

Post by Nancy2
I saw a recent news item which said disappointed readers were returning Lee's book
to Barnes and Noble and getting a refund because they didn't like the book.
Whaaaaat? I would never think of doing that, nor would I ever do it.

I saw that story too. I can't believe the hide of some people.

Mique

Joan in GB-W

2015-09-01 17:13:32 UTC

"Mike Burke" wrote in message news:***@4ax.com...

On Sun, 16 Aug 2015 06:00:12 -0700 (PDT), Nancy2

I saw that story too. I can't believe the hide of some people.

Mique

----------------------------------

The minute you open the book and read the first page, it is a used book -
and YOU CAN'T RETURN IT.

Joan

k***@gmail.com

2020-06-13 03:25:44 UTC