I was so excited when I first heard that the work of one of my favourite writers, Harper Lee, was going to be published in July 2015. Go Set a Watchman, the earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird.
The publication of Go Set a Watchman drew controversy. From the suspicion of exploitation of the aging author to the unexpected revelation that Atticus, the idolised character in To Kill a Mockingbird, was actually a racist. I bought the ebook with a rather low expectation after reading the ambivalent reviews of critics.
I read the book remembering that it was a first draft and despite that, I find myself to be quite fascinated by the story. Yes, the plot and the narrative are not as neatly written as To Kill a Mockingbird. The narrative of To Kill a Mockingbird is very endearing, to me. In To Kill a Mockingbird, we were being drawn by the voice of a kid as she learns about about prejudice, about racism, about equality, about what is right. In one of his book, Yalom once said, what children don't understand, they invent. This is what we exactly see from Scout, Jem, and Dill, the logic of children, trying to make sense the world around them. I think that's the reason why I was and still am very fascinated by To Kill a Mockingbird and the reason why the book resonate with so many people.
Go Set a Watchman is different. We see Maycomb from the eyes of Scout as a young adult. It sets itself up as a coming of age story. She has established a set of values, but no quite so. In her mind, her values are set with Atticus as the moral compass. She idolises her father and her world is shattered when she learns that her father is actually a racist. Her father defended Robinson just because there are some doubts that Robinson was actually guilty of the alleged crime, not because he was an equal, had the same rights, and also a human. Her father only defended him, just in the case's context. To give the same civil rights to black is entirely a different case. According to his father, it is the same as giving special privileges to them and they are not entitled to that, because they haven't earned it, because they're backward. In simple words, at the end, Scout understands that we are our own watchman and we have to accept people although their views are different from us.
That being said, I think it's not only Scout's world that shattered. A lot of people's world are also shattered. Atticus is a role model. The symbol of courage and compassion. Go Set a Watchman, can be said, ruins that image. We see Atticus as our moral compass. Our watchman. We find that kind of archetypal character in a lot of stories. Gandalf, in The Lord of The Rings. Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Aren't we all looking for that archetypal character in real life? That's why religions and a lot of ideologies thrive, because they provide us with a moral compass.
In oversimplified conclusion, I think the significance of Go Set a Watchman is the realisation that good and evil exist simultaneously in the same person. No one is perfect and that's okay.
I enjoyed the book. A lot. Although, yes, if we read it as stand alone novel, if we haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird, we fail to understand why Scout idolises her father so much. The good deeds her father did, defending Tom Robinson, was mentioned only in passing. But after all, Go Set a Watchman is only an earlier draft.
