| title: To kill a mockingbird by: Lee, Harper published: 1960-06-11 read: 2021-07 preview | |
The 1961 Pulitzer Prize winner. Books, plays, movies, what not, have been made out of this one.
Why? Well, it’s a southern US story. Alabama, in fact, a small community, and written out of the soul of Jean Louise Finch aka Scout, who’s 6 years old. And that’s, for me, one of the selling arguments of the book: it is written from the view of a 6-year-old. Somehow credible, too; her curiosity and innocent perspective makes the whole story charming and authentic.
Scout, and her older brother Jem, live with their father, a lawyer in this small community in the 1930s. And a very loving father (Atticus); indeed, most people are loving, caring one way or the other, well with some exceptions which are related to racial issues. I’m not a historian so don’t listen; but these racial issues may be traced back to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, and how that prevented segregation to be solved in the US. (Later I learned more about the lynching public sports, which was popular between the late 1800s and the 1920s, to only disappear in the 1950s or so. But that is a different story.)
The story is set in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Great Depression, while the central plot is around Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson, a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman, Mayella Ewell.
Atticus Finch is a hero. His sense of justice, integrity, empathy, moral clarity. Him defending Tom Robinson is not just a legal battle but a fight against the deep-seated prejudices of the time.
It has been called the “best book ever.” Well, that’s like saying that Bach was the best composer ever. Or van Beethoven. Still, it is on the list of books one must read, somewhere along one’s life.
To Kill A Mockingbird features somewhat prominently in more recent read of mine, The Help, where it is mentioned as a must-read anyone on the right side of racial injustice.
I’ll shut op here. Don’t read me; read Harper Lee.