Book Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee


Image Source : Amazon


Author: Harper Lee

Language: English

Genre: The novel, Historical Fiction, Political fiction, Domestic Fiction


About the Author

Toni Morrison known as Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison, she was an American novelist, essayist, book editor, and college professor. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award.


Review

In ''Go Set a Watchman,''It includes treatments of many of the characters who appear in To Kill a Mockingbird. Delves into the complex relationship between father and daughter, The novel imparts a deep understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Much of the important context around Go Set a Watchman surrounds its dramatic publication history. 

To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee’s 1960 novel about race, justice, and growing up in the South, is one of the most beloved books of the twentieth century. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and has sold over 40 million copies worldwide since its release. In 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird was made into an Academy Award-winning film, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, and in 2003, the American Film Institute named Atticus Finch the greatest film hero of the twentieth century. 

This novel is both wonderfully evocative of another era and is relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of "To Kill a Mockingbird", but also serves as an essential companion to the American classic Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt.

Featuring many of the iconic characters from "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Go Set a Watchman" perfectly captures the feelings of a young woman, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past. It is a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience. Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before "To Kill a Mockingbird". 

Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014. It is the story of twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch-"Scout" (the child heroine of Mockingbird) who returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. 

Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political termoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people close to her. The most disturbing discovery is that her father, Atticus, has joined one of the marginally respectable Citizens' Council, a kind of less covert version of the Ku Klux Klan (a right wing extremist organisation) in the USA. 

Go Set a Watchman is set in the 1950s and focuses on an adult Jean Louise Finch visiting Alabama from New York City. Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case, emphasizes desegregation and is an important component of the book's background. 


What will you like about Go Set a Watchman?

Go Set A Watchman is an intresting book to read for the Christian community because it shows how one's convictions may conflict with their actions and how this struggle reflects on his or her character. To Kill a Mockingbird's narrative deals with many heavy issues including rape and racial inequality, the theme of conscience as a guide to moral decision-making. The title reflects this theme, as "watchman" symbolizes the conscience. Lee explores the dangers of surrendering decisions about right and wrong to someone or something else.

 

Why you should read and buy this book

Three main themes include prejudice, family life, and courage which will help you in every road you take in life. This book will become a source of motivation for you when you come across some hardships in your life.

Go Set a Watchman sold over a million copies during its first week on sale, but controversy escalated when the book was released. Harper Lee’s publishers touted the novel as an undiscovered gem and new literary masterpiece, but critics generally read the book as an early, flawed draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. 

A few weeks after it was published, a bookstore in Michigan offered customers who had purchased Go Set a Watchman a refund. The bookstore said that the book had been falsely advertised as “Harper Lee’s New Novel,” but that it actually was an academic insight into the development of To Kill a Mockingbird, rather than a full-fledged separate book. Debates about the novel’s status still continue.

 

My Ratings for this book 4.5/5

You can easily order a copy of it from Amazon - Go Set a Watchman


Written By - Govinda Kumar

Edited By - Anamika Malik