Saturday, February 27, 2016

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Even though Go Set a Watchman is set 20 years after To Kill a Mockingbird, it was actually written first. Since I loved Mockingbird when I read it originally many years ago, and still loved it when I read it again last month, I wanted to read Watchman. I was disappointed in it.

I've just learned from Wikipedia that Go Set a Watchman was actually more of a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, which explains a lot. Many of the situations in Mockingbird were different in the retelling in Watchman. I believe that as Harper Lee rewrote her draft, turning it into To Kill a Mockingbird, she must have decided to make a number of changes, some small and others quite significant. Then when Watchman was published last year, no one went back to make it consistent with Mockingbird.

I read the book for the following category of the Back to the Classics 2016 Reading Challenge:

2.  A 20th Century Classic - any book published between 1900 and 1966. Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later.

 
I rate it 2 out of 5.

1 comment:

Kathy A. Johnson said...

Originally I chose not to read Go Set a Watchman just because I heard how disappointing it was. After reading about the way it came to light and was published, it almost seemed like it was just a money grab by those in control of Lee's estate. Still, maybe it is worth reading especially if you are a Mockingbird fan. That you gave it three out of five stars makes me think it might be worth a read after all.