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A review by chevelyn
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
4.0
If you can put To Kill a Mockingbird out of your mind, and forget the grossly erroneously marketing campaign that proclaimed Go Set a Watchman to be the long lost sequel of Harper Lee's classic of American literature, then this is actually a pretty decent book.
Sure, it's not an entirely polished novel - it was, after all, the first draft of Mockingbird; it's more anecdotal in nature, and some of the flashbacks are jarring, somewhat long and confusing but the time you return to the main narrative. But I found myself impressed with the story's maturity and intelligence; I quickly grew fond of the stubborn and independent Jean Louise, and the overarching themes - of dealing with the shattering of one's moral compass, and the pain that comes with entering adulthood and discovering that your parents are mere human beings - entirely moving and relatable. It's a crucial life experience that we all must come across at some stage in our lives, it's essential to our growth into maturity, and it has been skilfully captured in Watchman. As she proved in Mockingbird, Lee is a talented writer, with a knack for bringing characters to life with a mere few words, for all this book is a book is a bit rough around the edges.
The controversy surrounding the book's discovery and subsequent publication, including the egregious marketing of the book as a sequel when it's anything but, does mar my enjoyment of Watchman. If it had never seen the light of day, I don't think we would have any worse for it. That said, I did find it to be an enriching story, in an entirely different way to Mockingbird. Maybe I'm so forgiving because I'm not a TKAM purist like so many others are (it's a masterpiece, but far from being one my all-time faves). Taken with a grain of salt, and read with an open-minded acknowledgement of its status as the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, I don't think you'll find Go Set a Watchman to be a disappointment at all.
Sure, it's not an entirely polished novel - it was, after all, the first draft of Mockingbird; it's more anecdotal in nature, and some of the flashbacks are jarring, somewhat long and confusing but the time you return to the main narrative. But I found myself impressed with the story's maturity and intelligence; I quickly grew fond of the stubborn and independent Jean Louise, and the overarching themes - of dealing with the shattering of one's moral compass, and the pain that comes with entering adulthood and discovering that your parents are mere human beings - entirely moving and relatable. It's a crucial life experience that we all must come across at some stage in our lives, it's essential to our growth into maturity, and it has been skilfully captured in Watchman. As she proved in Mockingbird, Lee is a talented writer, with a knack for bringing characters to life with a mere few words, for all this book is a book is a bit rough around the edges.
The controversy surrounding the book's discovery and subsequent publication, including the egregious marketing of the book as a sequel when it's anything but, does mar my enjoyment of Watchman. If it had never seen the light of day, I don't think we would have any worse for it. That said, I did find it to be an enriching story, in an entirely different way to Mockingbird. Maybe I'm so forgiving because I'm not a TKAM purist like so many others are (it's a masterpiece, but far from being one my all-time faves). Taken with a grain of salt, and read with an open-minded acknowledgement of its status as the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, I don't think you'll find Go Set a Watchman to be a disappointment at all.