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Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

bbc.com

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Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#71

Post by cbd1984 »

ijk wrote: post #58
chimeracoder wrote: post #52

I was incredibly excited to see this news upon seeing the headline in the New York Times, and surprised, because Harper Lee has been a recluse for almost her entire life since writing To Kill a Mockingbird , and has repeatedly insisted that she had no desire to publish another book ("I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said…

I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match. If they were both written in the same time period by the same author, they should be pretty similar. I do hope there's nothing untoward going on here and that this book lives up to the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird , but the possibility is at least worth examining.

> I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match.

You might compare it and the original to the work of other authors, such as Truman Capote.

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#72

Post by cbd1984 »

a8da6b0c91d wrote: post #66
chengiz wrote: post #61

It seems everybody here loves "To Kill a Mockingbird". To me, it's a well written but ultimately shallow novel. Finch is your typical woman's fantasy man: great at fatherhood, great at his work, morally upright, totally scrupulous, and yes, best shot in the county. The black people in the novel rarely get a voice, except one of platitudes, and the race relations stuff is totally black and white (excuse the pun), with…

> a fine school reading list book I'm pretty sure a book can't get on those lists any more without a theme of oppression or alienation. I'm not joking. Almost everything they make kids read any more is somehow about injustice or bigotry. Apropos Southern Gothic lit, I'm chuckling at the thought of a typical 9th grade english teacher trying to tackle a much better book like Flannery Oconnor's "The Violent Bear it Away…

Then you have High School AP English, where "As I Lay Dying" is a standard text.

I think "Catch-22" is as well.

Say what you will about those books, they're not necessarily essay-ready in the same way "To Kill A Mockingbird" is.

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#73

Post by seeingfurther »

chengiz wrote: post #61

It seems everybody here loves "To Kill a Mockingbird". To me, it's a well written but ultimately shallow novel. Finch is your typical woman's fantasy man: great at fatherhood, great at his work, morally upright, totally scrupulous, and yes, best shot in the county. The black people in the novel rarely get a voice, except one of platitudes, and the race relations stuff is totally black and white (excuse the pun), with…

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners ~ Harper Lee

You need to read it again bub.

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#75

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

chengiz wrote: post #61

It seems everybody here loves "To Kill a Mockingbird". To me, it's a well written but ultimately shallow novel. Finch is your typical woman's fantasy man: great at fatherhood, great at his work, morally upright, totally scrupulous, and yes, best shot in the county. The black people in the novel rarely get a voice, except one of platitudes, and the race relations stuff is totally black and white (excuse the pun), with…

>It's a fine school reading list book but that is all it is.

The book has been banned from many schools.

Racial slurs, profanity, and blunt dialogue about rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms so often that, today, the American Library Association reports that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most challenged classics of all time and still ranks at number 21 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 2000–2009. Even as recently as 2011 and amid 326 other book challenges for that year, it ranks in the top ten more than 50 years after seeing print.

http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2012/07/30/banned-books-awarene...

http://www.marshall.edu/library/bannedbooks/books/killmockin...

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#77

Post by mikeash »

themodelplumber wrote: post #46
mw44118 wrote: post #45

To Kill a Mockingbird perpetuates the idea that women make false rape accusations. We shouldn't celebrate such a hurtful topic.

You're getting downvoted, but I think it's not because your claim lacks merit; rather the book perpetuates many ideas, of which that may be one. I'm sure fans of the book don't wish to perpetuate falsehoods surrounding a topic like rape, but they may naturally take a different perspective on what is being celebrated by sharing this news.

I downvoted him because he openly admitted to trolling.

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#78

Post by stormbrew »

ijk wrote: post #58
chimeracoder wrote: post #52

I was incredibly excited to see this news upon seeing the headline in the New York Times, and surprised, because Harper Lee has been a recluse for almost her entire life since writing To Kill a Mockingbird , and has repeatedly insisted that she had no desire to publish another book ("I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said…

I'm certainly thinking of running the ebook through a statistical analysis to see if the patterns in the writing match. If they were both written in the same time period by the same author, they should be pretty similar. I do hope there's nothing untoward going on here and that this book lives up to the legacy of To Kill a Mockingbird , but the possibility is at least worth examining.

Huh? I don't think anyone is really doubting the authenticity of the book. At least not yet. They're doubting that Harper Lee has actually authorized its release with full knowledge of what that means.

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#79

Post by jqm »

I'm sure the first book was very good but I never read it and feel negatively about it. Why? Simple. Because it was on the high school required reading list. I looked around at the teachers, looked around at the town, looked around at the larger society in which I lived, and decided very early I was having no part of indoctrination.

It's too bad. Because it probably is a good book. The bible might be as well. But I'll never know because suspicion of indoctrination ruined it for me. Maybe this is a personal failing. But putting books on the high school required reading list is a good way to make thinking people suspicious of motive in my view.

Re: Harper Lee to publish Mockingbird 'sequel'

#80

Post by pervycreeper »

SerpentJoe wrote: post #55
pervycreeper wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an unfortunately narrow misreading. There are much more universal themes than that in the book.

There's nothing unfortunate about acknowledging the racial themes in To Kill A Mockingbird, and doing so doesn't diminish any of the other messages. It would be a shit book if it were only about one thing. One of the things it's about is race, unpleasant as it may be.

That's correct, but the GP comment is unfortunate in that it is either a deliberate misinterpretation of my comment, or one made from a very superficial understanding of the text.
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