Thankfully, over the last couple months between audio books and fitting in a couple more ten minute reading windows during the day (one while my computer boots up at work and one before bed), I’ve really started to pick up on reading again. I got a whole plethora of audiobooks for the recent Michigan trip, and one of the one’s MacGyver wanted to listen to was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea. I picked the book out as an option because I like to keep a good ratio of classics in the mix, but I vaguely remember reading this book in Jr High and being un-whelmed (my word). But since I had chosen The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams beforehand, I went with MacGyver’s choice, and I am so glad I did.
I can understand why I wasn’t so into this book when I was young (I don’t think I ever even finished it back then, nor did I ever see the movie since I hadn’t read/liked the book). It is rather slow by today’s standards. But the beauty of this book isn’t in suspence, action, or thrills, part of it’s beauty lies in it’s pure slowness. The ease of the storytelling weaves a very full picture of the setting in which the story takes place as well as the standpoint of the narrator, a child.
The book has some excellent suspense and action scenes, but they are far spread apart. And it has a message that has been highly touted throughout history. I could easily spend a day in discussing the commentaries on society, race, class, justice, gender, and the way those things have changed – or sadly failed to change in the years since the events in the novel would have taken place. These are deep, worthwhile discussions that have already been well talked out by scholars. If you’re looking for one of those, try Google Scholar.
While I found all those aspects deeply moving and thought provoking, just as with The Other Boleyn Girl, my thoughts were most rousingly stimulated by the charcters, namely the main character, Atticus Finch.
First a little background (possible spoiler alert): This story is narrated by Atticus Finch’s daughter, nicknamed Scout, who is about 9 at the beginning of the story. The book spends opens with Scout describing the lives of the characters and the town at a liesurely pace, though these explorations are also interspersed with some discussion of the trial which constitutes a primary plot point in the middle of the book.
Scout’s father, Atticus Finch, an attorney in a poor town, has been appointed to represent a black man accused of raping a white girl. The prejudices begin, but are not overwhelming. They are more of an undercurrent or just a simple fact. They contribute to the story, to the moral, but they are not the point. The story moves on to the trial. I will not go into the trial in detail, but if you haven’t read this book, if you haven’t read this trial, you really should. It is masterful. I have some attorney critisisms of it, but from a visceral standpoint, it is wonderful and thrilling and heartwarming and heartwrenching and leads to just all sorts of inner turmoil, as a good book, and a trial of this kind, should.
SPOILER ALERT
Atticus looses the trial. I found myself suprised the book didn’t end there. I’m too used to our little 21st century attention span TV-trial plots. As a lawyer, I should know damn well the story doesn’t end there. Atticus is confident an appeal will be won. Unfortunately, by some horrifying sad events, that possibility vanishes before their eyes. Sad, horrible, brutal facts of life and death that must be dealt with and moved past, but not forgotted, not buried or ignored, but must be moved past.
The story carries on to explore a little more of human nature. To follow up a little more on some charcters whose stories were not yet resolved by the end of the trial, but the untimely death of the wrongfully convicted.
There is much I could lay out here, but really, this is a detailed, winding story, and you just have to read it yourself. My point is not to discuss the plot. I want to talk about Atticus Finch, and why he has become a phantom that I chase.