I was going to title this thread "Persuade me that TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is (not) the greatest novel ever written, but as soon as I typed it out I realized how silly that was. After all, everyone already knows it’s the greatest novel ever written. Yeah, I know there’s a few outliers who disagree, but I have no time today for madmen.
Anyway, in some zombie thread of mine which I’m too lazy to link to, several persons mention TKaM as the one book they want their kids to know above all others. I thought it might be interesting to get people to talk about their love of that book; hence this thread.
Talk about the movie if you must. Technically I should get all shirty, but actually I don’t give a flip.
I was kind of meh about it. It didn’t really affect me at all. I had been expecting a lot more. I thought the character of Atticus was so overly idealized that he wasn’t realistic. I also saw the Boo Radley twist coming down Main Street. I would recommend it to my kids as a nice little book for teenage girls, but I’ve never felt an urge to read it again myself.
I loved the book. It’s probably my favorite novel of all time, and here’s the thing: I didn’t read it until I was in my 30s. I know if I would have been forced to read this book when I was a snot-nosed punk, I would have hated it. I am so thankful I didn’t have to give it the ol’ High School English treatment!
I can’t say it transformed my life or anything like that, but it is an extremely good book. And the essential message, that all people are worthwhile and that we should hesitate to judge them adversely, is very clearly and consistently delivered.
I was almost certain that I had a copy, but glancing over at my bookshelf, it’s not where it should be (right next to Twain). Either I need to dig it out of whatever disorganized pile it’s in, or I need to get a new copy.
I read it only a few years ago and although I liked it very much, I wasn’t blown away by it. Maybe I just went into it expecting too much. I would read it again and I would be interested if the author ever did write another book but it would be only in my top twenty and probably not in my top five of my favorite books.
I loved the book when “forced” to read it high school, and I have reread it every couple of years ever since. The biggest influence it has had on me is the way it has helped define for me what is means to be strong. I haven’t known anyone personally who has gone through the things that Atticus went through, but I have had the privilege of knowing some people who have the same sort of strength. It’s something I aspire to.
I am involved in a Christian ministry in a maximum security prison. When I have a need, as I have several times in the years I have been meeting with prisoners, to give an example of strength that avoids violence, I use the scene where Tom Ewell spits on Atticus as an example.
Great post Crotalus. The book feels part of the American narrative - I read it as a kid as a good story, as a student as a commentary and as an adult as part of how we want to look at ourselves. Its story provides an idealized example that rings truer than Washington not telling a lie…
The “Payload”, so to speak, of the novel was well worth slight weaknesses of the story. I read it in my thirties and felt the emotional effect of the introspective mood I had as I read.
That said, I felt it quite jarring in the end when such a well written story lost all subtlety and was wrapped up with nary a loose end, with a pretty bow, Hollywood style. That was not bad, but surprising to see in a novel that many consider the greatest novel of the twentieth century.
I think Atticus is quite flawed. He often puts his principles above his children - and that almost gets both his children killed. He is distant - in some ways an almost neglectful parent. His sister is very right - he really isn’t a fit parent for raising a girl in 1930s Alabama - and without the Tom Robinson trial, I don’t think she’d have won her point.
I love the book because its such a perfect novel about growing up - about the loss (and retention) of innocence. About how people can be good without being perfect.
Oh, the book…
Sorry, by the time I read the book I was already able to read it in English. But I did watch the movie when I was 11 and got a crush of Gregory Peck about the size of Mount Rushmore…
Atticus could be part of my father’s side of the family and I was a voracious reader, so with one thing and another it was easy for me to identify with the kids. Reading it many years later, I recall that some parts were somewhat of a slog, but it still was a good book.
I don’t acknowledge the movie,but I don’t expect to share my weirdness. Talk about it as long as you want so long as you don’t mention the porn version.
I don’t know that there’s a porn version; I just assume there is. My cite is human nature. Anyone, anyone who proves the existence of a porn version will be shot, strangled, stabbed, suffocated, smothered, dismembered, sent to bed without supper. And it’s chicken casserole night.
I wonder if it might have a lesser impact on non-Americans. The racial issues are such an important part of the book, but most countries haven’t gone through quite the same racial issues that the US has (most countries go through their own distinctive racial issues, but not the same particular ones as us).
One of my favorite books. I’d decided to be a lawyer at an even younger age than I read TKAM, but this confirmed it when I read it in high school. The lead character was a bad assed lawyer and the deadest shot in Maycomb County.
The author is still alive, but in a nursing home. Her sister is in her 90s too and still practicing law.
