# The Wall St. Journal kicks a puppy: Columnist Trashes "To Kill a Mockingbird" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 25, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507 "2010-06-25T17:50:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/41 "2010-06-27T15:21:35Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > _There’s_ the simile the OP was looking for. 😉 Yes - that’s it! (I am stuck at a weekend business conf, just seeing that this thread has a lot of good posts!) ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/42 "2010-06-27T17:38:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But novels don’t write themselves. Authors write them. So anything appearing in a novel is there because an author made a choice for it to be there. Nothing just happened. Sure, but putting a character in a historical novel that has contemporary attitudes is bad writing. I doubt the book would be considered a classic if she’d done that. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/43 "2010-06-27T19:50:57Z")
I’m going to side with Little Nemo, Shodan, and the others who say the book is being trashed for a simplicity that isn’t there. Yes, the good and evil are explicitly called out. But that’s simply so that the framework is well defined for the real plot - the reactions of average people to good and evil, how a ‘good’ man can exist in a society that does evil things, etc. Yes, Atticus accepts much of the trappings of the racist state. Yes, he eats in segregated establishments. He doesn’t blink when black people are forced into the balcony. But that’s rather the point - he’s rising above his own preconditions and his own environment when he can see the injustice - but he doesn’t always see it. Sometimes, the culture you grow up in can blind you to the things we can now see very clearly. Sometimes, peer pressure and fear can drive a mob into doing things the individuals wouldn’t do. When the little girl turned the mob away, she did so by making it _personal_. She stripped away the mob mentality and talked to people as individuals. One they were confronted by their behavior as individuals, their attitudes changed. It’s these scenes that make the movie great. They would have been totally blunted had the good/evil dichotomy been watered down with nuance and relativism. The reviewer totally misses the point of the story and what makes it great. And the fact that we can debate it in depth like this invalidates the claim that the book is nothing more than “An ungainsayable endorsement of the obvious.” ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/44 "2010-06-27T23:24:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But novels don’t write themselves. Authors write them. So anything appearing in a novel is there because an author made a choice for it to be there. Nothing just happened. What\*\* Dangerosa said\*\*. Novels should be realistic to the time period they are covering. Although you might be happier **Gone with the Wind** would suffer if the plantation owners and their slaves gathered together to sing Kumbaya. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/45 "2010-06-27T23:45:12Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Okay - sounds like I got the metaphor wrong; I was going for “he was assaulting something that you’d expect to be un-assault-able and is held dear by a lot of folks.” Maybe it is more like “trashing Abe Lincoln” or “saying the Allies were bad guys in WW2” or something… > > …work with me, people! 😉 😃 I thought you meant it in the sense of the TVTropes [Kick the Dog](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KickTheDog) trope, i.e., an act crossing the [Moral Event Horizon](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon). ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/46 "2010-06-28T00:06:11Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > Um…no, Gatsby is gazing at the green light all along simply because it’s shining from the dock of the woman he loves across the bay. There’s also some symbolism in the book, y’know. Including the green light. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/47 "2010-06-28T00:18:32Z")
> [@](#): > > What Dangerosa said. Novels should be realistic to the time period they are covering. Although you might be happier Gone with the Wind would suffer if the plantation owners and their slaves gathered together to sing Kumbaya. I don’t know why you would think I’d be happier with any revision considering I’ve been arguing against that idea. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/48 "2010-06-28T01:28:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t know why you would think I’d be happier with any revision considering I’ve been arguing against that idea. Sorry, I should have been clearer and didn’t mean to imply you were supporting any sort of revisionism. What I meant was you (plural) can’t infer that an author is placing their present-day sensibilities in a novel set in the past. It would be an anachronism to have 1960’s racial attitudes in a book set in the 1930’s just as much as it would be to have plantation owners and slaves all happy together in Gone with the Wind. I think Lee should be given more credit than this. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/49 "2010-06-28T01:56:25Z")
But does he have a point that Alabama is underepresented on the Southern Lit shelf? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/50 "2010-06-28T05:22:04Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > But does he have a point that Alabama is underepresented on the Southern Lit shelf? It’s true that Alabama must bow to Mississippi on authors, but considering Harper Lee’s next door neighbor was Truman Capote (who was born in New Orleans but grew up in Alabama from before he could remember until adolescence and then frequently returned) it’s safe to say Alabamians had the 1960s pretty well nailed down. We were actually much better represented in the 19th century but most of them, in spite of being extremely popular in their day, are forgotten now (Augusta Evans and Jeremiah Clemens [a cousin of Mark Twain though they never met and the writer of some very good still highly readable novels today- sided with the north during the Civil War incidentally). There are quite a few others as well (Fannie Flagg, Winston Groom and Rick Bragg are probably the widest read who are still writing, though I’m sure he’d denigrate all of them). Ultimately dude comes across as a rather dickish statement from a “never heard of him and damn is he bitter about it” fellow desperately trying to make a stir. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/51 "2010-06-28T17:26:27Z")
delete ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507/52 "2010-06-28T17:27:32Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s true that Alabama must bow to Mississippi on authors, but considering Harper Lee’s next door neighbor was Truman Capote (who was born in New Orleans but grew up in Alabama from before he could remember until adolescence and then frequently returned) it’s safe to say Alabamians had the 1960s pretty well nailed down. We were actually much better represented in the 19th century but most of them, in spite of being extremely popular in their day, are forgotten now (Augusta Evans and Jeremiah Clemens [a cousin of Mark Twain though they never met and the writer of some very good still highly readable novels today- sided with the north during the Civil War incidentally). There are quite a few others as well (Fannie Flagg, Winston Groom and Rick Bragg are probably the widest read who are still writing, though I’m sure he’d denigrate all of them). Ultimately dude comes across as a rather dickish statement from a “never heard of him and damn is he bitter about it” fellow desperately trying to make a stir. There’s also Helen Keller although she wasn’t a novelist. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wall-st-journal-kicks-a-puppy-columnist-trashes-to-kill-a-mockingbird/544507.md?page=2)