classics

This classic novel by Harper Lee potrays the life in the deep South during the Depression. The themes that this one single book varies from how you should not judge to how cruel racisim can be. The story is told from the view of an eight year old girl, who in her own way learns that human nature has two sides. When a story is told by a child, the innocense simply captives any reader. Jen-Lousie Finch is nothing short of this. Along with her brother Jem and her close friend Dill, they all three conceive numerous plots to bring the town's maniac in to broad daylight.On a more serious note, this story is about a black man who is accused agianst raping a white woman. One of the moral compasses of the story is Atticus Finch. He was appointed to defend Tom Robinson in court. The result of this trail will amaze and shock you. You will meet a wide range of characters. Starting from a morphine addict to a man who is shunned from soceity.On a personal note, I didn't read this story out of choice. It was assigned to our sixth grade class as an extra credit project and to this day I have respected my teacher for having such good taste. As I am sure many have sid before, the only dow side to this beautiful story is that it is the only one that Harper Lee wrote. I am sure we can all forgive her for this because she did it right the first time.

Harper Lee spent years crafting this classic novel of life in small town Alabama in the mid 1930s. Ms Lee wrote a first draft which her editors felt read more like a series of interconnected short stories rather than as a cohesive novel so, she went back to the drawing board and ultimately produced this popignant tale of life as seen through the eyes of an adult narrator remembering her childhood.

I read this book for a reason. My son, a high school student read this as an assignment for his honors English class. As an attorney, his teacher asked me to talk about life as a lawyer before the class. She mentioned this book in particular so I read it to compare my experiences with those of the novel's main character, Atticus Finch. I'm glad that I read it. I have seen the movie a couple of times but, the book offers great character analyses which cannot be duplicate on the screen (although the movie does a reasonable amount of justice to the book).

The book was written in the late 1950s and completed in 1960, as the evils of the Jim Crow era were coming to a head. Ms Lee could have painted portraits of good guys and bad guys, however, she looks affectionately upon most of the characters, seeing them as complex individuals. Therefore, she confronts their prejudices with understanding rather than in anger or self righteousness. Also, she does not paint the deep South of that time as monolithically rascist. There are those, in the book, who rise above narrow prejudice. Again, I read the book to be able to comment on the legal system portrayed therein. However, I got much more out of this book; a beautiful and compassionate character study.

Only growing up in the south would enable Harper Lee to capture the vicious sweetness that pervails there. Not only to capture it but then be able to transfer that on to the reader. You can smell the sweetness of the talcum through the sticky of the hot summer days. Sickly sweet. The church group women are vicious in their sweetness. Ardently praying for the savages in Africa while embracing the savage mores of the south. And in the midst of all of this she tells one of the greatest coming of age stories ever written. Fabulous. One I read every summer.