To Eat a Mockingbird

Anas Amer, Staff Writer

Immediately from its recent release, the novel has gained immense popularity: Go Set a Watchmen. A sequel to the esteemed To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.

We start off with Scout, quickly getting a hinted summary of her then current life. She’s coming back to Maycomb after a life of her own. Little by little, Scout starts to make sense of her home’s transformation while she’s been away. Small changes from the beginning foreshadow bigger ones that shake Scouts well-being (not to mention our own). This parallels to our coping of change after being so long apart from “home” (the classic To Kill a Mockingbird), only to find that it’s actually twisted and has turned on every belief we thought once true.

At its release, Go Set a Watchmen has gained a tremendous amount of fame. Immediately, I jumped onto the hype train. But there were way too many bumps on the track. It didn’t work up to a certain expectation, and I felt that there were too many contradictions to previous knowledge. The plot inflates certain factors that should have stayed small, and subdues features that should have been momentous. Dialogue between characters becomes tedious and dull, when the required point could have portrayed in a shorter, and even better symbolic sense. And some of the holes of “what happened to…?” are widened to even further lengths.    

Already set up with AR, the novel is at a book level of 5.9 for a good 10 points. So the question comes, will you read it? Will it ruin or reassure your notions? But don’t allow yourself to jump to high expectations. Harper Lee is right about one thing though. Set yourself a watchmen, or it’ll be hard to come down.
Immediately from its recent release, the novel has gained immense popularity:
Go Set a Watchmen. A sequel to the esteemed To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.

We start off with Scout, quickly getting a hinted summary of her then current life. She’s coming back to Maycomb after a life of her own. Little by little, Scout starts to make sense of her home’s transformation while she’s been away. Small changes from the beginning foreshadow bigger ones that shake Scouts well-being (not to mention our own). This parallels to our coping of change after being so long apart from “home” (the classic To Kill a Mockingbird), only to find that it’s actually twisted and has turned on every belief we thought once true.

At its release, Go Set a Watchmen has gained a tremendous amount of fame. Immediately, I jumped onto the hype train. But there were way too many bumps on the track. It didn’t work up to a certain expectation, and I felt that there were too many contradictions to previous knowledge. The plot inflates certain factors that should have stayed small, and subdues features that should have been momentous. Dialogue between characters becomes tedious and dull, when the required point could have portrayed in a shorter, and even better symbolic sense. And some of the holes of “what happened to…?” are widened to even further lengths.    

Already set up with AR, the novel is at a book level of 5.9 for a good 10 points. So the question comes, will you read it? Will it ruin or reassure your notions? But don’t allow yourself to jump to high expectations. Harper Lee is right about one thing though. Set yourself a watchmen, or it’ll be hard to come down.