So, the biggest news of the week, publishing-wise, is that Nelle Harper Lee, the beloved author of To Kill a Mockingbird, will have a new book coming out in mid-July. Go Set a Watchman is supposedly the book Lee submitted before submitting Mockingbird, and follows Scout as an adult, going back to the small town that shaped her. Cassie wrote a beautiful piece about the upcoming release, and asked that I write about my thoughts about the release, and I told her I was scattery (as I am!) but I’d been thinking about it a lot this week. I didn’t think I had it in me to write a whole post about it, but started writing…and here we are.
I’ve talked about this before (probably ad nauseum) but Mockingbird is, most sincerely, one of my favorite and most formative books. I think it’s the same for so many people. We want to be (and hope we are, deep down) Atticus; we identify with tough little scrappy Scout; our collective hearts break for Boo. Some of the most beautiful lines in literature come from the book…
“Atticus said to Jem one day, ‘I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. ‘Your father’s right,’ she said. ‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’”
“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.”
His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears.
“Hey, Boo,” I said.
“Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.”
“Atticus put his face in my hair and rubbed it. When he got up and walked across the porch into the shadows, his youthful step had returned. Before he went inside the house, he stopped in front of Boo Radley. ‘Thank you for my children, Arthur,’ he said.”
And in looking for these online to get the wording exactly right, I teared up at the power of them. It’s been so long since I read the book for the first time – I don’t even remember the first time I met the Finches, honestly, whether it was in high school or early in college – and I’m still moved to tears by the simple beauty in Lee’s words.
I’ve read the book more times than I can count; I held off on watching the movie because I didn’t think it could possibly have the power of the book, but oh, was I wrong. Gregory Peck was Atticus Finch. His calm authority gave me chills. I saw a beautiful production of a theatrical version of it a couple of years ago which moved me to tears; the actor who played Atticus gave the most beautiful reading of “Thank you for my children, Arthur,” perfectly tear-choked and stiff-upper-lipped, and I audibly sobbed in the theater. (I wasn’t alone in that.)
All of this to say, when a friend posted that Go Set a Watchman was going to be published in July, my heart jumped. Of course it did. These characters have become my family over the years. A book showing me what happened to them? A book following Scout into adulthood, giving us a peek at Jem, seeing if they’ve kept in touch with Dill, letting us know if Atticus has kept his idealism with everyone around him trying to beat it out of him, letting us know if Mayella turned out alright? How can I not want that?
Then news started coming out that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t what Lee wanted.
Short version: Everyone knows that Mockingbird was Lee’s only book. She’s been a bit of a recluse ever since – not Salinger-level, or anything, but not going around the world singing “I WROTE MOCKINGBIRD, WHOO-HOO, LOOK AT ME!” (And side note, there have been rumors for years that her dear friend Truman Capote actually wrote Mockingbird – because of course a woman couldn’t have written something that luminescent, and she never followed up on it, so WHAT IS SHE HIDING? And then there are other rumors that Lee wrote Capote’s In Cold Blood, so how about we just assume they each wrote their own books and let people have their successes as neither of them have, that I know of, ever accused the other of nefariousness?)
Her sister was her lawyer for years, until she recently passed away. Lee has had a stroke and, by most reports, isn’t of sound mind. Her sister was very protective of her, and it’s come up that it’s very suspicious that this long-lost manuscript has suddenly surfaced upon her death. People are saying she’d sign anything anyone put in front of her these days, and without her sister to look out for her, she just might have signed off on a book she never wanted published. It’s a savvy move from the publisher – the book was announced just a few days ago, and is currently #5 on Amazon’s pre-order list of Contemporary Fiction and#10 in the Kindle Store for Contemporary Fiction. And Mockingbird? #1 with a bullet, baby. Topping the list currently on Amazon in the Kindle Store for Literary Fiction, #1 in Literature and Fiction in the United States, and #1 in Legal Fiction. Take THAT, John Grisham! I’m not saying, if this is true, it’s not a completely slimy move…but financially, it’s savvy.
She’s kind of adorable, right? I want her to be my neighbor. I want to hang out with her and talk about birds and crocheting and words, words, words.
So what’s a reader to do?
There’s no way I couldn’t read this book. I have to. Everyone’s going to be reading it. It’s going to be like when the last Harry Potter book was released and I couldn’t go three feet without seeing someone with that gigantic book in their hands because they didn’t want to go even minutes without reading it. This is going to be a global discussion when it comes out. A global discussion about a book? How can I not be part of that? And the sheer fact that more people are reading Mockingbird – how can I not love that? But I’m torn. What if Lee – this woman who introduced me to Atticus and Jem and Scout and Dill and Boo – didn’t want this book flying around in the wild? What if it’s not up to her standards and that’s why it hasn’t been released until now? Don’t I owe more to this woman who’s been such a force in my life, whose given me so much? None of us will ever really know what she wants, will we? Do we let the book speak for itself?
Yes. Of course I’ll read it. And I have the highest hopes that seeing all of my old friends again, these people that I consider family, will be everything that I hope it will be. I will talk to my most beloved readers about it and we will discuss and argue and fight over our favorite lines and characters and it will be glorious.
And I will hope in my heart of hearts that my beloved Nelle Harper Lee, even if she didn’t want the book released, will understand that I’m reading the book out of love. I’m being given another chance to see people I love. How can I say no to that?
It’s just that it feels a little like killing a mockingbird.
Five tons = 2.5 elephants worth. SO MANY CHOCOLATEY ELEPHANTS!
Today we are going to talk about a weird but kind of awesome thing that happened in the world. As we do ’round there here parts from time to time, yo. I think we also might do this Wednesday, because I found ANOTHER awesome thing. But tonight I want to go to bed early so I can finish reading my book because I’m pretty sure the thief is about to forgive the queen and there will be much kissing. MUCH KISSING. Shush, sometimes I like books with much kissing.
Sometimes I also like young adult literature and fantasy books. I am not always highbrow. Sorry to burst the bubble!
But FIRST, sometimes I like to change things in blogland. So from now on, if you comment, and if you have EVER commented here, your comment will IMMEDIATELY SHOW UP ON THE BLOG. Like, IMMEDIATELY. However! Don’t use this as an excuse to crack wise, buckaroos. I still have the option to delete or edit your comments, should I decide to do that. I still get an email every time you comment, and can hop on my phone and make your comment poof. OK, I take that back. Please feel free to crack wise. I like you to crack wise. Wise folks are my favorites. However, please don’t do things like use racial slurs or gaybash or talk about things that make me have the vapors. I trust my regular commenters won’t do this. And if you’re new, hello! Please comment! I am glad you are here!
It’s a thing I’m trying. It will make comments show up faster when I’m not able to approve them in a timely fashion. Let’s see how it goes. I can always change it back if I want to.
BACK TO WEIRDNESS!
Listen, the world is a wild and weird place, buckaroos. How will you know how weird without someone telling you about it? You’re WELCOME. In ADVANCE.
Over the weekend, someone stole some Nutella in Germany.
I know this doesn’t sound all that weird and/or shocking. Here, I’ll make it better by throwing some FACTS down on you.
Over the weekend, someone stole FIVE TONS of Nutella from a town named BAD HERSFELD in Germany.
So! Much! Nutella!
So much better, right?
FIVE TONS OF NUTELLA! That is so much Nutella. SO MUCH. One article I read said it only translated to about $21,000 worth of Nutella, though, so probably it wasn’t for the resale value.
Of COURSE it wasn’t. It was so they’d have a LIFETIME SUPPLY OF NUTELLA! I mean, duh. You don’t even have to think very hard about that one. All the Nutella! Every last bit of it!
Also, can we just talk about Bad Hersfeld for a minute? Could there BE a better town-name? I have MOST THOROUGHLY researched it and although it sounds like it’s most badass and kind of where all the bikers would live, really it designates that there is, or was, a health spa of some sort in the town, as apparently “bad” means “bath” in German. Why did a town with a health spa need so much Nutella? This is a mystery that even Scooby Doo couldn’t solve, methinks. Maybe all those people who are eating spinach salads were having a craving for hazelnut spread? Like, from being deprived of it and all?
Ooh, Bad Hersfeld gets its own STAMP. That’s fancy, yo.
AND, look what the article ALSO says:
“Germans news agency dpa reported that thieves have previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.”
I think if there’s this much thievery in one place, maybe don’t leave big loads of foodstuffs there? Just a thought.
No, I don’t know why “dpa” is all lowercase like that, I didn’t write the article, sheesh. ANYWAY. So these people now have a lifetime supply of Red Bull AND a lifetime supply of Nutella? OMG, they are going to be SPEEDY. I think you need all that Nutella to wash the taste of Red Bull out of your mouth. Red Bull tastes like caffeinated death, seriously. Blech. Once, many years ago, my friend Matt who I have lost touch with (Matt! I miss your face!) and who I used to work at the Humane Society with had all the Red Bull and I was all, “Matt, dude, let me taste that.” And he was all, “You will hate it.” And I said, “EVERYONE loves Red Bull.” And he said “You will HATE it. It’s only if you need energy. You don’t need energy, you’re made of energy, you have trouble powering down.” And I said, “MATT GIVE ME THAT RED BULL RIGHT NOW I PROMISE I WILL NOT BACKWASH.” So Matt totally gave me his Red Bull because we were work besties and I would have trusted him with my whole life, seriously, and I had a little sip and I was all “MATT THAT IS THE WORST” and made a face and he laughed and laughed and said “I TOLD YOU SO!” and then would ask me to make the Red Bull face whenever he needed a good laugh and I would scowl at him and say “No, MATT” and he would laugh MORE. Matt was most sincerely awesome, I hope that someday life brings me across his path again. I would like to give him a hug and thank him for being one of the most protective, funny, brave, and strong men I’ve ever known. I don’t know if younger-me realized how important it was to tell people such things when you weren’t sure if you would see them again. Older-me has learned that such things are important and tries to say them often, in case she is hit by lightning and dies all of a sudden and can’t say them ever again. You don’t know when the lightning will come. YOU DON’T.
Watch out for the lightning, jellybeans, it comes out of nowhere, you know.
So now in Bad Hersfeld, there is a thief with ALL the Red Bull (or whatever the German equivalent of Red Bull is, probably Rot Stier. I don’t even want to drink Red Bull, I sure as hell don’t want to drink Rot Stier) and ALL the Nutella. That is a thief to be reckoned with, yo. You look out for that thief. I would assume it would be easy to identify him or her. They’d be all jumpy and also sticky-fingered. I feel like they’d leap out from alleys screaming “ROT STIER!” But don’t even try to catch him or her. They’re going to be speedy. They’ll be gone in a FLASH.
Tonight I am off reviewing a show so I’m thinking you will not see much of me tomorrow. I’ll be back soon. More weird news to discuss, I think. Now my book is calling to me. I can totally hear it. What, that is COMPLETELY normal. Your books don’t talk to you? Well, what a sad, lonely life you must lead, seriously!
Happy Tuesday, internet. Comment it up, they’ll pop up fast, fast like MAGIC. Just you wait and see!
(Psst, also, happy birthday, Amy’s brother, I hope you have a great day of magicalness! Even though you will not read the blog because this is where all the “rapists and people with one hand” hang out! Yeah, I don’t know either. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER!)
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31 Comments | tags: blogs, comments, Germany, news, Nutella, Red Bull, robbery, thieves, weird | posted in Germany, news, weirdness