survive and endure love and hate from the vantage of both sides of every story. While watching Tom Robinson’s trial from the balcony, Scout realizes that Mayella Ewell “must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years.”
Thank You, Harper Lee
However, there
has always been one book that defies this rule. I have never hesitated to claim
“To Kill a Mockingbird” as my favorite novel.
I didn’t read “To
Kill a Mockingbird” the first time for school. I sought it out on my own. I
don’t know how many times I’ve read it, but I can say without hesitation that
the amount dwarfs any other novel I’ve ever reread. With the news of Harper
Lee’s death at the age of 89 last Friday, I have picked it up again. And once
again, the subtlety of its depths stagger me. The huge cast of beautifully realized
characters in itself should have made it a classic. It weaves courtroom drama, alcohol
and drug addiction, race, bigotry, tolerance and intolerance, poverty, class, wealth,
heritage, politics, comedy, tragedy and the perils and joys of family relationships,
within a tale of a young girl’s coming-of-age. It is also a crystal clear
encapsulation of a specific period in a small town of the American South, and
manages to be unflinching in the depiction, yet graceful and forgiving.
Through the wise
eyes of our tomboy narrator, “Scout” Finch we experience the human capacity to
survive and endure love and hate from the vantage of both sides of every story. While watching Tom Robinson’s trial from the balcony, Scout realizes that Mayella Ewell “must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years.”
survive and endure love and hate from the vantage of both sides of every story. While watching Tom Robinson’s trial from the balcony, Scout realizes that Mayella Ewell “must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years.”
This is a deeply
human story, and Ms. Lee at a young age was able to distill and report in a
deceptively, simple way all that it means to be an adult and a child during
difficult and yet, rewarding times. If you have never read it, I urge you to
give it a chance. I will even lend you a copy. I say this, as someone who has
lent and subsequently had to buy enough new copies to fill a closet. You will
laugh, and…if there is a heart beating in there, you will cry. If you are not
inclined to read, this is one of the few novels where the movie version does the
story and characters justice. After watching, I defy you to read it and imagine
anyone else but Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. Hell, that can be said of the
whole cast. It was a perfect storm of the right actors for each respective
part.
In closing,
please allow me to paraphrase one of the multitude of great lines from “To Kill
a Mockingbird”: “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Harper Lee is passin’.”