Given the baseline of the American school system, it’s kind of atypical that I never read To Kill A Mockingbird in high school – I *think* I touched it in college, but for whatever reason, I don’t have any more than a collective unconscious impression of it from that period; and I know I’ve never seen the movie that really colors a lot of people’s impression of it. That chanced, though, a few moths ago when I read it as an adult, through relatively fresh eyes. While the popular cultural perception of Atticus as a beacon for equality was there in my head (as it couldn’t help but be, given the cultural significance), it didn’t always come across on the page. While I got the general vibe that Atticus was definitely interested in the rule of law and a sense of justice and minimum standard of rights for every person, he never struck me as a crusader for equality. One can see how young Scout lionizes him (as an primary school aged child would certainly do to her father) as such, but the words that come from Atticus’s mouth don’t necessarily portray that. Compared to his peers, he’s progressive in the sense that he’s willing to give Tom Robinson a fair hearing in court, but still tends to exhibit a kind of assumed superiority, if in a more noblesse oblige than “lynch ’em” fashion, over all sorts of folks in Maycomb, be they black, poor, or female. Sure, Atticus does the right thing in the end for Tom, but it seems to be more out of a sense of almost parental obligation as someone of superior breeding and privilege rather than any belief that he and Tom are on the same level.

You know what, just go ahead and read this piece over at gawker/jezebel; it describes it pretty well.

I haven’t read Go Set A Watchman yet, and despite the controversy around its publication (which is, admittedly, a bit shady), I plan to once I come up in the queue at the library, because the bits I’ve heard about it are interesting, even if the book was, as is largely suspected, the first draft of a novel that eventually became Mockingbird, rather than a strict chronological sequel.

The story of a grown-up Scout Jean Louise coming to terms with the discovery that her childhood heroes aren’t as untarnished as her memories dictate is a powerful, universal one. This happens to all of us as we get out into the world and experience life; the world we came from when we were kids simply doesn’t look the same when we’re looking back through a couple of decades’ experience; it’s smaller, a little dingier, and many of the ideas held dear simply don’t work when compared to the wider world of our experience. Again, while I haven’t read it yet, I suspect that the folks back home in Maycomb don’t quite know what to make of grown-up Scout, either, as the lessons she took from her childhood experiences aren’t necessarily the ones her caregivers expected, although make perfect sense given the combination of experiences she actually had.

Such is the way of the world, as it was and ever shall be. I’m honestly curious to see how the release of the new work will affect the way the classic is taught and understood. The lessons to be drawn won’t be the same, certainly, but that doesn’t mean that the new lessons or understanding are in any way not valuable.