Go Set A Watchman: A Conversation Starter

Go Set A Watchman by Harper LeeI love Go Set A Watchman (GSAW). I enjoy GSAW as a book, but I love it ever more as a phenomenon. From the story of how the manuscript was discovered, the speculation on whether or not Harper Lee was forced to publish it, the debate on whether it should or shouldn’t be published, to the discussions surrounding racial tensions dealt in the book, everything surrounding GSAW is unprecedented.

 

The reverse chronological timeline of the writing of GSAW and To Kill A Mockingbird (TKAM) versus their publications is the trickiest, because it colors the interpretation of the story and its characters. Consequently, it generates so many conversations and fascinating, enjoyable articles.

 

Before Go Set A Watchman

 

I had long neglected the skill of reviewing literary fiction. I can say, however, that I read GSAW with fresh perspective because I did not have much attachment to TKAM or its beloved character, Atticus Finch.

 

When I read TKAM in middle or high school in Indonesia, I had vague concepts of the cultural background from which the story emerged. My English was in early development, so the language, culture, and the world that the novel described were entirely foreign to me. I had no idea what Maycomb, Alabama represented nor was I aware of the cultural differences that existed in America.

 

My shallow view was essentially this: people said it was a good book and Atticus Finch was a good guy. He said something about picturing ourselves in another person’s shoes.

 

The Comparison

 

With a phenomenon like GSAW—a ‘sequel’ after 55 years of its ‘original’—it’s hard not to engage in comparisons. To me, however, the comparison between TKAM and GSAW both makes and doesn’t make sense. In the literary sense, the comparison means little since GSAW was not intended to be published as TKAM was. It was unfinished, in a way, so of course the result is less compelling and less polished than TKAM.

 

Moreover, after TKAM, anything that Harper Lee would have published would most likely be less compelling because of this reason. A spectacular performance, by regression to the mean, is likely to be followed by a comparatively ‘worse’ performance, even though the subsequent may still be good work.

 

What makes sense, though, is the comparison between the characterization of Atticus Finch and Jean Louise (Scout), the two prominent characters, in both books. But since I don’t remember TKAM, I can’t make any comparison, escaping this discussion altogether after writing three paragraphs on it…

 

Complexity

 

What I like the most about GSAW is the complexity of Atticus Finch as a character. While Atticus is largely heralded as the hero of TKAM, GSAW does not have staple heroes or villains. Jean Louise, as the vehicle of the narrative, is naturally a sympathetic character, yet her reactions to discovering her father’s attitudes toward blacks are a mix of righteous indignation and immaturity. Atticus, all the while subscribing to the superiority of his race, still exudes some wisdom in the handling of his daughter’s outrage. In the words of Uncle Jack (Atticus’ brother), “[Atticus] was letting you break your icons one by one. He was letting you reduce him to the status of a human being.”

 

The heart of the novel is the weaning of Jean Louise’s conscience—and perhaps also the readers’—off Atticus’. To this weaning process, both parental figures are proud of Jean Louise’s clash with them, even though they differ in opinions.

 

All taken from the words of Uncle Jack,

 

“Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.”

 

“. . . now you, Miss, born with your own conscience, somewhere along the line fastened it like a barnacle onto your father’s. As you grew up, when you were grown, totally unknown to yourself, you confused your father with God. You never saw him as a man with a man’s heart, and a man’s failings— I’ll grant you it may have been hard to see, he makes so few mistakes, but he makes ’em like all of us. You were an emotional cripple, leaning on him, getting the answers from him, assuming that your answers would always be his answers.”

 

“When you happened along and saw him doing something that seemed to you to be the very antithesis of his conscience— your conscience—you literally could not stand it.” Go Set A Watchman, Chapter 18.

 

The Questions

 

What is the message of GSAW? Is it about freedom in opinions? Is it about the handling of familial relationships? Is it arguing a balance between idealism and realism?

 

I’m not sure what the novel’s intents are. Then again, the question of the author’s intent regarding GSAW is a tricky one—we may never know what Harper Lee thought when she wrote this manuscript. Plus, GSAW is too short of a story to handle the questions that arise post-confrontation between Atticus and Jean Louise.

 

What matters, though, is us, the readers, having these discussions now in 2015 vis-à-vis racism and discrimination. While GSAW does not provide resolutions to the coexistence between the two attitudes that Jean Louise and Atticus represent, we must. What are we to do with the Jean Louises and Atticuses in our society? How are we to live with differing and conflicting consciences?

 

Having a hero such as Atticus Finch being brought down to “the status of a human being” is disorienting to many, but it is a powerful device to disrupt the mind of a society. Do we now tolerate, sympathize, or discard him? Can we, should we, in his TKAM words, “consider things from his point of view,” “climb into his skin and walk around in it.” As a society, we see Atticus’ views in GSAW as objectionable. But what do we do with the human being?

 

Harper Lee does not answer these questions for us and she’s not obligated to do so. We, individually and collectively, must discover them for ourselves. Thanks to GSAW, we’re talking about it.

 

Book Review: Beloved

Toni Morrison, Beloved, Penguin Putnam Inc., 1998.

beloved

Chilling. Powerful. Mysterious. Beautiful. Like a painting.

 

Beloved is a work of art. And like many pieces of art, there are aspects of it that I don’t understand. I’m not too left-brained, however, to miss the beauty of Morrison’s words and phrases.

 

Beloved tells the story of Sethe, an ex-slave, and her daughter, Denver. They live in a house, called 124, which seems to be haunted by the spirit of a baby—Sethe’s dead child. Upon the arrival of Paul D, an old friend/fellow slave of Sethe, the spirit left the house. But not long after, a girl about the age of Sethe’s daughter if she had lived arrives at 124 and catalyzes a series of reactions from the 3 main characters. This woman calls herself Beloved.

 

The confusion of who, or what, Beloved is remains a mystery, both to the characters in the novel and the readers. Sethe and Denver believe she is the dead child returning in flesh. Or, she may be just a confused girl who believes Sethe is her mother. Regardless, as a literary device, the character Beloved is brilliantly created to trigger the other characters’ development.

 

Indeed, character development is, to me, the meat of the story. With Beloved’s presence, they are faced with history in slavery, their past actions, and how they are impacted by their past. Beloved’s identity is confused with the beliefs that each character projects to her—whom they think she is.

 

My favorite parts of the book are when Morrison zooms in to the internal narratives of each character, employing the first-person point of view. The emotions are palpable. The plot’s climaxes are also glorious, in a terrifying way (I won’t spoil any plot).

 

Zooming out to the social context that Morrison is addressing, Beloved is a powerful painting of what slavery does to humans and their sense of ‘self.’ Multiple times in the novel she describes a fragmenting experience that the characters experience—feeling that their heads, arms, or legs are coming apart, or not recognizing their own voices. Even though the characters are technically free men and women, the trauma of being owned and tortured remains in their lives.

 

There are two things (for the sake of this short review) that I think Morrison highlights in the novel. One, the impact of slavery is intergenerational. Denver grows up free, but she very much reaps the experiences of her mother and grandmother. The healing process from the evil of slavery is long and arduous. Two, when someone or a people is degraded, all humanity is degraded. Slavery does not only degrade the slaves, but also the perpetrators. A web of humanity connects us all.

 

Originally published here.

OK, But Not OK. Not OK, but OK.

OK, But Not OK. Not OK, but OK.

My reading journey through Thinking, Fast and Slow, Part 3

 

I care whether what I believe is true. I care whether or not my perceptions equal reality. I want the correlation between how I think things are and how things really are to be 100%. This is much like approaching infinity, I know, but I am going there nonetheless.

 

I’m a System 2 girl [1].

 

As much as possible, I try to ‘decorrelate errors’ when forming an opinion, to be aware of personal biases, and to acknowledge the limitations of my current position. I read instead of watch news; I don’t multitask while listening to talks; I make efforts to read things I don’t agree with; all to ensure what goes into my mind passes through conscious thought and deliberation. (Of course, this also means my biases serves as a filter – it’s not a perfect mechanism). Reading something like Thinking, Fast and Slow, specifically on the downfalls of intuition and snap judgment, only affirms me in my scrutiny of information.

 

Certainly it’s not possible to live like this all the time, and it’s not good to do so. For high-stake matters, it’s not OK to let mere feelings guide judgments. But for most everyday things, reliance on System 1 is perfectly OK. Kahneman himself says that ‘System 1 is the hero of the book’ and is very efficient in its functions (e.g., compare distances, detect sounds, associate ideas, discern nuances, etc.). It has its limitations, but so does System 2.

 

Yet, the engineer in me is biased to think that System 2 must win; it is the way to get that maximum perception-reality correlation. If I could summarize my previous thought on this matter, it’d be something like this:

 

If only we could employ System 2 all the time, we’d get reality as it is. System 1 is permitted to operate, but it really is optional, because System 2 can do everything that System 1 does, though slower. In fact, using System 1 sometimes introduces errors, so whenever possible and practical, just bypass it and employ System 2.

 

So when Kahneman says matter-of-factly, “The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality,” I paused.

 

I mean, I know the statement is true, but I still somehow thought there was a way around it if we perfected the coherence of our thinking. Moreover, the statement comes from someone who studies all these mechanisms. Isn’t it not OK to remain in an imperfect reality?

 

I guess, No, it’s not OK, and Yes, it’s OK.

 

It’s fine to live with an imprecise replica of reality and it’s also fine to strive for reality. It’s just the way things are. Different situations call for different intensities of pursuit. One must maintain both the quest for what’s true and accept the asymptotic nature of it, without descending to nihilism.

 

And oh yeah, System 1 is important too. It’s neither superior nor inferior to System 2; it just serves different functions. The two systems complement each other and more importantly, can correct each other.

 

So, this acceptance will not really change my pursuit for that unhindered perception. But it also gives me assurance that life is not inferior when I take a break from it. Embracing the tensions between ideas—isn’t that the wisdom of living in an imperfect world?

 

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:

now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12, King James Version

 

I will live, for now, in between the OK and Not OK.

 


 

[1] “System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.” (Kahneman, from chapter 1 of Thinking, Fast and Slow).