Oh, if we can't link to our own blogs, I'm in a lot of trouble.

I've never before caught that MFOC said that she would have loved it when she was 15. I forget that when we were younger, people would have still thought of a 15 year old as a child. In that context--15 instead of a young child--it makes a lot of sense. But what it certainly is not is the same as Miss Minerva and William Green Hill, which is more like Shirley Temple movies with Bill Robinson. It's been more than 55 years since I read those books, and while I loved them and I think they are probably very funny, they certainly would not pass muster these days.

Getting back to the 15/child idea. It's really kind of amusing since 60 years ago, fifteen year olds were probably about as mature as a lot of 25 year olds are today.

AMDG

Somehow I missed TKAM in my teen years, but I've read it 2x as an adult and like it very much, as I do the film version. I must confess to never having had much interest in GSAW, especially after finding out about the backstory re: the controversy over its publication, etc.

One think I'll point out is that marital attrition rates are not at a historical peak. Bracketing out the dissolution of war marriages in 1944-47, the cohorts who demonstrated the highest attrition rates would be those born around 1950.

I never read it. It's not a thing in England

Racist in current parlance has a connotation of hatred which wasn't necessarily the case in the South at that time. There was also an affection there which would be hard for anyone under about 50 or anyone who hasn't lived in the South to understand.

It actually means nothing of note anymore. Its a rhetorical weapon made use of by people who cannot continue a discussion.

I think you are right that some of the granular quality of race relations and people's sense of matters is lost to the young and even to many of my contemporaries.

My grandfather was East Tennessee born and bred. He did not have much actual social contact with blacks until he was well into middle age (blacks in East Tennessee being largely confined to Chattanooga & environs), but he was raised in a certain Southern ethic which was reinforced by his Pennsylvania born wife and this ethic emphasized 'background' and 'breeding', both of which militated against certain aspects of Southern living. My mother made it a point to try to explain this to us in her fragmentary way. My grandmother was not a Southerner, but she exemplified aspects of how people of breeding conducted themselves across the color bar.

As for my father, he had little time for any sort of ethic that was not based on a mix of personal achievement and manners (as good manners were understood in small town Upstate New York). The thing is, that in his social circle, ca. 1963, Martin Luther King was a figure of fun. These men did not have issues with blacks. They were simply to given to biting irony to take idealism or prophetic stances seriously.

I could, and would like to, go on at length about the things you're saying, Janet and Art, but I really don't have enough free time. I've sometimes contemplated a lengthy essay, maybe even a short book, on the subject.

But about Charles's blog post. Apart from the reservation I share with Janet, and partly with Art, about the word "racism", I like the post, and I think it probably describes Harper Lee's journey pretty well. There is a PBS documentary about her, made a few years ago and updated for the release of Watchman, which is pretty interesting and informative about the circumstances surrounding the writing and publication of Mockingbird, but says nothing about her return from New York to Monroeville. And that to me is by far the most interesting part of the story.

The biggest problem with the word "racism" is that it is way too imprecise. It covers everything from the Klan to "microaggressions" in which one either notices race where one is not supposed to notice it, or fails to notice it where one is supposed to. Moreover, both ends of that spectrum are given equal moral weight, so the well-meaning white person who makes an error in protocol is just as wicked as the Klansman. So although I wouldn't say the word is meaningless, it's become fairly useless.

A month ago I was seeing stacks of Go Set a Watchman in bookshops. This week I've been seeing stacks of To Kill a Mockingbird. So it has been very effective advertising, apparently bringing To Kill a Mockingbird to the attention of many people who had never bothered with it. As Grumpy says, To Kill a Mockingbird isn't so much of an iconic work outside the US, so while I (for example) had heard of it, I thought of it as a film rather than a novel.

I gather he's rather a fairytale character in the one book and more realistic in the other, so I suppose it's like being told Prince Charming lived off the toil of serfs.

I gather he's rather a fairytale character in the one book and more realistic in the other, so I suppose it's like being told Prince Charming lived off the toil of serfs.

--

No, he's not a fairytale character, though for a Southerner of the 1885 cohort, he's with little doubt an outlier. Phlegmatic temperament and does not spank his children in the course of the narrative (though he threatens to and his brother does). Also, he's somewhat lax about his daughter's manners, and eventually outsources the task to his sister at her insistence. His racial attitudes are left ambiguous but seem to be somewhere in the range of patron's benevolence.

The issue in the narrative is not social equality, but the properties of the caste system as it was and whether it required blood sacrifice and gross artifice for a white man's honor. The book was not quite topical because these were not live questions anywhere in the United States in 1960 bar in corners of Mississippi and Alabama and perhaps Georgia.

The Atticus character sticks his neck out in the course of the narrative, but he retains enough community standing to not be injured by so doing. What seems somewhat implausible to the outsider is that his viewpoint is shared by his entire social circle. His sister has severe misgivings, but it's out of social embarrassment, not out of a belief her brother does the wrong thing. An aspect of story was how racial attitudes were differentiated by class. I think my mother'd have told you she sanded all the rough edges off the bourgeois and gentry element she portrayed.

I disagree that the book is primarily about the caste system etc., and certainly that was "not quite topical." Caste is important, yes, but race more so, and that was topical indeed.

Racial distinctions are a caste system (as distinct from a class system). Both caste and class make their appearance.

One that really jumped out at me was his being discovered to be the best shot in [whatever it was] county.

I hadn't thought of that. The county Harper Lee grew up in had about 30,000 residents at the time, so that is dubious. The community portrayed seems much smaller. The fictional Macomb was about the size of Monroeville at that time. Interestingly, the town's now 4x as large even as the county's population has declined by 30%. Doesn't work that way in New York.

The incident you describe is peculiar inasmuch as a man with poor vision in one eye makes an excellent shot (without his spectacles) in spite of not having picked up a gun in 30 years, and is encouraged to do so by the sheriff who must practice regularly. That does not have much to do with his social attitudes, though.

As I mentioned, I've read no reviews of the new book, but I've seen headlines suggesting that the portrayal of Atticus as having his share of racial prejudice has been a shock to some people.

I've seen some old opinion research from surveys taken in 1938. At the time, about 15% of the national sample told the pollster they favored integrated neighborhoods and 38% undifferentiated citizenship. Surveys taken at the time would not have been drawing on as much theory and practice regarding the wording of questions nor would they necessarily have been using the best sampling frame, so, caveat lector. It still indicates, I think, that the past is another country in some respects.

Atticus Finch is a hero because he transcends the limits of his flawed culture

Except he did not. Most of the people in the local area who disapproved of what he was doing, but they did not ostracize him and his immediate social circle gave him no trouble at all. The one person who did was a man he'd described to his daughter as the town disgrace and who was understood as that far and wide.

I think we probably owe the editor who worked with Lee on Mockingbird great thanks for not letting the world at that time see an Atticus who was anti-integration and who associated with some who were even less kindly disposed toward blacks. Seeing him instead as a man who honored the dignity in black people must have done quite a lot to let non-Southerners know that not all Southerners failed to do that.

What makes "adult" literature adult?

Right.

I do think FOC was too hard on the book. But she's not simply wrong, either. It's a good book, with a lot to recommend it. But borders on sentimentality. That's what I mean about the portrayal of Atticus.

It would be interesting to read the reviews of the time, book and movie. I suspect that non-Southerners didn't so much appreciate Atticus as an exception as deplore the others who were the rule.

I have that Atticus-Peck thing going, of course. I should read the book again.

So, the thing that makes adult literature is lack of sentimentality, which I take to mean strong emotion for the sake of strong emotion (undervaluing the ratio of the story)? Almost all movies are not adult, then.

Could this have anything to do with the difference between a romance and a novel that we discussed a few months ago? I'm quite sure that I prefer the romance to the novel. That is because my life is enough like a novel that I prefer the more explicit hope that a romance provides.

I like both, but there's a time when a hero is definitely called for.

AMDG

I suspect that non-Southerners didn't so much appreciate Atticus as an exception as deplore the others who were the rule.

I've never read the book, but I did see the movie in 1963 as a 21-year-old Californian shortly after it came out. I’ve been trying to remember the effect it had on me, and I think it was mostly that I was so impressed with Atticus that I didn’t linger on the bad folks; he was a knight in shining armor who stole the show, and left me feeling hopeful.

Here's an interesting review of Watchman from The New Yorker. I think it's fairly good, overall, judged as a commentary in its own right by one who hasn't read the book. There are things I disagree with but they lead into the whole racial question and ...why bother?

I can't see a child of 11 getting much at all out of most Flannery O'Connor. At least not without an adult to explain things.

Last week in Cambridge I attended an outdoor performance of Much Ado about Nothing. There were lots of little kids there apparently enjoying it - 9 or 10 years old.

A child could read Wise Blood

Well as I said children have historically read books as difficult and more difficult than that

I think a kid from a family that talked about ideas could get the Church of Christ without Christ

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, and I can't make an abstract argument against it. All I can say is that I'm fairly certain that I myself wouldn't have gotten anything much at all out of it at any age younger than maybe 15. Maybe I would have been amused by the guy running around in the ape suit.

When I was about 8 and my brother was 10 we were taken to see 2001 by a family friend. I thought it was boring. My brother discussed it like a grown up with the friend. So it seemed to me. He enjoyed it

Btw Robert I loved Inside Out

I don't know. All I remember is that we went out for sodas afterward and he had a long, confident conversation about the film with the family friend. My brother loved movies.He was in his element

Yes I know the time. I'm flying to NYC in a few hours.

Church of Christ without Christ

Hazel Moates proposed sect was the 'Church Without Christ'. Onny Jay Holly proposed to found the "Holy Church of Christ without Christ". And, no, an 11 year old youngster is not going to make sense of Wise Blood. I could not make sense of it at age 37. I would recommend her lectures and short fiction because her novels are baffling.

Aged 11 I could manage Dickens, the Brontes, and plenty of Shakespeare (although not with adult understanding, as Grumpy says, I could make enough of them to enjoy them). My parents had a number of Shakespearean performances on vinyl, and I listened to Macbeth over and over again.

At the same time, I had to struggle to make much of Huckleberry Finn, mostly because it seemed to be written in some sort of code, and I never managed more than a few pages of Catcher in the Rye even at 16, for much the same reason. I think Wise Blood could well have fallen into the same category, had I heard of it.

Interesting, Paul. I can't recall encountering anything that could be considered a classic until I was 14 or so, so I don't know what I would have made of them. It was standard for a long time, maybe still is, in a lot of American schools to read Great Expectations at 14 or 15, and I loved it, still love it till this day. Don't recall having any Shakespeare before 15 or so but loved it when I did.

Funny about Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn. I'm slightly embarrassed to say that when I read Catcher at 16 or so I thought it was great, and took immediately to Holden and his general frame of mind.

I did Huck Finn for O level and strggked with the dialect. obviously out hypthetical 11 year old will have to hail from Georgia!

My brothers was a journalist for 20 years then he lost his marbles and now he lives in India.

Mac I read your piece about 2001. I must watch it. I like the question with which you conclude because we tend rather glibly to assume that darkness and violence are more nearly expressive of a Christian vision than humanistic optimism.

My kids start reading adult classics around the age of 12, depending on the child. By the age of 14 they tend to be reading adult stuff on their own.

Track of the Cat sounds interesting.

Grumpy, I answered my own question about Blade Runner and 2001 not too long after that, when I finally decided to see the former. And I did decide in favor of it from the Christian point of view. Not because of the violence etc. per se, and not pessimism vs. optimism, but because it has room for things that 2001 does not. I will be very interested in hearing your opinion of 2001.

Louise, what did you dislike so about Great Expectations? The cruelty of the women?

Robert, I can imagine that being laughed at for using the word "symbolism" was upsetting. They probably thought you were cute.

"They probably thought you were cute."

Maybe. I tend to think it was more an "emperor's new clothes" moment. I had stated out loud what they were thinking in their heads, but couldn't say because they were educated adults.

Then there is Walker Percy's speculation at the end of Lost in the Cosmos where there are three kinds of sentient beings in the universe, those that haven't fallen, those that have fallen, but haven't been redeemed, and those that have fallen and have been redeemed. That is not the terminology Percy uses, but I forget how he actually put it.

Sometimes I think it's Percy's best book.

If I had to pick only one, it would be one of the first three novels. If I had to pick only two, it would be one of the first three novels and Lost in the Cosmos. Glad I don't have to pick.

"Louise, what did you dislike so about Great Expectations? The cruelty of the women?"

Yes, I found that very upsetting.

Janet, you can get the basic idea of what 2001 was about from that post I linked to. Not the specifics, but the idea. Though I guess I shouldn't worry about giving away the plot of a 45-year-old movie.

I just read GE for the first time this spring. I loved it. There is a lot of profound change of heart in it. Plus adventure.

What a wonderful conversation this post has become. I'm most intrigued about children and what they read in school these days. My step-son is 12 and they only read YA literature; and he attends a good school which is supposedly more difficult than most. My step-daughter is a sophomore in HS and is now beginning to read decent stuff, but really nothing at all from the 19th century, which is what I grew up having to read in school. Though yes, occasional Shakesepeare plays do make it into the curriculum.

I have not read TKAM since I grew up "below" the South in South Florida. Now that I have lived in Alabama for 13 years I suppose maybe I should give it a try.

I read a lot of classic lit nowadays and I do really wonder what I got out of it as an adolescent, and what children now would (if they were made to read it).

Re: racism - kids these days (at least the ones I am familiar with) are non-racial to the point that they feel any kind of comment, even one that is not demeaning, critical, or mean, is "racist". I have said more than once, "no, that is not a racist comment, but perhaps it is racial". It is really something though, compared to growing up in the 1970s and the things people said casually and often.

Great Expectations is my favorite Dickens. Reading it through the lens of myself (male) I would never have thought too much about how would a female take Miss Havisham, Estela, and Mrs Joe? Not well, of course. These "shrews" are not what make GE great, but that it comes at a point in Dickens' ouevre where he is able to combine the naivete and fun of his early novels with the dark seriousness of the later ones, pare the pages down a bit, and tell a really great story.

Okay, that's enough. No one but Mac will read this entire post! :)

You are ever-dependable, Janet!

I said that wrong. I mean that her transformation is important, if not as important as Pip's. And Miss Havisham.

I meant that men or women could dislike those women.

AMDG

"I kind of went along with Pip in being in love with Estella, and didn't really get at the time what monsters she and Miss Havisham were."

I loved Pip so much, I just couldn't bear Estella at all.

"Any woman with sense knows that there are women like that."

Definitely. But I have no wish to spend much time in their company! OTOH I can't recall how much time we spend with them in the book, or how much time Pip spent with them. Anyone remember?

I love Dickens too, and another change for GE from earlier books is that the women at least have some personality. Prior to this his women fell into two categories: innocent damsel waiting to marry the main character in the last chapter, or comic relief (usually a mother of one of the other main characters who makes silly comments in every scene).

Summerson, sort of, though that is Bleak House so not early. Betsy Trotwood definitely, and that's Copperfield so is prior to GE. Nancy .... memory is trying to find her. Of course I am just speaking in general, and I suppose in general male writers have a tough time with female characters. I guess that's why Dickens had a feeling George Eliot was a woman!

And then there's Cosette in Les Miserables--everyone suffering so she can have a good life and she's such a cipher. ;-)

AMDG

But Lucy does make mistakes, and she has a definite personality.

To me Orual is more of an allegory than a person.

AMDG

If I recall, the literary swing towards "realism" in English fiction didn't really take off in force until the 1870's. With a few exceptions I'm not sure you'd expect to see a great many really "true-to-life" characters before then.