Chapter 25: A Pulitzer Prize Winner

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Are you shocked? Floored? Flummoxed? Bamboozled? I didn't think so. There's no way I could read Watchman and not re-re-re-re-read Mockingbird. And, as I also re-watch Pretty Little Liars now that the show has revealed who A is, I realize the Liars are reading Mockingbird for English class. So Liars gets a little more credit from me (the mental hospital is named Radley, too, but I had not forgotten that fact).

So, Mockingbird is required reading in high schools across the country, with good reason. It opens the door for Humanities teachers to discuss racial history in the U.S., introduces students to an influential female writer, and gives an accessible account of southern life during the Depression. All of that is great, but it's not why I love this story. When it comes down to it, I love Scout. She's precocious, obnoxious, naive, and wise. She's brash, unruly, unladylike, and charming. She is, in short, a little girl.

Now that Mockingbird is fresh in my memory, the conflict of Watchman is actually pretty predictable and is totally fitting with the characters. We love the Atticus of Mockingbird for many of the same reasons we (the readers and Jean Louise) feel betrayed by him three decades later. It's funny how much the era of the story affects how we feel about the exact same behaviors. In the 30's, he was a leader, a champion, worthy of our adoration. In the 60's the same kind of ideas land him firmly in inexcusable territory. This, of course, is indicative of how fast things changed in this country during those decades, but also how we are willing to overlook things we don't like (paternalism, pity) if our hero does something great (defending a black man against accusations made by whites). This idea still holds true today. How much bad are we willing to ignore if the overall result is good? What is the tipping point at which we change our opinion of a person or organization?

While I think this is all important stuff to think about and discuss and question, it's not the root of why I love this book so much. In fact, it's peripheral to the heart of the novel, in part because a nine-year-old doesn't really grasp the implications of the case her father is working. Scout just takes the world at face value. She believes what her important adults (Atticus, Calpurnia, and Miss Maudie) tell her and suspects everyone else of falsehood. She is quick to defend those whom she loves and has a strong sense of fair, even if it is flawed. Her father has taught her important truths she won't learn anywhere else, namely that all people, even those we deem beneath us, have dignity and deserve if not our respect, then their privacy. It seems to me that this is a dangerous lesson, minding your own business to the detriment of your fellow humans. He starts out with a grand idea but let's it fizzle out in the details.

Scout, however, just applies her lessons to everything. She doesn't see the subtleties of the class divisions in her community because she believes that people are people. She knows they exist, that certain families just have their ways, but she is pragmatic and doesn't judge those other ways. This lovable little tomboy teaches (and learns) more about community than many give her credit for. Often readers feel like they are with her in Atticus' lap, that they learn alongside her. But in my estimation, Scout Finch is the true hero of the tale.

Even though it is set in the 1930's, Mockingbird still is relevant today. One paragraph stood out to me, speaking volumes about how quickly and easily we dehumanize each other. After confronting a group of men who set out to harm the black man accused of raping a white woman, Atticus tells his son, "A mob's always made up of people, no matter what ... a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children ..." Our failure to see others as humans is easy and enormous. Instead of images of five Marias, I'll leave you with these three images of humanity during conflict. (And, I'd like to just say that it is crazy to me that Sen. Pugh was criticized for hugging a rioter. What she did was not condoning actions but saying, "I see you, I hear you, I acknowledge that you are a person.")

Chapter 4: A Book With More Than 500 Pages

The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

Before I even begin discussing this book, let me tell you how this happened.  See, one of the trickeries of this challenge is that some books fall into multiple categories.* And some of them may not even exist. So, I originally selected this title to check off Pulitzer Prize-winner. The problem with checking out ebooks from the library is that you might not pay attention to the length and end up with a 700+ page novel. Enter, The Goldfinch.

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine talks about how The New Yorker comics are actually not funny, but no one will admit it because they don't want to sound dumb? That's how I felt reading this book. Among other things, Tartt relies heavily on place names around New York City, which mean nothing to someone who has never been. There is also much talk about art history and appreciation that go beyond an average reader's grasp. More importantly, the details are not important to the story and could easily be edited down. Too many pages are wasted saying, "Look how learned I am!"

Ok, that's annoying enough. But what about the story? Well, it's okay. Pretty much everyone dies. The main character, Theo, should be sympathetic since his beloved mother dies early on and he survives the terrorist bomb that kills her. But he's not. He's surrounded by deeply flawed people who put way too much effort into helping him and he does not appreciate it. Still, the arc of the story is interesting and has several twists, but it could be whittled down by a few hundred pages.

For as many pages as Tartt splatters with depictions of drug-induced teenage antics (how many ways can you describe lights?) and benign, insignificant details of daily life, she then skips over 8 years completely. Theo runs away from Las Vegas as a minor and then, blink! is an adult in New York again. Running a business with a longtime friend and seemingly living a normal life minus some PTSD-related dysfunction. Eight years. Gone. Almost no indication of what happens during that time. Since a large portion of the conflict is psychological, this gap is disturbing. It's not an epilogue where we get a glimpse into the future. Oh no. There are still hundreds of pages to read.

Besides being long, I did not find this to be artful writing. It's repetitive. It's incoherent at times. Completely wrong words are used (cramps instead of clamps, for instance). And the foreshadowing is in no way nuanced. One chapter literally ends with "It would be a long time before I saw Boris again." Seriously? Well, sure, at least 8 years because we are blacked-out from that time in Theo's life. But perhaps the reunion would be sweeter if we didn't know it was coming. Same with the gun images in the hotel in Amsterdam. So much attention is drawn to it that the reader can't help but know that people are going to be shot. Soon. It's clumsy and clichéd. Writing a series of connected events is not the same as storytelling. I much prefer a good storyteller.

So, after the story has reached a final resolution, and you're feeling like things turned out pretty well, you are subjected to a couple of chapters of philosophy from the viewpoint of a drug addict. This guy, who has done tons of bad things and still lived a fairly charmed life, concludes that life just basically sucks, but he's okay with that. People have picked up after this guy for decades, and he acts like he's some victim of cosmic injustice. I just don't like him. Here, too, we discover that Theo has kept journals for years that are essentially letters to his mom. That format, to me, would have moved the story along better and really gotten at the anguish that Theo never confronts. That would have been compelling and sympathetic.

Now, the nit-picking. There are things in the story that are just completely unbelievable. Theo, at 13, is worldly enough to break into people's homes and smoke pot, but he doesn't try to pick up a newspaper on the streets of New York City. He walks away from a bombed museum, covered in blood, speaks with a policeman, but is never taken to a doctor and walks home by himself without being noticed. Even with being completely sheltered from the mysterious articles about the bombing and about him specifically, Theo never Googles himself or the attack. He never shows any interest in finding out what happened the day he lost his mom.

After plowing through over 700 pages of rarely-interesting script, I feel disappointed. The Goldfinch is The Telltale Heart with a stroke of Macbeth and The Basketball Diaries thrown in for good measure. I care much more about the supporting characters than the main one. They all seem to be people fighting their own demons, while doing what they can to help the poor, orphan boy. What's interesting is that they do it in such different ways. Boris, the criminal best friend, is loyal to a fault. He pays his debts with interest and really loves Theo. Hobie, the steady father-figure, provides sanctuary, even as Theo self-destructs. And Pippa, the other-Theo, loves him enough to keep her own poison from his well.

Maybe the book is too academic. Or maybe I am too simple a reader. But this one falls short for me. If I needed a novel to take up large amounts of time, this would suffice. Since I have a lot of other things I need to attend too, The Goldfinch is a bit of a waste. Rather than making me feel dull, though, it just makes me glad I'm not among the literary elite who sing its praises.

* The challenge graphic never actually states that you must read 52 different books. At this point, I'm not ready to use the loophole to check multiple boxes for a single title. But I reserve the right to do so later.