First and foremost, I cannot even begin to tell you how exciting it is to hear people talking about books in public. People on the radio have been discussing Harper Lee. Two trainers at the gym this morning were talking about Atticus Finch. It is suddenly socially acceptable not only to strike up a conversation about books we read as children, but to admit, publicly, that they moved us and changed us. And, as a dedicated bibliophile whose life has been turned upside down on a regular basis by literature, I could not think of a better outcome of Harper Lee’s newest (or oldest) novel.
It’s very clear that the controversies surrounding this novel have not, and most likely will not, go away. From the very day that the publication of Go Set A Watchman was announced, there have been a number of reports stating that Lee herself is the victim of manipulation and swindling, an some who still hold that the manuscript itself is an outright fraud.
Interestingly, when To Kill a Mockingbird was published, there were a great many people who believed that Lee’s friend Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, authored the book. In the earliest editions of Mockingbird, a quote from Capote was used on the dust jacket: “Someone rare has written this very fine first novel: a writer with the liveliest sense of life, and the warmest, most authentic sense of humor. A touching book; and so funny, so likeable.” A great many people took this to be a subtle message from Capote admitting authorship, which he did very little at the time to refute. It was only when a 1959 letter from Capote surfaced at auction, discussing how his friend Harper Lee was working on a new novel that the debate was finally laid to rest, only for similar accusations to arise with Watchman.
And I wonder…have we grown so used to celebrity that we inherently doubt those who do not seek the spotlight–that we can no longer trust what we cannot explicitly see? Is it because Lee is a woman that her repeated assertions to her own authorship and decisions are doubted? Or could it be that the characters from Mockingbird, from Boo Radley to Jem, from Scout to Atticus, are so real, and so meaningful, that we cannot conceive of the fact that they are the fictions?
I think, ultimately, that this might be why this debate is such an emotional one: Atticus and Scout (probably most of all the characters) are too real, and have become too much a part of us, for us to accept that someone else has power over them. There have been a number of articles posted in the past few days about the number of people who went to law school because of Atticus Finch. Or the number of people who named their children Atticus as a way to commemorate his importance in their lives. Or tattooed images and quotes from the book onto their own flesh so that they would become a part of the reader in a physical, as well as an emotional way. And there are many who feel uncomfortable, at least, and betrayed, at worst, by the release of a book that threatens their understanding of the man they know as Atticus Finch.
But that is the beautiful thing about fiction. Authors create the characters, naturally, just as they create the world those characters inhabit. But then, like any good parents, they give them away to the world–and they become part of us. They mean different things to different readers, and influence us in ways the author never imagined. The Atticus who means so much to so many is not the Atticus that Harper Lee created, but the Atticus that so many readers needed him to be. They created him out of the material Lee provided, but he is as much theirs, yours, and mine, as he is hers. And nothing that appears in the pages of Watchman will take your Atticus out of your heart or your soul. Watchman may be Harper Lee’s Atticus–possibly. I’m still not sure. And I’m not convinced anyone will ever know for sure what the truth surrounding Watchman and its publication really is. But if he (or any other character, for that matter) gave you the strength to be you…that is a gift that cannot be taken away.