To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) | Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) | Harper Lee | Truly a Masterpiece

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To Kill a Mockingb...

	To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Perennial Modern Classics) Harper Lee Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South -- and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than thirty million copies worldwide, served as the basis of an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father -- a crusading local lawyer -- risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

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Simply Essential Reading Vividly Encapsulates Depression-Era Racial Hatred in the Deep South

Some books so fluidly transcend the stories they contain that the characters and setting almost become incidental to the universal themes they express without contrivance. Such a book exists in Harper Lee's masterful 1960 novel, one of the most revered pieces of fiction this country has ever produced. Set in rural, Depression-era Alabama, it is a classic coming-of-age story about a precocious nine-year old tomboy named Scout. What she experiences is palpable in the virulent racism surrounding the persecution of Tom Robinson, a black man unjustly accused of raping Mayella, the abused white daughter of an unrepentant bigot, Bob Ewell. Representing Tom in court is Atticus Finch, Scout's father and the moral compass of the story.

The plot moves toward a deepening exploration of the intractable conflict between tolerance and ignorance and how the pre-existing environment of hatred and mistrust makes innocent people guilty by pure circumstance. Scout embodies these themes within her own journey toward womanhood and her questions of what society expects of her. Through the travails of Tom and the town's outcast, Boo Radley, and primarily through her father's example, Scout recognizes how innate goodness can exist even in the direst circumstances. Likely because the story is semi-autobiographical, Lee is able to vividly capture the rural south and the pervasive mindset during the Depression with spellbinding accuracy. Yet for all that, the book's lasting legacy has more to do with Lee's particular lierary gift in bringing a genuine universality to her themes.

Other characters weave in and out of the story - including Dill, Scout's wannabe boyfriend and the Truman Capote doppelganger - and each plays a key role in shaping the novel's core conflicts. I have to say that the author's particular literary strengths come to the fore in her empathetic depictions of the evolving relationships between these characters, for example, Scout and her father Atticus, Scout and her brother Jem, the children and Boo. Nothing seems extraneous in the story Lee tells, no small feat for a 336-page novel. She brings intense emotion to her prose, especially in describing the uncontrollable fury created by racial hatred and false accusations, for instance, in the lynch mob scene before the trial and in the vengeful attack on the children. The timing of the book's original 1960 publication turned out to be prescient, as the Civil Rights movement was just becoming national in scope thanks to the efforts of Martin Luther King and his brethren. Even if you have seen the masterful 1962 film, you owe it to yourself to read Lee's literary masterwork and sadly the only novel she ever wrote.

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Truly a Masterpiece

There is a reason that this book is extremely popular, and now that I've finally had a chance to read it, I know why: I consider it to be one of the most well-written books I ever stumbled upon.
Lee's writing is so precise and sharp that it makes me wonder exactly how long it took her to come up with the first idea of the story, and then finally to have turned in the final draft for publishing. A story with characters like this could take years to write.
For those who have never had the privilege of reading this masterpiece, do not overestimate this book by its mass popularity; unlike the countless books out there that are popular, no matter how bad they really are, Lee's book continues to thrive in both classrooms and bookstores alike because of the universal lessons it has to teach.
It can be enjoyed by both the young and the old, but I suggest that you wait till you're older to read it, as the mind may not be able to fully appreciate it until it is well seasoned.

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In Jim Crow Times

This is a review of the movie version of this book which, except for a little confusion about who killed whom at the end (Boo or not), is fairly faithful to the spirit of the book. The main points apply here as well.

This film is an excellent black and white adaptation of Harper Lee's book of the same name. The acting, particularly by Gregory Peck (and a cameo by a young Robert Duval as Boo Radley), brings out all the pathos, bathos and grit of small town Southern life in the 1930's. The story itself is an unusual combination, narrated by Peck's film daughter (and presumably Lee herself), of a stage of the coming of age story that we are fairly familiar with and the question of race and sex in the Deep South (and not only there) with which we were (at the time of the film's debut in 1962) only vaguely familiar. That dramatic tension, muted as it was by the cinematic and social conventions of the time, nevertheless made a strong statement about the underlying tensions of this society at a time when the Southern black civil rights struggle movement was coming in focus in the national consciousness.

The name Atticus Finch (Peck's role) as the liberal (for that southern locale) lawyer committed to the rule of law had a certain currency in the 1960's as a symbol for those southern whites who saw that Jim Crow had to go. Here Finch is the appointed lawyer for a black man accused of raping a white women of low origin- the classic `white trash' depicted in many a film and novel. Finch earnestly, no, passionately in his understated manner, attempts to defend this man, a brave act in itself under the circumstances.

Needless to say an all white jury of that black man's `peers' nevertheless convicts him out of hand. In the end the black man tries to escape and is killed in the process. In an earlier scenario Finch is pressed into guard duty at the jailhouse in order to head off a posse of `white trash' elements who are bend on doing `justice' their way- hanging him from a lynching tree. On a mere false accusation of a white woman this black man is doomed whichever way he turns. Sound familiar?

The other part of the story concerns the reactions by Finch's motherless son and tomboyish daughter to the realities of social life, Southern style. That part is in some ways, particularly when the children watch the trial from the "Negro" balcony section of the courtroom, the least successful of the film. What is entirely believable and gives some relief from the travesty that is unfolding are the pranks, pitfalls and antics of the kids. The tensions between brother and sister, the protective role of the older brother, the attempt by the sister to assert her own identity, the sense of adventure and mystery of what lies beyond the immediate household that is the hallmark of youth all get a work out here. But in the end it is the quiet dignity of solid old Atticus and the bewildered dignity of a doomed black man that hold this whole thing together. Bravo Peck. Kudos to Harper Lee.

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A sublime Masterpiece of 20 th Century American Literature

The New York Times feels that over the last twenty-five years the most influential book has been Toni Morrison's Beloved, over the last fifty years perhaps Ann Ryands Atlas Shrugged or Harper Lee's To Kill a Mocking Bird. First of the 5-6 different editions available to read on Amazon provide the best print and paper so its easy to physically read and wears well so it will last the test of time. This latter point is important for those who wish our young children to read the books of your own library. I have only recently read this Pulitzer prize winning novel and was pleasantly surprised. It a story of two young children (Scout and Jem) of the local towns best lawyer (Atticus Finney). The novels story unveils itself with typical young children events the next door neighbors who never comes out of his home and perhaps the highlight is when the children notice the town dog acting like he has rabies and although beloved to the town they know he needs to be contained. Then Atticus a benevolent educated family man who in his younger years was the best marksman in the county shots down the town well loved dog and then bury's him. The plot continues with a African American with a deformed left arm is accused of raping a poor white young lady by her father. A trial unfolds were the blacks are segregated from the white in the stands of the courtroom. There are a few stories dramatically emphasizing the unjust discrimination that Blacks experienced during the mid Depression years (story takes place in 1935). He is found guilty and then the story takes off with the juxtapositioning Good and Bad and the payment of the evil things we do in life, how they can suddenly right themselves. It is a short masterpiece some 319 pages perfect for young children in 4th or 5 th grade. "You can shoot all the Blue Jays you want but remember its a sin to kill a Mocking Bird" is the famous quote from the novel.

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to kill a mocking bird

A good book but not as good as the movie. The exact ending as to how the attacker was killed left too much doubt as to who actually was the killer--I don't think this was a good way to end the book. If Boo actually was the killer it should have been clearer to the reader instead of making the reader play a guessing game.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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