Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

2 stars for Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.

I wonder at times why author Harper Lee, with the success of her debut Novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), never continues to write and publish more. After all, she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction writing in 1961 and her book has been widely acclaimed by teachers and pupils and readers alike. It is only in 2015, after more than fifty years that her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, is published. When I get curious enough, I do my usual thing - I whip out my cell phone. A few keystrokes later, and there, I have my answer. The wonders of Google. It reveals the following "Two reasons: one, I wouldn't go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again." This author has character!

After To Kill a Mockingbird, I find myself at a loss on what's next. The book is so well written that I worry my next one will not be as good. In truth, my mind is still very much rooted in Maycomb and I want to spend more time with the Finch family. In the end, I feel that it has to be Go Set a Watchman. Once decided, I proceed to read and finish it over the weekend. Though I spend two days on Watchman compared to the seven for Mockingbird, it is hardly because I like the former more than the latter.

Fast forward some eighteen years and Jean Louise Finch is now twenty-six years of age. Not much is mentioned on the lost years from the close of Mockingbird when Jean Louise is around nine years old to the young lady she is now. With the exception of a new character, Henry Clinton, there is pretty nothing much new. In fact, Go Set a Watchman is very much an iteration of author Harper Lee's first novel, with some passages taken word for word. Bulk of the story deals with flashback of Jean Louise's childhood and the days of old spent with her brother, Jem, and their Summer friend, Dill.

After an almost perfect story laden with lessons on prejudice and racial discrimination in Mockingbird, Watchman is definitely not what I have expected. I keep the pages turning non-stop, in hope of - I'm not sure what exactly - perhaps another court case or something similar to that effect, or some earth shattering revelations or whatever, but definitely not the same old thing. In the end, I didn't get what I hope for, no major up there. But I did experience a painful down where I get lost amid the abstract arguments between Atticus and Jean Louise over civil rights. That is not to say there are no lessons to be learnt from Watchman. There are still, but it is an agonizing read which I rather do without.

Go Set a Watchman is a book readers will not understand and appreciate without first reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Even then, it is a book I find painful to read and hard to like. Perhaps, it may have been for the best if the author has simply left it at that and let Mockingbird be the sole book to carry on her literary legacy. After all, we all know that she has said what she wanted to say in her first novel.


Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition
Publication date: 3 May 2016

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From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch—"Scout"—returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt.

Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past—a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience.

Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor and effortless precision—a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to an American classic.

*Blurb from Goodreads*

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