Saying Goodbye to Scout

From New York Times, publisher's image of covers of Harper Lee's two novels.

If Truman Capote was the model for Dill, that would make Harper Lee Jean Louise Finch.

Well, goodbye, Scout. You lived life on your own terms. In an era of self-aggrandizing celebrity, it’s nice to recall a successful writer who preferred a more graceful, private life. From the obituaries I’ve read, you were not Boo Radley—you were never holed up, away from the world, you were not a recluse—but you preferred not to deal endlessly with reporters.

From New York Times:
Donald Uhbrock/The LIFE Images Collection,
via Getty Images, Lee and her dad, 1961.

I was a reporter, once, and I’m glad I was never assigned to do a story about you. But then again, you did media interviews in the wake of publishing “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and some time in the 1960s decided it was enough.

As a journalist, I almost feel guilty saying it. But, good for you.

Your second book did not touch me as your first one did. And I know some school kids forced to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” in class don’t enjoy it much. But for me, it was one of the defining books of my childhood.

It was a book I read that I did not have to read. And as a boy, I was quickly smitten by Scout.

There is something about a strong, fearless, honest female voice.

Last night, not knowing that sad news would come today from Alabama, I watched “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for the first time—not the movie, but the first few episodes of the late 1990s TV show.

Man, it’s odd to look back at 1996. The “net” was something cool and new that a computer hacker used, but not a librarian. Factually, I think that’s false—I was using the net in a university library in 1989—but it’s still an interesting cultural artifact of its time.

Most of all, I was surprised at how much I liked Buffy. There’s a wry sense of humor there, a cute snide commentary on what life in a high school or a California town is “like” even if no town is actually a Hell Mouth.

While Buffy isn’t exactly Scout, and the librarian isn’t exactly Atticus Finch, I do see some parallels.

Most of all, tough girls rule.

We’ll miss you, Harper Lee, even if we’ll also always have you. Maybe only one of your books will be of enduring fame, but then again, what a book. Life was slower then. Yet, when we want to, we can always get back to Maycomb.

Is Scout Worth A Second, First Visit?

Next week in my media class, students will be reading and talking about the first mass medium: Books.

The news in the book world this week, of course, is about an intensely private woman who for most of her adult life maintained that she said all she wanted to say, and she wasn't going to publicly say any more.

Now, she will “speak” on the pages again. Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has a second book coming out.

Actually a first book, apparently. According to news stories, Lee had penned “Go Set a Watchman” first. It’s a story written and set in the 1950s, when a 29-year-old woman from New York returns home to Alabama to visit her aging father. His name is Atticus Finch. You know her as Scout.

Cover of recent paperback edition.

Or at least I hope you know her. You should read “To Kill a Mockingbird” when you’re young, maybe 10 or so, not so far removed from the fresh life view of its 6-year-old narrator.

I don’t know what a 29-year-old Scout will be like, and maybe Harper was right to think she had said it all in “Mockingbird.” The story goes that she showed her first novel, “Watchman,” to some editors way back when. They liked it, but even more they liked some flashback scenes which were set in the Depression era South. Those became “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Will I read a second Harper Lee book? Oh, sure. I loved the first one. It’s one of those books that is worth rereading—encounter it when you’re young, and read it again as an adult.

I would be interested in whatever else Ms. Lee had written. But there are some questions—she clearly had refused to submit this other book for publication for most of her life, and it only surfaced after the death of her sister, apparently a lifelong ally in Ms. Lee’s quest to be left alone. Coming out now when she is old, frail and without her sister’s protection raises some questions: Mostly, why now?

Then again, Ms. Lee has followed her own drummer for many years. Maybe she just decided it’s time. I hope so.

Anyway, while it’s controversial to some, with its themes of race, sex and rape, I put “To Kill a Mockingbird” among the you-really-should-read-it list of books for any American youth. And it makes me think of what other books I consider key in my own young journey to some level of literacy. What else made Young Joe want to read and to write?

• “Half Magic” by Edward Eager. And the rest of his light, whimsical books, including “Magic by the Lake” and “The Well Wishers.” I think I would call “Half Magic” the better book now, but I would say “The Well Wishers” was by far the most enchanting Edward Eager book to 11-year-old Joe. I don’t know if there’s a tie there for a white Midwestern boy, but “The Well Wishers,” like “To Kill a Mockingbird,” has a racial undertone.

• “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White. The main character saves someone’s life through creativity and writing, and then herself dies in a heart-wrenching chapter, that, honestly, makes me choke up a bit even today just typing this sentence. Well, at least Charlotte’s daughters hang around. If you read “Charlotte’s Web” and didn’t love it, I don’t want to talk to you.

• “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis. It was important to me, because around the age of 9 or so it was the very first “chapter book” that I struggled through on my own. Of the Narnia books, I actually eventually grew more fond of “The Horse and His Boy,” but LW and W still has a special place in my heart.

• “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien. Not as full of boring elf hotels as “The Lord of the Rings,” the story of Bilbo’s quest to find a dragon without any clear notion of what he was going to do with the dragon when it was found was just too much fun. My father read it aloud to us as children, but I was still fairly green when I read it for myself.

• “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert A. Heinlein. I read it when I was young, and didn't pick up its rather dour libertarian political overtones, which I strenuously disagree with today. But it was still a good book to read as a youth just to open my eyes to lots of different ways to view the political world. And I didn't notice, at the time of my youthful reading of the book, that the narrator was black, so this is again a book with racial overtones, although I didn't find that out until I was well into adulthood. Like “Charlotte’s Web,” I think the fact that it grapples with death is part of its appeal, too. Bog, is a computer one of your creatures?

Granddaughter "reading." She will learn to turn the book over.

I don’t mean to suggest that these are the best or only books for youth to read. Certainly my own kids loved Harry Potter, which didn't make this list only because I had kids by the time those books were published. Lemony Snicket is a wickedly subversive children’s writer, and at least mildly supervise, in my opinion, is a good thing for youth books to be. They don’t corrupt the young so much as mentally knock them off guard just a bit, which is something a good book ought to do to anybody anyway.

Well, students, we’ll see what our text author says about books in general. For you personally, what are books that have meant something to you, particularly books that you were not forced to read but rather chose to read in your younger days? And, blog universe in general, same question, but also how do you feel about Harper Lee’s new book?

Me, I’ll probably be in line the first day it’s available.

I can’t help myself. Atticus was a nice guy, but frankly I didn't really fall that hard for him. A saint is difficult to love. Jean Louise, on the other hand—baby, Scout, where have you been?