"As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for lessons."
Uncle Jack was referring to then-current events in recalling the events from Scout's childhood. He could have been referring to current events in our day. He could have been referring to the reaction many bloggers and reviewers have had over the book. Even those who have not read it have likely heard of or read how our image of Atticus Finch (who, however ideal he may be, is still a fictional character) has been forever altered and how no one will ever be able to reread To Kill a Mockingbird with the same enjoyment (if at all). Much is made of Atticus's surprising racism and how this sequel is so inconsistent with the original story.
For those who haven't already heard, Go Set a Watchman is the original story, the first draft of the novel which was reworked at Harper Lee's publisher's request, reworked to the point of essentially being rewritten as To Kill a Mockingbird, which has grown so beloved that it is understandable that anyone not knowing this (and quite a few who do know it) would be upset at the surprising things Atticus says to the grown-up Scout. So, to anyone who is apprehensive about reading the book because of the opinions of complete strangers on the internet, I offer a bit of advice to make it more palatable: don't read it as a sequel, but rather a separate story connect only by similarly named characters and places. Because it really is its own story, examining the issue of race from a quite different perspective.
That is not to say there aren't things comfortable and recognizable. The grown-up Scout might prefer to be called by her given name Jean Louise, but she hasn't changed much. She's still a fighter, but more likely to use her mind and words now rather than her fists as she did as a child. She has a sense of moral right and wrong which was instilled in her by her father and Uncle Jack and her housekeeper Calpurnia, and those beliefs have been refined by living her first few adult years in New York. So when she learns "the truth" about her father, her revered hero, she is understandably upset.
It is apparent from the first chapter that Jean Louise is struggling to understand her place in the world, and uncertain of her current beliefs, let alone those beliefs she held in childhood. She is returning to her childhood home for a regular visit, but she has no desire to stay. The novel's first shocking revelation is that her brother Jem has passed away a few year's prior to the novel's beginning. Some reviewers have stated that his death doesn't seem to have affected her much. I disagree, it has affected her profoundly, but the story is about Jean Louise coming to terms with herself, and flashbacks show how much Jem's death hurt her and shaped her. She is met at the train station by her boyfriend Henry, a childhood friend who now is part of her father Atticus's law practice. In that same first chapter we get the impression that she's not as committed to this relationship as he is.
The first third of the novel has Jean Louise still struggling to get along with her Aunt Alexandra (whose character is also much unchanged), including her aunt still trying to turn her into a proper young lady, coming more to terms with her father's crippling arthritis, seeing her childhood home replaced by an ice cream shop, and visiting classmates she feels she has nothing in common with. Through all this she's simply trying to figure out what she wants in life, what she truly values, and whether or not she wants to marry Henry.
All this happens before the startling events which have created so much undeserved controversy. Jean Louise goes to the courthouse and sits in what was in her childhood the "colored balcony" and listens to her father - or rather, listens to the words of a very bigoted man while her father says nothing, and is made guilty by association not just to Jean Louise but to many of the reviewers who apparently stopped reading the book at that point. I'm not going to list the things she hears that evening, or the things she is told by Atticus when she angrily confronts him later. Those crimes have been listed by many others. I will instead merely say that every single one of those things certain reviewers have pointed out are taken out of context. I do not say this to justify any of those things; ugly is ugly. But in our zero tolerance, politically correct society, words like "bigot" and "racist" have been used and overused and misused to the point where nearly all of the true meanings have been lost. The things which Atticus says to his daughter are neither surprising for the time period, for the place, and certainly not when taken in context with the rest of the novel. Jean Louise shows herself to be as unyielding and prejudiced - albeit in different ways - as Atticus and Henry and all the others she wants to completely write off and disown in her hotheaded 26-year-old self trying to figure out life.
Whether one reads Go Set a Watchman as the sequel it's marketed as (which it isn't) or the rough draft of To Kill a Mockingbird (which is no where near as rough as many reviewers have stated), if it is to be read at all, it needs to be read fully, not thumbed through to zero in on the shocking bits, not via politically correct sound bytes. A friend commented to me that most people remember the Atticus Finch from the movie, not the Atticus Finch in the book, who is a more realistic hero for his rough edges. From the movie, Atticus's halo seems as near straight as a halo can get. Having read To Kill a Mockingbird many times, I found his halo tilting slightly a couple of reads ago. For me, the cultural icon has not been destroyed any more than my real life heroes have been destroyed when I found things in them I found surprising or disheartening. People are complex; they are not perfect. Atticus is in both books a loving father, a good man trying to see society clearly and fairly and a man wanting to set a better example than he knows he's set himself, to set himself a watchman.
Like To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman is about race relations in the South - but neither book is solely about race. Both novels are about growing up. Both show a still loveable Scout (the child being more loveable than the adult) trying to understand the world around her, trying to do the right thing, trying to be a better person than who she was before. No one should object to that.
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