To Kill a Mocking Bird

Year: 1960
Author: Harper Lee

This book restored faith in my ability to read. So many times over the last few years I've picked up books from the Western canon in an attempt to improve my puny mind only to fall asleep after a chapter or so. Not with this book, I couldn't put it down. Perhaps the mistake I was making was in attempting to start at the beginning of the canon - I tried to read the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Old Testament. What I should have done is begun with more recent books, built up my "reading muscles" with things I could relate to better, and then worked backwards. Come to think of it, maybe I should just read things which actually interest me.

To summarize, the story is set in a small town in the American deep south in the 1930s. It concerns the lives of two young siblings, Jem, a boy of about 12 I think, and Scout, a young girl of about 8. It is written from the perspective of Scout from some future vantage point looking back at two or three years surrounding this period in her life. Apparently it is loosely based on real events from Harper Lee's own childhood.

The first part of the book revolves around the escapades of the children, there comings and goings at school, friendships, their relationship to their father, and their fascination with their reclusive neighbour, Boo. Their mother has died and their father, Atticus, a highly intelligent and respectable gentleman and local attorney, is raising them on his own with the assistance of their housekeeper. The reclusive family neighbours are apparently some kind of strict Baptists - 'footwasher' if memory serves. These people keep themselves to themselves and believe all enjoyment is a sin or something. Their adult son, Boo, never leaves the home.

The children are fascinated by Boo and get up to all sorts of mischief trying to get a look at this mysterious figure. He becomes the object of their fascination every summer when their friend, Dill, comes to stay in town. All sorts of fantastic stories revolve around him. Apparently he comes out only at night and hauntingly paces nearby streets and yards.

The story builds to a climax around the case of a young black gentleman who is accused of raping a white girl. Atticus is called in to defend the young man and as a result the family are subjected to abuse and threats and the children come to learn all about the pain and unfairness of deep racial prejudices saturating the deep south at that time.

The young man is innocent but, despite and airtight defence from Atticus, is found guilty by the jury of locals. His accusers are a trashy father and daughter who live over at the nearby dump. Apparently the girl had a crush on the boy and forced herself on him in their home. Her abusive father, disgusted at seeing this take place, beat his daughter and forced her to testify against the man.

At this point I felt the book fizzled out a bit. It built up to this point so spectacularly that what followed felt a bit limp by comparison. Nevertheless I read on and the story does pick up once again.

Following the trial the father threatens to get even with Atticus for implicating the father and daughter so devastatingly in the court. Eventually the father catches up with the two children as they depart from a school pageant one dark evening. He attempts to kill them, a struggle takes place and a mysterious rescuer comes to their aid. The father ends up dead, pierced by his own knife, and the children make it home, Jem with a broken arm, and Scout with little more than a few bruises thanks to her chicken-wire pageant costume.

The book ends beautifully with Scout's realisation that the rescuer turns out to be Boo from next door. Questions circle Atticus's mind as to what happened - should his son stand trial? Atticus believes he should but the local sheriff, sympathetic with the death of the young black man, will have nothing of it. It is never revealed what exactly happened in the struggle as it is written from the perspective of Scout whose sight is obscured by her costume at the time. She walks Boo back home hand in hand and the book draws to a beautiful close leaving the reader wanting more.