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Special Report
50 Years of To Kill a Mockingbird
The novel, the movie, and now a documentary about its reclusive author.
Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and “To Kill a Mockingbird” is an enjoyable new film documentary recalling the iconic 1960 novel and 1962 movie about race and small town life in 1930s Alabama. The author, now age 85, famously disappeared from public life not long after her explosive success, and never published another book. The movie naturally tries to explain.
The documentary includes numerous politically correct interviewees, such as Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw and Andrew Young, discussing Mockingbird’s importance, but not irritatingly so. Oprah tears up when recalling the scene when the blacks confined to the court house balcony all stand in homage to white lawyer Atticus Finch, who valiantly sought justice for an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman. But the scene, so classically portrayed in the movie with Gregory Peck as Finch, merits emotion.
Most interesting among the interviewees is Harper Lee’s 99-year-old sister, who is Alabama’s oldest practicing female attorney. Neither woman ever married, and they still live together in their father’s last house, carrying on a fairly normal social life for still vigorous elderly women in Monroeville, AL. Harper’s sister often functions as her spokeswoman, although she declined to help with a biography of Harper published several years ago. In a raspy but clear voice, Alice Finch Lee recalls her sister’s lifelong talent for story-telling and explains Harper’s later profound discomfort with nearly instant fame. She also comments on the eventual slow collapse of Harper’s almost lifelong friendship with an infamously peevish and self-destructive Truman Capote.
Capote partly grew up next door to Harper Lee, and Mockingbird’s precocious little Dill Harris is based on Capote as a boy. As adults, Lee was as normal and low key as Capote was bizarre and flamboyant, facilitating a social and professional partnership. Lee served as Capote’s researcher when he travelled to Garden City, Kansas, to write about the murders of the Clutter Family for his bestseller In Cold Blood. Capote had earlier introduced Lee to literary society in New York, where she worked as an airline agent while penning occasional articles. Most importantly, Capote commended Lee to Broadway producer Michael Brown, whose confidence in Lee’s talent persuaded him to gift her one year’s salary to write what became Mockingbird.
Brown and his wife are charmingly interviewed in the film and remain very fond of their old friend. Mrs. Brown does remember her incredulity when the publisher launched Mockingbird with 5,000 copies, having wondered if even 500 would purchase a somewhat cutting edge book about racial tensions in a pre-civil rights Southern town. Mockingbird would go on to sell tens of millions. The film adaptation, for which both Rock Hudson and Spencer Tracey were briefly considered before Peck’s masterful selection, is nearly as popular as the novel. Lee was very involved in its production, largely pleased with the result, and tearfully observed that Peck in his courtroom garb successfully captured her revered father, right down to his “little paunch.”
Unfortunately, the film spends little time telling about Amasa Coleman Lee, the real life small town lawyer, successful businessman, newspaper owner, state legislator and Methodist lay preacher. He did not embrace civil rights for blacks until late in life.
But throughout his life he was respected by whites and blacks in Monroeville for integrity and fairness. In 1919, he had unsuccessfully defended two black men accused of murder, according to Harper’s biography. They were found guilty, hanged, and mutilated. Mr. Lee never accepted another criminal case. Memories of that case, though before her own birth, must have inspired Harper Lee’s novel. Married to a difficult woman with a “nervous disorder” whom he out-lived by 15 years, Mr. Lee invested his emotional energy in his children. Harper Lee’s mother goes unmentioned in her novel and is only briefly cited as deceased in the movie. Mr. Lee lived long enough to appreciate his daughter’s stunning success, even meeting Gregory Peck, though dying before the movie release. Harper later gave Peck her father’s watch, a copy of which he had caressed, as Mr. Lee had in real life, during the film’s courtroom scenes.
Monroeville’s court house, faithfully re-created for Peck in the movie, is now a museum, visited by 20,000 visitors a year, anxious to understand Mockingbird and its publicly unavailable author. Harper Lee did emerge in 2007 to receive the Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush. She continues to refuse interviews, but Oprah recalls a lunch with her several years ago. Harper would not consider appearing on Oprah’s show, predictably. But she did explain her avoidance of public life. Popularly associated with Mockingbird’s tomboyish narrator daughter of Atticus Finch, Harper explained she actually identifies with Boo Radley, the oddball neighbor recluse who emerges only to save the children from an assailant at the film’s climax. Robert Duval, in his own film debut, portrayed Boo, who is escorted home by the Finch daughter after his heroism, never again to be seen.
Harper Lee likewise performed her great feat of a best-selling, and culture shaping novel, then happily disappeared. Undoubtedly faith played some role in her contentment. Her Methodist pastor is interviewed in the documentary. And she helped build a new building, with a John Wesley statue, for her congregation with Mockingbird profits. Lee’s dignity and good sense contrast with her friend Truman Capote, who likewise never completed a novel after In Cold Blood. But instead of retirement, he resentfully melted into decades of liquor, drugs and nasty public squabbles, with all the world watching. Lee probably chose wisely, although the mystery about her persists. Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and “To Kill a Mockingbird” intelligently analyzes but does not pierce that mystery.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (64) | Leave a comment
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alice moore| 7.1.11 @ 8:02AM
When reading about Harper Lee and to a lesser extent J.D Salinger. They are written as if they were mentally ill recluses. I disagree.
They did not take the path of living in New York City and acquiring a set of swell celebrity friends. Both authors participated/participate in their local communities. For the chattering classes,; this must be the equivalent of living in a cave.
Must a writer live the frenetic lives and have the ugly deaths of a Hemingway or a Fitzgerald, to be considered a life in full?
BTW I like the works of both Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
lydia | 7.1.11 @ 8:49AM
I am a 28 years old doctor, mature and beautiful.and now I am seeking a good man who can give me real love , so i got a username Andromeda2002 on--s'e'ek'c'ou'ga'r.c óm--.it is the first and best club for y'ounger women and old'er men, or older women and y'ounger men,to int'eract with each other. Maybe you wanna ch'eck 'it out or tell your friends!
Must a writer live the frenetic lives and have the ugly deaths of a Hemingway or a Fitzgerald, to be considered a life in full?
DSK| 7.1.11 @ 11:03AM
Lydia: I was just freed from an unjust incarceration in NY and would love to meet you
at the Ritz Hotel on 42nd St. How much do you charge? I used to be President of the World Bank and I can pay you whatever you ask...Let us love while youth remains, let us love and laugh together....I love you, DSK
Anne Sinclair| 7.4.11 @ 11:56AM
Lydia: please share your secrets with me. Even after a week in Rikers, three weeks house arrest were not enough to stir the loins of my purportedly virile "womanizer." What's a devoted wife got to do to get some these days? WTF?!?
Say--any chance you have a brother in the same line of work as yours? Or should I just bribe/rape/solicit my pool boy? Please advise.
Biz, Anne
l e hanson| 7.4.11 @ 11:27AM
"To Kill a Mockingbird" is, as Flannery O'Connor said "a children's book." Harper Lee sugar-coated the story and its characters. Conscquently, the book has little literary or artistic depth.
And . . . most likely, Truman Capote helped her write it.
Stephanie| 7.1.11 @ 8:40AM
What a sweet story. All of the characters, the mean dad excluded, are wonderful. Scout, Calpernia, Boo... I can see Atticus sighting the rabid dog, his glasses pushed up on his forhead, he shoots the dog and tells his daughter and son that the dog is just as dangerous dead as he was alive.
What a story, what a movie. A true classic.
vb| 7.1.11 @ 10:06AM
More important was that he didn't tell his kids why he didn't hunt. He showed them that a moral decsion was nothing to preen about. Jem and Scout learned from the neighbor. What Lee has done is show a society with its good and bad and a father that teaches his children to find their own moral compass.
USSAlabama| 7.1.11 @ 8:45AM
She doesn't live a reclusive life here at all, but rather a normal one; and I guess, if you knew her, you'd just understand.
mike| 7.1.11 @ 8:59AM
As a white, baby boomer kid I revered Lee's book. Much later my black-Hispanic wife picked up my worn copy and read it. She pronounced it "cute" and interesting. Oprah aside, and who knows her genuine feelings of if she even has any, I wonder if it isn't a book about racial oppression for white folks. The noble Atticus Finch and all that. I mean that scene in the movie that Oprah tears up over; "stand up Mr. Jem; your Daddy's passing." Lord; all the simple but noble black folks standing for the noble White man; it's a little like the paintings of the black slaves gathered reverently at the feet of Lincoln. The best scene in the book is one that did not make into the movie; the luncheon of ladies that Scout has to serve for and their hypocrosy is exposed. It's a great story with great characters beautifully written; I wonder if it might have been better if it turned out Tom Robinson and Lula May Ewell had been having an actual affair.
loulou| 7.1.11 @ 11:09AM
I agree with your comments.
Lee's TKAM is a good book for middle school students but I find the worship of this politically correct story a bit annoying. Every single US student is exposed to TKAM but do they read Julia Peterkin, Dubose Heyward, Zora Neale Hurston, and Wallace Thurman? Furthermore, are US students taught about the lynching of Leo Frank?
Will Oprah finally exit the scene? She's done enough damage to our culture.
Dave Williams| 7.1.11 @ 1:38PM
Amen to that! Arguably more damage than islamic terrorists. It's a great thing we won't have to follow her weight gains and losses breathlessly any more, but her touchy-feely "I am entitled because I exist" crap has become as entrenched as the AIDS virus.
cuban pete| 7.1.11 @ 4:33PM
I haven't thought about the Leo Frank tragedy in awhile. When I learned of the incident years ago it troubled me for days. I will pray for his soul today. It is something young people should know.
Tomas| 7.2.11 @ 1:21PM
Unfortunately, the damage Oprah has done will resonate far into the future. She brainwashed a whole generation of women, and these will pass her silly notions on to their children....
But. don't try and explain this to Oprah devotes... The roots of the religion run deep.
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C Point| 7.1.11 @ 9:44AM
Frankly I found the book and the movie to be incredibly overrated. I can see their historic significance but that's about it. Both are products of their time. Which, if you really think about it, is a good thing.
Tomas| 7.2.11 @ 1:24PM
Agreed. I read it in high school, and was told what a classic it is. I desperately tried to tell myself I loved it.
But failed.
The only part of the story I enjoyed was the description of the judge's cigar as it wound its way through his digestive system....
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KyMouse| 7.1.11 @ 10:10AM
To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite novel, and I love the movie. I've worn out several copies of the book over the years.
I took one along on a tour of the Soviet Union during its waning months in 1990. Our group's Russian tour guide saw my copy one day and mentioned that she had read it in Russian, but had always wanted to read it in English.
I gave her my copy, and for the rest of the trip, just about every time I saw her with a few minutes to herself, she was completely absorbed in it.
Shortly after TKAM was filmed, Mary Badham (Scout) arrived late at the summer camp my sister was attending. When the girls asked why she had to arrive after camp started, she said that she had been acting in a movie with Gregory Peck.
Yeah, right!
RCV| 7.1.11 @ 10:49AM
My favorite book, too. Thanks for the great anecdotes!
Stormzeye| 7.1.11 @ 10:42AM
Though TKAMB was a great story, I liked "The Great Santini" better. I found it a more realistic portrayal of racism, the difficulties of fatherhood and the beauty of masculine honor.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.1.11 @ 11:17AM
This book and others were used to grease the skids for collectivist policies in our society.
Now, the white male has few defenders and we see instance after instance where allegations against white males go viral, while allegations against black males are met with muted silence by the liberal press.
I doubt if that was the author's intent. But we now live in a collectivist society where rights are meted out depending on your race and gender.
I doubt if our creator would endorse that.
Oldefarte| 7.1.11 @ 11:34AM
As Atticus Finch truthfully declared, HAVE YOU NO SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.1.11 @ 12:45PM
If what I wrote isn't true, then explain:
Duke Rape Case
O.J. Simpson
The current case involving Strauss-Kahn is particularly of interest. Many people, including posters here, couldn't wait to kick his teeth out. His greatest crime? Being a white male and being accused of a sexual offense.
Turns out the accuser is a pathological liar and there is no case after all.
The real shame is in those who ignore the truth.
Mark| 7.1.11 @ 1:29PM
So O.J. got off because of To Kill a Mockingbird? You are truly and most certainly a fool. People like you do more damage to the conservative cause than all of the liberals in Manhattan.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.1.11 @ 1:50PM
And you base that on what exactly? People like you give morons a bad name. That was just one example, there are hundreds more.
I made it clear that books like this are what made it possible. If you don't believe it, let's hear your explanation. You obviously have none.
alice moore| 7.1.11 @ 10:24PM
Bill Hussein, I like most of your posts. TKAM is pretty good book. It does have some of the shortcomings pointed out on other posts. Miss Harper Lee seems a down to earth person. That she eschewed the cocktail circuit and celebrity friends speaks well of her.
As for the DSK affair...I confess, I was feeling a bit of Schadefreude to think a denizen of the Socialist Ruling Class was going to get some comeuppance blinded me. Many of their ilk do some version of the Kennedy/Dodd Waitress Sandwich and get away with it. A Christian Conservative should always presume innocence no matter what.
Keep posting.
Oldefarte| 7.1.11 @ 3:10PM
I'm not saying that you don't partially have a point about political correctness injustices involving white males, BUT you're incorrect in your linkage. TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT, okay? TKAM was a novel BASED UPON AN ACTUAL PREVIOUS OCCURRENCE during Lee's father's lifetime. Sure it was fiction, but it was based upon numerous facts of many occurrences of similar happenings. The movie MISSISSIPPI BURNING was also fictional but was based upon numerous actual happeings within the south concerning racial injustices against blacks. These are FACTS. Correspondingly what you claim in your cases sited are also injustices, but there is no linkage between the two. The examples within TKAM and your Duke Rape Case are BOTH EXAMPLES OF WRONGS and should be critisized as such rightfully!!!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 7.1.11 @ 3:14PM
PS: Maybe you are unaware of this latest development, but D.S. Kahn has today been released and is free. What should be obvious to any moron, he's guilty as hades and has now financially bought off his accuser, no doubt [so don't go using him as an example of wrongs against white males]!!!!!
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.1.11 @ 3:43PM
Actually, he was let go because his accuser was found to be a liar in many ways. What you state is assumption and there is no evidence. Where are your facts to support a payoff? In fact, I've read a few articles where it appears the alleged victim was paid off to go after him.
As far as the book being a work of fiction based on an actual incidents, I could write many books based on incidents where white males are held back in our society due to affirmative action.
I notice you didn't touch the Duke Rape case. It proves the point that white males are always guilty until proven innocent.
I'm not stating that TKAMB was solely responsible. It was just one bread crumb on the way to where we find ourselves today.
Although it portrayed the white male in a heroic light, it portrayed the white community as a bastion of racism, and that thought alone, repeated a million times in movies and books has lead to the collectivist society we have today.
You may disagree, but pray tell, what job can you get and soon what health care will you find without jumping through a race gauntlet? Racial animosity permeates the laws and the work place.
Oldefarte| 7.2.11 @ 1:54PM
"....Actually, he was let go because his accuser was found to be a liar in many ways. What you state is assumption and there is no evidence. Where are your facts to support a payoff?..." His accuser lied in ways unrelated to the actual event, and the proven facts are that she did not lie about the rape. The facts to support a payoff were numerous stories immediately after the accused incarceration of his agents attempting to maake payoffs to some of her relatives.
"....As far as the book being a work of fiction based on an actual incidents, I could write many books based on incidents where white males are held back in our society due to affirmative action..." Good, I'm sure you're correct, but again there should be no linkage. To say that the hanging/killing/slaughtering of blacks during southern racial segregation is permissable, warranted or the alternative causes of affirmative action injustices today is ludicrous and false.
"...I notice you didn't touch the Duke Rape case. It proves the point that white males are always guilty until proven innocent...." You are correct concerning this issue [and the guilty DA was rightfully reprimanded], but again the linkage-cause point is false [and your use of 'ALWAYS GUILTY' is a bit far fetched, don't you think?]
"....Although it portrayed the white male in a heroic light, it portrayed the white community as a bastion of racism..." Really? Maybe you should re-view the movie again, since you obviously missed parts of it. The WHITE SHERIFF, THE WHITE ATTORNEY, THE WHITE JUDGE etc were not protrayed as racist. AVOIDANCE OR PURPOSEFUL IGNORANCE could be rightfully charged, but not racist [as with the question of whether all Germans knew about Nazies killing Jews and possibly looked away in avoidance].
"...You may disagree, but pray tell, what job can you get and soon what health care will you find without jumping through a race gauntlet? Racial animosity permeates the laws and the work place..." I only disagree partially in that affirmative action corporate policies are excessive and should be repealed, but again your race animosity is a bit much!!!!!!!!
John Navratil| 7.1.11 @ 3:52PM
Oldefarte,
You may well be right, but there is no way you can know that. Let the investigators do their job. It's the worst system in the world, except for all the others.
John Navratil| 7.1.11 @ 3:50PM
Bill Hussein O'Stalin,
I think the examples you cite are more indicative of class envy than race. O.J. was acquitted for many reasons, but not for his fame or his race. If those were good enough, he wouldn't have been the laughing stock he became searching for the "real killer" and he wouldn't be living rent-free as he is now. Instead the trial was a farce, Ito lost control of the court, Furmann was trapped in a lie and the gloves did not fit. Still, it's up to the state with it's semi-infinite resources to get it right, not just good enough. Fortunately, the next group of prosecutors were more professional.
As to the Duke Rape Case, we had a bunch of privileged, white frat-boys behaving badly and a prosecutor best described as irrational. It all made good PC headlines, but in the end it was the prosecutor who was disbarred and the every-so sensitive professors who looked like blithering idiots. Like the DSK case, the poor, downtrodden, honest working girl (pun intended) was seen as oppressed. Perhaps "white on black" had something to do with it. I think Nifong would have made something out of a similar case without the race. His misconduct was so egregious it's hard to know what motivated him, although his re-election was at the forefront. Still the woman (whose name I cannot remember) has appeared in the news following each subsequent travail. She was indicted for murdering her boyfriend earlier this year.
As one of those posters who suggested that the DSK case may not be all that it appears, I'll be interested to see if any of those rushing to judgement will drop by to comment. However, it still isn't over. If it turns out that our hard-working salt-of-the-earth cleaning woman is really a money launderer in the drug trade, I don't think it will be met by silence in the media.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.1.11 @ 4:51PM
What greased the skids for the publicity surrounding the Duke Rape case was the fact that the students were white males. Almost everyone acknowledges that now. The fact that the victim was black lent itself to the racial circus that followed. I don't know how you could have missed that.
But there are many other cases and what's your point? Do you deny that our society is replete with social justice which in actuality is an affront to the Constitution?
Sandra Day O'Connor, who by the way was a Reagan appointment, stated affirmative action was an affront to the Constitution then went ahead and voted for it anyway.
A group of New Haven firefighters had to sue to be treated fairly under our employment laws and their case took a ton of money to get to the Supreme Court and that's where they found justice.
Ironically, the Supreme Court agreed that Sonia Sotomayor and the Second Circuit panel mishandled this important case. Now we have someone who practices the art of progressive racism sitting on the Supreme Court.
In Knoxville, Tenn. a young white couple were kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered by a gang of blacks. It didn't even make honorable mention in the mainstream media.
In short, the real problem in our society is that everything is decided on a collective basis.
In the last two years no major piece of legislation has passed the Congress that did not contain racial and gender bias built in and that includes Obamacare.
John Navratil| 7.1.11 @ 7:01PM
Bill Hussein O'Stalin,
If your point was that there are preferred classes written into the law which would appear to be in violation of the equal protection clause, I am with you. Affirmative action is an abomination. Walter Williams, in an interview with Reason magazine, asserted that the Civil Rights Act should not have been passed, but rather an affirmation that all laws apply equally to all.
It was your statement "Now, the white male has few defenders and we see instance after instance where allegations against white males go viral, while allegations against black males are met with muted silence by the liberal press" which I took exception to. Not because there aren't plenty of examples, but plenty of counter-examples as well. Flash mobs in Philly, for example. Here in Houston, there was plenty of play when Patti LaBelle's security team beat the hell out of someone at the airport. The woman pimping her daughter. The common thread is opression and victimization. The more sensational, the better.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 7.2.11 @ 8:53AM
You can take exception to it all you want.
It happens to be true.
The government has created a class of citizens who are protected species.
The liberal media has to do their part and they do it well. Horrific crimes by blacks are rarely looked into and only when the sensationalism can sell. For instance, the sniper case in D.C.
The point is that the movement for equality has now become a shrine to inequality and it always happens when the government gets involved.
We've had 70 years of phony progressiveness which is highlighted by collectivism.
We have no Atticus Finch to prevent the media lynching of white males. In fact, many defend it as you observe right here in pseudo-conservative land.
Oldefarte| 7.2.11 @ 2:02PM
Both of you are partially correct on this issue, but you need to refine your POINT to indicate that it's the DEMOCRATS, STUPID [as opposed to 'the government']. Democrats have controlled our government mostly for my entire lifetime, and their social justice agenda has creeped increasingly into ruling our lives. If you wish to repiar same, pull the Republican lever in November of next year!!!!!!!!
MM| 7.1.11 @ 12:57PM
I cannot say it is a favorite but I like Nell okay.
Both my kids hated it when it was required class reading in Jr. High. Movie too.
Agree with Bill ... just read a bio.
W| 7.1.11 @ 12:14PM
I enjoyed the book. It described a time and place that no longer exists, except in the minds of the race hustlers like Rev Jesse Jackson and Rev Al Sharpton. But it is dated, and students reading it now are led to believe that is how blacks are now treated in court. Does anyone really believe that is the current situation, given the 1) OJ jury, 2) Twana Brawley-Al Sharpton, 3) Duke Lacrosse scandal, 4) Central Park Jogger trial and re-trial, as just a few examples.
Oldefarte| 7.1.11 @ 12:28PM
I have two pet cats, whose names are BOO and SCOUT [which should give you an indication of my admiration and edevotion to this great novel]!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sheila| 7.1.11 @ 12:30PM
The book and movie were well done, but in service to the myth of the magic negro and "racist South" that were never really true. As far as accurate black on White rape statistics, try these (as cited at Lawrence Auster's VFR blog) :
In Table 42, "Personal crimes of violence, 2005, percent distribution of single-offender victimizations, based on race of victims, by type of crime and perceived race of offender," we learn that there were 111,590 white victims of rape/sexual assault in 2005. (The number of rapes is not distinguished from those of sexual assaults; it is maddening that sexual assault, which can mean inappropriate touching, is conflated with the crime of rape.) In those 111,590 cases in which a white woman was the victim of rape/sexual assault, the offender was white in 44.5 percent of the cases and black in 33.6 percent of the cases. Of 36,620 cases in which the victim was black, 100 percent of the offenders were black, and 0.0 percent of the offenders were white. The table explains that 0.0 percent means that there were under 10 incidents nationally.
The table does not give statistics for Hispanic victims and offenders. But the bottom line on interracial white/black and black/white rape is clear:
In the United States in 2005, 37,460 white females were sexually assaulted or raped by a black man, while between zero and ten black women were sexually assaulted or raped by a white man.
What this means is that every day in the United States, over one hundred white women are raped or sexually assaulted by a black man.
Mark| 7.1.11 @ 1:34PM
Run, Sheila, hide your children!
John Navratil| 7.1.11 @ 3:03PM
Sheila,
It must mean that white rapists are racists!
RCV| 7.1.11 @ 7:09PM
Don't worry, Sheila - you are personally safe.
W| 7.2.11 @ 3:42PM
Mark,John, Rcv, you boys are rather cavalier and dismissive of the possibility of Sheila and/or her children getting raped
RCV| 7.2.11 @ 4:15PM
More likely to be raped by a white man by her own statistics. She's just a disgusting racist agitator.
W| 7.2.11 @ 7:40PM
I don't know Sheila, or anything about her. Dont read every post here. But her beliefs have nothing to do with getting raped. Do you question the stats?
RCV| 7.2.11 @ 8:17PM
The statistics also tell us that over 60% of rapes are not by strangers. Sheila is a committed White Nationalist who posts here often. She isn't afraid of being raped by a black man. She's afraid of racial harmony breaking out in a country near her.
RCV| 7.2.11 @ 8:27PM
And, by the way, for 2009, all violent crime including rape in the US fell for the third straight year.
W| 7.2.11 @ 9:29PM
You are correct about the drop in crime. The jails and prisons are full, and there are not enough ankle bracelets for home arrests. Most states and the feds have mandatory sentencing guidelines . Also the age group that commits most violent crimes has declined in numbers.
George True| 7.3.11 @ 2:43PM
Not really. Considering that blacks are about 12% of the population, her chances of being raped by a black man are about six times more than being raped by a white man.
RCV| 7.3.11 @ 6:53PM
George, you are obviously not a math major.
George True| 7.4.11 @ 3:15AM
RCV, being a leftist, you are obviously not a repository of logic or reason.
Big Java| 7.1.11 @ 12:46PM
Thank you, Miss Lee, for one of the very best
American novels ever.
C.G. Pyper| 7.1.11 @ 1:43PM
1. What's NOT "P.C." about Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw and Andrew Young? Every one of these people is a Left-wing demagoue, and social boor.
2. 'Saw the movie when it first came out. I was a high school senior in Phoenix...amazed/incensed by the prejuce; touched by the courtroom scene; impressed, with affection, by Gregory Peck. 'Also enjoyed the "picture" of the South.
3. Along came the war of indepence and freedom for the Republic of Viet Nam. Peck, taking sides with the Communists, turned out to be a man with no shame, who merits no respect.
4. "Pictures" in the book are even better than those of the movie, but spoiled by typical Left-wing propaganda, e.g Atticus' snobbery regarding fire arms; Atticus' oppressive attitude against his children vs unbridled abuse from the crazy old woman. (Mental/nervous disorders are no excuse, regardless of warblings of illiberals.)
5. 'Wondered how such PC ("Political Control")-infested book could have surfaced Alabama. The article lights up probable answers: H. Lee is a Methodist. She was set up, and given her orders, by a couple in NYC.
6. Mark Toomey, you are a writer who I give priority to in my limited-time reading. In the past, you have been one to hit the mark solidly on the madness of the illiberal Left, particularly in its subversion of Christianity in the "mainline" religions. What in the world happened to you on this one?!
CGP
Monett, Missouri
cowgirl| 7.1.11 @ 2:51PM
To Kill A Mockingbird sits right on top along with Citizen Kane, Gone With The Wind, The African Queen, The Maltese Falcon and The Searchers...
Too bad Hollywood can't even compete nowadays - too much political correctness.
Mike| 7.1.11 @ 3:51PM
The book was beautifully written and the film well done; both contain many life lessons - remember Finch's - Peck's disconcerted reaction at Lulu (?) May's anger at his politeness? And his turning of the cheek when old man Ewell spat in his face? I shudder to think what Hollywood would do with this story today. Interestingly, I can recall, about 20 plus yrs ago, when Charleston Heston was recieving an award from Hollywood for lifetime achievement - something that would never happen today - he paid gentlemanly tribute to Peck who was in attendence; saying how they were political opposites but always maintained their respect, affection and good manners to each other. And Peck very respectfully waved in gratitude. I just don't see that TKAM appreciated blacks as full human beings with all the variety and virtues and flaws that she so artfully depicts in whites. The book and film kind of depict them as just sort of devices for white folks to learn lessons about life from. Compare it to "Huckleberry Finn." No art work should be regarded with such reverence that it cannot be reexamined; Lee's work deserves that. As Atticus tells Scout; put yourself in the other's shoes and try to look at the world from their view. My wife, with a greatly different life experience does that for me. On a visit to Maya Lin's Vietnam War memorial her response to it really opened my eyes on that. But that's another story.
POST American| 7.1.11 @ 10:58PM
---Instead of another addition to the retro
'70's Show' ---it'd be far, far more interesting
to hear Lee has talk about about what 3 decades
of Oprahism, and over half a century of calculated
Rockefeller Foundation et al social, cultural and
economic, political and moral subversion have done to this country.
Far, far, far, far more interesting.
Afterall, dying time ---is TRUTH time.
Roland Dobbins| 7.2.11 @ 11:57AM
Truman Capote did indeed finish one more novel after _In Cold Blood_. It's called _To Kill a Mockingbird_.
And that's why Harper Lee never wrote another novel; she hadn't written one in the first place, Capote wrote it for her.
artesian jacket| 7.2.11 @ 12:52PM
My wife's family is from Monroeville, Alabama. My mother in law, God rest her soul, remembers Truman Capote coming into the drugstore and trying to make all the seats at the soda counter spin at the same time while giggling insanely. She was about 11 or 12 and thought he was immature and silly. I don't care for the PC stuff in TKAM but the novel and the movie capture the times. The clothes, attitudes, accents were exceptionally well done. My wife's great uncle was a contemporary of Mr. Finch and she remembers him (the uncle) having a great deal of respect for Atticus but don't think for a minute that he was some kind of flaming liberal. That among certain other things was a Hollywood creation.
Oldefarte| 7.4.11 @ 12:08PM
Neither the book or the movie portrayed Atticus Finch as a 'liberal'. Possibly Hollywood kidnapped his character and revised same as such, but neither the book or the movie did so. Finch was simply a small town lawyer who observed the stupid bigotry of certain uneducated citizens and used his legal abilities to attempt to protect a wrongly accused black man of raping a poor white trash white woman. Alternatively, he attempted to protect his children/neighbors from a rabid-mad dog by killing same. Finch was by no means a liberal, but he was a kindhearted, compassionate individual who sought to right an injustice!!!!!!!
Savta Achimeir| 7.2.11 @ 3:47PM
It may not be considered a Great Work, but it has some lovel descriptive writing. I hunted down a copy the day after we read a section in an English textbook about observation and description in 8th grade. The book did not dissapoint. I carried it around with me re-reading it for about 6 months thereafter.
In retrospect. what strikes me most strongly is that it was the first book that gave me a sense of what growing up in the South had meant to me, an experience about which, at the time, I was very ambivalent.
Ghost Of Michael O' Donoghue| 7.2.11 @ 10:47PM
Roland, To Kill A Mockingbird, the book, came out in 1960, In Cold Blood was released in 1965. And the canard that Capote wrote Mockingbird pretty much came from Capote himself, in his drug addled 70's period. From what I've read, there was no proof anywhere that he actually wrote it.
POST American| 7.3.11 @ 1:16AM
-----Hmmmmm
Had always a sneakign suspicion that Lee
didn't write it, any more than Rowling
(so reports go) wrote Harry Potter.
John C. Coleman claims that was written
by some rich railway magnate named, I think,
Richard Potter. Rowling was just the editor.
Of course the Potter books have been put out
there to indoctrinate the youth away from
their genuine religious culture, and also away
from seeing the Luciferian element at work
via the occult societies of the 'Masters'.
Very effective.
Anyway, as far as Lee and Rowling,
we know writers, and she doesn't have the
character of one.
We might be wrong, but we would not be at all
surprised if the entire thing's a phoney.
Note it came out during the period when
James Agee was writing 'Kennedy's' --Profiles
in Courage.
AGAIN, Lee and Rowling BOTH probably a set up.
This would also account for their 'reclusiveness'.
Shane| 7.4.11 @ 11:02AM
Thanks BHOS, your points are cogent.
I saw TKAM and I felt it was too emotively propagandistic and blatantly liberal.
Oldefarte| 7.4.11 @ 12:10PM
It was simply HUMAN!!!!!!!
weddingdress | 7.5.11 @ 4:15AM
Neither the book or the movie portrayed Atticus Finch as a 'liberal'. Possibly Hollywood kidnapped his character and revised same as such, but neither the book or the movie did so. Finch was simply a small town lawyer who observed the stupid bigotry of certain uneducated citizens and used his legal abilities to attempt to protect a wrongly accused black man of raping a poor white trash white woman. Alternatively, he attempted to protect his children/neighbors from a rabid-mad dog by killing same. Finch was by no means a liberal, but he was a kindhearted, compassionate individual who sought to right an injustice!!!!!!!