"Go Set A Watchman" by Harper Lee *****

• Book Club
• US author
• Originally published in 2015, although actually written in the 1950s, prior ro "To Kill A Mockingbird"
• Vocabulary:
• enisled:  to isolate, to make an island of
• Asquithian: like the British politician, a liberal
• anthropophagous: eater of human flesh, 
• gulosity: excessive appetite, gluttony
• Childe Roland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childe_Roland_to_the_Dark_Tower_Came, trials and tribulations to complete a journey
• Characters:
• Scout, now 26, living in New York
• Atticus, now72, rheumatoid arthritis (stiffness, a metaphor?)
• Uncle Jack/Dr. Finch: brother of Atticus, lives in town, close to Scout, loved her mother
• Henry, pseudo son to Atticus, wants to marry Scout, comes from poor white trash
• Calpurnia:  former housekeeper, now retired, grandson in legal trouble
• Aunt Alexandra: lives with Atticus, cares for him, "the last of her kind"..."she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was a disapprover; she was an incurable gossip"
• Mr. Stone:  the minister of the Methodist church
• Title: 
• taken from the Bible, Isaiah, 21:6, "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth."......Scout's task
• "Mr. Stone set a watchman in church yesterday.  He should have provided me with one.  I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour.  I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.  I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is."...Scout during confrontation with Atticus
• p.265..."Every man's island, Jean Louise, every man's watchman is his conscience.
• Notes:
• Colonel Maycomb, Finch ancestor, "sat out the war in bewilderment" in the "forest primeval".....forests...transformation.....bewilderment
• loved the memory of the "revival" reenactment by Jem, Dill, and Scout (p.62ish)
• allusion to Carson McCullers "Member of the Wedding" (1952), Scout contemplating married life in Maycomb
• funny story of Scout wearing falsies to dance, and resolution at school
• p.248...reference to trial from "To Kill A Mockingbird", Scout realizes that Atticus loved justice, not the Negro
• Quotes:
• p.15..."Love who you will, but marry your own kind"
• p.117. ..."She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life, was the love of her father."
• p.122..."Had she insight, could she have pierced the barriers of her highly selective, insular world, she may have discovered that all er life she had been with a visual defect which had gone unnoticed and neglected by herself and by those closest to her;  she was born color blind."
• p.154...."It was not because this was where your life began.  It was because this was where people were born and born and born until finally the result was you, drinking a Coke in the Jitney Jungle."
• p.196..."No war was ever fought for so many different reasons meeting in one reason clear as crystal.  They fought to preserve their identity.  Their political identity, their personal identity."....Dr. Finch to Scout re: Civil War, and war between Scout and Atticus
• p.197..."As sure as time, history is repeating itself, and as sure as man is man, history is the last place he'll look for his lessons."...Civil Rights Movement
• p.198..."The only thing in America that is still unique in this tired world is that a man can go as far as his brains will take him or he can go to hell if he wants to, but it won't be that way much longer."
• p.199..."Human birth is most unpleasant.  it's messy, it's extremely painful, sometimes it's a risky thing.  It is always bloody.  So is it with civilization.  The South's in its last agonizing birth pain."...Dr Finch
• p.225..."Hell is eternal apartness.  What had she done that she must spend the rest of her years reaching out with yearning for them, making secret trips to long ago, making no journey to the present?"
• p.237..."Men tend to carry their honesty in pigeonholes, Jean Louise.  They can be perfectly honest in some ways and fool themselves in other ways."
• p.249..."Why didn't you tell me the difference between justice and justice, and right and right?"....Scout to Atticus
• p.257..."If he had fought her fairly, she could have flung his words back at him, but she would not catch mercury and hold it in her hands."...referring to Atticus' refusal to get upset with her
• p.266..."He was letting you break your icons one by one.  He was letting you reduce him to the status of a human being."
• p.267..."You have a tendency not to give anybody elbow room in your mind for their ideas, no matter how silly you think they are."...Dr. Finch on why Scout is a bigot
• Review:  Wow!  I could not put this book down.  Harper Lee is clearly a gifted storyteller. Beginning with imagery of a journey home, she takes us on the journey from child to adult, from idealized to human, and from old ways to new.  I felt completely engaged in Jean Louise's shock, disillusionment, and coming of age.  It was as if it were happening to me.  As a stand alone novel it is stunning.  Knowing that it was actually written prior to "To Kill A Mockingbird" is almost overwhelming.  The chronological order of the plots seem fitting.  It is as if we were the generational child of Atticus Finch, idolizing and idealizing him, who is forced unexpectedly to confront our literary hero's humanity.  Right along with Scout, we must step back and fully experience the emotions right along with her, and we must grow up and open up as well.  Long live Dr Finch for having the courage to slap Scout, and Harper Lee for doing the same to her readers!  A searingly emotional literary experience!