Prepare for Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ with ‘Mockingbird’ screening

Scout, a.k.a. Jean Louise Finch, is now grown up and returning home to Maycomb to visit her father, Atticus. For one thing, she had the life scared out of her the last time she was on a plane: the pilot elected to fly through a tornado.

In an early commentary on the first chapter of “Watchman“, Lynda Hawryluk, senior lecturer in writing at the Southern Cross University in Australia, said it bears faith to Lee’s abilities as a novelist. She is “almost in love”, the reader is told.

“Watchman”, which was written before 1960’s “Mockingbird” but only recently discovered, takes place years later, in the 1950s.

Go Set A Watchman is all the literary world can talk about right now.

Anticipation and apprehension have surrounded news of “Watchman” since it was announced in February.

“But perhaps it would have been a greater kindness to Lee’s reputation, and to the millions who cherish ‘To Kill a Mockingbird, ‘ not to have published it at all”, it sneered.

The story begins with Scout Finch on a train, heading back to her town of Maycomb, which is based on Lee’s hometown of Monroeville.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” has become one of the most celebrated books in the United States, and is required reading in many schools throughout the country and elsewhere.

Lee’s only previous novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird“, is considered a 20th century masterpiece that defined racial injustice in the Depression-era South and became standard reading in classrooms. Hardly any book is more prevalently read and theres a good reason for that, ” Young said. She has not spoken to the media in decades and her absence from any promotion for “Watchman” marks a rare time that such a high-profile work is being released without the participation of a living author. Clinton, in turn, is a surrogate son to Atticus.

A second notable sentence: “Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience”.

“Henry closed the fingers of his right hand halfway and said, “He can’t close them any more than this””.

When Lee was trying to make it as an author in New York in the 1950s, she submitted the “Go Set a Watchman” manuscript to a publisher at HarperCollins, who asked her to rewrite the story from the perspective of a young Scout. The Supreme Court had ruled unanimously in 1954 that segregated schools were unconstitutional, and the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955 led to the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott.

“As a fan of the novel, I have always imagined what Scout would be like as an adult”, Painter said.

“I have always wondered what happened to everyone, especially Scout”, Johnson said.

The title comes from the Bible passage Isaiah 21:6, “For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth” and was the original intended title for “To Kill a Mockingbird“, according to AL.com.