I don't know how many people read this blog. I realize it isn't for everyone, especially the casual blog reader. However, for those who have been reading it (or at least know about it and its routine), I should apologize for being so incredibly late on updating.
Unfortunately, with my new job, my life has become a whirlwind, and I no longer have the luxury of waking up in the morning, reading for a few hours, doing whatever throughout my day, reading again for another hour, doing some more stuff, and then reading again before bedtime. Life is fast-paced, and I was jarred, utterly, with my new schedule of go, go, go. Because I wasn't prepared for it, I wasn't prepared to keep up my same rigorous reading schedule, and soon days would pass without the cover so much as being looked at. How depressing.
However! I resolved with myself that, if I can't keep up a book a week, I can at least keep reading, no matter how long it takes. Really, a book a week is quick, but I was able to do it because my time in school and work had reduced dramatically. Now that my schedule is not as laid back as it was, I can't spend nearly as much reading as I'd like to. I just can't. I don't know where in my day I could squeeze in a few hours. A half hour, yes, but hours on end?
All this to say: yes, I'm stil reading, and I'm still very much interested and curious and speculative. I just don't think I can finish this project in 15 weeks like I had hoped. And that's okay. What I'm doing with my time is worthwhile, and as long as I keep opening that book, it doesn't matter if it takes me years.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about To Kill a Mockingbird!
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Quick Synopsis: A young brother and sister, Jem and Scout, deal with their town's racial injustice as their father defends a black man on trial, and are mightily captivated by Boo Radley, a man that never leaves his house.
I had heard so much about this book but knew so little. I remember my friends reading it in high school. I knew the character Boo Radley, I knew it was about a black man raping a young white girl, and... that was about it. I actually thought Harper Lee was a man. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found out she's a woman. What an inspiration.
I love this book. I mean, I LOVE it. It is my favorite so far, and probably will be on my top three of all time. It was hard for me to not finish it in a week because I wanted to get through it so badly, but really, I'm glad I took my time with it. I was able to spend more time with the characters, I was able live in Maycomb just a little bit longer, I was able to become a kid again.
And that's the magic of this book: Lee captures the wonderment and curiosity and bewilderment of these children so well. Some critics have said that they didn't buy it because how could our first person narrator, a 7 year old, narrate a story with such clarity and precision, such force and lyricism? What the "critics" weren't realizing was that it wasn't narrated by a 7 year old. It was narrated by an old woman, a woman who has spent years pondering this time in her life and finally decided to tell this story, to figure it out and make sense of it all. Even with the huge temporal distance between the time-now narrator (the old woman) and the time-then narrator (Scout at 7 years old), the magic of her childhood was never lost. I see this world as the 7 year old sees it because that's how the narrator sees it--she doesn't see it as an old woman. Lee knew exactly what she was doing.
Not only was I drawn by the sheer beauty of the language, but the story is one I found myself truly caring about. Boo Radley, this enigmatic being, this thing that the children both fear and revere, isn't just something to give the kids something to do. He stands for something, and what got me was that I didn't know what it was right away. I had to get deeply involved in the other story, the story about the trial that their father, Atticus, was defending, to really understand the significance of Boo and his place in the world and in the story.
And that's why it's so good: everything connects back to each other. It all makes sense. And it's beautiful. I cried. I admit it, I had tears in my eyes when I finished it.
I won't go into too much further detail in case you haven't read it--and if you haven't, I HIGHLY suggest that you do.
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