To kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, book and movie review.

Sorry for the long review, but I now consider this one of the best books I’ve read so far, so I couldn’t help myself. If you don’t want to read all of this, then here’s my opinion:

‘It was very good is an understatement.’

My copy from the library:

 

 

One of my book challenges is to read a list of classics. The first one I picked, was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It’s a book I’ve been looking forward to read for ages. I know this book is often on the to-read list for many schools from the US. I always thought they were lucky, as here in Belgium, I had to read very boring Flemish (North-Belgian) literature to graduate. I still feel like sleeping when I think of it.

This book is/was banned in lots of places in the US and I must be honest, that I was curious why that was. I can remember seeing the movie a couple of years ago and I couldn’t remember something worth banning for. But now after reading it, I’m slightly changing my opinion on that. I can understand it, but I don’t agree with.

But let’s start at the beginning. What’s the book about? Basicly, it’s about the African American called Tom who is being accused of rape. Atticus Finch Defends the man and the story is seen through the eyes of Atticus’ children called ‘Scout’ and ‘Jem’.

I had very high expectations of this book and they were definitely met. There were a few instances, where I didn’t like everything happening in this book, but that is mainly because of the difference on how things were handled at the time, things that wouldn’t be acceptable these days anymore (luckily). But there were many reasons why I still ended up giving this book five stars, even though, morally, I had some trouble with some things. Which I will explain later below.

I rewatched the movie for this book, as it was a long time ago. I only remembered Gregory Peck bringing an amazing performance. The first time I saw this movie, was the first time I saw a black-and-white movie and the first time I saw Gregory Peck in action. So it was a special moment. I didn’t think I would like it that much. But this movie was the start for my interest in classics and in black-and-white movies. So it definitely made an impression. I was a bit scared at the time, that it might be boring, as it was a 'dusty old' black-and-white movie. But honestly the acting was amazing and often better than a lot of modern movies.

Spoiler part

Some differences I noticed between the movie and the book.

The movie is often a bit different than the book. It’s hard to place everything from a book you enjoy for hours and hours and in this case you must bring it down to a 2h-movie, so that means lots of cutting.

- Dill’s aunt is Stephanie Crawford.

- Cecil Jacobs, not Francis Hancock brings Scout to break her promise to Atticus about fighting.

- Aunt Alexandra is cut out as a character.

- This last thing also means there’s less of a focuss on Scout to be forced acting like a lady in the movie.

- Tom Robinson’s children and father are introduced in the movie.

- The scenes in the classroom are cut, some of which I thought were important.

- The focus is more on the scenes in the court and less on the first part of the book.

- The book implies incest between Bob and Mayella Ewell, but this is cut. (Probably because it was too controversial in the time).

There are probably more points, but I read books in the evenings after 19h/7p.m., when my son sleeps. So if I missed something, than it probably was that I was a bit tired. (But I’ll probably will reread this one day)

In general the movie is great, but if you want more information, than the book is where you need to be. The last scenes of the movie in the courtroom are acted amazingly. It was very gripping at the part were Atticus received like a (silent) standing ovation of the African American people in the courtroom. A very brave move in still very racist times.

One scene I really missed from the book, was the scene were the teacher explains the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. This part is were Scout is (understandably) confused, as she heard the teacher speaking bad about black people before and now she says it was wrong of Hitler to persecute the Jews. Of course she sees no difference in why black people should be persecuted and not the Jews.

It was very important seeing this part through the eyes of the child, as children aren’t born with a racist view, and many adult people back then, already developed a level of prejudice.

I also missed lots of the first part of the book, as you get a better view on how society was at the time, concerning the view on women and African American people.

What I liked or didn’t like about the book.

-          As a person living today, I thought it was very hard reading the n-words so much. Luckily those words aren’t acceptable anymore, as it should be. We live in a diverse world, not a white world, that means we should treat everyone equally, no matter where they come from. Being different is no excuse for using such words, as we’re all part of the human race and we should treat other people with respect. That being said, if the writer left it out, than it wouldn’t be a honest representation on how it was at the time. If that would be cut from an historical book like this, just for the sake of us being too sensitive for it, then that would be wrong. Wrong in the sense that censoring this, would be like showing it never happened and in that case we can’t learn from the mistakes from people of the previous generations. If it was a modern book set in a modern society holding these words, then ofcourse I would feel differently about it.

-          I didn’t like that Atticus was being called by his name by his children and not dad or father. But that’s just a personal remark as I wouldn’t like it as a parent, if my son called me like that. I would prefer mom. Sigh.. just a few months and I might hear that word. I’m eagerly waiting. 😊

-         I prefer happy endings. But this is more realistic for the time. I don’t think it would be believable, if Tom would be found innocent as the jury was too racist for that. And I’m guessing that, sadly, this probably would have happened a lot in the time. It made me sad though, that Tom was waiting for an irreversible punishment for something he clearly didn’t do.

‘If you disliked so much about it, then why would you give this book five stars on Goodreads?' I can already hear you thinking… Well lots of reasons.

The story itself was really good. A normal book set in court but with a different issue would probably receive less stars from me, but this one was very different.

Considering this book was released in 1960, I thought it was a very brave move from the writer to write such a book in a still very racist time. There already was an important change of view regarding racism, because of the war. It was an important step to the road of being equal as humans. It was a small difference being made, but ofcourse not enough.  For the writer to place a light on the racial issues in those times, was extremely brave and I’m guessing it’s probably one of the reasons the book is still read and praised today.

Sometimes we need a big eyeopener on issues that look small in our eyes, because we grew up with it, but are in fact very wrong.

In today’s times we're still far from the utopia of equality, even though some think we’ve already achieved much. Which is true, but it’s not enough.

Reading this book, touched my heart as it touches a subject in which I’m concerned about in the future adult life of my son. I hope that when he grows to be an adult that he can live in a peaceful world and peace starts with treating each other respectfully. I know realistically I’m too much of a dreamer about this subject, but I hope I can at least learn my son the moral values on how things should be.

Seeing the book through the eyes of the children learns us how impartial they judge and how it should have been in the court.

About the banning of the book, I can understand it on some level for a school, but not for an entire state, city,…

I can get parents don’t want children to use the n-word. But that’s why it should be educated in a proper setting. Banning this book only fuels the ignorance on the topic in my opinion. But education is an important part on changing today’s views.

I’m curious to know on how much the writer placed things playing in her own life in this book. Atticus Finch and his children are very lovable characters throughout the book and I wonder how much of her own family life is used as an inspiration. Probably time to search for some making offs from the movie and documentaries about the writer. 😊

I loved this book and I consider it as one of my favorites. My only regret is, that I waited so long to read it.

What did you think of the book?