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brianreynolds
Feb 26, 2017brianreynolds rated this title 1.5 out of 5 stars
Watchman would a be an easy novel to assess, an easy read if it weren’t, in addition to being a story in its own right, the rough draft of an American classic about tolerance. And clearly a sequel to that classic. And a disturbing justification of intolerance, a curious condemnation of the US Supreme Court and the NAACP. As a story, however, it certainly deserves a “like.” It is a rather charming comedy (with a lot of slack cut for characters I’ve loved for more than sixty years.) The big syzygy scene does unfortunately rely on an assault and a bottle of whiskey in order to effect a miraculous about-face in a protagonist hell bent on being the star of a more heroic book. A bit hard to swallow. But stranger things happened in the deep South in the middle of the last century. As a story the reader is teased (albeit with help from the former, or latter, book’s charm and courage) into believing that a pure-hearted knight might stand up against a corrupt society, might forego the temptations of family and love and community all for the sake of justice and truth. My, that does echo Mockingbird, doesn’t it? But this story takes a different turn. Its politics and morality, I fear, don’t rate even an “okay.” Maybe if Mockingbird had never been written, this book might have stood up better. Of course, if Mockingbird had never been written, the perverse ideas about the right to treat people differently on the basis of race might have had an even rougher ride among Americans and others around the world in the past decades.