Robert Duvall as Boo Bradley
Posted on 07/12/2010 11:26:04 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Reclusive author talks to Mail on Sunday for 50th anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, but reporter had to promise not to mention her Pulitzer-winning novel:
Along with Thomas Pynchon and the late JD Salinger, Harper Lee is one of the world's most famous literary recluses. But the author of To Kill a Mockingbird has been tempted out of her self-imposed isolation – by none other than the Mail on Sunday.
Admittedly, Lee – who is now 84 and lives in sheltered housing in her childhood home of Monroeville, Alabama – gave away very little to the reporter, who had to promise not to mention her Pulitzer prize-winning story of racism in the American south, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year..
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
American writer, famous for her race relations novel TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. The book became an international bestseller and was adapted into screen in 1962. Lee was 34 when the work was published, and it has remained her only novel.
“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
Harper Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama. Her father was a former newspaper editor and proprietor, who had served as a state senator and practiced as a lawyer in Monroeville. Lee studied law at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949, and spent a year as an exchange student in Oxford University, Wellington Square. Six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York to pursue a literary career. During the 1950s, she worked as an airline reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and British Overseas Airways. In 1959 Lee accompanied Truman Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, as a research assistant for Capote’s classic ‘non-fiction’ novel In Cold Blood (1966).
To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee’s first novel. The book is set in Maycomb, Alabama, in the 1930s. Atticus Finch, a lawyer and a father, defends a black man, Tom Robinson, who is accused of raping a poor white girl, Mayella Ewell. The setting and several of the characters are drawn from life - Finch was the maiden name of Lee’s mother, and the character of Dill was drawn from Capote, Lee’s childhood friend. The trial itself has parallels to the infamous “Scottboro Trial,” in which the charge was rape. In both, too, the defendants were African-American men and the accusers white women.
“But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal - there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States of the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.” (Finch defending Tom Robinson)
The narrator is Finch’s daughter, nicknamed Scout, an immensely intelligent and observant child. She starts the story when she is six and relates many of her experiences, usual interests of a child, and events which break the sheltered world of childhood. Her mother is dead and she tries to keep pace with her older brother Jem. He breaks his arm so badly that it heals shorter than the other. One day the children meet Dill, their new seven-year-old friend. They become interested in Boo Radley, a recluse man in his thirties. However, he is not the frightening person as they first had imagined. During the humorous and sad events Scout and Jem learn a lesson in good and evil, and compassion and justice. As Scout’s narrative goes on, the reader realizes that she will never kill a mockingbird or become a racist. Scout tells her story in her own language, which is obviously that of a child, but she also analyzes people and their actions from the viewpoint of an already grown-up, mature person.
The first plot tells the story of Boo Radley, who is generally considered deranged, and the second concerns Tom Robinson. A jury of twelve white men believe two whites and refuse to look past the color of man’s skin. They convict Robinson of a crime, rape, he did not commit. Atticus, assigned to defend Tom, loses in court. Tom tries to escape and is shot dead. Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father, is obviously guilty of beating her for making sexual advances toward Tom. Bob attacks Jem and Scout because Atticus has exposed his daughter and him as liars. The children are saved by Boo Radley. Bob Ewell is found dead with a knife in his side. Atticus and Calpurnia, the black cook, slowly take the position of the moral centre of the book. They are portrayed as pillars of society who do not share society’s prejudices. The story emphasizes that the children are born with an instinct for justice and absorb prejudices in the socialization process. Tom is a scapegoat of society’s prejudice and violence. - “Mr. Finch, there’s just some kind of men you have to shoot before you can say hidy to ‘em. Even then, they ain’t worth the bullet it takes to shoot ‘em. Ewell ‘as one of ‘em.”
Although her first novel gained a huge success, Lee did not continue her literary career, although she worked for years on a second novel and a book of nonfiction. She returned from New York to Monroeville, where she has lived with her sister Alice, avoiding interviews. In 2007, Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by George Bush.
*sigh*
Great. Now Harper Lee is going to have to produce a birth certificate.
What you "think" or feel is irrelevant. A real investigation by a respected authority (The Smithsonian!) found enough facts in Harper Lee's notebooks to determine that Harper Lee wrote Capote's work.
Capote was the hack living off of Harper Lee's work.
Capote was perfect for Harper Lee, as Harper Lee despises fame and attention.
By giving credit to Capote for most of her works, Harper Lee was able to have Capote enjoy the attention, which he loved, while she was able to live alone in peace, as she loved.
In this manner everyone got what they wanted, but the reality is that Harper Lee wrote it all...every word put to pen by "Capote" was written by Harper Lee.
She simply doesn't want the fame that went along with her great gift of writing.
Capote was her "face" to the world. Her frontman. He was never an author. He gave his name to Harper's use, that was all.
I’m going to go way out on a limb here and predict that hoe-cake was referring to your first claim, the one that Lee was not the author of the book.
All I know is that I always wanted to grow up and be Atticus Finch, specially Atticus as played by Peck.
There is nothing liberal about doing what is the right thing.
I’ve always tried to do that in my life.
Robert Duvall as Boo Bradley
Might have wrote more but she had to catch a cab.
My sigh was in reference to his entire comment to my simple request for proof of claim. There was no challenge, just a reasonable request.
Interesting possibility. They were best friends and both from Alabama.
I get you Hackster; Harper Lee was the brains behind Truman Capote , writing The Grass Harp, Summer Crossing, Breakfast at Tiffany's and the like back when she was an airline clerk or in college. You can Go back to sleep now , your point (and you do have a point?) is made (incoherently , though).
My point was who knows what may surface after Lee’s demise.
The Smithsoniian also had an exhibit saying we nuked Japan because of Racism. Not saying that Lee didn't write the book (I think she did), but the authorities aren't quite what they used to be.
No, you don’t get me...you don’t get “it,” either.
It’s not *me* saying that Harper Lee wrote Capote’s work...it’s the Smithsonian.
And they came to that conclusion after reading her life’s work of notebooks...which contained “Capote’s” stories in development.
You’ve also neglected to see that Capote led a public life, demanding fame and credit, until his death...whereas Harper Lee insists upon living alone and shunning fame.
By neglecting to undestand what the above means, you’ve come to the opposite conclusion of the Smithsonian.
One suspects that you never read Harper Lee’s notebooks as did the Smithsonian, either.
Yet, because this is the Internet, you’ll never have to admit that you were wrong all along...
I agree with you that TKAMB is a love story between friends and family. It is also a coming of age story for the kids, but also for everyone in that town, and all 1950’s Americans, for that matter. Another thing that I enjoyed immensely as a high schooler when reading the book was the beautiful picture of small town life as viewed by children just old enough to begin pondering life. I felt that I could visualize every scene, every building, and all of the characters. I grew up in a small town in New England which I totally adored and still do to this day, although I am now a city dweller in Southern California. While reading the book and all of the episodes contained therein, I wanted to be part of it. When the kids walked into town and into the courthouse and eventually up to the balcony, I was right there with them. When Scout finally met Boo Radley in his darkened house, it took my breath away. Scout’s words, “Hey Boo” captured my imagination perfectly. Those two words remain my favorite line from any book. This is why I have admired the book as much as I do. I don’t care about the Capote controversy and I don’t agree with the recent Wall Street Journal article.
15 years later, he published her novel Other Voices, Other Rooms per her wishes under his name as his first book.
Other Voices, Other Rooms was written from the perspective of someone living in Alabama who met Truman when he moved to and lived in Alabama.
Other Voices, Other Rooms was set in Alabama and included detailed scenes of Alabama.
Keep in mind that Harper Lee has always lived in Alabama and knows the state intimately, but that Truman only lived in Alabama from 4 years old until he was 9.
Now, is it more reasonable to assume that Harper Lee wrote Other Voices, Other Rooms, set in Alabama and about meeting Truman when he moved there...or that Truman, after living in fabulous New York City since he was 9, somehow wrote a detailed novel set in Alabama...a state that he hadn't seen in 15 years?!
Frankly, any serious study of Truman will reveal that Harper Lee wrote *everything* including Truman's first childhood essay competition paper.
she didn’t live long enough
Marlowe wrote Shakespeare who wrote Jonson who wrote Kyd who wrote Spenser....
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