Harper Lee breaks silence - just - for Mockingbird anniversary

guardian ^ | 28 June 2010 | Alison Flood

[FreedomPoster]

Sorry, I should have made it more clear that I was referring to the request for proof of the claim for the “BTW, she never wrote anything else” part.

There is no proving that negative. If you only meant proof of the Truman Capote wrote TKAM claim, I don’t think that is something that will ever be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt one way or the other. But if we’re talking proof that “BTW, she never wrote anything else”, there is no proving it.

[Southack]

See posts 76 & 78.

[FreedomPoster]

Thanks, that’s the sort of thing I was looking for regarding proof that she wrote something else, vs. proving she didn’t write anything else. And perhaps she wrote many something elses, but that one in particular seems pretty certain.

[goodwithagun]

I had a wonderful group of seniors two years ago. They were the type of kids that really wanted to do well and impress me. When we read, “Hey, Boo,” I had to pass the Kleenex around. We ended up having two whole classes worth of “What are they doing now” scenarios for the kids. I especially love the part where Scout looks at the neighborhood from Boo’s perspective and refers to herself and Jem as Boo’s children. I'm getting all worked up just thinking about it!

[kalee]

Read my post 48.
Mitchell did write another book discovered and published after her death. Who knows what might come to light after Lee’s demise.

[goodwithagun]

After reading this for several years with my seniors, I have conflicting thoughts about Atticus. His name is appropriate, he is stoic in the classical sense. I am always angry at him in the end. He did not protect his children. I know he didn't want to go overboard and give Ewell any credibility, but he should have done more to protect the kids. But you are right, doing right is very conservative not liberal.
Also, he was classically educated by his father. I am reading “The Well Trained Mind” by Jessie Wise & Susan Wise Bauer. They are home school advocates and the book is a diagram of how to home school using the classical, trivium method. As I read their book, I can see that Harper Lee definitely has negative criticism of public school education and the Progressive John Dewey. I mean, I knew she didn't like it just by how Scout reacted to it, but now I really see what she is getting at.

[Richard Kimball]

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.

Well, until 1948 the Smithsonian claimed that Samuel Langley invented the airplane, so they're not infallible.

On the subject, it's difficult to prove authorship, particularly when the two were friends and worked together during the time of authorship. My gut feeling is this:

The book is Lee's work. Capote was likely a sounding board, but in essence, it is Lee's. Capote's In Cold Blood was an excellent book, but it never got the literary acclaim that Lee's book got. As Capote got older, drank more, and became more and more of a joke, I think he wanted to claim some of the adulation. With the possible exception of Breakfast at Tiffany's, most people probably couldn't name a Capote novel except In Cold Blood. For an attention hound like Capote, it must have been galling that his former assistant wrote one book that was considered far more of a classic than anything he ever wrote, and I think he might have been desperate enough to try to grab onto some of that fame.

[FreedomPoster]

I had, and see 80, 82, and 83.

[Southack]

Posts #49, 76, & 78 take all the mystery out of who wrote what. It’s no secret.

[Captain Peter Blood]

After reading this thread yesterday I got in touch with my Aunt. She lived in New York back in the 1950’s and knew Harper Lee and Truman Capote pretty well.
In fact she stays in touch Harper Lee on a regular basis, so I put it to her last night on the what she thought of this debate on who wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird” and here is her response to my e-mail:

Dear ...Truman wrote not one line of her book....on the other hand, when she went with him to Kansas to get the material for his book, “In Cold Blood”...he was so spaced out on drugs that she took all the notes, etc. and I'm convinced, wrote a lot of his book....Shortly after they got back, her book was published......and subsequently, his “In Cold Blood”....and her’s won a Pulitzer Prize and he did not, and he was consumed with jealously, which was why he was too petty to give her any credits for her work on “cold blood”...not even a thank you at the front of the book....He was, after all, such a really screaming little queen....Actually, I never liked him very much...though for her sake, I wasn't vocal about it.....He was so petty, that when stupid rumors went out that he's at least partly written her book, he didn't publicly deny it....

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

‘Huck Finn was much more impactful.’

‘Huckleberry Finn’ was the best American novel of all time. I call that praising by faint damns.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

‘Lost Laysen — a romance set in the South Pacific’

A not uncommon mistake for a new writer — writing about something exotic and which you have no empathy for, then writing a good book which you feel internally

[kalee]

Mitchell was 15 or 16 when she wrote Lost Layson. The book includes the nanuscript, pictures and letters she sent to an early suitor.

[kalee]

Mitchell was 15 or 16 when she wrote Lost Layson. The book includes the manuscript, pictures and letters she sent to an early suitor.