A new book, but an old conspiracy theory: Who really wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird"

CNBC ^ | 02/03/2015

[SeekAndFind]

A second Harper Lee book is coming out and is likely to be a wild commercial success. But let's be honest

[mountainbunny]

The same person wrote both books. That person was not Truman Capote. The styles are not the same at all.

Since Harper Lee’s editor worked with her, it is safe to say that she wrote both books.

It is clear from the books and from the editor that the books were written in the order and manner reported.

Mockingbird is a much more polished book. Watchman drags on in parts.

The most fascinating thing is that for 55 years, Harper Lee and a few others have known that Mr. Finch was not the person that Scout tries to make him.

[mountainbunny]

Yes, but it isn’t that simple. Nothing is as simple as Mockingbird made it seem to be.

Well worth reading the new book.

[Brass Lamp]

Well, I wrote on the same subject about twenty years ago and the then-current science of plagiarism detection, when evaluating the folio of claimed works for word choice and frequency, determined that only Titus possessed aberrant or unique use of language.

[CyberAnt]

I thought the original story was actually some of her fathers beliefs. The “... Mocking Bird ...” book was to give him a nicer side, with which she agreed.

Weird to me .. I liked the movie “Mocking Bird” .. but it’s not one of my favorites as movies go.

[miss marmelstein]

What a senseless review - which is why I avoid Amazon reviews. Androgynous Scout? Lesbian Scout I assume he means but is afraid to say it. Scout is a tomboy who learns to be a woman (again, the famous tea party scene - the most interesting and ironic chapter in the book). The humor is wonderful - Aunt Alexandria being a butt of much of it as well as Scout's ancestry and Atticus’s awful early trials by jury. And if blacks are the victims, well, we are talking about Alabama during Jim Crow. The trial itself is based somewhat on the Scottsboro Boys case.

A lovely book that should be read by young adults. I can't think of a better representation of idealistic youth that Jem Finch. The right shouldn't imitate the far left when it comes to fine, popular literature. I was scorned by the F. Scott Fitzgerald Society when I told them I had visited Monroeville to see where the book took place. Never rejoined that group because of their snobbishness.

[Ventilator on]

.

Why would the Soviets publish translations of Harper Lee and "The Grapes of Wrath", for that matter, and have their school children read them?

Read about socrealist art and how these works fit into the Party's template, and fit, I might add, perfectly!

[heye2monn]

Yes — depicted as decent, law-abiding thorough-going racists.

There was nothing in the book about the deeply rooted (and largely justifiable) fear of black crime. For every innocent Tom Robinson, there were plenty of guilty black men. Today, eighty percent of interracial violence is black-on-white. The truth in the past (Great Depression) probably wasn’t too much different,

[heye2monn]

I’m not talking about Watchman, I’m talking about To Kill a Mockingbird—the book that liberals saturate school kids with.

The lengthy book review posted by Ventilator(?) nearby is dead-on accurate about To Kill a Mockingbird as one-sided propaganda.

[Verginius Rufus]

All of Shakespeare's works were written by another guy, also named William Shakespeare.

That sounds a lot like the theory that Homer's poems were actually written by another man with the same name.