Posted on 04/06/2007 5:32:09 AM PDT by urtax$@work
If there's one book you should read before you die, it's To Kill a Mockingbird. That's not my opinion. Apparently I was sick back in ninth grade when every other American kid read Harper Lee's novel of racism, moral courage and coming of age in 1930s Alabama. I read it for the first time only this week and have my misgivings.
But according to the Guardian newspaper's Web site, a 2006 poll of librarians — British librarians — put To Kill a Mockingbird atop the list of books every adult should read before they shuffle off. Ahead of the Bible. Ahead of Huckleberry Finn and Pride and Prejudice and even Harry "the Franchise" Potter.
Go to link to see rest of article: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/4691912.html
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
That he was jealous and didn’t want to hear about her book.
Lee was downstairs in the basement with Roy Cohn, Steve, Ian and “Andy.”
...and the garbage cans full of cash - or was that just an ugly rumor, Steve?
If I ever start an alt here on FR, I’m gonna call myself Absolute Morphodite.
What gets me in that movie is the little touches.
No one has yet mentioned the beautiful Elmer Bernstein score and the wonderful opening credits (”Boom, boom, boom!)
...and the garbage cans full of cash - or was that just an ugly rumor, Steve?
Steve’s long dead. Ian’s too busy mutilating the Gramercy Park Hotel. The garbage bags filled with cash is true. I have an eyewitness. Less well known is the 50k they found in a light fixture at the Palladium. Dates on bills back to the ‘30s.
Hmmm...I think I get it - is that what they called the snowman they made?
That’s what Miss Maudie (?) the neighbor lady called the snowman. You got it!
I don't think he was jealous of her "skills." He was jealous that he wasn't the "center of attention." Therefore, self-absorbed that he was... he didn't want to listen because he took a back seat.
Yeah, Steve was an early victim of AIDS. And a truly lousy employer. Nice to know the bags of cash were true!
My point was that there isn't a play or a volume of poetry on the list. By anyone. The omission of Shakespeare is no more odd than the omission of George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and so on. I haven't been able to track down the original list from the Grauniad, so I don't know the wording of the question, but "book" in this context appears to mean "novel" (with some wiggle room between fiction and non-).
No disrespect for the Bard, and no diminution of his importance to English literature and culture; this just isn't his list.
They were bad guys. To this day, you still hear stories about 54 floating around late at night.
I’m off to work, take care.
Miss Maudie! Remember the scene in the book during the ladies’ luncheon when Miss Maudie takes on all the hypocritical old broads?!
A must read, and a must re-read.
I seem to, but it’s been too long! I need to go dig up my copy. It’s time for a re-read.
What's with the hostility? I don't know Harper Lee and I didn't know Truman Capote, so I don't know the dynamics of their relationship. But I know writers and writer wannabes, and the ones I know love bouncing ideas around. It's much more interesting than talking about the weather.
There are a few novels that, if they ever get written and published, better damn well have my name in the foreword; and if I ever publish one, there are some names I'd better not leave out. It's just part of the process. Look at the relationship between Shakespeare and Marlowe in "Shakesopeare in Love" -- obviously, we can't take that as historically accurate, but Tom Stoppard knows a thing or two about the process.
He was self-absorbed and jealous. He didn't want to hear about her book.
True, after it was a hit. After she won the Pulitzer. After, right out of the gate, she rocketed to the kind of fame he'd worked for and hadn't yet found (though Breakfast at Tiffany's was kinda popular). But why would he be jealous of an old friend's little pet project? And, if the accounts of her helping out with In Cold Blood are true -- the book is dedicated to her, after all -- there couldn't have been that much animosity.
Now, she did have a group of friends who encouraged her and a wonderful editor who should be recognized.
Certainly true. I have a copy of In Cold Blood at my elbow, but I can't seem to lay hands on my copy of Mockingbird, so I don't know whom Lee thanks.
I have to say, the mental image of Harper Lee shaking her biscuits at Studio 54 is the funniest and most disturbing I've had in my head all day.
Do I want to argue the point further. No.
When I read your posts, what I hear you saying is that people respond in the same manner. The writers you know bounce ideas off each other...so why didn't they? I don't think they do. I think each individual reacts differently in similar circumstances.
Now, you seem to think that she showed him the manuscript and bounced ideas off of him and got help. Well, okay then.
From the little I read...I just don't. I don't think he wanted to help her.
If we can agree to disagree, I don't think we will have to waste any more bandwidth debating the point.
Tip o' the cap to both. The score achieves what great movie scores should -- it enhances the emotion but doesn't intrude. It's almost like air -- you take it for granted, but you'd sure notice if it weren't there.
Interesting. Each was among the first to write in the new language, and each is in the poetic form. Homer, of course, didn't write at all, but it was a new language.
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