Is To Kill a Mockingbird a must-read?

Houston Chronicle ^ | 4/6/07 | me

[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

[MamaB]

I don’t think so. I was given the book as a birthday gift many years ago. I could not even finish it.

[Non-Sequitur]

What in particular did you dislike about it?

[x]

Better the kids read this than Harper's cousin Truman's Other Voices, Other Rooms, but it's more a book for kids than for adults.

[MamaB]

I liked Chaucer but then I like odd writings. When we read it in English Lit, I was one of a few who got what he was saying. I doubt if high schoolers read it now.

[Mr. Silverback]

My wife is stunned that Catch-22 is not on the list. She says it's a must-read anyone considering a military career, in a military career, or in nursing.

Me, I figure one of the Shelock Holmes novels needs to be on the list. I've only read the short stories so far, so perhaps I should say that a collection of them would be appropriate. In short, every adult should read some Holmes before they kick off.

As usual, I find I'm not very well read. From the list, I've only read the Bible, 1984, A Christmas Carol and Great expectations. And boy, do I wish I could get that time reading Great Expectations back...nothing against Dickens, but DANG! A Christmas Carol, meanwhile, is a joy to read and contains some wonderful lines (that only a few movie versions include) where Scrooge is rebuked as an insect who disdains other insects and calls them worthy of death, simply because they live in the dust and he lives on a leaf.

[MamaB]

It just did not capture my interest. I got the book from a college friend who gave it to me as a birthday gift. I have tried to watch the movie but I always ended up changing channels. That is no big deal though since I do that with a lot of movies.

[SoftballMominVA]

My biggest surprise is the absence of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - probably the best ‘coming of age’ novel ever written. Absolutely timeless.

[Mr. Silverback]

There are Stephen King novels I would have put on that list ahead of The Poisonwood Bible.

The unabridged version of The Stand is one of the best speculative fiction novels ever written. I could tick off the names of several multi-Hugo and Nebula winning science fiction authors who've never written anything even half as good. Arthur C. Clarke, for one...

[freepertoo]

I hated Catch-22! Could NOT get into it at all.

[freepertoo]

Oh yes, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was great.

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[Mr. Silverback]

I tried to watch the movie. My brain melted. After months of rehab, I was functional enough to return to work. But my wife LOVES the book, and even bought the sequel.

BTW...Everybody should read "The Fastest Funny Car." Great young adult novel about a kid who goes from the world's biggest dork to being a piano-playing-racing god-chick magnet.

[B-Chan]

Like any good art, O’Connor requires careful study if it is to be experienced as the writer intended.

Many people are put off by art (literature, classical music, the plastic arts, etc.) because they are expecting a “surface” experience — i.e. entertainment, an emotion-driven process. Real art is not entertainment. Real art is “deep”; It requires the full intellectual attention of the reader, viewer, or listener in order to function as art. Give Flannery O’Connor your undivided attention and you will be pleased with the result.

And you needen’t wait for your daughter to lend you a copy of O’Connor. Her works are to be found at any public library.

I might also suggest the works of that greatest of all novelists (in my opinion), the incomparable Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Any time invested in his dense, convoluted works will pay a rich dividend later, leaving the reader esthetically, intellectually, and spiritually better off.

[Lx]

I read Moby Dick as an adult and it was a terrible grind. I've trudged through worse but acck. My wife said Mellville was paid by the word. I don't know if she was BSing me but it does explain the three pages on knots

[happygrl]

Having read the book and watched the movie, I think the condensed movie version is better.

In fact, it is at the very top of my list of favorite movies, from the opening credits of the cigar box contents to the final narrative comments in that soft Southern accent.

It is a tale of the complexity of race in the south, where racism was raw and real, but so was other forms of prejudice.

The musical score is pure magic in its contribution to the film.

Atticus Finch is a Man for all time.

The character Boo Radley marked Robert Duvall's debut on the screen.

The character "Dill Harris" was based on Truman Capote, who was Harper Lee's neighbor as a child.

[George W. Bush]

Is To Kill a Mockingbird a must-read?

Not really. But I hear "To Staple A Puppy" is going to be quite a read.

[happygrl]

I still remember how stunned I was when I realized what a HUGE percentage of short story collections have this theme.

For an explanation, read "Come back to the Raft, Huck Honey" by Leslie Fiedler, a brilliant piece of literary criticism. It is one of the few essays on literature, written in the last thirty years, that is worth reading.

[happygrl]

Nabokov is amazing. English isn’t even his native language.

Neither was it Joseph Conrad's, who wrote Heart of Darkness

He was Polish, born Teodor Józef Konrad Korzeniowski

[GSlob]

"what about the complete works of Shakespeare, or Dante, or Homer?"
That would ideally require a good mastery of Elisabethan English, Tuscan Italian, and Classical Greek. The first is more likely, but is not to be found in "see spot run" crowd.

[Zevonismymuse]

Maybe, but it is still one Hell of a good book.

I'm with you. Like all great books, it gives the reader a lot to think about besides the primary story. I've read it a few times over the past thirty-plus years since I was in 9th grade; I always re-read it when the kids read it during their freshmen years.

Despite these multiple readings, I remain conservative. Nothing in it hurt me and it definitely helped me suss out my own feelings about racism and Southern culture. It also inspired many great discussions with our children. We still refer to spooky people we meet as a real "Boo Radley". I'm going to have to give To Kill a Mockingbird two thumbs-up.