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36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
We Will Not Let Mockingbird Go, June 9, 2010
This review is from: Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird (Hardcover)
For many of us, our first exposure of the landmark novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" was in high school, as an assignment. For others, it was a recommendation from a friend, or a book group novel. However we come to Harper Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird", we never leave the book the same person. It crawls up inside of our brains, wraps itself around our hearts, and refuses to let go. leaving a lifetime of legacy, and remembrance, and reflection. Mary McDonagh Murphy's new book, based on a documentary she is working on, allows us to visit this place anew.
This book has two parts. The first part is a reflection of Murphy herself. Truly a devotee of the novel, Murphy talks about both the documentary and her thoughts about the movie and the book. Murphy writes her section with love and admiration, starting with Nelle herself. Nelle calls herself Boo Radley, and Murphy goes to great pains in the following paragraphs to assure us that Nelle is a warm gregarious person. Most of the information in Murphy's section isn't new, but it's still welcome nonetheless.
The following section is a collection of small essays written by a wide variety of people that all discuss the impact and legacy of Mockingbird. Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, and even the movie Scout Mary Badham all add their voices to this part (Badham confessing that she hadn't read the book until she had a daughter herself!). These essays are short and poignant, and talk very personally about how the book touched them, as well as reflected the larger struggle for civil rights in our country.
Nelle didn't write her second book, and America has been hungry ever since. This small book is highly recommended to celebrate 50 years of this classic novel. In the meantime, do what author Wally Lamb suggests in his foreward, watch the movie and read the book as well. We cannot visit Maycomb enough. We cannot sit on the Finch porch long enough. We cannot ever be tired of listening to Atticus defend Tom Robinson. We cannot let Mockingbird go. We will not let Mockingbird go.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What A Pleasure, June 10, 2010
This review is from: Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird (Hardcover)
I only wish I had turned 50 with as much grace, spirit,
and adulation as To Kill A Mockingbird. In her thoughtful
appreciation of the artistry and significance of this beloved
novel, Mary Murphy puts it all together: capturing the
wonder so many of us felt when we first read it through
the reflections of some of our country's most gifted writers,
thinkers and celebrities.
"Scout, Atticus and Boo" reminds us why: why a good book
is such a gift; why this book is so important in our nation's
history; why the world's a better place when a young Southern
unknown employed behind an airline ticket counter can come
up with a literary work of staggering relevance and beauty;
and finally, why we should all stop our crazy lives right this
minute, pull To Kill A Mockingbird off the shelves, and dive in.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Celebration of Our National Book, July 8, 2010
This review is from: Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird (Hardcover)
Mary McDonagh Murphy presents a series of reflections on "To Kill a Mockingbird" in her non-fiction work, "Scout, Atticus, and Boo."
The reflections are are set forth in chapters, some from Nelle Harper Lee's family (Alice Finch Lee); many from other authors (Wally Lamb, Anna Quindlen); some from those associated with the film (Mary Badham, who played Scout); and some from a variety of fields from Oprah to the curator of the Monroe County Heritage Museum in Monroeville, Alabama.
Each of the essays brings out something in "To Kill a Mockingbird" that touched that particular reader. There are some who loved Scout passionately for her pluck (even those who thought Scout was a boy for several pages on first reading, an error common to many of us) and others who find the moral center of Atticus to be the resounding inspiration. I loved the lines from Allan Gurganus, who notes what a difference Eisenhower or Jack Kennedy might have made, if either had walked alone up the school house steps, holding the hand of a little black girl, as Atticus walks alone in the novel. Murphy allows the interviewees the latitude to share in their own voices the extraordinary impact of "To Kill a Mockingbird" on their lives. "Scout, Atticus, and Boo" affirmed my own love of "To Kill a Mockingbird," the joy of teaching this novel, reading it aloud, and how much I have missed that part of my teaching career since retirement.
Many of the interviews note the public's fascination with Ms. Lee's seemingly reclusive lifestyle, her unwillingness to be interviewed, and the fact that she has not published a second novel. In this way, "Scout, Atticus, and Boo" is somewhat repetitive, especially since Wally Lamb's foreword and the first chapter carry many of the same quotations from the coming essays. And yet, the reader is reminded of the impact of Lee's achievement for all these fifty years since the book was first published.
Truman Capote (Dill in the book) and Horton Foote (screenwriter for the film) carry a linked presence to Harper Lee, and each writer's role is discussed in terms of Lee's writing. The rift between Lee and Capote is compelling as is the friendship and trust between Lee and her screenwriter, Foote. The gentleman, Gregory Peck, also draws our regard in his good manners and deep caring for those who made the film with him; and for Lee, who made the film possible.
What this book does not do is is rightfully missing: it does not toss around gossip about the author or the film stars; it does not offer strange correlations between residents of Monroeville and the characters, and it does not present odd new themes or symbols in a deconstructionist university theory of literature. Instead, it invites us to ponder the achievement and beauty of a national treasure and to revisit the pages of "To Kill a Mockingbird," picking up the details others have pointed out as life-changing to them. Murphy's "Scout, Atticus, and Boo" urges us to look at the America we once were and the America we are now, not simply in terms of race relations, but also in our ideas of small-town life, neighborliness, manners, and parenting.
"Scout, Atticus, and Boo," a slim volume of 215 pages. It is exactly what it says it is, "A CELEBRATION."
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