Several

[selenak]

The contested legacy of Atticus Finch is a smart article about not just fictional Atticus but Harper Lee's rl father, and the very different ideological uses To Kill a Mockingbird was and is put to. (Am both appalled and amused in a sick way to learn Republicans referred to the Kavenaugh hearing as "our Atticus Finch moment".) I would say Go Set A Watchman is more complicated than the article writer thinks, but gratified my guesses as to why the earlier novel was rejected and Lee was told to focus on the childhood stuff (from which Mockingbird emerged) appear to be correct: Atticus is what the historian Isabel Wilkerson has called “a gentleman bigot,” and “Watchman” is full of stilted exchanges between a benighted father and his more enlightened daughter. It wasn’t only bad storytelling; it was the sort of story that editors didn’t want to tell about the South. When Esquire refused a submission from Lee on the grounds that her Klan-hating, segregation-loving white characters were “an axiomatic impossibility,” she lamented to a friend that, if that were true, “nine-tenths of the South is an axiomatic impossibility.”

Realistic or not, the early, overtly racist Atticus of “Watchman” was rejected by nearly every publisher that met him. Tay Hohoff, an editor at J. P. Lippincott, decided to take a chance on Lee, but encouraged her to abandon the didactic, abrasive scenes between adults and focus on the manuscript’s endearing childhood scenes.

In other news, the Atlantic posted their choice of the 25 best tv episodes of 2018. Now I haven't watched the majority of the shows these are from, so can't judge those choices, but of those three I did watch: Bodyguard, episode 6: certainly delivers the adrenaline pumping and the sheer suspense, but makes a couple of questionable writing choices; The Last Kingdom, s3 episode 6, aka the one where Uthred and Brida mourn - with you there, critics, that one was brilliant -; and The Americans season and series finale, START - again, good choice, it was superb, though I didn't interpret the choice Paige makes in it as being "between her family and her country".

I don't have the time right not for my own list of great episodes of 2018, but it's certainly something I could do in January, which is my subtle hint that there are still free slots in my meme posting schedule. :)

Comments

[corvidology]

The only one of those shows I've seen, let alone the episode in question, was Killing Eve.

I think it was a brilliant, if difficult, show but hardly anyone agrees with me.

[selenak]

I have heard good things about it, some months back, but I hadn't found the time to watch it yet.

[labingi]

Very interesting look at Atticus and Lee's literary legacy. Thank you.

[selenak]

You're welcome!