- November 16, 2024
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The first few pages of chapter 3 give us the background of Alexandra Finch Hancock, as told through the snarky mind of Jean Louise. To me, this section makes the point that Alexandra is a busybody, but the point is belabored, and it makes me wonder if Harper Lee might have trimmed this section down if she had another chance at editing it.
(Note: This read-along is a partnership with FlaglerLive. Check out the rest of the readers here.)
But that raises an uncomfortable sensation for any reader: Once it's in print, it feels somehow enshrined. These words have been written by a terrific writer, and they have been approved by a terrific editor at one of the world's most prestigious publishing houses. Therefore, the work is perfect, right? It must be my fault if I find something imperfect in it; I must not be reading it correctly.
In this case, that mentality is further complicated by the publishing history: Harper Lee didn't publish this book when she first wrote it, and it might not have been her decision to publish it now. Are we, then, as readers, more justified in our critique of the craft? Should we consider this to be a draft, or a finished work?
Whatever the answer to that question, there are moments, like the redundancies in the first few pages of chapter 3, that break the spell of the novel for me. In other words, I have willingly suspended my disbelief, as Coleridge advised, by reading this novel, and by so doing I have invited the writer to move me with an imaginary tale, to give my emotions a workout. But the distractions of craft make it more difficult to willingly suspend my disbelief, and I am less vulnerable as a reader; therefore, it's a less emotionally rich experience.
Perhaps whoever is reading this, if you are also reading along in "Watchman," will disagree with my red flags, so I'll give a couple of examples. Alexandra is described on page 28 as a "a disapprover; she was incurable gossip." In the next paragraph, we learn that "she was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn." Maybe I'm being picky, but I would consider those to be redundant descriptions. Are they different enough that they are serving different purposes for Harper Lee, and she is leading the reader by the hand just as she would want to? We'll never know.
Other observations in the chapter: We have been in Jean Louise's point of view the most in this novel so far, but page 29 is the first instance when we are so close to her brain that we get an extended interior monologue using the first person "I": "You lie, she thought. If Atticus needed me I would know it. I can't make you understand ... " etc. Other examples are on 30 and 31. Again, from a craft perspective, I am vacillating between 1) giving Harper Lee credit by advancing further into Jean Louise's point of view for rhetorical effect and 2) questioning whether this is a sloppy moment when Lee is simply not being consistent in her use of point of view and 3) worried that my graduate school education has tainted me by encouraging a tendency to impose text-book craft rules on other writers who didn't read the same text books, which exposes those text books as being not so authoritative or descriptive after all, but merely prescriptive based on some writer's pet peeves.
The chapter concludes with a scene between Jean Louise and Atticus, and here we have other examples of Harper Lee's deft touch and observations. When Henry arrives to pick up Jean Louise and promises to bring her home early from their date, this is how the narrator describes the old patriarch's manner of saying goodbye: "Atticus jiggled the paper at him." Brilliant.
