To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the few works that I read more than twice, watched more than twice, read the book first and then watched the movie and still didn’t get disappointed. Harper Lee’s novel is also my default gift, the way some gift the Bible when they can’t think of anything else.
The novel is dearer to me than all the other child-protagonist novels that I’ve read, including those by Mark Twain and JK Rowling. Even though Scout, Jem and Dill all together have hardly an adventure that can compete with those of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter’s. Even though their thriller isn’t as thrilling as the others’. Even though their presence to the world is seemingly inconsequential. Perhaps for those very reasons.
What Scout narrates about that summer creates in me the most intense nostalgia of a childhood that I seldom dwell in. I find it effortless to imagine walking beside those three with our hands on each other’s shoulders, to pull Scout’s hair, to grab Jem’s collar, to kick Dill’s shins, to grow up along with them. Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter are great fun, but I didn’t belong to their circle as a child.
When I think of the narration, I can hear Kim Stanley whispering in my ears. It is one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices, right there beside Joan Fontaine’s Rebecca. The movie opens with the most creative title sequence I can remember. And Gregory Peck is Atticus Finch. Not getting tired of superlatives, am I?
When I read somewhere that Pauline Kael described Atticus as “virtuously dull”, I had to agree and to face the question of why he was still one of my favorite characters. “There just didn’t seem to be anyone or anything Atticus couldn’t explain.” That’s why. Atticus is seen through the eyes of Scout, his daughter. Most children below ten probably still feel that way about their dads. I hope they do. When I was ten my dad was the calmest, wisest, strongest, noblest and the most loving man there could possibly be in the whole world. He hasn’t changed much, though I have. Harper Lee through her vivid, humorous, and sensitive writing created a magnificent lens to see the world through.
Shush now. I actually wished to type a few lines from the novel on the occasion of its 50th anniversary and this whole post is a tiny thin excuse for it. I may be breaking a law or two here. I consider the following scene the most powerful one I’ve ever read and watched.
———-
“Hey, Atticus?”
I thought he would have a fine surprise, but his face killed my joy. A flash of plain fear was going out of his eyes, but returned when Dill and Jem wriggled into the light.
There was a smell of stale whisky and pig-pen about, and when I glanced around I discovered that these men were strangers. They were not the people I saw last night. Hot embarrassment shot through me; I had leaped triumphantly into a ring of people I had never seen before.
Atticus got up from his chair, but he was moving slowly, like an old man. He put the newspaper down very carefully, adjusting its creases with lingering fingers. They were trembling a little.
“Go home, Jem,” he said. “Take Scout and Dill home.”
We were accustomed to prompt, if not always cheerful acquiescence to Atticus’s instructions, but from the way he stood Jem was not thinking of budging.
“Go home, I said.”
Jem shook his head. As Atticus’s fists went to his hips, so did Jem’s, and as they faced each other I could see little resemblance between them: Jem’s soft brown hair and eyes, his oval face and snug-fitting ears were our mother’s, contrasting oddly with Atticus’s greying black hair and square-cut features, but they were somehow alike. Mutual defiance made them alike.
“Son, I said go home.”
Jem shook his head.
“I’ll send him home,” a burly man said, and grabbed Jem roughly by the collar. He yanked Jem nearly off his feet.
“Don’t you touch him!” I kicked the man swiftly. Bare-footed, I was surprised to see him fall back in real pain. I intended to kick his shin, but aimed too high.
“That’ll do, Scout.” Atticus put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t kick folks. No –” he said, as I was pleading justification.
“Ain’t nobody gonna do Jem that way,” I said.
“All right, Mr Finch, get ‘em outa here,” someone growled. “You got fifteen seconds to get ‘em outa here.”
In the midst of this strange assmebly, Atticus stood trying to make Jem mind him. “I ain’t going,” was his steady answer to Atticus’s threats, requests, and finally, “Please Jem, take them home.”
I was getting a bit tired of that, but felt Jem had his own reasons for doing as he did, in view of his prospects once Atticus did get home. I looked around the crowd. It was a summer’s night, but the men were dressed, most of them, in overalls and denim shirts buttoned up the collars. I thought they must be cold-natured, as their sleeves were unrolled and buttoned at the cuffs. Some wore hats pulled firmly down over their ears. They were sullen-looking, sleepy-eyed men who seemed unused to late hours. I sought once more for a familiar face, and at the centre of the semi-circle I found one.
“Hey, Mr Cunningham.”
The man did not hear me, it seemed.
“Hey, Mr Cunningham. How’s your entailment gettin’ along?”
Mr Walter Cunningham’s legal affairs were well known to me; Atticus had once described them at length. The big man blinked and hooked his thumbs in his overall straps. He seemed uncomfortable; he cleared his throat and looked away. My friendly overture had fallen falt.
Mr Cunningham wore no hat, and the top half of his forehead was white in contrast to his sun-scorched face, which led me to believe that he wore one most days. He shifted his feel, clad in heavy worn shoes.
“Don’t you remember me, Mr Cunningham?” I’m Jean Jouise Finch. You bought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?” I began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance.
“I go to school with Walter,” I began again. “He’s your boy, ain’t he? Ain’t he, sir?”
Mr Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.
“He’s in my grade,” I said, “and he does right well. He’s a good boy,” I added, “a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won’t you?”
Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in. Mr Cunningham dispalyed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.
“Entailments are bad,” I was advising him, when I slowly awoke to the fact that I was addressing the entire aggregation. The men were all looking at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atticus had stopped poking at Jem: they were standing together beside Dill. Their attention amounted to fascination. Atticus’ month, even, was half-open, an attitude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes me and he shut it.
“Atticus, I was just sayin’ to Mr Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it takes a long time sometimes … that you all’d ride it out together …” I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed. Entailments seemed all right enough for living-room talk.
I began to feel sweat gathering at the edges of my hair; I could stand anything but a bunch of people looking at me. They were quite still.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
Atticus said nothing. I looked around and up at Mr Cunningham, whose face was equally impassive. Then he did a peculiar thing. He squatted down and took me by both shoulders.
“I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,” he said.
Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. “Let’s clear out,” he called. “Let’s get going, boys.”
