To Kill a Mockingbird

I just finished this book for the second time, the first being when I read it in grade 10 for school. I keep forgetting that I did read it for school, mainly because my grade 10 English teacher was no good so I don't have any school-related things to relate it to.

I loved it then, and was worried that I wouldn't love it anymore, but I do. The prose is so lovely and evocative...even if nothing happened, it would be a joy to read. Atticus Finch goes on my “literary crushes” list. I was just as moved by the story as an adult as I was as a teen. This book is a classic for a good reason.

It's about the futility of expecting justice from an unjust society, and the slowness of social change. It's supposed to make you feel sick. But, I did remove a star from my original rating, because of how little has changed. Tom Robinson was a black man accused of a crime he didn't commit, and was killed by the authorities while in custody. Sound familiar? But Tom is barely in the story at all. This is a book about white people talking about black people. What a shame that this racist county can't acquit a black man. What a miscarriage of justice. But that's just how it is. It's about a white man challenging a white colonial system and failing, and the “bad” white people celebrate the status quo and the “good” white people cry tears of rage and the black community is not heard from while Tom Robinson is killed and nothing changes. So some white kids grow a bit and learn about the world, and we don't really hear anything at all about what the black community is going through except that some of them brought Atticus some food for actually doing his damn job instead of putting his feet up and accepting conviction as a foregone conclusion.