TLDR/OPinion: 6/10
Hosseini's harrowing microcosmic tale of ​the wider degeneration of his native country, Afghanistan, tells the story of its oppression and corruption at the hands of other nations and terrorists groups from the unique perspective of 2 children. The book travels through history and across countries, a tale of betrayal, heartbreak, inequality and redemption.
Book Reviews and Analysis
to kill a mockingbird
by harper lee
tldr/opinion: 8.5/10
This is an extremely humanist novel, bringing out the raw emotion in a sensitive reader,
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The singular reason for it not being 10/10 is due it being a bit of a slow burner, however in terms of grasping the socio-economic context this is helpful.
blurb:
Harper's Lee's shockingly prosaic insight into racial injustice, segregation, gender and class, completely negates Roosevelt's statement that 'there is nothing to fear but fear itself'. Using Maycomb as a microcosm for the unrest in the country, Harper Lee depicts Deep American South, which was later to become an important epicentre in the waves of the Black Civil Rights Movement. Told from the interesting perspective of Scout, the child narrator often accompanied by her older brother Jem and their friend Dill, it tracks their hastened maturation during tumultuous times in the town. Dipping her toe into the adult world, Scout experiences a series of didactic lessons into life and prejudice, taught by the omniscient and new age mouthpiece, Atticus, advocating the abolishment of ingrained discrimination and injustice.
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Race/Prejudice
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Religion
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Heritage
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Ignorance
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Institutionalised Racism
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Maturation/Child's perspective
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Unreliable Narrator
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Courage
Themes:
Initially exploring the mystery behind their neighbour Boo Radley, the reader gains an insight into preconceptions manifested by fear and curiosity in a child's mind; led to mythologise Boo Radley due to his reclusiveness he becomes an object of fear due to him being unknown. The definitive moral here being that one should always look at things from another persons point of view and never judge what they don't know.
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The greatest lessons learnt throughout appear to be outside of the classroom, a setting which gains very little coverage, showing that limitations and subjectivity cultivated from the Americanised curriculum do not deter racism and prejudice but merely perpetuate it; the real life lessons are to be learnt from real life experience.
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The somewhat ambivalent Scout, caught between the revolutionary attitude of her maverick father and the suffocating societal norm, approaches the situation with a comic and childlike naïveté and simplicity, sometimes caught up in the norm but also wisely observing that 'folks are just folks'.
analysis:
Slight assimilation of autobiographical details blurs the lines between the fictitious and the authentic socio-economic context.
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Behind it all the belief systems and the institutionalised racism are applicable to real life. Lee also seemed to have taken inspiration from real-life incidences where prejudice overruled/superseded objectivity in court. For example the Scottsboro incident mirrors the tragic Tom Robinson case on a larger scale where innocence and a lack of evidence are not enough to change people's minds. The truly maddening aspect of the portrayal of Tom Robinson's case is that it is evident that the jury convicted him solely because of his skin, what with the guilty verdict utterly implausible after the trial. However the accuracy of this disturbing conduct is what makes the novel moving as Lee merely transcribes pre-civil rights reality.
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Growing up in small town Alabama with a father similarly a lawyer, it seems increasingly evident that Lee draws on autobiographical details to paint a realistic picture of Alabama (a place soon to become an important epicentre of the Black Civil Rights Movement).
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Also delving into the theme of gender, Jem and Scout respectively represented the 2 limited branches of society; the lady and the gentleman; however, Scouts, divergence from the norm with her tomboyishness and her assuredness around men, determined to be a player even amongst the most dominating figures of stereotypical masculinity, sets her apart from the prototypical woman of the milieu (Aunt Alexandra).