My Reading Experiment (Book #1) - To Kill a Mockingbird

Target:    100 books
Current:      1 books

I claim that I'm a Book Lover, but the truth is, I have no idea how many books I end up reading in a year. If I reach my target by the end of this year, I'll continue to call myself a Book Lover. If I reach half my target, I'd like to call myself a Book Friend. Anything less than 25, and I'll know in my heart that I'm a Liar. I'm also quite curious to see how sick of books I'll be, if at all, by the end of this exercise.

#1

 To Kill a Mockingbird
- Harper Lee

Liked It, Fiction, Easy to read, Lighthearted despite heavy themes

It's all over the news that Harper Lee's second ever book is coming out soon, 55 years after her much celebrated first. To Kill a Mockingbird has been on my "Get to it" list for several years now. And obviously, when you put something on a list like that, it's license to forget all about it. Besides, I'm a little suspicious of all those books they call "Classics". Not to be unkind to the dead, but I never did enjoy Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Long story short, I figured this was the perfect time to pick up Harper Lee's book. I'm glad I did (I'll probably say this for every book this year).

To Kill a Mockingbird is about the lives of some Southerners living in 1930's America, seen through the eyes of precocious little Scout. She, and her brother Jem, are obsessed with their elusive neibhour Boo Radley. They have a father like no other in town. Atticus Finch is that person that a good person wants to be like, but will never be like, because it is too inconvenient. Atticus is made to defend a black man against the charges of raping a white woman. Boo Radley, and this trial, together, form the meat of the backdrop in the plot. Scout is rather like some of my other favourite characters: Jo from Little Women, and Austen's Lizzie. Women, and the perception of women, both coloured and white, is a theme I noticed throughout the book. And obviously, the entire book is filled with visual imagery about a period that I can never know about, except through books like this, or through movies. I never understood until this book what killing a mockingbird really meant. I don't know if it was the book that introduced this concept, or if it is one of those timeless pearls of wisdom that just are. I do however believe that it is a powerful metaphor, and one that I'll probably end up using unknowingly from time to time.

"Well, it'd be sort of like shootin' a mockingbird, wouldn't it?"

   

Comments

  1. Varun VasudevanFebruary 16, 2015 at 4:04 PM

    What's your list of books for this year?

    ReplyDelete
  2. VineeFebruary 16, 2015 at 7:35 PM

    No idea! I'm just going to pick up whatever tickles my fancy :)

    ReplyDelete

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