{"id":757,"date":"2013-07-15T00:33:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T00:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog-test\/?p=757"},"modified":"2024-01-21T11:34:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T16:34:43","slug":"lee_mockingbird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2013\/07\/lee_mockingbird\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird<\/cite>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I re-read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird<\/cite><\/strong> late last year, because I’d agreed to beta-read a Yuletide fanfic story based on it. I ended up more cheerleading the resulting story<\/a> than anything, but I was glad of the opportunity to revisit a book I’d not read since high school. <\/p>\n

It’s an incredibly tense book and the narrative voice is great. I had completely failed to remember (or, more likely, recognize) how central is Scout’s changing conceptions of femininity and relationships with women. I had also failed to recognize, because I neither had the tools to do so nor was given them in school, the way that its portrayal of racism is incredibly limited and, as a result, misleading and harmful. <\/p>\n

Which is half of the reason I’m writing about it tonight, here past midnight when I should be asleep. The other half is that despite knowing what happens, somehow I got hopeful at a certain point in the book as I was swept along, and it was like running into a brick wall when my hopes were dashed. And I think the truest demonstration of Mockingbird<\/cite>‘s limitations is that I feel the same kind of crushing sadness in response to today’s news<\/a> (well, yesterday’s, now) as I did in reading the book. Only, of course, much worse. <\/p>\n

Nb.: I do not have the emotional resources to engage in education in the comments; please consult your search engine of choice if you feel the need. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I re-read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird late last year, because I’d agreed to beta-read a Yuletide fanfic story based on it. I ended up more cheerleading the resulting story than anything, but I was glad of the opportunity to revisit a book I’d not read since high school. It’s an incredibly tense book … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lee, Harper: To Kill a Mockingbird<\/cite>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,78],"tags":[286],"class_list":["post-757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-general-fiction","tag-lee-harper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2466,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757\/revisions\/2466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}