To Kill an Author's Legacy

[orangerful]

The whole thing with Harper Lee has been weird since the announcement of 'Go Set a Watchman'. The theory that she was being coerced by her estate lawyer to publish some more things so they could capitalize on her fame before she passed seems highly probable. And now with this announcement from the estate today saying theywill no longer be publishing a mass market edition of To Kill a Mockingbird, I just feel icky.

As the article points out, this will hit the schools the hardest because mass market is what they can afford to buy in bulk. Will this be the end of teaching 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or does The Estate and HarperCollins have special plans?

It's all so sad to think that this sweet, shy old woman was abused in this way and then passed on after signing off on who knows what. :(

Comments

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

Oh my God - all of that just sounds terrible :/

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I feel awful that I bought GSAW now.

I will say that I did hear the state apparently investigated to see whether or not she was capable of sound decisions, i.e. being taken advantage of, and didn't find anything suspicious. But... who knows whether she was alone at the time, or anything else, really.


I don't understand how they could possibly benefit from stopping the books from being mass published, though? Definitely sounds suspicious. Sigh. The whole thing is bad, and I really wish she had family or something who could do more on her behalf. (IIRC people from her town have tried, but... they're not exactly family, you know?)

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Greed... it's a five letter word because 4 letters weren't enough to contain its obscenity.


Gabrielle

[doomcookie99.livejournal.com]

OMG! I loved the movie but I have yet to read the book. :-) Have you seen the movie with Jack Nicholson?

Awesome layout btw.. I love the color orange. :-)

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I actually think you're thinking of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[doomcookie99.livejournal.com]

Of course. I am sorry.. lol I don't read that much. I play the Sims and just generally futz about the net. My bad. :p

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

I am sure there are many copies in circulation; it would not be hard to get enough second hand copies together to teach it, if you wanted to. Maybe libraries could ask for donations ...

[spaciireth.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I hadn't heard about that. Can't believe they would do that. I was so worried about the GSAW, and this just adds insult to injury.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

That's awful.

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

That's awful! To kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books, to think that some people won't be able to read it because of greed, is very upsetting.

[poniesandphotos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the entire situation makes me very uncomfortable.

[mimoiikit143.livejournal.com]

What horrid horrid people. I did read some speculations somewhere questioning whether she's capable of making appropriate decisions or whether she was rigidly coerced by other people :/ Deeply sad how they have taken advantage of such literary genius.

[rahirah]

Urgh. I haven't read GSAW, since the reviews made it sound like, well, the first draft of something that would later be refined into a great novel. But To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books of all time, and it's sad this will make it harder for kids to read it.

[dancingdragon3.livejournal.com]

I almost wish I didn't have this information. Sometimes, the level of suck in the world is just too depressing. I'm so sorry for her. And our schools. And the souls of those lawyers.

[phenomenal.livejournal.com]

Oh no. That's truly awful to hear. To Kill A Mockingbird was one of my favorites. We actually didn't read it in high school, I just read it for fun, but it has stuck with me all these years. A true classic.

[eowyn.livejournal.com]

It's tricky. I'd love to read GSAW, but I won't because I'm not confident that Harper Lee wanted it published.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

I waffled on Go Set a Watchman and ultimately decided I would read it because an African-American professor at my university, who'd grown up in Mississippi, said it read as much more real to her than the more idealized Mockingbird. But I put off buying it, until a favorite local bookstore was going out of business and had a big cash-only sale to try to pay off their creditors and I was looking for things to buy. (Their stock was somewhat depleted . . . )

Wow, that was longwinded.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

LOL did you read it? What were your thoughts?

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

I did. It's so clearly an early draft; the writing is much less polished and the characters less developed.

It's also . . . so much less comforting, I guess. I adore Atticus Finch in Mockingbird, but he's more than a bit of a White Savior figure. This feels disillusioning and honest, as far as that goes. So for that, it was worth reading.

I keep thinking I'm going to stick the book in my donate pile, but there is something haunting about the cover image, so I haven't yet.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's too bad that when they released it, they didn't advertise it as "the first draft" or "an early draft" but touted it as a sequel or prequel. It will definitely be a good tool for writing classes and the power of rewrite and editing.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

Ffff...

Yet another case of an author getting screwed by the publishers and lawyers. Yet another incentive to NOT be a 'published' author nowadays. Meh.

This is bad news for high schools. This is such an excellent book - and it sounds like soon it will no longer be available to students the way it used to be.

*HUGS*

[touchofgr3y.livejournal.com]

100% with you on this. This money grab really is disgusting :(

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Sad.

I hope the estate changes their mind about the mass market edition issue.

[kseenaa.livejournal.com]

That sounds horrible. :-/

[teaandfailure.livejournal.com]

Way to contribute more toward the death of paper books and turn kids to e-readers, lawyers.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

I did read that the estate relented a bit and said they'd provide low cost copies to school which is good as I expect that's A) where most of their sales come from and B) the way most readers get exposed to the novel.

That said I've not read the Go Set A Watchman book and have decided not to. I'm really uncomfortable with how it came to be published.

[vanillamagick.livejournal.com]

I really hope that's true

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

Me too - but I went looking for the story again and can't find it. Maybe it's not true :(

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I found the article, it's true (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/business/media/harper-lee-to-kill-a-mockingbird-paperback-harpercollins.html?action=click&contentCollection=Media&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article)

[vanillamagick.livejournal.com]

Now that is utterly horrific! I really hope that something else is planned for TKAM because that's heartbreaking :(