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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Set_a_Watchman
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This is a
book that is making waves, the subject of many reviews. I enjoyed it
enormously.
Coming at
this time, it is a bombshell. Everyone is pleased that South Carolina has taken
down the Confederate. It had become a symbol of racism and a growing obstacle
to race relations in the South. Yet there are people, many people, in the South
- Whites of course - who saw the flag in quite another light. The Civil War in
the United States was a war about slavery and race, but it was also much more.
It was a war to retain the agricultural society that had been built there over
a period of two hundred years. Slavery and racism had to change; the society
remains. Racism is still a key to understanding the South but so also is the
distinct society that Southern Whites fought for.
Harper Lee
and especially her publisher have taken on a huge issue in the South with the
publication of this book. I cannot judge it on its literary merits. Many are
saying it is a failed novel. Perhaps so; I enjoyed reading it and it spoke
deeply to me. I think much of the criticism of the novel will come from
Northerners. I am waiting for some reviews from the South.
Much of
what I found in the novel has a parallel with the situation between Quebec and
the ROC (Rest of Canada): Not an exact parallel but nonetheless…. French Quebecois
are, for the Rest of Canada much like the South is for the North and the issue
of racism, framed in terms of immigration and multiculturalism, is very much
part of the tensions today.
White society lives on in the South and it
includes the powerful issue of racism but also of the unique identity and
sovereignty of the South. The novel
suggests that diversity in dialogue is the way forward. I deeply believe that!
