I am having great fun re-reading some of the classics of high school literature as my daughter is reading them. We've had some great father-daughter moments the past two years. However, I have a question for anyone familiar with To Kill a Mockingbird, that most archtypical high school book. On the blurb on the back of the version I own, it says that Harper Lee just considered the book a "simple love story". I really am having trouble seeing that. Atticus obviously loves his kids and is doing his best to raise them for the New South, but it's not a love story. Lee is not really in love with the south or its rhythms. Any idea of what the love story is in this work?
Atticus, yes. But don't forget Boo Radley. He really seemed to love the kids, even though he never even came out. It may even be a story of unconditional love of a very, very flawed South as well. Some pretty awful stuff happens, but I also remember almost longing for the small town life in some ways.
That would be my guess. Similar sort of sentiment (although not unconditional) as William Faulkner, a la Quentin Compson's "I don't hate the South!" at the end of Absalom, Absalom!.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/theater/mockingbird-harper-lee-scott-rudin-lawsuit.html A Broadway producer and Harper Lee's estate sued each other.
Aaron Sorkin is a f¨cking knob. He knows these lawsuits will fail eventually but in the meantime the threat of litigation has scared everybody off the Christopher Sergel version. He's using the courts to bully hundreds of tiny productions into using his expensive version of the play. Fück him and his lawyers with a rusty jig saw.