Your July 19 Forum page is worth rereading and framing.

Since I love libraries and books, the letter to the editor about libraries removing books (“Libraries as conduits of knowledge”) and Amy Sorrell’s revealing review of Nelle Harper Lee’s first draft, “Go Set a Watchman” (“Commentary: The new Atticus shows that flaws as well as attributes can teach us”), are full of very precious ideas.

Most early reviewers had not even read the entire novel. Amy certainly had!

Her naming of their child Atticus, her experience of discrimination concerning gay rights in high school editorials, her final analysis of Atticus as a flawed character, all add up to well-thought-out life experience and reading novels for truth.

Atticus certainly becomes more realistic and a man of his times in “Watchman.” In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Atticus was idealized and written for the young adult. “Watchman,” first-draft warts and all, tells a grownup story of real conflict between father and daughter.

Perhaps Isabel Wilkerson’s early review in The New York Times sums it up for me.

She uses the term “principled bigot” for Atticus because he does defend the weak and wins the case in “Watchman” – a different outcome from “Mockingbird.”

Amy Sorrell did not jump on the bandwagon of other early reviewers. She did her homework and actually read the entire novel, like Isabel Wilkerson. Atticus, with all his flaws, gives us today a chance to learn. We somehow are still challenged by the same bias that small-town Alabama experienced over 55 years ago. When will we learn?

Thank you, Maine Sunday Telegram, for an excellent July 19 read.

Martha F. Barkley

Belgrade Lakes

Copy the Story Link