What Go Set a Watchman teaches us about nostalgia

What is nostalgia but shards of sentimental longing and wistful affection that we glue in our mind to reflect on poignant memories? And how long can we hold on to them, before they’re shattered by truth, reason and time? That, in short, is the predicament of a reader of To Kill a Mockingbird poised to enter the world of a mature Jean Louise Finch, or Scout as we best remember her, in Go Set A Watchman.

Perhaps the questions we must really ask of ourselves are: a) should we read much into Go Set A Watchman, and b) will it destroy our understanding of To Kill a Mockingbird, a literary masterpiece that until a year ago was believed to be the only book written by the reclusive Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

For no fault of hers, Go Set a Watchman, written beautifully in snatches, awkwardly paced in parts, with a rushed ending, is essentially an incomplete novel, written by a frightfully young Lee.

Both the novels, however, are a coming-of-age tale set in a southern America gripped by racial tensions and about standing up to social injustices. The only difference is that while one story is told through the woolly perspective of a child, the other is seen through the prism of a sharp, adult mind; while one centres on nostalgia and innocence, the other on angst and disillusionment. Today we have both, one at the mercy of the other.

Scout travels from New York to Maycomb, Alabama, 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird only to discover that her family, prospective lover and hometown isn’t how she left it. What comes as an egregious revelation to Jean Louise, as well as the reader, is that Atticus Finch, one of modern literature’s most iconic moral heroes — is a racist and a vocal supporter of segregation.

For a book that was first published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird had a profound effect on generations to follow. Much like F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the timelessness of the classic affects the nostalgia of a people who grew up either studying it in school or discovered the joy of reading it at an impressionable age.

What drew me in to To Kill a Mockingbird is the almost dream-like innocence, the fears and fun of growing up, and above all the ambiguity of morality the story so easily eviscerates. I remember reading the book when I was still in school, and talking to my father shortly after. He found the book was special to him because of its “almost lifelike” texture, where unlike any other books he had read while growing up, the plot didn't throw any superfluous twists and turns, nor were there any moments of revenge or vindication. It was a story of life as it was.

While I cannot deny that one is likely to feel as disillusioned as Jean Louise does in Watchman, it is almost uncanny how she manages to express and echo the reader's own outrage towards Atticus. “You double-dealing, ring-tailed old son of a bitch! You just sit there and say 'As you please' when you’ve knocked me down and stomped on me and spat on me, you just sit there and say 'As you please' when everything I ever loved in this world’s...” Perhaps the overstated harshness is needed to weed out our own.

The unintended moral of Go Set A Watchman for readers of To Kill a Mockingbird is that our heroes are not who we think them to be, irrespective of whether they're fictional or childhood role models. Even the most radical and liberal minds are susceptible to prejudices.

At some point in Watchman, Scout fancies Atticus Finch to be a Dorian Gray. We, readers, are guilty of the same. Until now, it was us who were ageing, while Atticus remained forever young and righteous. The spell may have broken now, and with it our nostalgia.