Reader's Diary: "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Capote & Lee

Why am I writing this?

There are five facts...

Fact #1:

Something sad and awful happened to me two nights back...It was no doubt the consequence of my unimaginably immense foolhardiness and yet, I feel sorry for myself...Well, I'm yet to decide whether I feel sorry or angry or relieved...As ever, my emotions will take their own sweet time to sort out ! Wait a minute, it all happened after midnight, so that officially makes it yesterday !

So, what I did decide is that I'll read 13 books this month...Why 13?No, it wasn't a random choice but dont even ask !

I'm unabashedly lifting MRPS's idea of Project 365...As a matter of fact, I'm already done with two and "To Kill A Mockingbird" shall be my third book this month...This is my Project 13... =)

Fact #2:

Now, how did I choose this specific book from the 90 odd e-books I have?

I finished a book called "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote yesterday...If you've seen the movie, "Capote", you shall remember Philip Seymour Hoffman's quirky companion played by Catherine Keener...She was Nelle Harper Lee, the gay Capote's best female friend...

So, it made sweet sense to me to choose Nelle's book after having read her best friend's...Both of the books were bestsellers, remembered to this day as a reader's delight...

Fact #3:

I came across five unique names in the very first paragraph of TKAM...Jem, Ewells, Dill, Atticus and Boo Radley...And in the next page was Calpurnia ! Sounded like fishes to me !

In the next few pages I found that Jem was Jeremy, Dill was Charles Baker and Boo was Arthur...But Atticus was still Atticus and Calpurnia was still her own name...

But I must admit, the outlandish names did push me forward, reaffirming my good judgement in my choice of book ! =)

Fact #4:

"To Kill A Mockingbird" was made into an Academy Award and Golden Globe award winning motion picture back in 1962...No doubt, that makes the story all the more worthy of my kudos, but what really fetched me was Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch...

Now, my Mum, a fine old lady that she is was nutty about Mr. Peck ! Everytime she saw Dev Anand on screen, she would bring up his semblance to Gregory Peck and dig into 40 year old nostalgia...And so, when I dug into recent nostalgia, I found this book all the more endearing... :3

Fact #5:

Keeping my subliminal and surface emotions aside, I also chose this book for mere intellectual purposes ! As is evident (Fact #5), I place the least priority to anything to do with grey matter but my choice in books isn't that crass yet...

"TKAM" was awarded the Pulitzer in 1961...Much like "Tom Sawer" and "Huckleberry Finn", "TKAM" was inducted into classroom teaching as early as 1961...

Moreover, apart from several honours and awards and her share of paparazzi attention, Nelle Harper Lee, the prodigious writer, also received The Presidential Medal of Freedom on 5th November, 2005, (A Day Before My B'day, BTW)...

Well, I'm at my 25th page today and though I stated 5 facts to justify why I started this post, I've also managed to convince myself why exactly I love reading this book...Maybe I can elaborate that in yet another post... ;)