Seldom can you find a book that you can read with fear of being ostracized in your adolescence and reread with reflective emotion on the matter of parenthood in your adult stage.
That to me is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM).
I read the book as a 13-year old high school student unsure of what is going on. I was beset with problems of being different (because I came from a small public school while most of my classmates where graduates of private elementary schools), of being unpleasant looking (that translates to ugly) and of being a part of the middle class (daily allowance is limited and I cannot buy that delicious chicken-salami sandwich at the canteen).
Reading TKAM at 13, I was introduced to the world where there was a glaring difference between the haves and the have nots in a little place called Maycomb in America. I did not know that. I was of the belief that most people in America are rich. I was able to relate it to the town of Merida in Leyte when Miss Lee wrote “there was no time to hurry because there was nowhere to go”.
I was 18 (or 19) when I reread the book, quite confident that I will be able to understand the complexities of the characters and the issues so elaborately put forward by Miss Lee. At that time, I was more curious about Lee’s inspiration and motivation in writing the novel. Quick online research revealed that a supporter paid her for a year to finish her novel. An aspiring writer and essayist at that time, I daydreamed about having a supporter too who will pay me for a year to write a book. Ha! A girl can dream, you know.
I was studying gender and development at that time and it was obvious that I was looking for gender overtones in the story. In the end, I decided on Scout’s potential to be the best woman leader she can be in the future and how her experiences as the daughter of a lawyer, who defended a Tom Robinson (a black man accused of committing rape to a white woman), will make her a prime mover in the feminist movement.
I am now 27 years old – married with two kids – and as I reread the book last night in preparation for BOOK SHARE, I was thinking about how I can be a good role model to my children.
Atticus, as a lawyer-father, was cool, calm and collected. I like how he used his profession’s language in raising Jem and Scout and that they are free to translate them in lay(wo)man’s term. Perhaps, Jeff and I can do that too as journalists. Put the paper to bed, beat the deadline, identify your sources…
Today, January 16, is the first ever BOOK SHARE, we will be talking about TKAM at the University of San Carlos – American Corner Library to be attended by 70 students.
We have invited Bea Martinez (librarian of the Philippine Christian Gospel School) and Jo Belle Marabiles (instructor of USC) to be our book sharers. We are experimenting on the talk show slash open forum format with the idea of allowing the audience to freely interact with the sharers.
Ours is not an attempt to be literary experts.
What we are doing is our contribution in building a culture that promotes critical thinking. As I shared with the book sharers, I have observed that progressive countries have strong reading culture. These countries have literature clubs and poetry reading sessions. I don’t mean to sound elitist in this regard but I think it’s high time for us to start reading materials that will make us better thinkers and sensible decision makers.
It doesn’t hurt to have a dose of showbiz news and gossips every now and then. But please, let’s not make Kris Aquino or Vice Ganda part of our daily readings.
With our first BOOK SHARE today, we hope to make people see that we are all mockingbirds in this case. Pleasant, harmless living things but can be killed or abused by ruthless politicians and individuals because we are unsuspecting, unthinking, uncritical people.
