If Twitter can be seen as representative of broader cultural attitudes, the news surrounding Go Set a Watchman, a novel Harper Lee penned before To Kill a Mockingbird but guarded closely for decades, was received positively — at first.
Most enthused responses weren’t elicited by the content of Lee’s story, which will be told from the vantage point of an adult Scout — Mockingbird’s brave young protagonist. Instead, cheers sounded for the author, and for her first book, which so many of us associate with the halcyon days of summer reading assignments.
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So often works of literature begin with a seed of inspiration that grows into something barely reminiscent of its source. Of his most recent novel, The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides said, the idea of casting protagonist Madeleine as the story’s nexus began when he was working on an entirely different book. So goes the writing process. But to treat the paths authors chose not to follow as completed works rather than pleasurable fan trivia devalues their artistic authority, and often disrespects their wishes.
