MJ Nicholls's Reviews > Go Set a Watchman

You don't exactly hear many people talking about Joseph Heller's Closing Time these days though. But its pre-most-people-using-the-web release date might be a part of that.
Underwhelming flash-in-the-pan is my bet.

list as one of their favourite novels on their Goodreads, Facebook, and dating profiles

Dating profiles?! I don't even have a dating profile... well, I just couldn't think of anything useful to put in it. But that's all going to change now. I see any number of hot babes here posting excited gif-laden reviews about this forthcoming release. If I do the same, they will be unable to resist me. What could go wrong?

Thanks for the tip, MJ!

PS Please don't tell Not about this conversation.

Manny wrote: "If I do the same, they will be unable to resist me. What could go wrong?

This may backfire, admitting you like books is unmanly. Better to upload a pecshot or a photo of you street brawling because someone eyeballed your pint the wrong way.

I'm only going to say I like this particular book. That's okay. Even the realest of real men can like one book. It's when you start using the plural that things can get out of control.

I will admit to having seen the movie of To Kill a Mockingbird. You see, I have a plan.

I read an interview with Harper Lee who said this was the first novel she wrote and To Kill A Mockingbird was written because her editor suggested she write a novel from the perspective of a younger version of her character. I'm kind of impressed that this book is actually getting published after so many years. Which means this book is not a sequel, it came first.

So weird, the first time I've seen something like this happen with such an expanse of time in between. As for "To Kill a Mockingbird", I haven't read it. There hadn't been any hype about it here. I first found out about it in a movie a few years back where a woman was consulting it for trying to shoot a bird who was annoying her with its noise. At the time I thought it was a book telling you how to shoot birds!

They could have had the decency to wait until she died before releasing this first draft masquerading as a new novel. Damn these authors who insist on living into their late 80s.

Don Quixote 3 is coming to bookstores, cinema'a (I've forgotten how to pluralize in Hawai'i'an), and peepshows near you, February 29th.

Soon to be followed by James Tecumseh Baldwin (or was it William Baldwin?)'s new graphic novel, Go Tell It on the Watchmen.

Lane wrote: "This is stupid. Are people who don't normally read books not allowed to have favorite books now? I'm sure there is some genre or medium that you are not really familiar with, your favorites of whic..."

Lane, ordinary people are of course not allowed to have favorite books. They must wait for us, the sophisticated literati, to tell them in wittily phrased reviews what they should approve and disapprove of, which opinions they will then mindlessly parrot to their online friends. That should be more than enough for them.

Honestly, I'm embarrassed that you even asked the question.

Manny wrote: "Lane, ordinary people are of course not allowed to have favorite books. They must wait for us, the sophisticated literati, to tell them in wittily phrased reviews what they should approve and disapprove of, which opinions they will then mindlessly parrot to their online friends. That should be more than enough for them...."

Or conversely, you will get branded as a troll if you dare not to like a book that 90% of Goodreads worship.

So either way, Lane, the short answer is obviously "no".

Manny wrote: "I'm only going to say I like this particular book. That's okay. Even the realest of real men can like one book..."

As Lord Redesdale used to say: “ I have only ever read one book in my life, and that is White Fang. It’s so frightfully good I’ve never bothered to read another."

But this is so POWERFUL. It is about INJUSTICE and stuff. You are an IDIOT for not reading this.

©Declan O' Driscoll.

Bugger! The promoters & marketing creeps have finally won out & ruined a wonderful story. A person who wrote a wonderful book & never produced another. Such things are not impossible, but nowadays they are rare.

Lee should have stuck to her guns - particularly as it is quite complete & stand alone novel.

MJ - I encourage you to hold Your ground. There are some books out there that folks have insisted I have to read (Pratchett comes to mind) & my reply has been: Umm, I don't think so.

Lane wrote: "What?"

Lane- I'm going to suggest you walk away. This space is just not for you & you will never understand the nuances at play here.
These people are not your people.

So what you're saying is, because you have more pairs of shoes than the average Joe, Joe isn't allowed to have the one pair he cherishes... the one comfortable pair that pales in comparison to your eclectic collection. Joe should just go barefoot. Everyone fine with that?

Lucy wrote: "So what you're saying is, because you have more pairs of shoes than the average Joe, Joe isn't allowed to have the one pair he cherishes... the one comfortable pair that pales in comparison to your eclectic collection. Joe should just go barefoot. Everyone fine with that?"

I would say it's quite obvious Joe is a prick who deserves no shoes. In fact, I'm not sure he's done enough to earn his feet.

Lucy wrote: "the one comfortable pair that pales in comparison to your eclectic collection"

Are you saying Joe's one pair of shoes outranks every other pair of shoes ever written, sorry, worn, and that it is all right for Joe to wear that pair of shoes the rest of his life, as they are increasingly torn, toe-worn, mud-caked and rat-chewed, because if you are . . . I hope you are not.

Lucy's shoe analogy just floated by and I had to bite. Here's Hegel in his infamous Preface ::

"Yet when it comes to [reading good books], there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last*, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to [read reallyreally good books], and how to evaluate [really most excellent books], since he [sic!] possesses the criterion for doing so in his [sic!] natural reason--as if he [sic!] did not likewise possess the measure for a shoe in his [sigh!] own foot." (slightly paraphrased)

And they say Hegel can't cut a metaphor!!


* "Will I have to use a dictionary, etc etc etc"

To have a pair of tarnished shoes, albeit "natural reasoning," is one thing. To belittle him is another. One could possess a pair of shoes for every hour of the day, and still walk poorly. Yet who is to blame?

Zadignose wrote: "Soon to be followed by James Tecumseh Baldwin (or was it William Baldwin?)'s new graphic novel, Go Tell It on the Watchmen."

I knew there was a funny in there; good work.

When you have V. Nabokov's index cards being published as a book, and a new record from Bob Dylan released wherein he drones some Sinatra at you .. anything goes. The more minimally plausible, the more plausible. Literature: it's written by that famous, anonymous Unseen Hand of the market.

MJ, dude, TKAM is a great book, and I read a lot of great books. Agree it is a trendy book to like, but that's only a reflection on society, not on the book. Consider "Stoner" (J Williams) which was also a great book for 50 odd years before people realized.

I am always facing the other way, culturally (and sometimes sexually). It's in my DNA, alas.

MJ wrote: "I am always facing the other way, culturally (and sometimes sexually). It's in my DNA, alas."

:D

you sound like a pretentious douche

why not just avoid coming to this page rather than trying to show how big a tool..oops i mean hipster you are.

Mark wrote: "you sound like a pretentious douche"

The most fulsome praise!

ever so hard to understand you kids.
A refreshing douche, an exhilarating douche, sure, but..?

maybe there's something in the air here at gr... something invigorating!

Vigor and vinegar should not be confused, and neither should I.

In Glasgow you get assault and vigor with your chips.

Declan wrote: "In Glasgow you get assault and vigor with your chips."

I'm worried what you get from ordering a deep fried Mars bar!!

You get battered.

Declan wrote: "You get battered."

:-p

LOL

Calm down. No one is forcing you to read or comment on this book. Get over yourself.

"Looking forward to not reading or rating any of your reviews of this one come June"

Yet you felt the need to post your snarky opinion on it before it came out.

I am so powerful with my inconsequential rejection of a wonderful author. Let me crawl back up into my sphincter- M J Nicholls- let me see- wait- no, absolutely no recollection of that name-

^ Wait, who is crawling back into their sphincter?

What a coincidence, during the week I was dealing with the subject of ambiguous usage of pronouns...

It would appear to me that Ted calls his sphincter by the pet name "M J Nicholls" but then, all at once, in a worrying moment of Alzheimer's-like forgetfulness, he fails to recall this cheery tag. Oh how, to such confusion we are prone.

I often cause temporary sphincter-pet-name amnesia in people. One of my biggest flaws.

MJ- I'm guessing this is one of your minor super powers.
Unlike Ted, I've not needed to name my arse anything else than what it is.

Some people just don't see where Marketing & Media Hype over take good sense & taste. Some folks think special issue of expensive wine, should be as common as Coca Cola.

I wish we only had the one Harper Lee novel - but there you go. It is very complete & didn't need to be tampered with.

I read between 1-2 books a week, just finished seven years of university for fiction and poetry, have made it a point in my life to read as many lauded "classics" spanning wildly disparate genres and approaches, and I just read TKAMB for the first time last year. No rose-tinted glasses or sleepy-eyed childhood nostalgia factors in my case. And I happen to think TKAMB is just as good as most people say it is.

Dislike the book all you want, but don't caricature those who do with broad strokes. I think it's fair to say that at the very least, those whom you encounter on sites like Goodreads praising the book probably, maybe-sorta-kinda read more than two books a year and might have worthy opinions even if you disagree with them.

Ky, you probably just read 700 of the wrong books. Start again.

Are the hoi polloi still calling you names, MJ? Well... I suppose it must be some small consolation that you also got a few votes. An ill wind, etc.

Actually, now I think about it, this could be a good idea. I wonder if Paul knows about it? I'll ask him.

^ On top of that, I have finally achieved the full 69.

Don't hear many people bragging about not reading something. Is that supposed to be some kind of accomplishment?

Rio wrote: "Don't hear many people bragging about not reading something. Is that supposed to be some kind of accomplishment?"

MJ is an appalling showoff. This is in fact one of his comparatively minor achievements: if we're to believe his shelves, he hasn't read anything by J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, E.L. James, Suzanne Collins, G.R.R. Martin OR Veronica Roth.

Personally I have my doubts. I know from my own experience how easy it is to make these exaggerated claims... all you need is a confident air and a few carefully placed misunderstandings about the plot of Fifty Shades, and people will believe anything.

I'd agree with you if this were some kind of stupid dystopian YA novel, but this is To Kill a Mockingbird, which I can only assume you haven't read and that's too bad.