Go Set a Watchman - Part I (Chapters 1, 2, and 3)

Please use this thread to discuss Go Set a Watchman - Part I (Chapters 1, 2, and 3).

I had a freshman English professor who read novels as a puzzle or a problem to be solved, looking for clues that unlock hidden meaning. Early on in this book, we already have two clues to investigate. One is the title, which comes from the Bible.

For this hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.
Isaiah 21:6 KJV

It is probably way too early to solve that mystery, but something to keep an eye on.

The other clue is the poem mentioned below. There are several poetry experts on BookTalk, perhaps they can track this down.

The Chattahoochee is wide, flat, and muddy. It was low today; a yellow sandbar had reduced its flow to a trickle. Perhaps it sings in the wintertime, she thought: I do not remember a line of that poem. Piping down the valleys wild? No. Did he write to a waterfowl, or was it a waterfall?

thank you Landroid - You have given us a direction......

Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
By William Blake

Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me.

Pipe a song about a Lamb;
So I piped with merry chear,
Piper pipe that song again—
So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear,
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear

Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read—
So he vanish'd from my sight.
And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear

5Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.

6For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

The above makes me think of the last verse of the Bob Dylan song, All Along the Watchtower:

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

I am feeling that Harper Lee is declaring what she seeth. But she held out and did not want it to be said too soon. I hope she has her timing right. I have heard that she was almost bullied as an old lady, into publishing the work.

This is after the second world war, I realise from her description of Clinton's wound to his face, caused by a German soldier? So twenty years after the plot of TKAM. From the train is she viewing from a distance, and her heart is rejoicing, at sight of the homesteads of the black people with TV aerials??? And the Verbena......I am particularly intrigued by her mention of the the Verbena growing profusely.

Penelope, Interesting parallel in the Blake poem. However in the sentence following the part I quoted above, Harper Lee mentions Sidney Lanier, who wrote a poem about the Chattahoochee river. I think you can probably find that more quickly than I can; perhaps both poems are linked to this book?

The Chattahoochee is a landmark, she's almost home, The Song of the Chattahoochee, a poem she doesn't recall in detail, shows the vagary of her awareness about her familial connection to the place, She is unaware of what is about to confront her.

The poem reminds her of a cousin who rebelled in his own sense, and was sent away, a fait unbefitting a proud family with historic linage.

Love the Hendrix reference, musically dark, melodramatic foreboding.

Wild flowers, Verbena, nature perfume's the first signs of poverty, the shanties of the poor southern blacks.

Its interesting that Jean Louise chooses to take the train rather than fly by plain, this delay allows her to set her mind, to get perspective in line.
New York to rural Alabama, 1955, I'd need time to transition also. She is not in a hurry to get home is she?.

http://m.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/song-chattahoochee

The reason she goes by train is twofold. The last time the pilot flew through a tornado and scared her, but also she didn't want Atticus to have to collect her at an unfeasible hour. He was an old man after all, but no, she doesn't seem to be impatient.

The trains a throwback to her childhood. It makes palpable the feeling of distance and seclusion.

I posted a link to the relevant poem - but here it is for those who don't like clicking links.


The Song Of The Chattahoochee
Sidney Lanier, 1842 - 1881

Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover’s pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried ‘Abide, abide,'
The willful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said ‘Stay,'
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed ‘Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.'

High o’er the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, ‘Pass not, so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.'

And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone
-- Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet and amethyst --
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call --
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.

Taylor wrote:Wild flowers, Verbena, nature perfume's the first signs of poverty, the shanties of the poor southern blacks.

I like your comment and phrasing here Taylor. There's a poet in there. I'm taking it slowly here. We see that straight off her homecomings in the past have been invariably good and joyful, and her family relationships pretty good.
Why should she expect this one to be any different?
Also I think Lee is setting up certain aspects of the way things at that time are and where they are going.
There's progress with the mechanical innovations and a sense of things being as they are to serve people in particular positions in terms of status and wealth.
Pressing buttons commands objects to serve Jean and one magically commands a human porter to her service. Still humans can fall foul of mechanisms if they don't obey their instructions, and it's just as well that employed human servants are around to remedy careless disobedience.
That designed to serve can suddenly turn into a trap turning on those it's meant to serve. Both certain people and machines are designed to serve so is there any difference between them?
There's a sense of how things are meant to be but a caution thrown in presaging how this all might really play out.

Flann:
I like your comment and phrasing here Taylor. There's a poet in there. I'm taking it slowly here. We see that straight off her homecomings in the past have been invariably good and joyful, and her family relationships pretty good.
Why should she expect this one to be any different?

Thanks for the compliment, My comment on the flowers was my attempt to turn a good phrase.

Yes, her past home comings have all been what going home is supposed to be.

Jean Louise should not expect this one to be different, Its the audience that should have ears up.