I started RE-READING Harper Lee's " To Kill A Mockingbird " a few nights ago . I think Leo Tolstoy would judge this a GOOD ( all important ) novel. To be sure the black folks in Maycomb County circa 1932 are a long way off psychologically from the militant Civil Rights Movement that emerged really AFTER the novel was written. No echoes of Martin Luther King here , Malcolm X . Or more recently " BLACK LIVES MATTER ". Still there is much humane TRUTH in the book . People are what they are shaped by their social and cultural environment . And yes, by HEREDITY , by those favorable or unfavorable genes passed on from one generation ( of Ewells , of Cunninghams, of Finches ) to the next.
The best novelists SEE people for what they are , without illusions or some idee fixe. I doubt if even noble Atticus Finch could be viewed today- in 2021- as a patron saint of " progressive " lawyers. Back in his time and place, in the DeepSouth , Atticus was as good as they get. Let us now praise all DECENT men !
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Ron