{"id":783,"date":"2016-07-24T04:43:44","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T04:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=783"},"modified":"2016-07-24T04:43:44","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T04:43:44","slug":"harper-lee-to-kill-a-mockingbird-go-set-a-watchman-alabama-america-atticus-finch-civil-rights-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=783","title":{"rendered":"Harper Lee and the One-Hit Wonders Club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span><\/p>n 2015, a year before Harper Lee died, the New Yorker ran a <\/span>headline<\/span><\/a> about <\/span>Go Set a Watchman<\/span><\/i>: \u201cHarper Lee\u2019s Failed Novel About Race\u201d. The piece went on to discuss the \u201cstriptease\u201d of literature, in this case, the long, overdrawn pre-publication and national event status of what can best be described as an auxiliary volume of a famous novel. <\/span>\n\nOne year after the death knell of <\/span>Go Set a Watchman<\/span><\/i> was rung and novel pronounced as a \u201cstring of clich\u00e9s\u201d, Harper Lee died. And the word failure forever tacked on to her luminous name. <\/span>\n\nWhy did Harper Lee agree to publish <\/span>Go Set a Watchman<\/span><\/i> when she had maintained a dignified silence in response to the clamour of a second novel for 55 long years? When she had, in fact, said, with a rare self-knowledge that every writer needs but few have that, \u201cI have said what I wanted to say, and I will not say it again.\u201d <\/span>\n\nNewspapers claimed that <\/span>To Kill a<\/span><\/i> Mockingbird<\/span><\/i>\u2019s success certainly tormented her. There were rumours that it was actually the work of her childhood friend, Truman Capote. Later, she struggled with a manuscript, entitled \u201cThe Long Goodbye\u201d, which went nowhere. There were also stories of Lee being a victim of \u201celder abuse\u201d and fears of being labelled that most derogatory of all terms: a one-hit wonder.<\/span>\n\nWithout <\/span>Go Set a Watchman<\/span><\/i>, would Lee have sat on the many one-hit wonder lists that populate the internet? Would she have been clubbed with JD Salinger or Emily Bronte? And more importantly, should these people ever be part of anything that reeks even faintly of fluke?<\/span>\n\nThe term \u201cone-hit wonder\u201d originally belongs to the \u201970\u2019s when the US music industry was flooded with artists, who, despite trying and then trying some more, never featured in the famed Billboard US Countdown again (remember Vanilla Ice with \u201cIce Ice Baby\u201d?) <\/span>\n

Nearly all the novelists who have won the Booker Prize in the last 40 years with a first novel, have managed to write duds as follow-ups.<\/blockquote>\nThis definition has freely been interpreted in the literary world for authors that have blazed out of oblivion with works of earth-shattering significance and then quickly retreated back into oblivion when their next dud popped up on the horizon. The problem with this slightly disparaging term being used for the redoubtable JD Salinger, is that it implies that the creator tried again and again to repeat that success but failed miserably. But JD Salinger never wrote another novel again. Neither did Margret Mitchell or Sylvia Plath, both authors with enormous reputations that pivot on a single significant piece of literature. For some reason, one life-altering work of art proved enough for them as their life\u2019s literary output. <\/span>\n\nStephen King, the ultimate factory of the successful novel, asked in genuine bewilderment in <\/span>On Writing: <\/span><\/i>\u201cWhy on earth would you not write again if you obviously have the talent to?\u201d The answers have ranged from lack of inspiration to ego or then simple fear, but the one that rings true is put forth by The Telegraph: That the writer is destroyed by a single huge success. The burden of fame and acclaim combined with the secret knowledge that their best work is possibly behind them, is crippling to the creative mind. <\/span>\n\nYet the temptation to attempt another bestseller is over-whelming. Nearly all the novelists who have won the Booker Prize in the last 40 years with a first novel, have managed to write duds as follow-ups. It\u2019s enormously difficult not to write. It\u2019s difficult to squash the ego, which must, no doubt, scream for another fix of fame. It\u2019s difficult not to treat your talent as a factory production line, a viable livelihood. <\/span>\n\nBut they did. They told us one story and then they gracefully laid their pens down. <\/span>\n\nAnd yet, we continue to confuse brilliance with consistency. Aldous Huxley once said, \u201cConsistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead.\u201d The Vir Chakra recognises that: Just one act of supreme bravery by an otherwise indifferent solider is enough. We don\u2019t ask for his track record. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s time for the lexicon to graciously expand to accommodate new terminology that acknowledges an author\u2019s emphatically single status and at the same time grants them the respect that\u2019s so desperately due. The breadth of human achievement that unfolds between the pages of a once-in-a-lifetime book is insufficiently held together by the weak \u201cone-hit wonder\u201d. The \u201csublime soloists\u201d perhaps? <\/span>\n\nThis might not change the past, but this will at least ensure that in the future, whether some other Harper Lee or Margaret Mitchell ever writes another intense award-winning novel or not, she will be celebrated throughout her lifetime for the one that she <\/span>did<\/span><\/i> write. Without ever being saddled with Vanilla Ice. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harper Lee is burdened with producing only one masterpiece in her life. But what\u2019s wrong with that? Authors like her told us one story and then gracefully laid their pens down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1396,1397,1078,1398,1399,1400,1401,1402,341,1403],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn","tag-alabama","tag-america","tag-atticus-finch","tag-civil-rights-movement","tag-go-set-a-watchman","tag-harper-lee","tag-mark-twain","tag-race","tag-to-kill-a-mockingbird"],"yoast_head":"\nHarper Lee and the One-Hit Wonders Club<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Harper Lee is burdened with producing only one masterpiece in her life. But what\u2019s wrong with that? 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