The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
7A — Tuesday, September 8, 2015

LITERATURE COLUMN

To kill ‘Atticus 

Finch’

By REBECCA LERNER

Daily Literature Columnist
“

I’ll say one thing for her 
– she sure can write.” My 
dad said to me, interrupting 

my reading of Harper Lee’s “Go 
Set A Watchman.” The recently 
released novel, a chronological 
sequel to Lee’s first book, was 
actually written prior to her 
iconic “To Kill A Mockingbird.

As it is for many Americans, 

the story of Scout during her 
transformative 10th summer 
in Alabama is more than just a 
book to me. One of my fondest 
childhood memories is of listen-
ing with my brother to my father 
reading “To Kill A Mockingbird” 
in the summer when I was nine 
years old. With my logical and 
kind father, my teasing older 
brother and my god awful haircut 
that resembled Mary Badham’s 
in the film adaption, I related to 
Scout on a fundamental level. As 
I grew older and had to study the 
novel twice in high school, I con-
tinued to naively adore its charac-
ters. I proudly donned the “What 
Would Atticus Do?” pin given to 
everyone in my grade. When my 
neighbor’s family named their 
dog Atticus, I gave my whole-
hearted approval. Like Scout in 
the novel, I put Atticus on a ped-
estal. But “Go Set A Watchman” 
crushes that pedestal, putting 
Atticus firmly on the ground as 
the human being he is.

“Go Set A Watchman” begins 

with the adult Scout, who now 
goes by her given name Jean-
Louise, when she returns to 
her hometown of Maycomb, 
Alabama from her life in New 
York City. At first she slips back 
into her old town comfortably, 
flirting with her high school 
sweetheart, Henry Clinton, 
and fighting with her Aunt 

Alexandra. Her ease ends when 
she finds out that Atticus, Jean-
Louise’s earliest model of integ-
rity and fairness, is a member of 
a version of the Klu Klux Klan 
called the Citizen’s Council.

The racial justifications that 

Atticus gives Jean-Louise for his 
behavior are incredibly uncom-
fortable. There’s no escaping it. 
While he agrees with his liberal 
daughter that black people are 
human, he does not believe they 
have the capacity for decision-
making or responsibility. It 
seems unnatural to hear such 
bigotry spew from the mouth 
of the man who stood 20 years 
earlier in front of his entire town 
to defend Tom Robinson and 
said “Gentlemen, if there’s one 
slogan in this world I believe it is 
this, equal rights for all, special 
privileges for none.” When we 
flash back to this moment with 
a young Scout, the shock and 
hurt that she experiences with 
this revelation about her father 
seems entirely legitimate.

And yet, the discovery about 

Atticus does not inherently con-
tradict the beloved characters of 
“To Kill A Mockingbird.” Atticus 
is first and foremost a law-abid-
ing man, and his defense of Tom 
Robinson was based on the fact 
that Robinson was an innocent 
man being accused of a crime 
he did not commit. A clear dis-
tinction is made between Atti-
cus and more infamous White 
Supremacists – Atticus would 
never physically hurt someone 
or break the law to uphold his 
beliefs. His less violent form 
of racism possibly comes as a 
surprise, but does not come out 
of nowhere. After living in the 
deep South for 72 years, Atticus, 
a straight white male with some 
socio-economic power, does not 
want to change a system that 

favors himself and his offspring. 
If this situation were applied to 
anyone besides the most famous 
seeker of justice in modern lit-
erature, the conclusion that in 
these circumstances, this person 
would subscribe to paternalistic 
racism would not be eccentric.

But he’s not some random rac-

ist. And our connection to the 
person that he was in the first 
book is what fuels the fire of the 
second. Like the rest of “Go Set 
A Watchman,” the ties that it has 
to the characters from “To Kill 
A Mockingbird” prove to be it’s 
shining moments of glory. The 
narrator Jean-Louise, who in 
the second novel has made the 
switch from her wise beyond 
her years first person voice to 
a more stiff third person one, 
comes to life when she dwells on 
her childhood. Without the first 
book, it would be too much to 
expect readers to care about how 
much Jean-Louise has changed, 
or that she doesn’t speak to Dill, 
or that Atticus is part of the citi-
zen’s council. “Go Set a Watch-
man” is a fine addition to its 
predecessor, but would wobble if 
it tried to stand on its own.

“To Kill A Mockingbird” has 

its roots in “Go Set A Watch-
man.” An editor saw the passion 
of the childhood scenes and 
asked Harper Lee to write a 
book twenty years earlier from 
the point of the view of young 
Scout. Without “Watchman”, we 
wouldn’t have the entrancing 
book that will make countless 
young Americans actually enjoy 
English class. It’s enjoyable to 
read because even after not pen-
ning another book for over 40 
years – Lee sure can write.

Lerner is The Michigan Daily’s 

new literature columnist. You can 

contact her at rebler@umich.edu.

Ambitious ‘Narcos’ 

TV REVIEW

By MATT BARNAUSKAS

Daily Arts Writer

“Sometimes truth is stranger 

than fiction,” “Narcos” ’s nar-
rator, DEA agent Steve Murphy 
(Boyd 
Hol-

brook, 
“Run 

All 
Night”), 

meditates. 
“There’s a rea-
son 
magical 

realism 
was 

born in Colom-
bia. It’s a coun-
try 
where 

dreams and reality are conflated, 
where in their heads people fly as 
high as Icarus. But even magical 
realism has its limits.”

Following the rise and rule 

of infamous Colombian cocaine 
kingpin Pablo Escobar (Wagner 
Moura, “Elite Squad”), “Nar-
cos” crafts a sweeping narrative 
of corruption and brutality that 
spans nearly two decades. The 
life of Escobar is simultaneously 
alluring and repulsive. Filled 
with wealth, sex and excess, the 
lifestyle is reminiscent of the 
gangsters on display in films 
such as “Goodfellas,” a fantasy 
of riches and dreams come true. 
But, like its American counter-
part, “Narcos” displays the sick-
ening foundation that built this 
empire and the toxic effect it has 
on those involved, as Escobar 
grows more brutal and paranoid 
and violence becomes the only 
answer.

On the other side of the law, 

the American Murphy, his part-
ner Javier Peña (Pedro Pas-
cal, “Game of Thrones”) and 
Colombian Colonel Horatio Car-
illo (Maurice Compte, “A Walk 
Among the Tombstones”) are 
tasked with taking down Esco-
bar. The trio is a mixed bag. Pas-
cal highlights the charisma he 
had as Oberyn Martell in “Game 
of Thrones” in his portrayal of 
Peña, a smooth veteran who 
knows that capturing Escobar 
requires some extralegal means 

as 
bureaucracy 
continuously 

interferes. Carillo shares this 
sentiment, but has the added 
burden of calling the country 
home and seeing it turn into a 
battlefield.

Moura handles Escobar with 

a deft performance that human-
izes the man but never glosses 
over how monstrous he can be. 
He gives money to the poor, 
but later plagues his homeland 
with car bombings so he can 
get what he wants. Escobar is a 
violent man but not a dumb one, 
as Moura displays intelligence 
behind every move. Nowhere 
is this better on display than 
Escobar’s introduction. Under 
the direction of José Padilha 
(the director of “Elite Squad”), 
Moura as Escobar intimidates 
several border guards into sub-
mission, blatantly displaying the 
items he smuggles. The camera 
lingers on Escobar as he casu-
ally brings up the names of the 
soldiers, then the names of their 
wives and children, giving them 
the choice, “Plata o plomo,” (sil-
ver or lead). Shot in one take, 
the scene is a chilling display of 
control with Padilha, who is also 
a producer for the series. The 
standard for “Narcos” is estah-
blished early on by capturing 
Columbia’s paradox of aesthetic 
beauty against social suffering 
and violence.

Murphy isn’t as effective. 

Portrayed 
with 
a 
southern 

drawl by Holbrook, Murphy 
is the new guy thrust into the 
jungles and slums of Colombia. 
Murphy’s story is one of initial 
patriotism and disillusionment, 
giving way to the realization 
that “Good and bad, they’re 
relative concepts.” Only when 
Murphy plunges into the rabbit 
hole of obsession with bring-
ing Escobar to justice does he 
become 
somewhat 
interest-

ing. However, some unhinged 
moments, like when he shoots 
the tires of a frustrated cabbie, 
still feel forced.

The most truly irritating 

aspect of Murphy derives from 
his near constant narration. 
While occasionally offering a 
clever or sobering observation, 
“Narcos” ’s voiceover serves 
mainly 
as 
an 
information 

dump, supplying facts about 
Escobar’s 
dynasty 
or 
plot 

information. Considering the 
scope of the series, it’s under-
standable that narration will 
be used, but it’s so constant and 
occasionally unnecessary in its 
hand-holding that it becomes 
an annoyance.

The beast that is the real life 

story behind “Narcos” is hard to 
tame, and though the show tries 
its best to wrestle with as much 
as it can, it sometimes loses its 
grip. With reflections on Ameri-
can interventionism, the nature 
of good and evil and the ineffec-
tive hypocrisy of bureaucracy 
among its themes, “Narcos” has 
a lot to say within its first 10 epi-
sodes, creating a balancing act 
that alternatively soars and tum-
bles with the execution. The 
show uses actual news footage 
to inconsistently enforce these 
ideas. At times the use drives 
home the reality of the situation: 
that truth is crazier than fiction. 
However, at times it feels like a 
blatant cost cutting measure, 
considering the use of the Palace 
of Justice siege, a pivotal event 
is almost entirely stock footage.

“Narcos” may struggle at 

times handling its ambition, 
but it still delivers enough of 
its initial promise – crafting a 
fascinating portrayal of one of 
history’s most brutal criminals 
and the dark world surrounding 
him.

B

Narcos

Season One

Netflix

‘Narcos’ is still 

promising.

