Is the release of 'Go Set a Watchman' really what Harper Lee wants?

It has been announced today that a sequel to the much loved 'To Kill a Mockingbird' will be released 55 years after the popular novel. However some of the circumstances seem to be a little questionable.

For one, a source has revealed to The New York Times that although the book takes place 20 years after the first novel, it was actually written first. This may not seem too suspicious but considering that the announcement of this release has come three months after the death of her sister Alice Lee, who was her lawyer and advocate for decades and who has fiercely protected her wishes to remain private and impervious to unwanted outside attention, it appears to be an unlikely coincidence that the novel has been revealed now. 

Additionally after a stroke in 2007 the 88 year old author is nearly completely deaf, has lost 95% of her vision and suffers from memory loss as well as being partially paralysed and confined to a wheelchair, her attorney Tonja Carter, Alice Lee's successor, revealed. According to an article from Gawker back in July "Lee has a history of signing whatever's put in front of her, apparently sometimes with Carter's advice".  This information seems to imply an apparent case of exploitation of a person that's not fully mentally fit. 

It was only back in 2007 that is was alleged that Samuel Pinkus, the son-in-law of Lee's former literary agent, took advantage of her by manipulating her to transfer the ownership of the copyright of her best selling, 1960 novel to her agent. 

With stories of previous exploits of Miss Lee it seems somewhat alarming that the sequel has been announced for release when it has. Whilst I am thrilled to hear of a sequel and intrigued to discover what the Finch's life following the trial has been like, there's something unsettling about the circumstances surrounding the release. 

sources:-
http://jezebel.com/be-suspicious-of-the-new-harper-lee-novel-1683488258

http://gawker.com/how-unauthorized-is-the-new-book-about-harper-lee-1605214844
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10037162/Harper-Lee-sues-over-To-Kill-a-Mockingbird-royalties.html

Asking for help

Asking for help, something I've intermittently put off for the last four years. I blamed it on anyone but myself. My parents for not caring, not helping, being dismissive. Having a history with my doctors personally to the point that I felt uncomfortable talking to them. ''I can fix it on my own.'' ''I'm getting better, I don't need help any more.'' ''There's nothing that can fix it.'' All the feeble excuses I riled around my head until I realised there was only one person to blame for not getting help, me.

This month I asked for help. It's one of my resolutions on the infinite tick list that is my life. I promised myself that when I reached 18, when I reached the new year, before I start uni I would get my life in check. I would face my eating disorder, face my loneliness, face my depression and kick them the fuck away.  

Whilst I'm rational in my views I'm not so rational about myself. I've repeatedly reassured myself that 'good things come to those who wait' and then sobbed hysterically at how painful and unfair it all is. Well what a load of bollocks, what do I expect? If I sit and feel sorry for myself and do absolutely nothing productive to fix the problem of course it's not going to get better. 'Good things come to those who wait'... my arse! 

Asking for help may seem like the final admission of your weakness and failure but actually it's the bravest and most powerful thing you can do. By admitting your lack of control you allow yourself to take charge of your direction again. By addressing your insecurities and shame you allow yourself to look them dead in the eye and tell them where to go. 

I've felt ashamed and embarrassed for so long. I've felt like verbalising my issues would make them real and that no one would look at me the same way again. I wouldn't be the bad bitch I wanted to be but the truth is I never was her, it was all an elaborate cover up I allowed my mind to wander off with so I could avoid the problem. 

I've asked for help and surely that's got to be the first step on the road to recovery.

The religion debate

Stephen Fry appeared on RTE's 'The Meaning of Life' on Sunday evening where he voiced his views on religion labelling God as ''utterly evil, capricious and monstrous.'' Fry has not shied away from the topic of God in the past and has been vocal in his association with Atheism. 

In response, in Russell Brand's latest instalment of 'Trews', his YouTube series where he weighs in on current affairs, Brand objects to Fry's ''literalism'' approach to religion and he says ''science can explain the mechanics of the universe... but can it ever explain the why? The answer is no''.  

Russell Brand adds ''What we all want to know is, is there a reason for us being here and what is the nature of the universe? What is the nature of our consciousness?'' He goes on to discuss a book by Robert Lanza, an American doctor and scientist which addresses the flaws in received Physics. Lanza states in a passage from the book that had ''the Big Bang been one-part-in-a-million more powerful it would have rushed out too fast for the galaxies and life to develop.'' He goes on to reference an additional 2 of 200 physical parameters to argue that it is difficult to believe they are random due to their precise nature.

Whilst the physics of the Big Bang is so complex I will never fully understand it, I can't help but feel that the ideology of creationism and the belief that for circumstances to require such precision the formation of the universe must be a deliberate act is somewhat narcissistic. I often think that because as a species we are so developed we often believe ourselves to be much more important and relevant than we are. 

Although I cannot argue that the extent of coincidences that went into the construction of our universe are unfathomable I still see them as just coincidences. It's scary to know that had one of 200 different factors been even minimally different our universe wouldn't exist and neither would our atoms or stars or our species, I still believe us to be irrelevant. We're a lucky accident just the same as the merging of a specific sperm and specific egg made my conscious self and not a wholly different child is a lucky accident for me.

I think the concept of God is the human race's assumption that we are more important than we are and therefore we must have been purposely created rather than a convenient coincidence for none other than ourselves. Russell Brand's dismissal of Science as it offers no 'why' is actually the evidence for the lack of a God to me. There's no answer because there's no question. There doesn't have to be a why because we're just being presumptuous.

Apart from the grandness and complexity of the universe being baffling if it held no life there wouldn't need to be any justification as to why all the factors that went into it's creation are all perfectly exact enough to hold life. We think of the universe as this amazing thing that must have a reason for existence just because it's our reason for existence. The human race serves no purpose to anyone or anything other than to ourselves so therefore there's no justification for our creation. We purely exist because we exist, we're a lucky accident.    

Do we really love the classics or are we just being righteous?

When I first read Dickens I couldn't shake the thought that he was just so pretentious. His extensive descriptions and elite language made me sure of it. Turns out I was wrong, seen as contextually he was actually a bit of a commoner and his target audience was the working class. That told me.

Even so, prior to 2014 I couldn't understand the hype around so many of the classics. I thought the majority of the plots in the literary canon weren't enticing enough, just the cliché boy meets girl storyline. Oh how ignorant I was. It's actually surprising to me how many classics seem to challenge the structure of society when the assumed audience of this genre are so commonly the elite, the ones that benefit from the hierarchy that's under fire and who resist revolution.

Whilst Shakespeare's metaphorical thinking is mind blowing and Orwell seems to be a psychic, it still begs the question of whether we respect the classics because of their literary greatness or because we are supposed to. It's ok to like Harry Potter but we can't put Rowling ahead of Austen because she's not good enough or because she hasn't stood the test of time?

The lack of ethnic representation in the canon clarifies my doubts on whether these books and authors really are the best of the best or whether they are purely a collection of works that the white elite have considered worthy of respect. I don't doubt the standard of writing for a minute but 'the best of the best' is always going to be a pair of boots that are too big to fill. 

Let me back on the wagon!

It's the 29th of January and by this point most people's new year's resolutions are buried 6 feet under and we all let out a sigh of disappointment citing 'maybe next year.' I'm definitely no exception to this custom. Every year I'm buzzing with the same level of unrealistic optimism that 'this year will be the year that everything changes' and there will be a 'new me'. There's a part of me that knows deep down that probably not even three days later I will have eaten my body weight in my Christmas chocolate, stayed in my pyjamas for 36 hours straight and made the most of the last few films being shown on TV before all the new seasons of our favourites are released again.

This year however, I did attack the whole new year's resolution a little differently. I didn't force myself to act as if the 1st of January was the make it or break it day, I just decided that whatever aims I have for this year I am allowed to say I have successfully achieved them as long as they are met by the 1st of Jan 2016.

If you look at my archive you can probably tell I had another blow to my motivation by the end of November and I've almost reached the 2 month mark without publishing a single post. Nevertheless, instead of falling off a hurtling wagon that I can't catch up with once I'm on the ground, this wagon is chained up to a tree with it's wheels replaced with bricks so when I lose my balance I can still clamber back on and hope no one was looking. (Quite the use of a cliché, I know!)

Expect to see the return of opinionated, sarcastic and oh-so-positive blog posts very soon.

You missed a spot

Spots, those ferocious, red, little (sometimes not so little) bumps that stand out like the kid in his uniform on home clothes day. My first experience with these persistent fuckers was when I was about 10. Granted it was the odd one here and there but it was still enough for me to be embarrassed and desperate for any solution to cover them up.

It wasn't until I was about 13 that they got carried away and started spreading like wild fire across my face. I smothered them in cheap makeup, which more often than not I didn't even wash off unless I was in the shower or I had excess room on an eye makeup remover pad. And I wondered why my skin was so bad.. gross! 

Almost a year later and I finally started taking the time to wash my face properly, a few months after that I went to the doctors to see what they could muster up for me. Their answer was oxytetracycline, a small yellow pill that resembled a smartie that I had to take 4 times a day.

It did next to nothing and a year later whilst I was on holiday I got tonsillitis and the call in doctor asked whether I was on any other additional medicines. When I told him what my dosage of this medication was and the length of time I had been taking it for he was almost picking his chin up from off the floor. Apparently if an antibiotic has had no effect after 6 months you should be taken off it and the dosage of oxtetracycline I was taking was one that I should have only really been having for the first few weeks. Nice going local GP!

I moved on to a variety of other medications for my acne but no result. I was referred to a specialist who recommended the pill or another type of drug but the side effects were pretty extreme citing skin drying and peeling off, migraines and extreme joint and muscle aches, insomnia and depression. Considering I had at the time just managed to tone down a spell of depression it didn't really seem worth it. I tried the pill but within a week didn't like it so I was back to square one.

In recent months my skin has calmed down a lot, I had been using a cream called duac and I'm currently using a rub on solution called Zineryt. I've tried every fancy cleansing and toning products out there and of late I'm using the Eucerin range which has been critically acclaimed. Apparently to give those products a fair chance you have to document your skin's change for up to 8-16 weeks. 

I've noticed I'm much more laid back about my skin now, I wear less makeup and I try and go out as much as possible without using it although I haven't reached the stage where I would go to college without it on yet. Acne can be such an arse ache and a real knock to your self esteem but at the end of the day I've got to a point now where I don't see why I should let something as literally small as a spot hold me back. 

Work hard and you'll succeed.... maybe

Meritocracy. 

The concept that if you're talented and you work hard you'll be successful and rewarded with what you've earned. Sure, there's a lot of people out there that have worked damn hard for their success and they have worked their way up from the bottom to the top. There's also a lot of people out there who haven't. There's a huge amount of successful people in the world who have got where they've got because of who they know and their pre existing status. 

On top of that if you really think about the people that have worked hard and have achieved what they have through talent, they're not necessarily the best possible person for the job. Luck is a huge factor of success. Timing, location, circumstance and background are all hugely significant as well. Think of all the people in third world countries who haven't had the proper access to education. How do we know that they don't have the capability to create something astonishing or become something incredible? Does everyone in third world countries have inferior brains to ours? No of course they don't, but they have just so happened to be born into a society that's not as affluent or supportive as the western world's. 

Even in western society opportunity isn't always fair and whilst success may come to someone who's worked hard and who's come from nothing they have still been lucky. There's still probably a whole selection of people who could potentially do the job better or who have more talent in their particular field than those who are above them, yet they go unnoticed. In the House of Commons the percentage of female politicians is currently 23% and the percentage of ethnic minority MPs is currently 4%. Are those statistics justified because white middle class men are just so greatly superior in the field? Of course they bloody aren't. The dissatisfaction of the public and the regularity of mistakes made by politicians says quite the opposite in fact. 

So just how much meritocracy is there really?