Tuesday 3 February 2015

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.

Monday 2 February 2015

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.