The most beautiful books in the world are never those with rhythm and reason interwoven within their pages, though they look pretty, and, to some extent, are. The
Principia is not beautiful, though to a certain mind it comes close; nor are the works of lesser men than genius, men of half the calibre of
Gauss, a quarter the power of
Mozart.
Shakespeare, for all his lilting tongue, is not beautiful, though there are moments when the poetry of his prose leaps off the page, and blazes in magnificent conflagrations of sheer, exquisite tenderness, and raw, unmatched talent. He is perfect; perfection need not be beautiful, just as
gods need not be kind to be
gods, as
kings need not be merciful to be
kings.
Beauty is a strange beast. We search for it, in myriad corners of the world, never realising it cannot be found – only made. We declare ordinary women princesses over others, mortal men more beautiful than the gods, though beauty is always, and shall always be, democratic – can mere humans be greater than the sight of leaves descending swift on the blowing breeze, glinting in the morning sun, or be lesser than the smell and touch of rain on bare, naked skin, in the light of the evening twilight? There is a frightening beauty to the
wrath of the
thunderstorm, a calm and earthly one in the sight of a mother’s love to her children; there is a heroic beauty to those who suffer because they choose to over another’s pain, a fragile, tenuous beauty to those who live, and in life do greater things, better things, than all their brethren, than all of their kin.
Gandhi’s soul was beautiful.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s heart was beautiful. Lovers in love are beautiful.
Everything is beautiful, in the right light, and the right moment.
And, then, to
books, there is a subtle beauty, a beauty as indefinable, as insubstantial, as those of numbers before
Erdös, though concrete and rock-solid to our souls, if not our mind.
To Kill a Mockingbird is such a book. How can it not be? Here, you no longer have the extremes of humanity, pitiful caricatures, crude and ugly mockeries of what it means to be human, that so plague our tales and stories.
Villains are never really villains, heroes never truly heroes; it is this that the book reveals, and by so doing, never descends into the mistake of believing in the difference between right and wrong. There is no right and wrong; only fairness, and the right to fairness, that of all democratic principles alone does not ring hollow or sound false, that of all the many thousands of laws and rules and opinions humans may quibble over, stands incontestable over the others.
There is
Atticus Finch, who, by all definitions, is a hero, and yet so stubbornly is not. To be able to court the criticism and disgust and ire of one’s own fellow men – a fate so many detest, so many despise, and hence venture little from the cages they place themselves - not by force or fate and destiny, but by pure, unadulterated choice, between what you believe is right and wrong, is the mark of a hero. Yet terrorists do the same, and they are not heroes. To be a hero, one must fight back not with weapons or violence, but with dignity, and all the power of the human spirit. There is not a person on Earth who will not weep when he hears his defence of a cripple maligned and prejudiced against by those who consider themselves his betters. I know I wept, and it will be the beginning of the end of humanity when someone does not. Atticus is a lawyer and a devoted father, and moreover a father to be admired and respected, if only for the wisdom he embodies, in his handling of his own children, and the handling of his own peers. Were all people like Atticus, heaven would be found on Earth, not in the skies.
There is
Boo Radley, and
Bob Ewell – one an evil mysterious and unknown, the other the worst excesses of humanity given human form. It is Boo, nonetheless, who proves himself to be far less cruel and insane than his reputation would present; the same cannot be said for Bob Ewell. Boo, like everyone else, is human, proof that what we say of a man is no evidence as to what he is, that rumour is rumour and never fact. And Bob? It is naïveté to believe that no humans can be as cruel as he is, as foul and mean and ignorant as he is – but the demons we see are our own demons masked; he is every bit the very worst that humans can ever fall to.
There are the other, smaller characters, though each is no lesser than each other in role. There is
Judge Taylor, who, like Atticus, chose to help a man than abandon him, and chose Atticus as
Tom Robinson’s defendant. There is
Mayella Ewell, poor and penniless, to be pitied for what she has been made into, by the ministrations of a violent and absent father and the weight of her younger siblings on her shoulders - a small and innocent youth, whose only fault was being born an Ewell, and hence never accorded respect, or the chance at a future free from her father. There is
Dolphus Raymond,
Aunt Alexandra,
Reverend Sykes,
Stephanie Crawford, each a minuscule glimpse into the many kinds of people who make up the world, each a kaleidoscope of all the many shades of humanity that dwell side by side.
Above all,
To Kill a Mockingbird is a story of growing up, of aging and becoming wiser. It is not our destinies that make us who we are, not our innate beliefs and tendencies and opinions, but our choices that define us, in the situations that fate provides, and every choice makes us grow. The story is about
being human, and what humans can do, and what humans can choose to do. Boo Radley could brave the outside world when ‘his’
children were being threatened.
Scout could be a lady when her Aunt – detested though she is – needs her most to be. Atticus could fight to save a man whom nobody else was willing to aid, Atticus could do what he believed was right over what was popular; all of them could do the hardest of the hardest of choices that life sees fit to throw, the only choice that is the difference between remaining a child, and growing up:
to help when required, and ask for nothing in return.
If only the rest of humanity could do the same...