Finish reading the masterpiece just yesterday. I always wondered why it was such a big deal, fortunately now I know. It's like getting smack in the face by a friend than with his fingers pointing directly at you with a high pitch squeal, 'Hah! Told ya' so.' And at some point I felt delighted that it was done to me so, because I would have never pick it up to read.
The story itself is supremely magical but scary at the same time too. The innocence of it all and the revelation at the end beguiled me in ways I did not notice in me at all. I never knew that part of me existed. Maybe it was meant to be that way. The way of which I wanted to not limit myself with the genres I love or am more comfortable with. In a sense that kept me neglecting; I would always avoid buying that book. Yes, I have heard of it in the movies, (by goodness sack I haven't even seen the film version of it yet too, or maybe did when I was a child meager enough to not remember it), I've heard tell of it from friends, reading to reread everlasting reviews or references on the book, said it to be the pinnacle of American Literature and yes, true, I would have to finally state that they were all right. It did not have to even be bold for there was no losing stake on the statement, it was just plainly true.
I am the kind of a reader which will purchase a book to read it. It give me a sense that I have paid penance towards something or someone or maybe even a being I have yet to figure out what, who or why, but it is a part of my own natural habit which I had accepted as being bred in the bones. Whenever I come into a bookstore, I would quickly rush towards my comfort zone and browse it, even though I have done so over and over again, spelling out and reading in the same titles and authors, fingering which one should I cast my cash on today. Once this is done, I would waste around the piles on other sections. I would spend time doing this, trying to discover something which can dazzle my eyes and if it does happen (which on occasions is quite rare) I would grab it along with me too. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee has always been there, waiting innocently in patience. Till towards the end, on a day, in a bookstore with nothing else but the mockingbird, I bought it.
But the journey of this book in my life have yet to even begin right. I got back home and shove it on the second top shelf of my room and again we played our waiting game. Till one night, I was out of fiction books to read and there it was staring down at me from the shelf I had left it to be and the rest of it as they say goes on and on.
The book was a patient delight from it's roots down under to it's last leaf at the tip braving the wind. Remarkable characters with situation most thrilling and very, very personal to me. The way it was written made me feel at home and it is in this way that took me into feeling a very personal touch I have never come across coming out of from my insides before. A truly life changing truth.
Pondering onwards, maybe the book was not only the one waiting the wait, I was in some way, deep within awaits it to. A proper love story I presume, as Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story.