“First of all,” [Atticus] said, “if you can learn... • The Automaton

“First of all,” [Atticus] said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—”

“Sir?”

“—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Re-reading Harper Lee’s 31-chapter novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, one chapter a day, every day for the whole of the current 31-day month, is turning out to be quite an experience.

On one hand, the attempt brings with it the convenience of never having to use any sort of device to mark one’s place in the book. Admittedly, I’m not an avid reader who uses a bookmark for that exact purpose. While I also use an iPhone app that basically functions as a reading log, what I usually do is to just see how deep the yellowing of the edges of the pages of a book (caused by prolonged contact with my almost invariably filthy fingers) has gone so far, thus providing me with a rough but adequate estimate of where I last left off. For my To Kill A Mockingbird a-chapter-a-day challenge, though, I need only recall the present date and then locate the corresponding chapter number in the book. Easy breezy.

On the other hand, having to read one chapter of this book every day is, not unlike that one time when I tried (and ultimately failed) to exclude chocolate in my diet for an entire week, nothing if not self-inflicted torture. It’s not that To Kill A Mockingbird is a dense and difficult book, because it isn’t, not at all. Quite the opposite, really. The actual challenge in this month-long endeavor is less about being able to finish the book by day 31 than about being able to stick to the daily quota. Wonderfully written and perfectly paced, the book makes it impossible for me to reach the end of a chapter without itching to continue with the next. But, alas, I’m afraid I must stand by my word and put off rediscovering more of Scout’s small-town adventures and Atticus Finch’s priceless pieces of sage advice (such as the one quoted above) that are, without doubt, key to the novel’s, as well as the classic 1962 film adaptation’s, enduring success.

That reminds me… I wonder how many chapters there are in the DVD. Dun dun dun…