Time To Kill

A - John Grisham

Reeper(wearing a solemn look): Hi, I would like to borrow this book

Librarian(reading the cover): Oh, thats a very good book

Reeper(grinning stupidly): Yes, I know

Librarian(stamping the due-date): You will finish it in two days flat

Reeper(grinning more stupidly): Oh, ok

Librarian(handing the book to me after running bar-code thro scanner): You should see the movie

Reeper(grin is now a full-fledged smile): I already have

Librarian(handing the book to me): Oh good, its an excellent movie

Reeper(smiles knowingly): Yes, it is

That above was the conversation I had with the librarian as I borrowed this book. Everyone has either seen the movie or read the book or done both :) Incidentally reading a book after seeing the movie is a break from tradition for me.Usually I make sure I have read the book whenever possible before I see a movie. Not for all movies, of course..only in the case of selected movies.Somehow I find the book ends up being better than the movie based on the book...I am not saying the movies aren’t good. They are good but they are never as good as the book. I’ll get back to this issue later, maybe somewhere in the end..or maybe somewhere in between, just keep reading. Aaah..the things I do to make people read my reviews! :)

Before I get started with the review proper, a list of some main characters is in order. So heres goes

A Time To Kill is one of John Grisham’s finest works. The story is set in the town of Clayton, Mississippi in Southern USA. The story starts with the brutal and inhuman rape of ten year old Tonya Hailey by Cobb and Willard. The two are caught shortly afterward. However before they can be tried, they are shot dead by Carl Lee Hailey, Tonya’s father. The remainder of the book covers the efforts of Jake Brigance, Carl Lee’s lawyer, to ensure that his client is freed and those of Rufus Buckley, the District Attorney, to ensure that Carl Lee gets the death sentence. All this would be pretty normal and mundane but the proverbial twist in Grisham’s tale here is that Cobb and Willard are white while Carl Lee is black. And in the colour-sensitive south, this is a perfect recipe for high voltage drama and strong racial tensions. Whether Jake manages to free Carl Lee forms the crux of the story and the reader(of all races) is willing him on as he struts about confidently, then falters and loses direction, then comes to a standstill, then picks himself up again ... facing all kinds of roadblocks as he goes along. As he goes strives to save Carl Lee, he meets many characters out to help him -like Ellen Roark and Harry Rex and Lucien and most of the town who feel that the rapists got what they deserved but are unable to accept the fact that a black did what he did - and many many more out to make his life miserable, not the least of which are KKK, the dreaded Klu Klux Klan and Rufus Buckley. Its sufficient to say that Jake ends up getting far more than he would have expected in this case. Initially he laps up all the publicity the high-profile case accords him, but at the end of it all he is running as far away from it as fast as he can....

Grisham is at his story-telling best and maintains a fine tempo throughout the novel. The pace does slow down when a new character is introduced and believe me, there are many. To be honest the most important character in the story who decides the fate of Carl Lee doesn’t get a decent mention in the novel or in this review :) However, apart from the plot what impressed me was Grisham’s attention for details and his ability to play with the reader’s feelings and emotions. By the time you finish the first page you begin to hate Willard and Cobb, by the time you complete two pages, you absolutely detest them. You force yourself to read the third page(I tell you the first three to four pages are very hard to read) you are ready to do a Carl Lee Hailey on Cobb and Willard. And when Carl Lee Hailey does what he does you actually breath easy and start thinking there is justice in the world after all. Thats the skill of Grisham shining through. The character of Ellen Roark is also skillfully developed by the author. The attraction between Roark and Ellen is hinted at and there is always of promise of something interesting developing when the two are alone, though Jake keeps warning Ellen all along that he is married and such things are just not done in the South :). The verbal exchanges between the pompous Buckley and Jake and Noose(the judge, fancy having a judge with such a name if you are the defendant)as well as the humour in the conversations involving Harry Rex and Lucien are very well thought out. The part where the foursome of Lucien, Jake, Row Ark(as everyone calls her) and Harry Rex get together to decide potential jurors is real fun. The invasion of Clayton by the media and their antics to obtain the latest news is very well described and is quite humorous. On a totally non-humorous note, the threat of KKK to Jake and his family is also well narrated by Grisham.

The only fault I could think of in this novel was that there were so many characters like Rocky Childers and Judge Bullard who really need not be there. I can think of any number of redundant characters who are there for some time and they just disappear or do not play a prominent role. However, to Grisham’s credit all these characters do play some significant role at some point in the story. My grouse is just that they should have been paid more attention. I mean I am sure I would forget their names a week from now :)

This paragraph is totally off-topic..I am just keeping my earlier promise :) Coming back to the reason why I prefer to read a book before I see the movie, I feel that books gives you a superb opportunity to look at things from your own view. What I mean is when I read a book I look at characters a certain way and when someone else reads a book, they look at them in a way which may be entirely different from mine. And when I go watch a movie, I get the director’s view. Then the thing that interests me is to see what part of the story the director had to leave out :) or modify due to various constraints. For example in the case of Jurassic Park, some of the characters who die in the book were kept alive in the movie. Similarly in LOTR, so many things from JRR Tolkien’s classics have been left out. It can’t really be helped, I guess. In the case of really good books though, it usually doesnt matter. But my observation has been that the movies usually don’t match up to the books because the scope is very limited in a movie. The movie usually has its own constraints which prevent it from following the story exactly. Anyway good novels usually make good movies - good but not as good as the novel.

I recommend this book to everyone. As a parting thought, do read the book and do watch the movie too. Maybe read the book and then watch the movie. For all those people who have watched the movie but not read the book, I just want you to know one thing - Jake Brigance is a hero..but he is not the only one! The book is full of people who do the right thing irrespective of the reasons - retribution, publicity or just because its the right thing to do - and don’t bother about the consequences..because Not making a choice is in itself another choice, isn’t it?

I know this has been a very long review and thanks for reading it.