Scott Turow has become well-known mostly for his legal mysteries. Warner Brothers turned his first novel, Presumed Innocent into a well-received movie starring Harrison Ford. His books since then are well-liked, but none have been made into movies that I recall. IMDB says that two more have been made into T.V. movies. I haven’t seen them. Anyway, I’m impressed with his work. He doesn’t crank out his books quickly. Typically three years pass between his novels.
One L first came to prominence in 1977, shortly after Turow finished his first year at Harvard Law School (H.L.S.). One L is not a novel. It’s memoir, though he’s changed names and amalgamated some of his classmates. It covers his first year at H.L.S. The image that appears is of a group of smart but very fragile people, including Turow himself. Another theme that appears to me is a very real sense I think carried over from the 1960s of rebellion against the status quo. They want to be challenged less and nurtured more. And yet, they mostly display the intensely competitive drive they profess to despise.
I hold two views in my life that are contradictory, but I work to balance them as much as possible. First is that I am what I do. I am not what I think or feel. Though those things are important in their own way, what is important is how I affect the world. And the only way I can affect the world is how and what I do. How I think or feel is important as the motivation and driving force behind what I do. The second, somewhat contradictory, concept I hold dear is that I do what efforts I can and wish, and the results are not my responsibility. By that I mean that my efforts stand on their own and I try to remain detached, emotionally disconnected from the consequences of my actions. I am just along for the ride, albeit what could prove to be an interesting roller-coaster of a trip.
The characters Turow describes do not seem to subscribe to my outlook. They seem heavily invested emotionally in their results. Not getting the results they desire provokes incredible amounts of angst. The attach meaning to their results, not to the actions they took to get them. It’s all very illuminating in a sad way. I can’t help but think I would do better at H.L.S. than most of the people described here. Not academically. I’ve already proved to be a generally poor student due to my waxing and waning interest. Emotionally I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t be able to ride the wave better than they. But that might be my own over-confidence. Of course, my guess is that law school has changed a fair amount since then, and the student might also have much better coping skills than portrayed here. In addition, Turow and/or his editors and publishers might have made quite an effort to highlight the mental state of his fellow students to be more dramatic. While I don’t doubt that the H.L.S. was mentally and emotionally challenging, his perspective might exaggerate the effect, and his publisher might have pushed it further in order to have a more compelling book.
Title: One l
Author: Scott Turow
Publisher: Warner Books
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 276 p.
Publication date: May 1988 (originally 1977)
ISBN-10: 0-446-35170-9
Subject: Turow, Scott
Subject: Harvard Law School
Subject: Law students — Massachusetts — Biography
LC classification: KF373.T88 A33
