Three Dog Night

1. Is Martin's hostility to introduced plant species justified?
2. Is Martin more sinned against than sinning? Is he a likeable narrator?
3. Does Marin unconsciously collaborate with Felix's seduction of Lucy?
4. Are Felix's actions in any way defensible?
5. What motivates Lucy? Is it credible that she and Felix become lovers?
6. How far do you think the characters' actions are influenced by their bodies? How much does the body determine behaviour and personality?
7. What do you make of Goldsworthy's portrayal of the Warlpiri?
8. Is Felix's death heroic?
9. Does Martin murder Felix? If so, does he deserve imprisonment?
   

The Verge Practice

Discussion Questions

1. How would you characterise the relationship between Brock and Kolla?
2. Maitland introduces many more or less peripheral characters into the novel, but who nevertheless, play a considerable role. Analyse the contribution of one or more of the following characters: Suzanne Brock, George Todd, Madelaine Verge, Paul Oakley
3. Maitland's plotting talents have been noted. As one example, see if you can find the clues to the evential revelation of the way in which Charles Verge has changed his appearance. (A starting point might be p53)
4. Do you find the eventual revelation of Luz Diaz's true identity credible? Is there anything prior to the last chapter which offers the readers a clue? For instance, consider Kathy's thoughts of p72 about the similarity of the ways in which Charles Verge and Leon Desai have been brought up (by dominent mothers)
5. Would this novel havelost anything if al the episodes relating to the Crime Strategy Working Party had been deleted? Trawl through them and see for yourself.
6. Why does Kathy suddenly decide to go to Barcelona? 'This time, right or wrong, she would set the agenda.' (p267)
7. What is the significance of the book, The Complete Works of Luis Domench i Montaner?
8. Maitland wrote in the interview quoted earlier that he believes 'crime fiction often leads sthe way in dealing with issues of comtemporary life. The investigation allows the detectives to open door and probe any life, and for this reason I think the crime novel is a particularly good vehicle to explore current ideas and relationships.' How far do you think this is true of this novel in particular and of the genre in general?
   

The Secret Life of Bees

First things first: I found out what grits are. They are ground corn, made into porridge - similar to polenta. For more information, click here.

Now: the discussion questions

1. Were you surprised to learn that T. Ray used to be different, that once he truly loved Deborah? How do you think Deborah's leaving affected him? Did it shed any light on why T. Ray was so cruel and abusive to Lily?

2. Had you ever heard of "kneeling on grits"? What qualities did Lily have that allowed her to survive, endure, and eventually thrive, despite T. Ray?

3. Who is the queen bee in this story? What do the bees mean to the story? What is "the secret life of bees?"

4. Lily's relationship to her dead mother was complex, ranging from guilt to idealization, to hatred, to acceptance. What happens to a daughter when she discovers her mother once abandoned her? Is Lily right—would people generally rather die than forgive? Was it harder for Lily to forgive her mother or herself?

5. Lily grew up without her mother, but in the end she finds a house full of them. Have you ever had a mother figure in your life who wasn't your true mother? Have you ever had to leave home to find home?

6. What compelled Rosaleen to spit on the three men's shoes? What does it take for a person to stand up with conviction against brutalizing injustice? What did you like best about Rosaleen?

7. Had you ever heard of the Black Madonna? What do you think of the story surrounding the Black Madonna in the novel? How would the story be different if it had been a picture of a white Virgin Mary? Do you know women whose lives have been deepened or enriched by a connection to an empowering Divine Mother?

8. Why is it important that women come together? What did you think of the "Calendar Sisters" and the Daughters of Mary? How did being in the company of this circle of females transform Lily?

9. May built a wailing wall to help her come to terms with the pain she felt. Even though we don't have May's condition, do we also need "rituals," like wailing walls, to help us deal with our grief and suffering?

10. How would you describe Lily and Zach's relationship? What drew them together? Did you root for them to be together?

11. Project into the future. Does Lily ever see her father again? Does she become a beekeeper? A writer? What happens to Rosaleen? What happens to Lily and Zach? Who would Zach be today?

February Book - The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The blurb on the back of this book says that "Not only is it the epic love story of two people of insight and imagination seeking escape from the cant and tyranny of their age, The French Lieutenant's Woman is also a brilliantly sustained allegory of the decline of the twentieth-century passion for freedom"

Dearie me, we have had a run of them lately, haven't we? Is it just coincidence that this book is set near the Chesil Bank (see p232) or did Ian McEwan (On Chesil Beach) take his inspiration from this book? That would also account for the multiple endings and author-narration in Atonement.

Let's hope that next month is a page-turner.

(Of course, if your viewpoint differs from this, feel free to post about it!)

Here are some discussion points I have adapted from http://www.litlovers.com/guide_frenchlieut.html and some adapted from their list of generic questions http://www.litlovers.com/questions_f.htm).

1. Overall—how did you experience the book while reading it? Were you immediately drawn into the story—or did it take a while? Did the book intrigue, amuse, disturb, alienate, or irritate, you? Who skipped ahead to the ending? Who was waiting to watch the movie?
2. Charles Smithson (Fowles is playing here with James Smithson, the founder of the Smithsonian museum) is hunting fossils and meditating on Darwin's challenge to the old scientific order when he stumbles upon a new species—Sarah Woodruff. How does the idea of a new vs. old order pervade this book in terms of its characters and in terms of Fowles's reworking of fiction?
3. What is your attitude toward the book's different endings? What is Fowles trying to do? Which ending do you prefer or is there another ending you wanted to read? What endings are possible in a love story...a happy ending, a tragic ending, or boring together-forever future...or something else?
   
4. Are you willing to give up on a narrator's or writer's authority to control events of a story? Are you comfortable or uncomfortable with that idea? You might also consider Ian McEwan's Atonement—how that story also offers competing versions of "reality."
5. Freedom from societal conventions is an overriding theme in this novel. How do the each of the characters respond to the social constraints of Victorian society? How does Fowles, as an author, confront the constraints of traditional storytelling?
6. Discuss the characteristics of Charles, Tina, and Sarah. Is Charles worthy of Sarah?
7. Were there any other characters that caught your fancy?
   
8. Can you pick out a passage that strikes you as particularly profound or interesting?

Discussion Questions on Atonement

These are the questions Julie found for us on www.readinggroupguides.com:

1.  What sort of social and cultural setting does the Tallis house create for the novel?  What emotions and impulses are being acted on or repressed by its inhabitants? (For example, on page 46, Cecilia lights a cigarette as she descends the staircase, "knowing that she would not have dared had her father been home.")  

2.  A passion for order, a lively imagination, and a desire for attention seem to be Briony's strongest traits.  Why does the scene she witnesses at the fountain change her whole perspective on writing?  What is the significance of the passage in which she realises she needs to work from the idea that "other people are as real as you"? 

(On page 36, during a break in the rehearsals of her play, Briony wonders: "was everyone else really as alive as she was?  For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was?"  Then on page 40, Briony thinks to herself that "[in her stories] there did not have to be a moral.  She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive.  It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.  And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value.  That was the only moral a story needed to have.")

3.  What kind of person is Emily Tallis?  Who, if anyone, is the moral authority in this family?

4.  What symbolic role does Uncle Clem's precious vase play in the novel?  Is it significant that the vase is glued together by Cecilia, and broken finally during the war by Betty as she readies the house to accept evacuees?

5.  Why is Robbie's uncensored letter so offensive within the social context in which it is read?  (It is read first by Briony, then Cecilia, then later Briony - without Cecelia's permission - shows it to the police, her brother Leon and her mother.  It is also read by Paul Marshall).  Why is Cecilia not offended by it?  

6.  The scene in the library (page 135 - 138) is one of the most provocative and moving descriptions of sex in recent fiction. (Do you agree?  Have you read anything more 'provocative' recently?).  How does the fact that it is narrated from Robbie's point of view affect how the reader feels about what happens to him shortly afterwards?  Is it understandable that Briony, looking on, perceives this act of love as an act of violence?

7.  Why does Briony stick to her story with unwavering committment?  At what point does she develop the empathy to realise what she has done to Cecilia and Robbie?

8.  How does Leon, with his life of 'agreeable nullity' (page 103), compare with Robbie in terms of honor, intelligence and ambition?  What are the ironies inherent in the comparative situations of the three young men present - Leon, Paul Marshall, and Robbie?

9.  Lola has a critical role in the story's plot.  What are her motivations?  Why does Briony decide not to confront Lola and Paul Marshall at their wedding five years later?

10.  What aspects of Atonement make it so powerful as a war novel?  What details heighten the emotional impact in the scenes of the Dunkirk retreat and Briony's experience at the military hospital?

11.  When Robbie, Mace and Nettle reach the beach at Dunkirk, they intervene in an attack on an RAF man who has become a scapegoat for the soldiers' sense of betrayal and rage.  How does this act of group violence relate to the moral problems that war creates for soldiers, and the events Robbie feels guilty about as he falls asleep at Bray Dunes?  (On page 262, as he falls asleep, Robbie feels guilt for walking past the dismembered leg of a small boy and not giving the boy's remains a proper burial.  He also starts to feel guilty for not saving a Flemish woman and her child, though he sort of talks himself out of that guilt because he did try to save them.)

12. Is Briony's novel effective, in her own conscience, as an act of atonement?  Does the completed novel compel the reader to forgive her?

There are more questions at www. readinggroupguides.com/guides3/atonement1.asp

Atonement - Ian McEwan

This book has been described as "a symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness [which] provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose."

On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment's flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia's childhood friend. But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives - together with her precocious literary gifts - brings about a crime that will change all of their lives. Atonement follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.

I can't wait to find out if this book lives up to its amazing hype. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 13 January. See you then!

¿Abuela loca, no?

So, did you like the book?

The start of the story, set in Miami during Ana and Carlos' childhood, I found very unpleasant to read and a real struggle to get through.  

I don't know about you, but I personally did not relish reading about a family of refugees who had chosen to take a chance on a new life in America, but who were not making the most of their chance.  I thought the characters should just get over themselves.  I thought they should stop blaming each other for their unhappiness.  

The only thing that kept me reading was the fact that I had chosen this book from the CAE Catalogue, and everyone was going through this unpleasant reading experience because of me!

Repeatedly, Ana blames her grandmother Dolores for being the poison at the heart of the family.  However, while reading that first section I did not feel any sympathy for Ana or for Consuelo (especially when she got out of Dolores' way to allow her to beat Ana more thoroughly).  At that point I didn't believe that the family's unhappiness was more Dolores' fault than anyone else's.

But once I got past that section, and got to reading more about what happened before they left Cuba, I began to understand the reasons why the family were so unhappy in Miami.  

Consuelo's Lost Love

If you didn't make it all the way through the book (Natalia I'm talking to you) you might not have caught up with the fact that when she was young and astoundingly beautiful, Consuelo fell in love with a rich music student by the name of Daniel.  Daniel was the love of Consuelo's life, and when Dolores violently broke them up, incidentally ruining Daniel's music career by damaging the tendons in his hands, Consuelo decided to forget Daniel.  Instead, she turned to Pedro, a man of her own social class and approved of by Dolores.  However, Consuelo never could  forget Daniel.  She was never happy with Pedro, even in the early years of their marriage when they lived in La Habana before the revolution.

Daniel is the man Ana sees around the place in Miami, the good looking stranger who she wonders about.  (**spoiler alert**) He is, in fact, her father.  At the end of the book, Ana tries to describe what it must have been like for her mother to meet up again with the love of her life after fifteen years apart; to make love to him and become pregnant, and yet decide not to leave her husband for him.  Ana says that Consuelo had no choice but to stay with Pedro because of  Daniel's dangerous life fighting the counter-revolution.

Throughout the book, Ana describes her mother as having 'inertia' and paints her as quite a helpless person, yet it was Consuelo's decision to leave Cuba in the first place, against the revolution and knowing that they would leave at great personal cost.  So she couldn't have been completely helpless, could she?  Do you think Ana makes excuses for her mother?

An Immigrant Story

In the book notes, this story is described as an important 'immigrant story'.  By the end of the book I could understand it best in those terms.   I thought to myself that it was important to tell the stories, even the sad hopeless stories, of what happens when a country is wracked by revolution and its people are given the choice to either stay and suffer or leave and suffer somewhere else.  I appreciated that it was not the purpose of this book to say whether the revolution was right or wrong; it just showed what happened to one family in its aftermath.

Did you think of this most as a story about immigrants?  Or about child abuse?  or mothering? or a story about a political situation?

Do you think it is important to read the unhappy stories as well as the happy ones?