November 2017: Nutshell by Ian McEwan

November's meeting was hosted by Hazel in Horsham. Thanks also to Hazel for sourcing the questions, which provoked plenty of lively discussion. We agreed that it's not McEwan at his best but still enjoyed the voice of the strangely sophisticated (Radio 4 loving, wine expert) foetus!

1. Discuss the idea of ‘retelling’. When did you realise that the novel was a retelling of Hamlet? Did this bring anything extra to your reading of the book?
2. ‘McEwan can be counted on to make the implausible plausible and the outrageous reasonable’ (Booklist review of Nutshell, August 2016). Do you think this statement is true in regards to Nutshell?
3. ‘I’ve no taste for comedy.’ Did you find the book funny? Did you think it was supposed to be funny?
4. ‘I’m an organ in her body, not separate from her thoughts. I’m party to what she’s about to do.’ How does McEwan use the foetus/mother relationship to drive the story forward? Do you think he uses it effectively?
5. ‘Words, as I’m beginning to appreciate, make things true.’ Discuss how McEwan explores this idea in the novel, and whether you agree with it.
6. ‘Pessimism is too easy. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions.’ Do you think the end result of the novel proves this statement? If so, why, and if not, why not?
7. Look at the narrator’s attempted ‘suicide’ alongside the start of Trudy’s labour, and discuss how McEwan uses these two events to explore the notions of control? Who do you think is really in control in the narrative: Claude, Trudy or the foetus?
8. ‘She’s sees that the crime… was not a crime at all. It’s a mistake, it always was.’ Discuss Trudy’s attempts to justify the crime.       
9. ‘This is a step into the complete freedom – if it is freedom – of a fantasy.’ (Ian McEwan in conversation with Michael W. Miller, Wall Street Journal, August 2016) How would you classify this novel? Some reviewers have classified it as a domestic thriller: would you agree?

October 2017: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

October's meeting took place in Crawley; thanks to Jane for hosting and for sourcing the questions. Most enjoyed H is for Hawk,  agreeing that it was slow to start with but the relationship between woman and hawk was really engrossing. The book also seemed to speak to everyone on some level about grief and loss.

1.    Helen has lost her father and is grieving. Where did you find yourself drawn to her in sympathy or empathy? Were there times when you found her less sympathetic? If yes, when?

2.    "The book you are reading is my story," Helen writes. "It is not a biography of Terence Hanbury White. But White is part of my story all the same. I have to write about him because he was there." (p.38) How does T.H. White's life story help the reader understand Helen's journey?

3.    Helen finds her father's photographs help her feel that something of him remains, although he has gone. Does this resonate with your experience of the grieving process? What material things have become important to you after the loss of a loved one?
4.    After living several days with her hawk in her flat, Helen observes, "I was turning into a hawk" (p85). What do you think she means?

5.    How important is human friendship to Helen as she travels through her grief?

6.    Helen describes training a hawk in close detail. Does that engage you or are other parts of the narrative equally or more important to you?

7.    Helen describes herself as 'a watcher' (p68): a characteristic she says has both positive and negative aspects. How does being visible or invisible change in significance as Helen trains Mabel?

8.    On page 129 Helen puts forward the idea that "we carry the lives we've imagined as we carry the lives we have and sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost." On the following page she quotes T. H. White: "Sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost." (p130). What is White reckoning with? What about Helen? How similar are they and what connects them, beyond training goshawks?

9.    When Mabel catches a pheasant, Helen helps her pluck the pheasant as 'unconsciously as a mother helping a child with her dinner.' (p 184) Then, as the hawk eats, she starts to cry. Is this a turning point, and if so, why?
10.  Helen was eight years old when she first read T.H. White's "The Goshawk" and initially she disliked it. How do her views on White's book evolve over time? What books have you changed your mind about over the years?

11.  This is a story of a woman grieving in a highly unusual way. It is a deeply personal story but what makes it universal? How does it speak to your own life experience?

12.  Helen describes her state of mind in close detail. On the very first page she says, "I felt odd: overtired, overwrought, unpleasantly like my brain had been removed and my skull stuffed with something like microwaved aluminium foil, dinted, charred and shorting with sparks." Where did her expression of feelings resonate with you?

13.  "Hunting with the hawk took me to the very edge of being a human," says Helen (p 195) What prevents her from going over that edge?

14.  Ultimately, Helen will stop looking after Mabel. How important is letting go of the hawk to Helen's journey?

September 2017: The Lessons by Naomi Alderman and The Secret History by Donna Tartt

This month was book club by the sea as we met in Littlehampton. Two books (because it was the summer and there is no August meeting) but also because they are linked in terms of subject matter, and on a wild, windy night the twisted university worlds made a good pairing.

1.     In the idyllic beginning it is easy to see why Richard is drawn to the group of Greek scholars. It is only after they begin to unravel that we see the sinister side of each of the characters. Do you think any one of the characters possesses true evil or is there something redeeming in everyone's character?

2.     At times Bunny, with his selfish behavior, seems devoid of a conscience, yet he is the most disturbed by the murder of the farmer. Is he more upset because he was "left out" of the group or because he feels what happened is wrong?

3.     Henry says to Richard, ". . . my life, for the most part, has been very stale and colorless. Dead, I mean. The world has always been an empty place to me. I was incapable of enjoying even the simplest things. I felt dead in everything I did. . . . But then it changed . . . The night I killed that man" (p. 463). How does Henry's reaction compare to that of the others involved in the murder(s)? Do you believe he feels remorse for what he has done?

4.     Discuss the significance of the scene in which Henry wipes his muddy hand across his shirt after throwing dirt onto Bunny's coffin at the funeral (p. 395).

5.     The author states that many people didn't sympathize with Richard. Did you find him a sympathetic character?

6.     What do you make of Richard's unrequited love for Camilla? Do you feel that she loved him in return? Or did she use his love for her as a tool to manipulate him?

7.     Do you feel the others used Richard as a pawn? If so, how?

8.     What do you feel is the significance of Julian's toast "Live forever" (p. 86)?

9.     Do you think that Julian feels he is somewhat responsible for the murder of Bunny? Is that why he doesn't turn the group in when he discovers the truth from Bunny's letter?

10.  What causes Julian to flee? Is it because of disappointment in his young protegees or in himself?

11.  While the inner circle of characters (Richard, Charles, Camilla, Henry, Francis, and the ill-fated Bunny) are the center of this tale, those on the periphery are equally important in their own ways (Judy Poovey, Cloke Rayburn, Marion, and so on). Discuss the roles of these characters.

12.  The rights for The Secret History were initially purchased by director/producer/screenwriter Alan J. Paluka (All The President's Men, The Pelican Brief), and they are currently with director Scott Hicks (Shine, Snow Falling on Cedars). What are your feelings about making the novel into a movie? Who would play the main characters if you were to cast it?

July 2017: The Power by Naomi Alderman Discussion Questions

The combination of  being the Bailey's prizewinner and Attwood's mentee made Naomi Alderman a popular choice for this month's book club, and in terms of discussion, the novel did not disappoint. With multiple narrative voices spanning three continents it was truly epic in scope.

We met in Billingshurst and it was one of the rare occasions when our meeting could take place in the garden. So keen were we to read more from this exciting author that she is included next time round, too. We are planning to read The Lessons alongside Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

Being so new, it was hard to find discussion questions online, so we made some up:

1. Why does 'the power' come in at fourteen/fifteen years of age?

2. What would happen if an author wrote a book about men having the power to electrocute to death, women?

3. Roxy witnesses the death of her mother under brutal circumstances at the outset of the story. How effective is the violence in this part of the narrative?

4. What do the letters between 'Neil' and Naomi, which bookend the text, add to the narrative construction of the novel? 

5. “They have said to you that man rules over woman as Jesus rules over the Church. But I say unto you that woman rules over man as Mary guided her infant son, with kindness and with love.”How convincing is the feminisation of faith, and Allie/Eve as its spiritual leader?

6. What does Tunde's narrative perspective add?

7. What does Margot's character offer, as a fourth narrative strand?

8. Girls who can't or won't use their power get called names: gimp, flick, flat battery, pzit (“the sound of a woman trying to make a spark and failing”). What is the significance of this?

9. What do you think of the way the rape scenes were handled?

10. How is our present 'reality' illuminated through the novel, and what, ultimately is being suggested about human nature?

Discussion was so rich, however, that we had no need to use them!

June 2017: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

April 2017: The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Power and the Glory:

1. Why has this Mexican state outlawed the practice of Catholicism? What is its argument against the religion?

2. Why is Father Jose's presence tolerated by the state? What purpose does he serve for the government? What comparisons can you make between him and the Whiskey Priest?

3. Discuss the complicated character of the whiskey priest. What keeps him from leaving for another state, one more tolerant of Catholicism? Why does he continue to minister to the peasants despite the risk to his life? How does he view those he is so determined to serve?

4. In what way is the priest tormented by his faith...or lack thereof? What is the nature of his self-doubt?

5. What do you make of the fact that many have been executed as a result of their involvement with the priest, while the priest himself flees. Is the priest's sense of guilt justified...or not?

6. Talk about the priest's nemisis—the lieutenant? What are his motives for pursuing the priest? How would you describe him—as purely evil...or a more complicated character? 

7. Follow-up to Questions #3 and #4: Graham Greene has given readers a priest who is hardly an exemplar among his peers. For what purposes would the author have created such a character—with his many failings—as the novel's hero. Why does the priest remain nameless throughout the novel?

8. Is the whiskey priest a martyr? Why does he himself not believe he is one? What does he mean when he says, "I don't think martyrs are like this"? What qualifies one as a true martyr?

9. What is the symbolic significance of the priest's misplaced Bible and other religious paraphernalia? What is symbolic about trading his clothes and donning those of a peasant?

10. Do you think Greene intended the priest to be a Christ figure? Do you see him as such? Why...or why not?

11. The culmination of the novel occurs in the jail cell. What revelation comes to the whiskey priest? What is the irony of an imprisoned body vs. the spirit?

12. How does the author portray Mexico? How does he use the setting of Mexico as an atmospheric/thematic backdrop for the novel? 

13. What do you make of the fact that in 1953, 13 years after it was published, a Vatican curia condemned the novel and asked Greene to make revisions? Apparently the Vatican took issue with the corrupted character of the whiskey priest. (Greene made no revisions.)

14. Greene's novel explores the tension between belief and nonbelief. How does the story come to grips with that dichotomy? What is the central "message"? Is it one of hope...or despair?

15. Has reading this book altered, in any way, your faith, or your understanding of faith?

March 2017: The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

February 2017: His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet

We were few on Monday, but we had a good chat about His Bloody Project – universally enjoyed, and lots of intriguing unresolved elements as a result of the 'unreliable' narrative construction, particularly around Jetta and exactly what Lachlan Broad’s relationship with Roddy’s mother had been.

Our next book is The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain.  

Next meeting is at Gill’s in Brighton on Tuesday 14^th March – hope to see lots of you there.

January 2017: Number 11 by Jonathan Coe

January's book was Number 11 by Jonathan Coe, and we met in Crawley to discuss it.

An intriguing story which provoked much animated talk, particularly of the ending and people's dissatisfaction, or otherwise, with the direction that the narrative went in.

The references to popular culture and our media-saturated world were appreciated, and the nature of the interconnected character stories; though inevitably there were preferences for different characters.

The moments of the 'menu heads' were much commented upon!

Thank you to Jane for hosting.