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?