Reading Group Discussion Questions - Helpful or Not?

The publishers of many current novels hope to be chosen by the thousands of reading groups across the United States and elsewhere. They promote the novels to groups with "Readers' Guides" (usually in the back of the book) that include interviews with, or special messages from, authors, as well as with discussion questions. If I pick up one of these novels, I enjoy reading the material from or about the author, but I often find the discussion questions simplistic, even inane. To be fair, the questions are occasionally helpful, thoughtful and provocative...but not usually, in my experience. I don't know if the questions are written by the authors or by someone in the publishers' offices. I can't decide if the publishers (and/or authors) are condescending to their readers, or if my opinion about the discussion questions is the minority one. As I wrote about on 1/26/10, I have been in a wonderful reading group myself for 35 years, and I don't remember our ever using such published discussion questions in our meetings. (In the spirit of full disclosure: my recent academic book also includes discussion questions, but the reason in that case is that the publisher and I hoped that the book would be assigned as a textbook in university classes. However, I acknowledge that it is quite possible that some readers might find those discussion questions -- written by me! -- simplistic or inane as well!)

"Rescue" Rescues and Absorbs an Exhausted Me

I wrote on 2/8/10 about "middlebrow" novels that are somewhere between serious literary fiction, on the one hand, and genre fiction/beach reads on the other. Anita Shreve is one of the masters of this type of novel; I have just read her most recent one, "Rescue" (Little, Brown, 2010), in one big gulp (perhaps 3-4 hours of almost nonstop reading). It was the perfect book for me after finishing an exhausting first week of classes, advising, and other beginning-of-the-semester duties: it grabbed and kept my attention, it "went down easy," and it distracted and refreshed me without making any demands whatsoever. It has all the qualities of most middlebrow fiction: a straightforward, easy-to-follow and somewhat dramatic (sometimes melodramatic) plot, with a couple of big crises; a likable main character; somewhat formulaic language; predictable plot turns; heart-tugging scenes; and a satisfying conclusion. I do not mean to imply that creating such fiction is easy; I know it is not. And, as I said in my 2/8/10 post, I am grateful for authors such as Shreve who have provided me reliable reading pleasure over the years. Oh, and as to what actually happens in the novel? Boy meets girl in unusual circumstances, they are very happy for a while, they have a beautiful baby girl, their serious problems separate them, boy steps up and raises the daughter into her teenage years...and then...well, I don't want to give away too much, but let's say there are some tough times but it all works out....

"The Empty Family: Stories"

Colm Toibin is becoming one of the greatest contemporary writers of fiction. I loved his novel based on Henry James' life, "The Master." I also loved, and wrote about here, coincidentally exactly a year ago on 1/28/11, his novel "Brooklyn." Now I have just finished reading his new short story collection, "The Empty Family" (Scribner, 2011). These beautiful, raw, touching, unique stories take place in Ireland, Spain, England, and the United States. I found something to admire and savor in every one of the stories. Many of them are about immigrants and temporary wayfarers in other countries than their own, and about the conflict between a person's being drawn to his roots in his home country, on the one hand, and on the other hand, his wanting or needing to live in other countries, either for work or out of a kind of desperate need to get away from home and explore new places. Toibin himself is Irish and now lives in both Dublin and New York. He is also one of the first and few leading mainstream literary writers to write about gay relationships and gay sex. He wrote in somewhat veiled terms in "The Master" about the possibility of Henry James' being gay but celibate; in this collection he writes much more explicitly about gay sex in a few of the stories. The longest story (68 pages), "The Street," is about two Pakistani men working in Barcelona, Malik and Abdul, who gradually become close and then lovers. The story is told with much sensitivity to the delicate position these men are in: they have to hide their relationship because their fellow countrymen would not understand and might ostracize them and even take away their livelihoods if they discover the affair. Malik and Abdul and their co-workers feel homesick for their country, and hardly ever go out of their Pakistani area of the city; they are under the thumb of the man who brought them over from Pakistan and who controls their jobs, housing, and freedom. So their love is a kind of beautiful if secret miracle that helps them endure everything else. This book is full of exact descriptions and piercing insights, as well as of tender understanding of the vulnerability of the characters.

The Pure Joy of Reading

Sometimes in the process of careful analysis, measured comment, and finding the right adjective to describe a novel or a character, I lose track of celebrating the pure JOY of reading. Of course analysis and comment are useful and important too. But what I want to celebrate today is the laugh-out-loud, smile-to-yourself, feeling-so-very-lucky aspect of reading. I feel so fortunate, so privileged, to have constant access to the best that literature has to offer: beautiful, sensitive, and creative use of language; compelling stories; characters that readers can relate to, care about, cheer on or boo, and learn something new from; profound insights into life and human nature; a connection with the past, present, and future of humankind; and that lovely sense of whole worlds opening up in front of one. What an abundance of joy!

Why Thomas Hardy?

For many years, starting in high school, I was very drawn to the harsh stories and stark landscapes found in the novels of Thomas Hardy. I read and re-read "Far From the Madding Crowd," "The Return of the Native," "Jude the Obscure," and, especially, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." What was it about these gloomy novels that so appealed to me? Why would a reader like me with a basically sunny disposition be so attracted to these wonderfully plotted and written but -- let's face it -- depressing stories? Well, there is that Anglophile side of me. And the world of Wessex is a fascinating one. And Hardy's characters are unforgettable. There is also Hardy's deep understanding of the lives of country people, and his unusual (for the time) understanding of women's restricted lives. The attraction was also, probably most of all, a part of my adolescent need to be acquainted with the "dark side," the side I wrote about on 9/18/10 in my post "The Luxuriantly Dark and Moody Thoughts of Youth." Perhaps it feels safe to be drawn to that dark side when one is young and feels -- despite various adolescent troubles -- protected, and even -- with the imperviousness of youth -- invincible? (I realize that adolescence is not so protected for all youth, and know that I am fortunate to have had a secure, safe, and well-loved --albeit occasionally moody -- childhood and adolescence.) Of course accessing the "dark side" through classic literature is hardly walking on the wild side! But emotionally it fulfilled some need. I haven't read any Hardy for many years now, but there is a part of me that is still mysteriously connected to the worlds he created in his novels.

StephanieVandrickReads' One Year Anniversary

It has been one year today, January 24, 2011, since I started this blog, StephanieVandrickReads. I have very much appreciated and enjoyed having this place to write about what I have been reading, about favorite authors and books, and about reading-related topics. I also appreciate very much and thank everyone who has read the blog, and those who have responded, either by commenting on the blog site itself or by contacting me by email or otherwise.

To mark this one year anniversary, I am listing here my most treasured authors, the ones I go back to and re-read over and over, the ones who give me the most sustenance, pleasure, and food for thought. I do not claim that these are necessarily the "best" authors, although many of them would in fact be on most "all-time best" lists. And there are, of course, many, many more writers whose work I have liked very much. But those on this list form the core of my love for reading; these are the authors I personally feel most connected to, and most grateful for. My life would be far poorer without them.

In no particular order, here is the "short list" of my twenty most treasured authors:

-Jane Austen
-George Eliot
-Elizabeth Gaskell
-William Thackeray
-Charlotte Bronte
-Thomas Hardy
-Edith Wharton
-Willa Cather
-Virginia Woolf
-E. M. Forster
-Elizabeth Bowen
-Barbara Pym
-Alice Munro
-William Trevor
-Carolyn Heilbrun
-Penelope Lively
-Anne Tyler
-Carol Shields
-Mary Gordon
-Gail Godwin

I dedicate this one year anniversary post to my dear friend of almost forty years, C.

"A Room with a View"

I just finished listening to a CD version of E. M. Forster’s "A Room with a View" (originally published 1908; Books on Tape, 1993). Forster is one of my all-time favorite authors, so I have read and/or listened to all of his novels several times, especially “A Passage to India,” “Howard’s End,” and “A Room with a View.” As with any great fiction, I notice new aspects, new insights, every time I read this novel. This time I was more struck than ever by Forster’s portrayal of how claustrophobically constricting the social rules lingering on from the Victorian era were, at least for those of the upper middle and upper classes, especially for women. Lucy Honeychurch, the main character, was only allowed to go to Italy under the protection of her fussy, traditional, annoying older cousin Charlotte. There, a huge (in the eyes of Lucy and Charlotte, but especially Charlotte) crisis arose when a man Lucy met there suddenly kissed her on a hill full of violets near Florence. Charlotte and Lucy felt they had to leave Florence abruptly the next day and go to meet friends in Rome; then, and after they returned to England, they kept worrying that someone would find out about the kiss, and Lucy’s reputation would be ruined. The complicating factor was that although she soon after was engaged to another man, she couldn’t quite get the man who kissed her out of her mind. Lucy and other young women of the time had so little control over their own actions, movements, and fates, and although they were very privileged in other ways, the social rules could make them feel smothered and miserable. Of course Forster’s novels are not “about” just one thing; they are all, in some way, portrayals of people’s needs both for human connection and for something transcendent in their lives.