Sunday, October 27, 2013

The Light Between Oceans, by M. L. Stedman


Characters
Janus Rock and related people
Port Partaguese
Tom Sherbourne
Isabel “Izzy” Graysmark
Lucy Violet
 
Ed Sherbourne – Tom’s father
Cecil - brother
 
Franz Johannes Roennfeldt
 
Windward Spirit – supply boat
Ralph Addicott
Bluey Smart
Graysmark family
Bill and Violet
Hugh and Alfie – sons killed in war
 
Hannah Roennfeldt – Lucy-Grace’s mother
Septimus Potts – Hannah’s father
Gwen - sister
 
Sergeant Knuckey

For discussion:

1. Would you like to live isolated in a light house?  What about isolated but somewhere more luxurious and with less work?

2. Could you be like Izzy – not see her fiancĂ© for six months and then, after a brief honeymoon, move far away from her family and friends? 

3. Discuss the characters’ different childhood experiences and how it influences their decisions:
  • Tom – father banished his mother, experiences with death in the war
  • Septimus – sent as a young child to Western Australia alone for adoption
  • Hannah and Gwen – losing mother at young age
4. Discuss the main characters.  Can you imagine or understand their feelings and emotions?

5. Why did Bluey turn in Tom and Izzy?  

6. Why did Tom write Hannah the first letter and then send the rattle?  Do you think he knew they would eventually be discovered through the rattle?

7. Discuss Hannah’s decision to let Isabel have Lucy-Grace.  Also, discuss her decision at the end to testify in support of Tom and Isabel.  Could you do either one of these things?

8. Consider Frank’s statement to Hannah about being happy. “I choose to, I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.”   How did that influence decisions and events in the novel?

9. Why did Isabel suddenly change her mind and tell the truth when she was so close to getting Lucy back?

10. How do you think Lucy-Grace was eventually able to lead a normal childhood?  What part did Septimus play in her adjustment?

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Saturday, October 12, 2013

The Hundred Secret Senses, by Amy Tan


Characters
San Francisco – current day
Changmian - 1864
Changmian – current day
Olivia – narrator
Parents – Jack Yee and Louise Kenfield
Brothers – Kevin and Tommy
 
Kwan – half-sister
George – Kwan’s husband
Virgie – George’s cousin from Canada living with them
 
Simon Bishop – Olivia’s husband
Elza – Simon’s deceased girlfriend
 
Samantha – Olivia and Simon’s daughter
 
Bob Laguini – Louise’s 2nd husband
 
Yin people
Miss Banner
Nunumu
 
 Yiban Johnson
 
General Cape
 
Lao Lu
 
Zeng
 
Missionaries
 
 
 
 
 Big Ma – died in accident day Kwan arrived
 
Du Yun/Du Lili
Buncake – Du Lili’s deceased  daughter
 
Kwan (Pancake)
 
Andy – Boston grad student
 
 
 
 
SPOILER ALERT!  Chart at end with reincarnations

 For discussion:
NOTE:  Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1. Miss Banner learned to sense the world like a Chinese person (sight, touch, hear, smell, taste) but was never able to eliminate “her American sense of importance.”  (Chapter 3, page 49)  How did this affect Miss Banner and Nunumu?

2. A visitor found Changmian populated and vibrant one month after the Manchu soldiers set fires at the cave entrances.  Were the people real or ghosts?  If real, how did they survive?  (Chapter 22, page 339)

3. Do you think Kwan is really Olivia’s half sister or was she switched with Buncake?  (End of Chapter 17)

4. What did you think about Simon’s sterility and Elza’s pregnancy?  At the end of the book he was not sterile and the doctor’s thought the diagnosis had been a mistake.  Did you think Elza was lying or that she was pregnant by someone else?

5. What is the difference between tradition and superstition?   (Chinese tying rooster to lid of coffin to help ghost body fly away and American tales about Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy)
 
6. The Chinese and Americans had different reactions after witnessing the accident on the way to Changmian.  Kwan says that in China, the driver is always at fault, but Olivia says that “A dead pedestrian is a dead pedestrian, no matter whose fault.”     Kwan told Olivia and Simon that, “In China you always responsible for someone else, no matter what.  You get run over, this my fault…”  (Chapter 14, page 199)    Can you understand this difference in view?  What is your opinion?

7. Would you be willing to go to Changmian and live and explore like Olivia and Simon?  Would Olivia have gone if she had known the actual conditions?

8. Did Kwan and Olivia really see ghosts?   At one point Kwan pretended to see Elza but Olivia really saw her and heard her say, “Simon, wait for me.”  What alternative explanations are there?  (Pages 105, 107)

9. Do you think Kwan has been reincarnated in Samantha?

Reincarnations:
Olivia was Miss Banner Olivia; Elza was Olivia’s mother two lifetimes ago
Simon was Yiban Johnson
Kwan was Nunumu
George was Zeng