Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman

Characters

Eleanor Oliphant Mother Marianne – sister   Raymond Gibbons – IT Mother Sister   June Mullen – social worker   Marie Temple - therapist   Samuel Thom “Sammy” Laura – daughter Keith – son   Johnnie Lomond – singer   Co-workers: Bob – boss Janey, Loretta, Bernadette, Billy

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are for the paperback edition.

1.       Do you think Eleanor’s social worker, June Mullen, could or should have done more?

 

2.       Did you like the author’s design of giving hints about Eleanor’s story throughout the first 161 pages?  For example:

a.       Page 29: “It was hardly surprising that my mother had become institutionalized…”

b.       Page 40, after Sammy had fallen: “I started to dial 999, and then a memory punched me full in the face.  I couldn’t do it again…”

c.       Page 48, June Mullen asked Eleanor, “You’re still of the view that you don’t want to know anything else about the incident…”

d.       Page 135: “I had no one, and it was futile to wish it were otherwise. After all, it was not more than I deserved.”

e.       Page 148 when Laura was brushing out Eleanor’s hair in the salon: “A thought kept nudging me…me, brushing someone else’s hair?  Yes, someone smaller than me…”

 

3.       What did you think about Eleanor’s observation of fast food: “I wondered why humans would willingly queue at a counter to request processed food, then carry it to a table which was not even set, and then eat it from the paper?  Afterward, despite having paid for it, the customers themselves are responsible for clearing away the detritus. Very strange” (page 123).

4.       Discuss Eleanor’s progress through therapy with Marie Temple.  Would the same therapy have been successful earlier in her life?

 

5.       As Eleanor more and more entered the world, what did you think about her observations?  Which surprised you?  Which did you think are really true and insightful or totally wrong?  Some examples are:

a.       Page 125, regarding tattoos: “How marvelous to be able to read someone’s skin.

b.       Page 161: “I realized that such small gestures…could mean so much.”

c.       Page 144, after exchanging texts with Raymond: “I fear for our nations’ standard of literacy.”

d.       Page 193: “Being feminine apparently meant taking an eternity to do anything, and involved quite a bit of advanced planning.”

e.       Page 197: “It takes a long time to learn to live with loss, assuming you ever manage it.”

f.        Page 198: “I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little.”

g.       Page 266: “I realized what I felt…happy.  It was such a strange, unusual feeling – light, calm, as though I’d swallowed sunshine.”

h.       Page 307 (for us in this time of wearing masks): “Your voice changes when you’re smiling, it alters the sound somehow.”

 

6.       Discuss your reading experience.  Did you like the book?  Did you enjoy reading it?

 

7.       The story is going to be made into a movie.  Do you think the story will be easily adaptable to a movie format?

*****

First Semester Success, 2nd edition, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available at amazon.com and wordassociation.com.

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

 

Characters

Theodore Decker Audrey – mother Larry – father Xandra – Larry’s girlfriend in Las Vegas   Welty Blackwell Pippa - niece James Hobart – Hobie Aunt Margaret Blackwell Pierce – Pippa’s aunt, took her to Texas   Barbour family: Parents Andy – Theo’s classmate and friend Platt – older brother Kitsey and Toddy – younger siblings   Tom Cable – Theo’s friend from school, got into trouble with Theo – reason Theo and mother went to museum that day   Boris – school friend in Las Vegas, meets again as an adult in New York Gyuri - driver   Lucius Reve – customer/collector   Mr. Bracegirdle - lawyer

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the hardback edition.

1.       When Theodore left Las Vegas, Xandra told him he was more like his father than he knew (page 370).  Did you see any resemblance at that point in the novel?

 

2.       If you have experienced deep grief, what did you think about the author’s description of Theo’s feelings, particularly pages 86 – 87 where she wrote of Theo and his mother, “I missed her so much I wanted to die: a hard, physical longing, like a craving for air underwater.”  If you have not experienced this type of grief, did the description help you understand the experience?

 

3.       After four or five days of Theo staying home at the Barbours, Mrs. Barbour told him to go back to school and said, “…keeping busy is the only thing in the world that’ll make you feel better” (page 89).  Was this good advice?

 

4.       At the school, Theo worked with a social worker, the school counselor and a psychiatrist as well as concerning teachers.  Was there any way they could have helped him that they did not do?

5.       Even though he knew his father’s death was not his fault, Theo felt, “on a bone-deep, irrational, completely unshakable level I also knew that it was” (page 393).  Why did he feel this way?

 

6.       Likewise, Kitsey felt guilty over Andy and her father’s death because she was the better sailor and did not go to help her father.  Should she feel guilty?

 

7.       Why did Kitsey become engaged to Theo even though it seemed she was in love with Tom Cable?  Why were the Barbours so tolerant of Theo, thinking the marriage was still going to happen after he traveled the world for close to a year at the end of the novel buying back to art forgeries he sold?

 

8.       Hobie felt that Welty knew what he was doing when he gave Theo the ring (and painting which Hobie did not know about).  Why did Welty give those things to Theo after the explosion?

 

9.       Given that Hobie was making such good reproductions, was he totally blameless in the scheme Theo was running selling them as authentic?

 

10.   Given the time we are living in where so many businesses are in danger of closing, did you understand Hobie feelings about patronizing businesses to help them stay solvent?  Pippa texted Theo, “he only goes places where he feels sorry for the owners!  Because he is scared they will go out of business and then he will feel guilty” (page 396).

 

11.   Theo and Boris’ drug use was a theme throughout the novel. Do you think their addiction was accurately described?  Did you feel any empathy for either of them?

 

12.   What part did Lucius Reeve play in the story?  How did he make the connection between Theo and The Goldfinch (page 484)?  Was his motivation to get the painting or just recover the money Theo cheated him for? 

 

13.   After reading about Hobie’s work, do you have a different view of your furniture?  For example, he explained to Theo about the damage done by years of hairspray and drawers “crammed too full with junk” (page 417).

 

14.   Hobie and Theo felt that rooms and objects had their own souls, “emanations left by time” (page 506).  Did this idea make you think about your home and possessions differently?

 

15.   On page 762 Theo comes to the realization that he and Pippa could never have survived together because they had both been through the same trauma.  Did you agree?

 

16.   On page 763 Theo reveals that he is the author of this story, hoping that Pippa will eventually read it.  How do you think she will feel if she does?

 

17.   At the end of the novel, Theo wondered what Fabritius, when he chose to paint the goldfinch chained to the perch, “was trying to tell us by his choice of tiny subject” (page 765).  What message do you think the artist was trying to show?

 

18.   Did the last five pages (“life is catastrophe” [page 767], “We can’t escape who we are” [770], “fate is cruel but maybe not random” [page 771]) give you a hopeful or negative feeling?   Why did the author end the novel that way?

 

19.   Could this book have been shorter and still be as good?  What would you eliminate?

 

20.   This novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2014.   The main criteria are that the book must be written by an American citizen and somehow deals with American life.    Was this book deserving of the honor?  Why or why not?

**

Educated, by Tara Westover

 

Westover Family

Others

Gene Westover – father Faye Westover – mother, herbalist, midwife Tony – oldest, drove trucks Tyler – PhD, wife Stefanie Shawn – wife Emily, son Peter Luke – learning disability Audrey Richard – PhD in chemistry Tara – youngest   Grandma-down-the-hill – paternal grandmother   Grandma and Grandpa-over-in-town – maternal grandparents   Aunt Angie – Faye’s sister Aunt Debbie – Faye’s sister, helped Tara get passport

Judy - midwife   Charles – Tara’s first friend from outside world   Church Bishop at BYU   Nick (real name) – boyfriend, broke up with him after Shawn and Emily’s wedding   Roommates 2nd semester BYU: Robin – helpful to Tara Jenni   Dr. Kerry – professor of Jewish history at BYU, helped Tara get into Cambridge   Dr. Jonathan Steinberg – research advisor at Cambridge

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the hardcopy edition of the book.

1. Why did Tara’s parents continually take Shawn’s side and not believe what Tara was telling them about his actions?  Did they really understand what he was doing to both Audrey and then Tara?
2. What was different about Tara that she was able to get away but Audrey was not?
3. Shawn often referred to Tara as “Our N*****” (page 179).   After she had taken an American history course and understood the derogatory meaning of this term, she asked Shawn not to call her that any more.   She wrote, “The word and the way Shawn said it hadn’t changed, only my ears were different” (pages 180-181).  What did this mean in Tara’s education?  Do you think Shawn knew the history of the word? 
4. How was Shawn able to have so much power over Tara?  On page 199 she wrote, “He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.”
5. What did you think about Shawn?  In the book, the first signs of his aggression were on page 100 when he baited the younger boys at Tara’s rehearsals, then tormented Sadie (page 109).  This escalated to full blown physical abuse of Tara, yet at one point he protected Tara from the Shear (page 140) and was the only one to stand up to the father (page 142).
6. One turning point was when Shawn had the motor cycle accident and Tara made the decision to take him to the hospital instead of home to be cared for by their mother.  She felt that after that night her father wanted her to leave.  Her reaction was to think that, “…I am not a good daughter.  I am a traitor…I am not sorry; merely ashamed” (page 147-8).  Why did she feel this way?
7. When Tara was still living at home and after Tyler left, she put his desk in her room and read all the books in the house she could not understand.  She wrote, “The skill I learned was a crucial one, the patience to read things I could not yet understand” (page 62).  How was this crucial later?  Would you have the same patience?
8. What did you think about Tara’s experiences when she went to college?  How was she able to persevere and succeed despite all the emotional changes she experienced including panic attacks (chapter 37)?
9. When meeting with her advisor at Cambridge, Dr. Steinberg, she wrote, “I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness.  Praise was poison to me” (page 240).  Why did Tara have difficulty accepting praise about her writing?
10. Discuss the role of counseling in her success.  Would it have worked earlier in her journey?
11. Nick was Tara’s boyfriend at BYU and she broke up with him a week after Shawn and Emily’s wedding without any explanation (page 227).   She wrote, “But the peak refused to give me up…The remembered world was somehow more vivid than the physical world I inhabited, and I phased between them” (page 226).  Why couldn’t she talk with Nick?  He was one of the few people identified by his real name.  How do you think he felt reading this book?
12. Given the success of Faye’s business selling Miracle Salve and other essential oils, did you understand their thinking that every bad thing was leading up to this financial success?  (page 231)
13. As time progressed, Faye got stronger.  But at the end of the book she refused to see Tara unless she would also see her father.  Why?
14. What would Faye have been if she had married someone else?
15. Discuss the role of mental illness in the story.  At one point, after Tara had been living away from the family for quite a while, Faye referred to Gene’s bipolar and “the damage his bipolar has caused to our family” (page 271).  Also, Shawn was obviously mentally ill.  On page 121 Tara wrote, “…I understood the truth of it: that Shawn hated himself far more than I ever could.”   Was there anything that could have been done for both Gene and Shawn?
16. Articles on the internet referring to interviews by her family members deny some of these events.  Who can we believe?