The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

Characters

Prospero the Enchanter – Hector Bowen – “died” March 1885 Celia Bowen Alexander Marco Alisdair – became assistant to Lefevre Chandresh Christophe Lefevre – theater producer Midnight Dinner guests: Mme. Ana Padva – retired Romanian prima ballerina, designed circus costumes Mr. Ethan W. Barris – engineer and architect Tara and Lainie Burgess – designed atmosphere (scents, music, lighting, curtains, etc.) Mr. A. H. – has no shadow Herr Fredrick Thiessen – clockmaker, wrote articles about circus, leader “reveurs” Le Cirque des Reves Isobel Martin – fortune teller, Marco’s girlfriend Tsukiko – contortionist, Mr. A. H.’s student, part of previous challenge Twins born opening night 1886: Winston Aidan Murray “Widget” – sees the past Penelope Aislin Murray “Poppet” – sees the future                                                                      Concord, MA 1892, 1897, 1902: Bailey Clarke Caroline – older sister

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the paperback edition.

1. At the beginning of the novel Alexander tells Marco “People see what they wish to see.  And in most cases, what they are told that they see” (page 33).   Further on when Marco is teaching Isobel a simple charm, he says, “But it won’t work if you don’t believe it will…” (page 50).  How did these two ideas influence the people who visited the circus?   Did they influence the way you read the novel?
2. Discuss the various characters.  Was anyone believable?  Were you able to understand the characters even though very few were based in reality?
3. The Burgess sisters were in charge of the atmosphere (scents, music, lighting, etc.) at the circus.  How do our senses influence our experiences?  Do you have any personal examples?
4. What happened to Tara Burgess?  Was it suicide, accident, or did someone cause her death using magic?
5. When staging shows, Chandresh is more interested in the reactions of the audience than the show itself.  He felt, “In the response of the audience, that is where the power of performance lives” (page 57).  Have you ever experienced a performance where the reactions of the audience made a difference in your experience?
6. How important is our past to our present lives?  When explaining how he reads people’s past, Widget told Bailey, “On people, the past stays on you…Some people can get rid of it but it’s still there, the events and things that pushed you to where you are now” (page 263).
7. The three chapters titles when Bailey was visiting the circus were based on the root -mancy which means a form of divination:
1. Page 136 – Oneiromancy: interpretation of dreams to tell the future
2. Page 213 – Cartomancy: fortune telling using playing cards
3. Page 251 – Ailuromancy: using the movement of cats to predict the future.

Why did the author use obscure words that most people would not understand instead of simply using the definition?

8. What was the allure of the circus for the reveurs?
9. When Bailey was walking around the circus with Widget and Poppet, he was surprised no one recognized them.  Widget responded that, “People don’t pay attention to anything unless you give them a reason to” (page 254).   Do you think this is correct?   What might we be missing because we are not paying attention?
10. At the end of the novel Mr. A. H. he told Widget about the magic in stories and words and that Widget can shape the future through stories.  He said, “There’s magic in that.  It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict…Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy” (page 505).  Have you read or heard a story that influenced you in some way?
11. Would you have gone to the circus?  More than once?
12. Did you like reading a pure fantasy?   Did the make-believe add or distract from your reading experience?

*****
First Semester Success: 2nd Edition, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available as an eBook and hard copy from amazon.com and in hard copy from wordassociation.com.   Click on the upper right link.

A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley

Characters
Cook family: Larry – dad Mother – deceased, cancer Ginny – miscarriages, husband Tyler Rose – breast cancer, husband Pete (musician), daughters Pammy and Linda Caroline – lawyer, husband Frank Clark family: Harold – father Mother – deceased, cancer Loren – stayed on farm Jess – in military, lived in Canada for 13 years	Marv Carson – banker Ken LaSalle – lawyer Henry Dodge – minister Jean Cartier – Lawyer in Macon City Eileen – Ginny’s manager at Perkins

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the paperback edition.

1. Discuss the various relationships in the novel:
1. Jess and mother – she did not try to contact him and tell him she was dying
2. Caroline and Larry and also with Ginny and Rose
3.  Ginny and Rose
4.   Jess and Ginny and then Rose 
5.   Ginny and mother – One of her mother’s friends confided in Ginny that her mother was “…afraid for you.  For the life you would live after she died.”  She also told her, “For one thing, she wanted you to have more choices.  I know she wanted you to go to college” (page 91).
6. Jess and the Cook family
7.  Rose and Pete and Ginny and Ty
8.  Larry with everyone!

2. Do you think the author’s analysis is correct about the thinking of city people “looking for the payoff in a situation rather than the pitfall” compared to farmers “looking for pitfalls, holes, drop-offs…” (page 77)?
3. There was a lot of emphasis on patience, endurance and not speaking your mind, especially with Ginny, Rose, Ty and Pete.  At a point Ginny thought, “Maybe if we had conducted out lives differently in the past, had not been so accommodating, not so malleable…” (page 147).  Was it possible for them to have been anything different?
4. What did you think of Caroline’s change of attitude about giving the farm to Ginny and Rose?  On page 21, Ginny thought Caroline, “would have seen my father’s plan as a trapdoor plunging her into a chute that would deposit her right back on the farm.”  Did Larry misunderstand her when she said “I don’t know” (page 19)?  Why did she bring the lawsuit again Ginny and Rose with Larry at the end of the novel?
5. Discuss Harold’s public appearance compared to his actual person.  For example, he kept his truck dirty so that it seemed like he was close to disaster but the engine was spotless and showed that he was doing very well.
6. Why did Harold set things up at the church supper the way he did with Jess and the Cook family seated in the middle of the room?  Afterwards Rose said to Jess, “He intended to humiliate both you and us, and to do it in public” (page 236).  Was he planning all along to embarrass them?
7. What did you think about Harold’s accident that led to his blindness?  Why did Pete empty the water tank on the fertilizer tank (page 301)?  Why Harold “jiggled the hose” (page 231)?   
8. Was Harold a friend or just a trouble-maker? 
9. Regarding Larry, Rose said to Ginny, “As long as he acts crazy, then he gets off scot-free” (page 235).  How much of his behavior was calculating and how much was real?
10. Why did Pete commit suicide?
11. What did you think when you read that Ginny was going to poison Rose?
12. Ginny did not tell Caroline of the sexual abuse by her father.  Do you think she should have confided in her?  Do you think Caroline was abused?
13. On page 323 Ginny thought about “Rose’s real third child…the one who would not be parted from her.  Her dark child, the child of her union with Daddy.”  Who was this child?
14. How would different people read this book?  For example, a younger person and a senior citizen or a farmer and someone who works in the city.
15. Were there any positive moments in the book?
16. How do you think Pammy and Linda will be as adults?
17. Why did this book win the Pulitzer Prize in 1992?

*****

First Semester Success: 2nd Edition, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available as an eBook and hard copy from amazon.com and a hard copy from wordassociation.com.   Click on the upper right link.

The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul, by Deborah Rodriguez

Characters

Yazmina Layla – younger sister Najama – baby Sunny – owns coffee shop Bashir Hadi – cook and manager Ahmet – guard Halajan – Ahmet’s mother, lives next door, works in coffee shop, widow Jack Tommy Rashif – widower, loves Halajan Candace Appleton Wakil – boyfriend Isabel Hughes – English journalist Petr – Russian Abdul Khan – drug lord

For discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1. Discuss the various characters and their actions.  For example:
1. Sunny – her decision to stay in such a dangerous place
2. Candace – staying with Wakil and justifying it by thinking she is helping him with his school.  Should she have investigated more?
3. Halajan – trying to get rid of Najama
4. Isabel – sacrificing her life for Candace
5. Yazmina – what options did she have?
   
2. What did you think of Abdul Khan labeling Americans and other Westerners as hypocrites?  He said they make money from the sale of drugs but pay mullahs to say growing poppies is against the Koran (page 105).  Can you see his point?
   
3. Candace thought that the main reason wealthy women did good deeds was to make themselves feel important and that there was more prestige helping people in foreign countries as opposed to in their own country (page 110).  Does it matter if important work is getting done?
4. Tommy’s reason for not wanting to go get Layla was because there would be too many repercussions for too many people.  Was this a valid reason?  What do you think he should have done?
5. Were you surprised at how ignorant Ahmat was regarding Yazmina’s condition?  Were you surprised at how quickly his attitude changed?
6. Bashir Hadi told Sunny that Americans are shallow because his observations of them in the coffee shop show them, “...revealing your personal problems, …expect so much,…feel that you deserve good things,…whine and moan over little things” (page 239).  Can you see how he would have this opinion?  Is his opinion valid?
7. My favorite line in the book about Ahmat, “His heart saw gray when his brain saw only black and white” (page 214).  How did this transformation happen?  Who else in the novel started to see things that way?
8. Why was the title of the book changes from “A Cup of Friendship” to the current title?  Was the change positive or negative?
9. What did you learn or take away from this book?

*****
First Semester Success: 2nd Edition, by Dr. Arden B. Hamer, is available as an eBook and hard copy from amazon.com and hard copy from wordassociation.com.   Click on the upper right link.