My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante

 

Characters
Friends and families	Others
Lila Cerullo Rino – older brother, shoemaker Rino – Lila’s son in Prologue   Elena Greco   Stefano Carracci – runs family grocery store, married Lila Don Achille– father, murdered Alfonso – high school student with Elena Pinuccia - sister   Carmela Peluso Pasquale – brother, construction worker Alfredo – Father, blamed Don Achille for his failures, arrested for his murder   Enzo Scanno   Nino Sarratore – went to Ischia with family Donato – father, poet, affair with Melina, tried to seduce (assault) Elena Lidia – mother, tormented by Melina Marisa – sister, friend of Lila and Elena   Marcello and Michele Solara – brothers   Gino – high school student, son of pharmacist   Antonia Cappucio Melina – mother, considered a mad woman, in love with Donato Sarratore, waged war against his wife, Lidia, to win Donato Ada - sister	Maestra Oliviero – teacher, discovered that Lila knew things   Maestro Ferraro – teacher and librarian   The Blue Fairy – Lila’s story, given to Maestra Oliviero, never returned or commented on   Nella Incardo – Maestra Oliverio’s cousin who lived in Ischia

NOTE:  Since the characters are listed by family at the beginning of the book, I have listed them by the names of the children who were friends with Lila and Elena.  The page numbers are from the paperback edition.

1. In the Prologue, Lila told Elena about 30 years prior that she wanted to “disappear without leaving a trace” (page 20).   Why do you think she wanted to do that?
2. What was Lila’s allure to Elena even though she did not always like her? Why was she fascinated with her to the point of trying to imitate her?  After it was revealed that Lila could read and do math better than anyone in the room, Elena said, “I devoted myself to studying and to many things that were difficult, alien to me, just so I could keep pace with that terrible, dazzling girl” (page 47).
3. What did you think happened to Lila and Elena’s dolls after they were thrown down the grate into the cellar?  Why did Don Achille give them money?
4. From when she was six, Elena felt that her mother did not like her (page 44).  But when Elena did not pass the exam to move on to the next grade and her father refused to pay for any  private lessons, her mother encouraged her to study on her own and told her, “Nowhere is it written that you can’t do it” (page 105).  Were you surprised at her mother’s encouragement?  Why did she do so?
5. What were Lila’s episodes of “dissolving margins” (page 89)?
6. What was the importance of the shoes made by Lila and Rino and why did they cause such a family disturbance?  Why was their father so mad when he found out about them?
7. On page 190, Lila asked Elena, “Is there something wrong with me?...I make people do the wrong thing.”  Also, on page 143, Elena had the realization, “…it slowly became clear to not only me, who had been observing her since elementary school, but to everyone, that an essence not only seductive but dangerous emanated from Lila.”   How did people relate to Lila and were they correct in this assessment?
8. There were a few things I did not understand.  Did you??
1. On page 329 Lila wrote Elena that a copper pot on the wall of her kitchen had spontaneously exploded.
2. On page 231 Elena remembered that four years earlier Lila “had placed the blood that spurted from the neck of Don Achille when he was stabbed” on the copper pots.
9. Discuss Lila and Elena’s friendship.  Was it strong?  Why was it strong?
10. The blurb on the front of the 2015 edition from the New York Times Book Review is, “One of the great novelists of our time.”  Do you agree?

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson

 

Characters
San Piedro Island – Residents	Court and Law Officials
Kabuo Miyamoto Hatsue – wife   Carl Heine Susan Marie – wife Carl Sr. – father, deceased Etta – mother   Ishmael Chambers – reporter, owned newspaper Arthur – father, started newspaper   Ole Jurgensen – bought land from Etta	Judge Llewellyn Fielding Alvin Hooks – prosecutor Nels Gudmundsson – defense attorney   Art Moran – sheriff Abel Martinson – deputy   Horace Whaley - coroner
March 29, 1942 – Japanese Internment, Kabuo and Hatsue’s families went to Manzanar Internment Camp

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1. Why did the author name the reporter Ishmael? Given that the name is so well known from Moby Dick, the author must have had a specific reason for choosing that name.
2. Was it possible for Ishmael and Hatsue to be together?
3. Did you understand the San Piedro Island citizens’ point of view regarding their Japanese neighbors after Pearl Harbor?
4. Discuss how Kabuo appeared to the jurors.  On page 155 the author described his face as having “been arranged by its wearer to suggest his war and the strength he’d mustered to face its consequences but which instead communicated haughtiness…”    Would it be possible for the jurors to separate his appearance from their verdict?
5. Kabuo “knew himself to be guilty of murder” (page 155) because of the four soldiers he killed in the war. He felt the judge and jurors should appreciate the fact that he “had forever sacrificed his tranquility in order that they might have theirs” (page 155).   Was this possible for the judge and jury to understand this? 
6. Was Etta fair to the Miyamotos?  When she sold the land, she gave them back the original amount they had paid her husband but not the profit she made.  Legally she could have kept the payments they made because they defaulted at the end.  
7. Kabuo helped Carl when his boat battery died and talked with him about buying the land.   What do you think Carl would have done if he had not died?
8. Kabuo’s training in kendo started when he was seven.  His father told him that if he studied this craft “more would be expected of him than the average person” (page 165).  Did this turn out to be true?
9. Arthur Chambers defended Japanese citizens in his newspaper and lost business because of it. He told Ishmael that “not every fact is just a fact…it’s all a kind of…balancing act.”  When Ishmael objected, Arthur replied “But which facts?  Which facts to we print, Ishmael?”  (page 188).  What did you think when you read this?
10. Why did Kubuo refuse to tell his lawyer what really happened on Carl’s boat?  Do you think he could have gotten a fair trial?  What do you think the verdict would have been if Ishmael had not come forth with the information about the storm?
11. Was it possible for Ishmael to be happy?  When he talked to his mother about his unhappiness she replied, “I can’t really understand you…you went numb, Ishmael.  And you stayed numb all these years” (page 347).  What advice would you have given him? 
12. What do you think happened to Ishmael after the story ended?

The Chaperone, Laura Moriarty

Characters
Cora Carlisle	Louise Brooks
Alan – husband Sons – Howard and Earle (twins)   Raymond Walker – Alan’s friend   Mary O’Dell – mother, gave Cora up for adoption   Viola Hammond – Cora’s friend who joined the KKK   Kaufmanns – Cora’s adoptive parents   New York Home for Friendless Girls   Joseph Schmidt – custodian, passed as Cora’s brother Greta - daughter   Children’s Aid Society – sent orphan children to the Midwest to be adopted	Myra – mother Leonard - father Siblings – June, Theo   Eddie Vincent – Sunday School teacher, molested Louise, mother knew and kept quiet   Denishaw Dance Ruth St. Dennis – “Miss Ruth” Ted Shawn – “Papa Shawn”   Floyd Smithers - luncheonette

      For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the paperback edition.

1. When Cora was in school, why was the ring toss game, graces, so important to her acceptance?  How was Mother Kaufmann so wise to understand this and also to advise Cora just to show her skill and let the other girls come to her (page 81).
2. As you were reading the beginning of the novel, what did you anticipate would happen?   What surprised you as you read further?
3. Why was Myra so eager to send Louise to New York?
4. When Louise told Cora about the abuse when she was a child, Cora at first condemned Myra for keeping it a secret.  But Louise told Cora that she, Cora, would have been among the first to gossip.  Cora recognized that she was right and that to Louise, she was a “confused, hypocritical old biddy” (page 273).  Was Cora being too hard on herself?
5. As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8-8-2020: Daisy Coleman, 23, subject of movie Audrie and Daisy, was sexually assaulted at age 14 and committed suicide in August 2020.  She and her family suffered “hostile reactions to her allegations in Maryville, MO.”  Have people’s attitudes and reactions changed any since Louise was abused?  Why or why not?
6. This novel was published in 2012 and was set in 1922, but it addressed many of the issues we are facing today in addition to how we treat victims of sexual abuse.   Did you gain any new insights?
1. Spanish flu of 1918
2. Homosexuality
3. Judging past actions by current standards (pages 11-13)
4. Alcohol/Prohibition
7. Cora and Louise went to see Shuffle Along, a musical with an all-black cast.  Cora’s godson, 50 years later, asked if she remembered seeing Josephine Baker in the show.  To Cora, the show, enjoyed with a multiracial audience, changed her views of integration (pages 167-169).  Can just one show do that?  Was that realistic?
8. Prisoners of war and civilian detainees were housed at Fort Oglethorpe, GA from 1917 to 1920.  In the novel Joseph Schmidt was sent here when he refused to kneel and kiss the American flag (page 226) even though he loved America.  Why did he refuse to do that?
9. Why didn’t the living arrangement among Cora, Alan, Raymond and Joseph ever raise suspicions?
10. Would Cora have had the courage to refuse to sign Winifred’s petition to ban contraceptives in the drugstores without having first spent time with Louise?
11. Did you know that Louise Brooks, Denishaw Dance and Eddie Vincent were real or did you find this out after reading the Acknowledgements at the end of the book?  Whenever you discovered this, how did this knowledge change your reading experience?

**Note from  Arden 8-22-2020:  After several months of not meeting, my groups are happy to be back together - outside at a pavilion, wearing masks, and social  distancing.  We plan to meet outside as long as the weather is nice, and then continue for the rest of the year online.  Stay safe and happy reading!!

 

Reading Through the 2020 Pandemic

I have talked with many avid readers during the past several months about how their reading has changed or not during these difficult times of social isolation and worry, and their responses are amazingly varied:

• Reading only cozy mysteries
• Having trouble reading at all
• Having trouble getting books since the libraries were closed
• Obsessively reading anything to escape
• Rereading childhood favorites
• Rereading favorite adult series
• Reading unread books on their shelves
• Missing book groups and conversations about the books

For a while I was not interested in fiction and looked at the nonfiction books on my shelves.  I had The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin about Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the New Age of Journalism; the second book in the Edmund Morris trilogy about TR, Theodore Rex; and Mornings on Horseback, by David McCullough (also about TR).  So, this started a month of Teddy Roosevelt, and all I had to buy was The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Colonel Roosevelt to complete Morris’ trilogy!

My book groups are resuming this month, August, after not having met since February.  We did one online discussion for those uncomfortable gathering outdoors, and that went well.  We are meeting in a pavilion in one of the local parks - social distancing, wearing masks, and having individually wrapped snacks.  Last night the weather was beautiful for the first pavilion meeting and everyone was absolutely delighted to talk about books with friends.  We are going to do the same in September, and then see what happens.  We are looking for some creative ways to connect with books besides an online meeting.  Maybe I will continue to do the discussion guides and share via email.  We could have email chats or people could meet in small groups in their neighborhoods.

I would love to hear any ideas you have about how to stay connected with books and reading friends during these difficult times!

Happy reading!!