Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro

NOTE: At our discussion, one member who has an Alexa told us her mother (95 years old) said to Alexa, "Alexa, you are a good girl." Alexa replied, "I am a good AI."

Characters

Klara Rosa Manager   Chrissie Arthur – mother Josie Sal – deceased daughter Paul – father Melanie Housekeeper   Rick – Josie’s best friend Miss Helen – mother   Vance – Atlas Brookings   Mr. Henry Calpaldi – artist, making “portrait” of Josie   The Sun   Cootings Machine – pollution

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the hardback edition.

1.       What did you think about the “Interaction Meeting” on page 85?  Did you think Klara seemed better adjusted than the teens?  What about the threat of violence toward Klara?

2.       When Klara looked at things, why was everything always divided up into boxes? When Klara was watching the Interaction Meeting, “the room’s space was divided into twenty-four boxes – arranged in two tiers” (page 77).  Later, when she looked at the Mother, “the whole section of the room had become partitioned, her narrow eyes repeated in box after box” (page 186).

3.       What did you think happened to Sal?  When she died Chrissie and Paul had a bereavement doll made, not a replacement like they are doing for Josie.  

4.       Mr. Calpaldi is asking Klara to “become” Josie (page 207) if something happens to her.  He believes that “science has now proved beyond doubt there nothing unique” about Josie (page 221).  How could people start to believe that?

5.       Why do you think Chrissie visits Miss Helen?  What would they have in common?

6.       Did you think the AFs had feelings?  When Josie was meeting with the others, Klara “feared the interaction meeting might place shadows over our friendship” (page 84).  Also, how do you explain Klara willingness to harm herself to ruin a Cootings Machine in hopes of the Sun curing Josie?

7.       What trade-offs did the parents have to make to have their child be “lifted?”  Chrissie told Klara she wanted Josie to “have a good life.”  She said, “I called it, and now Josie’s sick.  Because of what I decided” (page 211). 

8.       Did having Klara as the narrator and seeing things through her eyes give you any new perspectives?   She referred to things common in our world by different names, for example: high-rank clothes, staring at oblong, the quick coffee, oblong tutors.   Again, did this make you see things differently than we currently do?

9.       Mr. Calpaldi is making a “portrait” of Josie that he wants Klara to inhabit if something happens to Josie.  Can you imagine that working for Chrissie?

10.   How did the Sun heal Josie?  What was the “special nourishment” (page 285)?

11.   It wasn’t until the end of the book that we read the words “genetic editing” (page 243).  Did you suspect that was what was happening?

12.   When everyone was in the city and they were going to the theater, a woman came up to them and asked if “the machine” was going into the theater.  She later said, “First they take the jobs.  Then they take the seats at the theater” (page 238).  Do you think this is a natural reaction to having AFs among us?

13.   At the end of the novel, Mr. Calpaldi said there was “growing and widespread concern about AFs” (page 293).  He wanted to “open” Klara and see how she was made.   The Mother said, no, that Klara deserved her “slow fade” (page 294).  Who do you think was right?

14.   At the end of the novel, when Klara was at the place for old AFs, Manager came to visit.  Klara told her about Mr. Calpaldi not thinking there was anything special in people, but Klara said, “There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie.  It was inside those who loved her” (page 302).  How could she have this insight?  Do you think this was one message the author wanted to convey?

15.   On the last page, why did Manager walk with a limp, similar to Josie’s?

16.   Discuss your reading experience.  Did you emphasize with Klara and start to think of her as a person? 

17.   Do you think a teenager  or young adult would relate differently to this book than a senior citizen?

18.   This book was #10 on Amazon’s top 20 books of 2021 and included in The New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of the Year.  Why did it receive such recognition?

Petey, by Ben Mikaelsen

 

Characters
Warm Springs Insane Asylum - 1922 Warm Springs, Montana	Bozeman Nursing Home - 1977 Bozeman, Montana
Petey Corbin – 2 years old when given up by parents, cerebral palsy   Calvin Anders – “Ike”   Esteban – started working in 1927, one of first to recognize Petey’s intelligence   Patches, Sally, William, Cloud, Blackie - mice   Joe – attendant – left in 1937 – former railroad worker   Cassie Graber – nurse Alex – husband serving in the military Lisa – daughter 1945 – Cassie left to join Alex   Owen Marsh – attendant, 1965 - 1973 - retired rancher	Petey – 55 when moved here   Trevor Ladd – 1990 Parents   Kenny, String, Bud – bullies   Shawna – student, became friends with Trevor and Petey   Sissy Michael -nurse   Calvin Anders Boyd Hanson – Calvin’s volunteer advocate   Mr. Hendrick – administrator at home   Owen Marsh

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the 2010 edition of the paperback book.

1.       Cassie noticed that Calvin was in better spirits when with Petey.  She said to Petey, “What Calvin needs in life is purpose.  All people need purpose. Would you let Calvin be responsible for taking care of you?” (page 99).  This greatly helped Calvin, but what about Petey?  Was it fair for her to help Calvin, but not think about Petey?

2.       How did you like the part of the story when Petey fed the mice and they became his pets?

3.       When Petey had the flu and pneumonia, Joe said to the doctor “This child is no idiot” but the doctor disagreed (page 74).   In 1965, Owen Marsh thought the same thing about Petey (page 118).  Why could the people who cared for Petey know he was normal mentally, but the medical doctors could not?

4.       When Owen got to know Petey in 1965-1973, he thought Petey “loved life more than any human Owen had ever met” (page 135).   How is that possible?

5.       Likewise, many years later Sissy Michael told Trevor that “Petey has a capacity for happiness that nobody completely understands” (page 155).  What do you think his secret was?

6.       How was Petey able to be so insightful?  For example, he knew something was troubling Trevor and also that Trevor had been watching him.

7.       Trevor was only a teenager. How was he able to relate to well with Petey?

8.       When Trevor took Petey to the movies and people stared, Trevor eventually realized that “Maybe people aren’t really mean – it’s just that they don’t understand” (page 227).  Do you think this is an accurate statement?

9.       This book was first published in 1998.  On page 42 the author used the word “retarded” to describe Calvin.  This word currently is not used.  What might be an alternative that better describes Calvin?

10.   This book is written for 8–12-year-olds.  How do you think they would understand and feel about this book?

11.   Given the time when this story place, could anything different have happened to Petey?

12.   Were you glad you read this book?  What was your favorite part?

The Secrets We Kept, by Lara Prescott

 

East

West

Olga Vsevolodovna Ivinskaya (Olya) – incarcerated 3 years, after that became Pasternak’s business emissary Ira – daughter Mitya – son Mother   Boris Pasternak (Borya) 1958 – Awarded the Nobel Prize, forced to turn it down 1989 – Re-awarded Nobel Prize Zinaida - wife   Lubyanka: Anatoli Sergeyevich Semionov – Olga’s guard   Giangiacomo Feltrinelli – Italian publisher Sergio D’Angelo – Italian literary agent

Irina Drozdova Mother – seamstress Father – arrested, died in Gulag   The Typists: Betty – former OSS Virginia – former OSS Gail Carter – engineering degree, black Kathy Norma Kelly – married Teddy, wrote spy novel   Soviet Russian Division (SR): ·       Walter Anderson – oversaw typing pool, former OSS ·       Frank Wisner -founded agency’s clandestine ops, ·       Sally Forrester – “The Swallow,” became Lenore Miller in 1958 after dismissed from SR ·       Teddy Helms – trainer, went to England to get book in original Russian ·       Henry Rennet – ruined Sally’s reputation, Sally had him killed

 

For Discussion:

Note: Page numbers are from the hardback edition.

1.       The author wrote that many people involved in intelligence came to work at the Agency after they retired from the field because, for one reason, they missed “the power that came from being a keeper of secrets” (page 59).   Can you understand this?  How do you feel when you are entrusted with a secret?

 

2.       Discuss the character of Irina.  Why did she have trouble fitting into the typing pool?  Irina wondered if her “feeling of being a constant outsider, of being more comfortable alone” was picked up by the group (page 117).

 

3.       The author wrote that “the politics of friendship are tricky at every age” (page 117).  What did the author mean by this?  How did she support this statement through the various characters in the novel?

 

4.       Were you surprised that Irina liked her new role as a carrier as much as she did?  She thought that “For the first time in my life, I felt as if I had a greater purpose, not just a job” (page 116).   Why did this work suit her?  Could you do that type of work?

 

5.       What did you think about the subplot of the relationship between Sally and Irina?  Did it add to the novel?  Did you like the ending?

 

6.       Discuss the character of Henry:

a.       In Chapter 15, why did Henry attack Sally?  Did the people in the Agency really not care about her?

b.       Who were the people at Sara’s Dry Cleaning in Washington, DC?  What happened to Henry after Sally gave them his name?

c.       Was he really a double agent?

 

7.       Did the Italian publisher fully understand how the publishing of Doctor Zhivago put Pasternak in danger?  Was it his duty to publish the novel?

 

8.       Discuss the novel, Doctor Zhivago:

a.       When Sally finally read the book in 1958, she thought that it was not a weapon, but a love story (page 302). 

b.       The Agency thought is was a weapon.  They valued it because of the “critiques of the October Revolution and its so-called subversive nature” (page 131).

c.       What do you think after reading The Secrets We Kept?

 

9.       Discuss the power of books in general:

a.       The Agency saw “books as weapons” and thought that “literature could change the course of history” (page 130).  Do you agree?

b.       Have you read any books you thought could have changed the world?  That changed you?

 

10.   Would you be willing to smuggle a banned book into America like the Russians did after the World’s Fair?

 

11.   How did you like the organization of the book?  Did it take you a while to determine that chapters were narrated by different people?  Did you like the way the author crossed our previous identities and added new ones?

 

12.   Did this book influence you to want to read Dr. Zhivago? 

Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult

 

Characters
Alex Cormier – superior court judge Josie – daughter   Matt Roystson – Josie’s boyfriend   Lacy Houghton – midwife Peter – alleged shooter Lewis – husband, economics of happiness Joey – first son, deceased   Derek Markowitz – Peter’s only friend   Patrick Ducharme – policeman Tara Frost – goddaughter Nina – friend, Tara’s mother   Dr. Guenther Frankenstein – medical examiner   Jordan McAfee – Peter’s attorney Selena – wife, investigator Sam – baby Thomas – son by first marriage, in college   Dr. Erwin Peabody – psychology professor   Dr. King Wah – forensic psychiatrist, battered woman syndrome   Diana Leven - prosecutor	Victims
	Deceased: Matt Royston - only one shot twice Mr. McCabe – math teacher Courtney Ignatio Maddie Shaw Whit Obermeyer Topher McPhee Grace Murtaugh Kaitlyn Harvey Unnamed black student Unnamed white student   19 students wounded

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the paperback edition.

1.       What were your thoughts on the dilemma faced by parents of a child who had done something terrible?  Did the author portray the reactions of Peter’s family so that you were able to sympathize with them? Is it possible to love child and hate what they did?

2.       Do you think there was anything they could or should have done differently when raising Peter?  Would anything have made a difference?

3.       Peter felt that his mother had not understood him for 17 years (page 125).  If he had felt more loved and accepted by his parents, would it have made a difference in the outcome of the story?

4.       What effect did Peter’s older brother, Joey, and his place in the family have on Peter?  Joey was killed by a drunk driver, but it also was mentioned on page 286 that he had been doing drugs.

5.       Peter told Jordan that Joey was the one who started the bullying.  When Jordan asked if Joey had stood up for Peter when he was being bullied, Peter replied, “Are you kidding?  Joey was the one to start it” (page 186).  Why would Joey do that?

6.       Most people also wanted to blame Peter’s parents for what Peter did.  Did they deserve any of the blame?  Could they have prevented what happened?

7.       What did you think about Lewis Houghton taking flowers to the graves of the victims instead of visiting Peter in jail?

8.       After Peter was arrested, a pregnant woman refused to have Lacy be her midwife. Did you understand her hesitancy?  Would you have wanted Lacy as your midwife after her son was arrested?

9.       Alex was raised by her father after her mother died when she was five.  Her father, who was also a judge, “never held her on his lap, never kissed her good night, never told her he loved her” (page 169).  How did this influence Alex’s parenting?   Was there any way she could have better connected with Josie?

10.   Discuss being popular.  Josie questioned Matt about why he tortured the less popular kids, and he replied “if there isn’t a them, there can’t be an us” (page 219).  Josie reflected, “You did what you had to, to cement your place in the pecking order.  And the best way to stay on top was to step on someone else to get there” (page 219).

11.   Were you surprised that Alex ended up with Patrick when he was the one who figured out that Josie shot Matt?  Do you think Josie would have confessed if Patrick had not figured it out? 

12.   Why do you think Josie shot him? 

13.   What did you think about the school’s reaction to bullying?  When Selena interviewed the principal, he said “We’re completely on top of it” and “if the administration intervenes, it makes it worse for the kid who’s being bullied” (page 271).  When asked on the witness stand to read what teachers were supposed to about bulling as written in the school’s two-page bully policy, Coach Spears could find not specific instructions about what to do (page 380).  What do you think schools can do about this problem?

14.   Discuss Lewis’ research into happiness.   It seems his findings evolved as the story progressed:

a.       To improve your reality, lower your expectations (page 28)

b.       Happiness equals reality divided by expectation (page 129)

c.       Expectation divided by reality equals hope (page 131)

How do these findings relate to the characters in the novel?  Who was happy?

 

15.   How well did the author portray the various feelings and emotions of the characters?  Did reading this book lead you to think about anything differently?  Did you gain any insights that you had not thought about before?

The Paris Library, by Janet Skeslien Charles

 

Characters/People
Paris 1939 – 1944	Froid, Montana 1983 – 1988
Odile Souchet Remy – twin brother Papa Maman – Hortense   Eugenie – affair with Papa, nurse for Maman   Paul – policeman working with Papa   Aunt Cora – abandoned by Maman and sent home Uncle Lionel – divorced to marry mistress   American Library – staff: Miss Dorothy Reeder – Directress of Library, American Mrs. Turnbull – cataloger Boris Netchaeff – head librarian, Franco-Russian Mademoiselle Frikart – secretary, French-Swiss Miss Wedd – bookkeeper, British, arrested and sent to camp in France Peter Oustinoff – shelver, American Helen Fickweiler – reference librarian, American Muriel Joubert “Bitsi” – children’s librarian   Library Patrons: Mr. Pryce-Jones – retired English diplomat Countess Clara de Chambrun – trustee, author, Directress after Reeder Professor Cohen Geoffrey du Nerciat – journalist Margaret – English, daughter Christina   Felix – Nazi soldier dating Margaret   Dr. Hermann Fuchs – library director in charge of “intellectual activity”	Odile Gustafson Buck – husband, deceased Marc – son, killed in Vietnam   Lily Dad Mother -Brenda, died   Mary Louise – Lily’s friend Tiffany Ivers – mean girl in school   Robby   Eleanor Carlson – affair with father, second wife after Brenda died Sons with father – Joe and Benjy   Grandma Pearl – Eleanor’s mother

 

 

 

 

For Discussion

NOTES:               Underlined names are those of real people. 

Page numbers are from hardback edition.

 

1.       For most of the novel, there were two separate stories with the connection being Odile in both.  In the part set earlier in Paris, many of the characters were real people.  Was it important to you to know who was real and who was not?

a.       What did you think of Odile’s family, particularly the way her father treated Remy and the way her mother abandoned her sister, Aunt Cora, and sent her away after her husband divorced her?

b.       One of Odile’s jobs at the library was to write the newsletter and one of her most popular columns was to interview people and ask them what type of reader they are.    What do the books you love say about you?

c.       When she was asked why the library was sending books to the troops, she replied, “Because no other thing possesses that mystical faculty to make people see with other people’s eyes.  The Library is a bridge of books between cultures” (page 118).    Did this book, or any other, help you understand people better?  How?

d.       When Odile sent books to Remy, he told her he liked that she had written her thoughts in the margins, “How clever to write your impressions in the margins!” (page 123).  What are your thoughts about writing in the books you own?

e.       Discuss Margaret and the way her story unfolded.  Her romance with Felix started around a book.   Was she at fault for befriending him?  Was what happened to her Odile’s fault?

f.        Did Paul and Odile’s father have a choice about arresting Jewish people such as Professor Cohen?  Could you understand their reasons, especially Odile’s father who was trying to take care of his family?

g.       Was it human nature for some of the liberated Parisians to attack the women who had consorted with the Nazis?   Were they any better than the Nazis?

2.       Regarding the more current sections of the book set in Montana from 1983 -1988, what were your thoughts about those characters?  As you were reading, why did you think these sections were included in the book?  Were they necessary?

a.       After she came home from the hospital in 1984 and they were talking about her father, her mother, Brenda, told Lily, “People are awkward, they don’t always know what to do or say.  Don’t hold it against them.  You never know what’s in their hearts.”  How does this statement apply to the characters in the story?

b.       Were you surprised Lily and Mary Louise went into Odile’s house and snooped around after they got in trouble for snooping in Angel’s room? 

c.       When Lily found the letters Odile had taken from her father’s office during the war, she asked Odile if she had written them.  Odile was so hurt by this that she did not see Lily or her family for months.   Could you understand her strong reaction?

3.       One parallel in the novel was the two mistresses, both who were involved in the lives of the families.  In Paris in 1940, Eugenie nursed Hortense back to health. How was she able to show such tenderness toward her at the same time she was having an affair with her husband?

4.       In the same vein, in 1986, Eleanor married Lily’s father and constantly compared herself negatively to Brenda.  Why did the father see what was happening and intervene?  Why do you think she was so obsessed with Brenda?

5.       When you read chapter 44 about how Eleanor had nothing of her own in the house, did you think differently about her behavior?

6.       Why was everyone slipping their foot over someone else’s as a sign of affection.   For example, in Montana when Odile was going to visit her friend in Chicago and was saying goodbye, Lily slid her foot over hers (top of page 260).  Have you ever heard of this before?

7.       Discuss your reading experience.   Did you like the way the story went back and forth in time?  When you finished the book, what did you think about the most? 

The Vanishing Half, by Brit Bennett

 

Characters
Mallard	Desiree		Stella
Decuir – founding family, 1848   Adele Decuir Vignes -mother Leon - father, killed by white men	Sam Winston – husband, abusive Jude – daughter (see below)   Early Jones – hunted missing people   Lou’s Egg House		Blake Sanders – husband Kennedy – daughter (see below)   Reginald and Loretta Walker – black family moved into Palace Estates Cindy - daughter
Jude Winston		Kennedy Sanders
Reese Carter - boyfriend   Barry – Reese’s friend, high school teacher and drag queen		Franz – boyfriend   Played Charity Harris in soap opera, Pacific Cove   Became successful real estate agent

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the hardback edition.

1.       The twins witnessed their father being killed and then were forced to leave school to work after 10^th grade?  How did these two events change their lives?  Was it fair of their mother to insist they leave school?  Did she have a choice?   Would Stella have changed her race if she had been able to finish school and go to college?

2.       Were you surprised that Stella spoke up at the Home Owner’s Association meeting against the Walkers moving in?  Why then did she almost become friends with Loretta?

3.       What motivated Stella to get her GED and then go on to college and eventually teach?   How hard do you think it was for Blake to suddenly have a wife different than from what he expected?

4.       How do you think he would have reacted if he had found out Stella was technically considered to be an African American?

5.       Do you think the fact that Blake had a black doll, Jimbo, when he was young that his dad destroyed one day would have made a difference in how he would react to the news?

6.       Why do you think Jude felt compelled to tell Kennedy about her heritage?  Why couldn’t she just leave it alone?

7.       In her thirties, Kennedy began to feel that “Her whole life, in fact, had been a gift of good fortune – she had been given whiteness” and “a bounty of gifts she hadn’t deserved” (page 299).   Could you understand why she felt this way?

8.       Did you gain any insight into acting?  Kennedy realized that “she became new each time she stepped under the lights” (page 246).   Her drama teacher told her, “True acting meant becoming invisible so that only the character shone through” (page 267).  Have you seen any movies or plays where you felt the actors ceased to exist as their own self?

9.       Leaving seems to be one of the themes in the book.  For example, both girls left Mallard, Stella permanently; Kennedy left for a year and traveled; Early’s parents left him when he was young.  How did leaving, returning or staying affect the characters’ lives?

10.   In an interview, Brit Bennett said that one of the questions in the novel is what makes us who we are?  Do we define ourselves or do others define us?

11.   In the interview she asked what race really is.   Does it require participation of others to confirm what we think or how we identify ourselves?

12.   How hard is it to redefine yourself, for example to start to think about yourself as someone who exercises as opposed to a couch potato?   How hard do you think it was for Stella to redefine herself?

13.   Did you like the organization of the book, bouncing back and forth between 1968 and 1978 and then beyond?