January 2013 Book Selection
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
The Fairfax Library Book Discussion Group will
meet Thursday, January 10th at 7 p.m. in the meeting room of the Fairfax
Library to discuss our January book: One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.
Discussion questions
are below.
Here are some links
for additional background and information:
TED talk by author
Chimamanda Adachie titled, “The Danger of a
Single Story” (about 18 minutes
long)
TheMoth is
an amazing program that encourages regular people to get up and tell their
story (usually in 10 minutes or less.) They’re very compelling.
If you use iTunes you can download their podcasts. You can
also watch some of the stories on YouTube.
Beautiful time-lapse video of
an Aurora Borealis
Coming up, we have the
following titles to look forward to reading:
Please note that the next
3 meetings will be held on Tuesdays!
Thanks for reading
with us. I look forward to seeing you at the Fairfax Library.
Beth Bailey-Gates
Friends of the Fairfax
Library
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni
1. If you were to tell the story of one
amazing thing that had happened in your life, what would it be? Would it be a
memory of a gift, an experience, a person that you met, or an event that you
witnessed? What made it amazing, and how did it change your life?
2. Would the experience of reading One Amazing Thing have
been different had the narrative been from the point of view of just one
person, or if the story was told by an outside figure removed from the events
in the book?
3. If you were trapped in a similar
dangerous situation as the characters in One
Amazing Thing, how do you think you’d react? Was there an action or
behavior by a character that resonated with you?
4. Out of the nine people in the visa
office, did you identify with any in particular? Which one(s) and why?
5. Why was each character’s “one amazing
thing” remarkable?
6. The book begins and ends with Uma
Sinha, the graduate student. Why did the author choose Uma’s story to “bookend”
the novel in this way? What about Uma set her apart from the members of the
group, in your mind?
7. Which character’s story did you find
the most unexpected? Conversely, were you able to predict what was to happen in
any of the stories?
8. Refresh your memory with the stories of
the female characters in the book. Did these stories have anything in common?
9. “Apologize to a woman and she would
gain the upper hand. Mangalam knew better than to let that happen” (pg. 55).
What did you first think of Mr. Mangalam, and did this change after you learned
his story?
10. Discuss Mr. and Mrs. Pritchett. Were
you surprised, as their stories unfolded, to discover their reasons for going
to India?
11. Almost all of the characters
experience or perpetuate some kind of cultural misunderstanding. What did you
learn about some of the cultures and religions explored in the book?
12. What did you think of the book’s
ending? What do you think the group’s fate was? Why did Uma’s story end where
it did?
13. When writing of ethnicity, an author risks
stereotyping. Uma is an American Indian girl who rebels against her parents’
wishes by having a relationship with a non-Indian man. Tariq is a young
rebellious bearded Muslim, prone to violence. How does Divakaruni attempt to
flesh out these characters? Are they three dimensional, or caricatures?
14. The symbol of the
tiger crosses over between two stories in the novel. Mr. Pritchett speaks of
his boyhood remembering, “Should anyone ask him what he wanted most in life,
the boy wouldn’t hesitate. A dog, he would say-though this is not completely
true. He would prefer a tiger.”1 When he finds the kitten, “he thinks it looks
like a miniature tiger” In the next story, Malathi describes the dark secrets
of the rich which the beauty parlor girl were privy to. She states, “we knew
that to meddle in the affairs of the powerful was akin to riding the proverbial
tiger”. What does Divakaruni’s use of the Tiger represent?
15. One Amazing Thing is a
novel with an open ending. How did this affect your reading of the book? As a
reader, did you choose to create your own ending?
16. The stories shared by the
characters show how easy it is to divert young lives into unforeseen and
restrictive channels, and how hard it is for people to realize their early
dreams.. Do you think this is true for most people?
17.
In One Amazing Thing, the different characters respond in very different
ways to being trapped in a dangerous situation that is out of their control.
Can you describe some of these responses? What kinds of people seem to respond
most positively in such circumstances? What kinds of people respond most
negatively? Are there mental habits we can learn that would allow us to deal
better with such circumstances, should they occur in our lives? What do you
have in your pockets or purse now that would help in a survival situation?
18.
Language is an important theme in the book. Jiang surprises her granddaughter,
Lily, by speaking English to tell her story. Why would she hide the fact that
she speaks English in an American city from even her family? Malathi speaks
English but asks Mangalam to translate from her native Tamil, but warns him
that she’ll know if he changes her story. Uma is reading Chaucer’s tales which
are written in Middle English, a language that bridges modern English with Old
English. How does language identify people? Is it helpful or even important to
be multi-lingual?
19.
There are several stories in the book about love and marriage. Do any of the
characters marry for love? What are the reasons people get married? Should you
get married if you love someone? Are there any stories of unrequited love?
Malathi says she would rather be a bride maker rather than a bride. Mrs.
Pritchett said, “She’s ready to take a little risk, to follow the yellow brick
road into romance and a house on a hill with all-white carpeting” (182). Was
the young Vivienne (Mrs. Pritchett) making the right decision? Mangalam keeps a
photo of his wife on his desk because his employers have told him that “It
would make the Americans who came to the office feel more comfortable [ . . .]
since Americans believed that the presence of a smiling family on a man’s table
was proof of his moral stability” Do you believe this to be true?
20.
Why did the author choose to have some of the character’s “amazing” stories
told in the third person?
