The Fairfax
Library Book Discussion Group will meet Thursday, December 14th at 7 p.m. in
the meeting room of the Fairfax Library to discuss our December book, News
of the World by Paulette Jiles.
Discussion
questions are below.
Here are some
links for additional background and information:
Short bio of Britt
Johnson – a real person
Coming up, we
have the following books to look forward to reading:
Thurs. Jan 11th Exit
West by Mohsin Hamid
Thurs. Feb 8th Before
the Fall by Noah Hawley
Thurs. Mar. 8th Strangers
in Their Own Land by Arlie Hochschild
(One Book/One Marin selection)
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
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
1. Discuss Captain
Jefferson Kyle Kidd’s work as a newspaper reader. What does he bring to his
audience, and what does he gain from his work besides financial compensation?
What else might “news of the world” mean in the novel?
2. Why does Kidd accept the
difficult job of returning Johanna home? What drives him to complete the job
despite the danger and obstacles?
3. Why do you think
Johanna wants to stay with her Kiowa family? What do you think she remembers of
her life before she was taken?
4. What connects Kidd to
Johanna? Why does she seem to trust him so easily?
5. What does Kidd worry may
become of Johanna once she’s returned to her family? What does he know of the
fate of other “returned captives”?
6. Doris Dillion says that
Johanna is “carried away on the flood of the world...not real and not
not-real.” She describes her as having “been through two creations” and
“forever falling.” Do you agree with her assessment? Does Johanna remain this
way through the course of the novel?
7. Discuss the various
tensions in the novel: Indians and whites; soldiers and civilizations;
America’s recent past and its unsure future. In what ways do these tensions
underlie the story of Kidd and Johanna?
8. Imagine the
perspective of Johanna’s Kiowa family. Why, do you think, they would’ve taken
her in and raise her? Why would they give her up? How do you think they felt
when they let her go?
9. Discuss the
troubling moment when Johanna wanted to scalp her fallen enemy. How did that
make you feel about her?
10. Partway through his
journey with Johanna, Kidd feels as though he was “drawn back into the stream
of being because there was once again life in his hands.” What do you think
this means? What does it tell you about Kidd’s emotional life?
11.
How does Johanna’s time with the Kiowa Indians shape her identity, for better
or worse?
12.
What kind of man is Captain Kidd? What does his willingness to return Johanna
to her family say about him?
13.
How does the author depict post-Civil War Texas? What kind of place and
landscape is it? Is the war actually over for the people Kidd and Johanna meet
along their journey?
