The Fairfax Library Book
Discussion Group will meet, Thursday, June 14th at 7 p.m. in the meeting room
of the Fairfax Library to discuss our June book, Pond by Claire-Louise
Bennett.
Discussion questions are below.
Here are some links for
additional background and information:
Coming up, we have the
following book to look forward to reading:
Thurs. July
12th The
Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
Thurs. Aug. 9th The
Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas J. Preston
Thurs. Sept.
13th Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
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
The Pond by Claire Louise Bennett
1.
As reader, how well do you feel you know the narrator of Pond. She is never
named, nor does any other voice describe her to us except for the final
chapter. What do we learn about her? Choose any, or all, of the book's 20
chapters and talk about what each tells us about her.
2.
What is the narrator doing in her cottage by the sea? She talks
about her lack of ambition and says that "real events don't make much
difference to me." Is she hiding? Escaping? If so, from what? Is she
seeking solace in solitude (.except that she interacts with others and his
wi-fi)?
3.
Think about the first
story's little girl who climbs over a wall into a garden and falls asleep,
suggesting an Alice
in Wonderland quality to the stories. What are the instances
in which the narrator finds enchantment in the smallest or most basic and
ordinary things.
4.
The stories are infused
with a sense of loss, personal and professional. How does she frame those
experiences, "the essential brutality of love," and what we come to
learn about the various episodes in her life and how they affect her?
5.
The narrator tells us that
childhood is when one should...
develop
the facility to really notice things so that, over time, and with enough
practice, one ...can experience the enriching joy of moving about in deep and
direct accordance with things." What does she mean to live in "deep
accordance with things?
Is it
possible to engage in the practice of "noticing things" in adulthood,
or in adulthood do schedules, duties, and egos take over our lives?
6.
What is the narrator's relationship with men and sex. Consider,
for instance, her attitude toward rape in the story titled, "Morning
1908."
7.
Where do you find humor in
the book? What about "Oh, Tomato Puree" or "Stir-Fry"?
8.
In "Control
Knobs" the narator wonders what it would feel like to be the last woman
alive. Referring to a such character in a novel, the narrator claims she would
like "to be undone in just the way she is being undone." What does
she mean?
9.
What are some of the
comparisons you see with Thoreau's Walden
Pond, which Bennett might be nodding to in her book's title?
(Questions by
LitLovers.)
