Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett June 2018

June 2018 selection  Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett


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.)

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