A Better Book Club

Yeah, this door would take a long time to describe.   Welcome to the Name of the Rose discussion! Buckle up your saddles, you're in for a wild ride.  1a. Eco has described the first 100 pages of the novel as a “penitential obstacle”; in terms of Dante, if you endure the purgatory of the first day (if you get all the way up Mount Purgatorio), you’ll enter Paradise.  Well, not really.  But you will be ready for the rest of the book.  He’s training you as a reader. Did you feel that 100 pages like the purgatory he planed?  1b.Adso is with William because his father wants him kept out of trouble and out of the way of the fighting, and also (unstated) so that Adso doesn’t become a hostage.  Adso’s father is nobleman fighting for the emperor; therefore, our naive and earnest narrator would be a valuable tool in the hands of his father’s enemies.  Adso is represented as an old man recalling events of many years ago. Does he seem to be a reliable nar...

The Origin Story: While Lisa Genova was pursuing her PhD in neuroscience at Harvard University, her grandmother was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Genova was able to understand the science of her grandmother’s diagnosis, but she had a hard time imagining what her grandmother actually felt, what she was going through. Through this insightful book, readers are able to imagine what it’s like to live with the disease. 1. When Alice becomes disoriented in Harvard Square, a place she's visited daily for twenty-five years, why doesn't she tell John? Is she too afraid to face a possible illness, worried about his possible reaction, or some other reason? 2. After first learning she has Alzheimer's disease, "the sound of her name penetrated her every cell and seemed to scatter her molecules beyond the boundaries of her own skin. She watched herself from the far corner of the room" (pg. 70). What do you think of Alice's reaction to the diagnosis? Why does...

1. What sort of social and cultural setting does the Tallis house create for the novel? What is the mood of the house, as described in chapter 12? What emotions and impulses are being acted upon or repressed by its inhabitants? How does the careful attention to detail affect the pace of Part One, and what is the effect of the acceleration of plot events as it nears its end? 2. A passion for order, a lively imagination, and a desire for attention seem to be Briony's strongest traits. In what ways is she still a child? Is her narcissism—her inability to see things from any point of view but her own—unusual in a thirteen-year-old? Why does the scene she witnesses at the fountain change her whole perspective on writing? What is the significance of the passage in which she realizes she needs to work from the idea that "other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value" [p. 38]? Do her actions be...

Is Pablo opposed to blowing the bridge because he is a coward, as Pilar says, or is Pablo, himself, correct when he says he "has a tactical sense"? Why does Jordan agree with Pablo's reference to "the seriousness of this" (p. 54)? Is Agustín correct when he calls Pablo "very smart" (p. 94)?   Was the communist effort to eliminate God successful? What does Anselmo's view of killing suggest about the limitations of dogma? What does he mean when he says of the bridge sentries, "It is only orders that come between us" (pp. 192-193)? What is implied when Anselmo says soldiers should atone and cleanse themselves after the war? The book begins and ends with the same image of Robert Jordan lying on the forest floor. Some argue that this establishes an underlying circularity in the book. In what ways might the book be circular? It's become increasingly popular for feminist scholars to hate on Hemingway for creating shallow, formulaic, an...