Troubles (Farrell)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Troubles:

1. Why does Edward Spencer want his tenants to sign the loyalty oath to the King? Why do the tenants refuse?

2. Why does Farrell use the hotel as the setting for his novel? What is the irony behind the name of the hotel...and in what way does it serve as a metaphor?

3. What is the cause of the hotel's increasing dilapidation...and why do its residents remain? As Farrell's descriptions of the hotel began to pile up, one after the other, does it elicit in you a sense of claustrophobia?

4. One reviewer says that the "decrepitude of the Majestic offers Farrell unlimited opportunities to indulge his formidable gifts of description and wry humor." Take a few moments to pick out some passages that demonstrate those descriptive and humorous gifts. How about the Palm Court...or the Imperial Bar? The peacocks...or cats? Or the Major switching from one room to another?

5. What about Angela Spencer, Major Archer's fiancee? What do you think of her? And how 'bout that Sarah Devlin? Discuss thoroughly...and defend your answer!

6. What attitude do the Protestants take vis-a-vis Sinn Fein and the killings? How do those in the hotel view the Irish people in general?

7. What is the significance of the shooting of the Majestic's cats...and Edward's shooting his beloved dog? What do the shootings foreshadow?

8. What do you come to learn about the effects of the 1916 Easter Rebellion and disturbances at the Peace Day Parade in Dublin? Do those events and others justify the actions of Sinn Fein? Or do the actions of Sinn Fein simply encourage reprisals on the part of the British? Can revenge killing be justified—on either side?

9. Farrell incorporates news stories into his novel. What is their purpose...what do they convey? Did you enjoy the tecnhique...or find it disruptive to the flow of the narrative?

10. How does Farrell's work present colonialism. Is his presentation fair...or biased? Were the effects of colonialism always negative; were there ever benefits?

11. As a writer does Farrell create sympathy with one side of the Irish conflict over the other? Or does he portray both sides in a compassionate, although perhaps satiric (even absurd), manner. Did you find yourself sympathsizing with the Anglo-aristocracy driven out of their homes, as well as with the oppressed Irish people?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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