Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT … then take off on your own:
1. Of course we are meant to like Sophie, and we do. What characteristics does she possess that make her likeable, admirable even? What do you see as her flaws?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Discuss Bianca's theft and Sophie's willingness to take the blame for her? Why to both actions? What is it about Sophie that leads her to cling to, indeed to sacrifice herself for, Bianca? As she herself says, "I can't stop throwing away my life for Bianca. It's all I ever do."
3. Follow-up to Questions 1 and 2: In what way do Sophie and Bianca reflect the caste system of this world. To what degree is it reflective of our own: the same, somewhat better, or worse?
4. Consider the following passage about the city of Xiosphant…
The founders of that city had a valid theory of human nature, but they took it too far. That's the problem with grand social ideas in general, they break if you put too much weight on them.
A lot to unpack in those two sentences:
- What is the "valid theory" the city's founders propound, and how do they "take it too far"?
- How would you describe living in Xiosphant—the individual daily life, social structure and interactions between citizens, laws and punishments? What is the overall quality of life?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: what is meant by the passage's "grand social ideas" and why do they break? How might that statement apply to our own world's history of grand ideas: monarchy, democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, religion?
6. Overall, which city would you choose to live in (if you had to choose!)—Xiosphant or Argelo?
7. Then, of course, there are the crocodiles, which (whom?) Sophie calls the Gelet. Describe them: are you able to overcome the fact that they look like giant lobsters? Talk about the connection that Sophie develops with them and what she learns from them.
8. Humans—who hate the Gelet, see them as prey, and eat them—display the worst possible qualities of humanity. Clearly Charlie Jane Anders is offering serious social commentary. What is the author suggesting about the human race, especially our treatment of the environment and of one another? Do you consider her view overly harsh or spot on?
9. Talk about Mouth and her trials. Do you like her—initially, later, or never? In other words, does your attitude toward her change?
10. What does Mouth reveal about the planet itself—its backstory and the impact of human habitation.
m. Mouth sums up her own struggle and that of many of the book's characters: "The dead were just like the living: they all wanted something they could never have." What does she mean by that? Is that our fate as human beings: to want what we can never have? If so, what is it we want?
11. The technology keeping January's citizens alive is crumbling, but no one seems capable of dealing with change. Sound familiar?
12. The book suggests that humans can never be brought to care about the plight of those whom they find repulsive or to show concern about the damage they have caused the to the planet. Do you find this trait realistic? Or is the novel's view of humanity too dark and fatalistic?
13. By the end of the book, how do you see Sophie? In what way has she changed, grown, become wiser or stronger?
14. How do you feel about the book's ending? Does it end too abruptly for you? Or is its conclusion a logical outcome? How would you end the novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)