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 The Copper Beech:
1. Start with the beech tree, the central image of the book. How might the tree serve as a symbol for Shancarrig? Think how branches, trunk and deep roots suggest people and their lives. And how might the structure of the book itself (a series of connected stories) mimic a tree?
2. Binchy's book depicts characters who attempt to "carve" lives out of difficult situations. Whose story or stories among the 12 do you find most compelling or engaging—Maura's, Maddy's, Dr. Jims and Declan's...? Whose story is most sympathetic?
3. Point to some of the book's comedy. For instance, to what or whom does the tree carving "Gloria in Escelsis" refer to? What does its carver eventually consider adding to it?
4. Which characters find themseles altered—either in life circumstance...or in their inner emotional/psychological core? In what ways, for instance, do Foxy Dunne and Richard Hayes change?
5. Binchy uses a narrative technique called "suspended revelation," as a way to withhold and later reveal information. It allows writers to create a sense of mystery and suspense. When and why does Binchy hold back...then release information from the reader?
6. Given our degree of unknowingness created by suspended revelation (see question #5), what does it suggest about our ability, in real life, to fully know an individual and his/her motivations. In what way might this make it more difficult to form judgments about people?
7. Does Binchy wrap-up loose ends by the end? Are questions answered...the jewel theft and murder?
8. Binchy presents us with individual stories. In all, however, do you come away from this work feeling you know the essence of Shancarrig and its villagers as a whole? How would you describe the village?
9. If you've read other Binchy books, how does this one compare to, say, Quentins and The Lilac Bus...or to Heart and Soul, Circle of Friends, Tara Road, or Glass Lake?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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