Officer and a Spy (Harris) - Discussion Questions

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 start a discussion for An Officer and a Spy:

1. Describe the Paris of the late 19th century, with its demimonde decadence, pugnacious press, and political enmities. How well does Harris do in bring the ambience of the city to life? Are there any parallels to our current time?

2. What is the effect of France's loss of Alsace and Lorraine to the Germans? How does that set the stage for the events that occur in the novel?

3. Talk about France's anti-Semitism. How deeply does it run permeate the culture and why?

4. What made Dreyfus such a satisfying target for the French public? What does Picquart mean when he reflects, after the Dreyfus's conviction, that it is "as if all the loathing and recrimination bottled up since the defeat of 1870 has found an outlet in a single individual"?

5. Why does the military stonewall Picquart's later finding of Dreyfus's innocence? Why is is so difficult for institutions to admit to wrong doing or mistakes?

6. General Gonse asks an interesting question of Picquart: "I know your views on the Chosen Race—really, when all is said and done, what does it matter to you if one Jew stays on Devil's Island?" Exactly, Does it matter...in the larger scope of events? Why or why not?

7. What happens when institutions place their own survival above all else? Does this occur today? Do we have institutions in government, business, religion, education that are concerned with their own preservation at the expense of their integrity—that place their continued existence over what is morally right?

8. History is rife with "cover-ups"—we've seen them time and again. Why is it so difficult to follow a moral path in public life?

9. What do you think of the final scene (no spoilers here) between Picquart and Dreyfus?

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

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