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 Other:
1. What explains John William's retreat from civilization into the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest? What theories does Neil Countryman put forth? Are they convincing?
2. Discuss John's mantra, "No escape from the unhappiness machine." What does he mean?
3. How does Neil view his friend John early on? Does he admire him...think him foolish...idealistic...what?
4. Neil eventually senses John's troubled psyche and watches him descend into something akin to the early "hominids [he'd] read about in Introduction to Physical Anthropology." Neil goes on to say that "anyone with the poor luck to come across [John] could not be blamed for assuming he'd gone comically mad, or maybe dangerously mad." Yet Neil never calls John's father, and he even conspires with John in his dangerous plan. What responsibility does Neil have toward John...or toward John's father? To what degree is Neil at fault for the ensuing tragedy? Eventually, when Neil explains his failure to get help for John, do his explanations sound convincing?
5. What about the fact that the authorities fail to investigate Neil's role in John's disappearance or the fact that Neil stands to inherit John's fortune? Do you find that plausible?
6. How does Guterson portray the Pacific Northwest's wilderness. Does he present its dangers, its allures, its beauty?
7. Who in this book do you find most sympathetic?
8. Have you read Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, which is based on the true life tragedy of Christopher McCandless's death in the wilderness. If so, how are these two works similar or different? Do you prefer one over the other?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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