The Tenderness of Wolves
Stef Penney, 2006
Simon and Schuster
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416571308
Summary
Winner, Costa (Whitbread) Award
The year is 1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, a tiny isolated settlement in the Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. Laurent Jammett had been a voyageur for the Hudson Bay Company before an accident lamed him four years earlier. The same accident afforded him the little parcel of land in Dove River, land that the locals called unlucky due to the untimely death of the previous owner.
A local woman, Mrs. Ross, stumbles upon the crime scene and sees the tracks leading from the dead man's cabin north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. It is Mrs. Ross's knock on the door of the largest house in Caulfield that launches the investigation. Within hours she will regret that knock with a mother's love—for soon she makes another discovery: her seventeen-year-old son Francis has disappeared and is now considered a prime suspect.
In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the crime and to the township—Andrew Knox, Dove River's elder statesman; Thomas Sturrock, a wily American itinerant trader; Donald Moody, the clumsy young Company representative; William Parker, a half-breed Native American and trapper who was briefly detained for Jammett's murder before becoming Mrs. Ross's guide. But the question remains: do these men want to solve the crime or exploit it?
One by one, the searchers set out from Dove River following the tracks across a desolate landscape—home to only wild animals, madmen, and fugitives—variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for seventeen years, and a forgotten Native American culture before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good.
In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly weaves adventure, suspense, revelation, and humor into an exhilarating thriller; a panoramic historical romance; a gripping murder mystery; and, ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, an epic for the ages. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Edinburg, Scotland, UK
• Education—Bristol University
• Awards—Costa (Whitbread) Award
• Currently—lives in London, England
Stef Penney was born and grew up in Edinburgh. After earning a degree in philosophy and theology from Bristol University, she turned to filmmaking, studying film and TV at Bournemouth College of Art. On graduation she was selected for the Carlton Television New Writers Scheme. She is a screenwriter.
Her debut novel, The Tenderness of Wolves, won the 2006 Costa Award. She published The Invisible Ones in 2012. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Tenderness of Wolves stood out from a very strong shortlist. We felt enveloped by the snowy landscape and gripped by the beautiful writing and effortless story-telling. It is a story of love, suspense and beauty. We couldn't put it down.
Costa Award Committee
An original and readable mixture of mystery and history, with a good dollop of old-fashioned adventure.
The Times (London)
In suitable Jack London style for a setting in Canada's snowy wastes, wolves wander in and out of this suspenseful 19th-century epic, offering a leitmotif of constant unease. So begins what masquerades as a traditional murder quiz but quickly broadens out to encompass other lines of inquiry—the mystery of two long-missing young sisters, the quest for a forgotten native American culture, the twists and turns of an unusual love story. Stef Penney is from Edinburgh and claims never to have visited Canada—impressive, then, that the land of her imagination convinces.
The Guardian (UK)
An entertaining, well-constructed mystery.... sexy, suspenseful, densely plotted storytelling...a novel with far greater ambitions than your average thriller, combining as it does the themes of Conrad's Heart of Darkness with Atwood's Survival, and lashing them to a story that morphs Ian Rankin with The Mad Trapper of Rat River.
Globe and Mail (Canada)
The frigid isolation of European immigrants living on the 19th-century Canadian frontier is the setting for British author Penney's haunting debut. Seventeen-year-old Francis Ross disappears the same day his mother discovers the scalped body of his friend, fur trader Laurent Jammet, in a neighboring cabin. The murder brings newcomers to the small settlement, from inexperienced Hudson Bay Company representative Donald Moody to elderly eccentric Thomas Sturrock, who arrives searching for a mysterious archeological fragment once in Jammet's possession. Other than Francis, no real suspects emerge until half-Indian trapper William Parker is caught searching the dead man's house. Parker escapes and joins with Francis's mother to track Francis north, a journey that produces a deep if unlikely bond between them. Only when the pair reaches a distant Scandinavian settlement do both characters and reader begin to understand Francis, who arrived there days before them. Penney's absorbing, quietly convincing narrative illuminates the characters, each a kind of outcast, through whose complex viewpoints this dense, many-layered story is told.
Publishers Weekly
British filmmaker Penney sets her intriguing, well-wrought novel in a 19th-century Canadian farming community up-ended by the murder of a lone fur trapper. In the town of Dove River on the north shore of Georgian Bay, a middle-aged farmer's wife we know only as Mrs. Ross discovers the body of French trapper Laurent Jammet, scalped and with his throat cut. The leaders of the community and the all-important Hudson Bay Company men gather to make sense of the killing, which revives sore memories of teenage sisters Amy and Eve Seton, who set out on a picnic 15 years before and never returned. Mrs. Ross is particularly concerned about Jammet's murder because 17-year-old Francis, an Irish orphan she and her husband took in when he was five, has not come home from a fishing trip. Suspicion falls on the boy, who was known to frequent Jammet's cabin. Several other characters emerge with ties to the dead man, including Toronto lawyer Thomas Sturrock, who comes sniffing around for an ancient marked bone that might prove of invaluable archaeological consequence, and shady half-Indian intruder William Parker, who traded with Jammett. The first-person account of Mrs. Ross alternates with sections concerning Francis, who's being nursed by the kindly Norwegian inhabitants of Himmelvanger after collapsing with exhaustion while following the trail of Jammet's murderer. His determined mother has set out to find him; other search parties also track Francis, as well as Parker, runaways from Himmelvanger, people lost in the snow and the killer. Penney offers numerous strings to untangle, but moments of love amid the gelid wastes add some warmth to her teeming, multi-character tale. Winner of the U.K. Costa Bookof the Year award for 2006, a striking debut by a writer with tremendous command of language, setting and voice.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel is divided into four parts: Disappearance, The Fields of Heaven, The Winter Partners, and The Sickness of Long Thinking. Characterize each of these parts by what occurs within them and discuss why you think the author chose this format.
2. The people of Dove River are mostly settlers from foreign countries who have a very particular worldview rooted in their own struggle for survival. In what ways are the children in this book reflections of their parents? In what ways have they broken from their parents' examples? Does this lead to joy or sorrow? Give examples.
3. Living so rustically in such a closed society has given rise to a very particular set of rules in Dove River, such as the expectation that neighbors will make return offerings in kind when they've borrowed something. What other rules of survival—either literally or socially—are presented in this novel?
4. Francis is introduced as a mystery from his first day in Dove River: He arrives dressed as a girl for unknown reasons. Did you suspect that his relationship with Jammet was more than a friendship? Why or why not?
5. The Tenderness of Wolves is a story told from the perspective of several different characters, but Mrs. Ross's sections are the only ones written in first person. What effect does this have on your reading experience? Why do you think the author does this?
6. Mrs. Ross is always referred to formally as "Mrs. Ross," even by the narrator. What is the significance of this choice?
7. On page 154, Parker explains what the "sickness of long thinking" is to Mrs. Ross. Who in this story is suffering from the sickness of long thinking? Support your opinion with examples from the novel.
8. The author has been applauded for her ability to build suspense. Identify some of the clues she subtly drops along the way and explain how they either misdirected you or gave you hints toward solving the various mysteries of the novel.
9. Donald tries to elicit sympathy from Elizabeth for her father on page 338 by telling her, "It's only human to want an answer." Do you think this explanation satisfies her? Would it satisfy you? Why or why not? Who else in this novel is searching for answers? Does anyone find what they are looking for?
10. In contrast to most of the other relationships in this novel, Line and Espen seem to have a deep passion for one another. Were you surprised that he abandons her? Why or why not?
11. The women in this novel find themselves in situations of varying frustration and sorrow. Compare and contrast these characters: Susannah and Maria, Mrs. Ross, Ann Pretty, Line, and Elizabeth Bird. What do they have in common, and how are they different? Do you feel sympathy for any of them? Why or why not?
12. Explore the symbolism of Donald's spectacles and his near-sightedness. What does this symbol tell you about his character? What is it that he sees most clearly just before his death?
13. Do you think that Mrs. Ross really loves William Parker, or is it something else? What did you expect would happen to Mrs. Ross when she left with Parker to track down Francis?
14. The backdrop of Canada, still largely unsettled in the mid- to late 1800s, provides a hauntingly beautiful and frighteningly dangerous setting for the lives of these very different people. How does the wilderness change the characters in this novel?
15. What is the significance of the title, The Tenderness of Wolves? Relate it to the story and give examples to support your interpretation.
(Questions provided by publisher. Also, see Author Q&A on publisher website.)
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{jcomments off}Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Patrick Suskind, 1985; (trans., John E. Woods)
Random House
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375725845
Summary
An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.
In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and frest-cut wood.
Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brillance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity. (From the publisher.)
Perfume was adapted into film in 2006.
Author Bio
• Birth—March 26, 1949
• Where—Ambach, Germany
• Education—Universities of Munich and Aix-en-Provence
• Awards—has refused to receive awards
• Currently—lives in Munich, Germany
Patrick Süskind was born in Ambach, near Munich, in 1949. He studied medieval and modern history at the University of Munich. His first play, The Double Bass, was written in 1980 and became an international success. It was performed in Germany, in Switzerland, at the Edinburgh Festival, in London, and at the New Theatre in Brooklyn. His first novel, Perfume became an internationally acclaimed bestseller. He is also the author of The Pigeon and Mr. Summer's Story, and a coauthor of the enormously successful German television series Kir Royal. Mr. Süskind lives and writes in Munich. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
One of the first attractions of Patrick Suskind's remarkable fable is simply to watch the pieces of the puzzle fit together.... It is a parable of the rise and fall of Hitler and a thinly disguised anatomy of Germany's collective guilt. It mocks by implication every sort of charismatic figure from the religious guru to the rock star.... And yet Mr. Suskind's tour de force never groans beneath the weight of its meaning. Its logic is so surprising yet inevitable that it toys with our expectations at every twist and turn of its plot. Its point of view is so balanced and controlled that we are perfectly divided in our sympathy between the murderer and his victims. Even when Mr. Suskind runs out of tricks and is forced to wind up his parable of evil, he remains resourceful. We are almost sorry to see Jean-Baptiste Grenouille leave the pages of Perfume, for we have come begrudgingly to admire the perversity of his genius.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times
An astonishing performance, a masterwork of artistic conception and execution. A totally gripping page-turner.
San Francisco Chronicle
An ingenious story...about a most exotic monster.... Suspense build up steadily.
Los Angeles Times
Upon its publication last year in Germany Suskind's first novel Perfume immediately became an international best seller. Set in 18th-century France, Perfume relates the fascinating and horrifying tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a person as gifted as he was abominable. Born without a smell of his own but endowed with an extraordinary sense of smell, Grenouille becomes obsessed with procuring the perfect scent that will make him fully human. With brilliant narrative skill Suskind exposes the dark underside of the society through which Grenouille moves and explores the disquieting inner universe of this singularly possessed man. The translation is superb. Essential for literature collections. —Ulrike S. Rettig, German Dept., Wellesley Coll., Wellesley, Mass.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born in a food market that had been erected above the Cimetiere des Innocents, the "most putrid spot in the whole kingdom" [p. 4]. He barely escapes death at his birth; his mother would have let him die among the fish guts as she had her four other children. But Grenouille miraculously survives. How would you relate the circumstances of his birth to the life he grows up to live?
2. When the wet nurse refuses to keep Grenouille because he has no smell and therefore must be a "child of the devil" [p. 11], Father Terrier takes him in. But he is exasperated. He has tried to combat "the superstitious notions of the simple folk: witches and fortune-telling cards, the wearing of amulets, the evil eye, exorcisms, hocus-pocus at full moon, and all the other acts they performed" [p. 14]. In what ways can Perfume be read as a critique of the eighteenth century's conception of itself as the Age of Reason? Where else in the novel do you find rationality being overcome by baser human instincts?
3. Throughout the novel, Grenouille is likened to a tick. Why do you think Süskind chose this analogy? In what ways does Grenouille behave like a tick? What does this analogy reveal about his character that a more straightforward description would not?
4. Grenouille is born with a supernaturally developed sense of smell. He can smell the approach of a thunderstorm when there's not a cloud in the sky and wonders why there is only one word for smoke when "from minute to minute, second to second, the amalgam of hundreds of odors mixed iridescently into ever new and changing unities as the smoke rose fromthe fire" [p. 25]. He can store and synthesize thousands of odors within himself and re-create them at will. How do you interpret this extraordinary ability? Do you think such a sensitivity to odor is physically possible? Do you feel Süskind wants us to read his novel as a kind of fable or allegory? Why do you think Süskind chose to build his novel around the sense of smell instead of one of the other senses?
5. What motivates Grenouille to commit his first murder? What does he discover about himself and his destiny after he has killed the red-haired girl?
6. Do the descriptions of life in eighteenth-century France—the crowded quarters, the unsanitary conditions, the treatment of orphans, the punishment of criminals, etc.—surprise you? How are these conditions related to the ideals of enlightenment, reason, and progress that figure so prominently in eighteenth-century thinking?
7. The perfumer Baldini initially regards Grenouille with contempt. He explains, "Whatever the art or whatever the craft—and make a note of this before you go!—talent means next to nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything" [p. 74]. And yet Grenouille is able to concoct the most glorious perfumes effortlessly and with no previous experience or training. What do you think the novel as a whole conveys about the relationship between genius and convention, creativity and destruction, chaos and order?
8. The narrator remarks, "Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it" [p. 82]. Do you think this is true? Why would an odor have such power? In what ways does Grenouille use this power to his advantage?
9. Some reviewers have claimed that the Süskind's writing in Perfume is "verbose and theatrical, " while others have described it as "sensuous and supple." Clearly, the writing is more extravagantly imaginative than the pared down minimalism of much recent American fiction. How do you respond to Süskind's prose? How do you respond to the critical reactions outlined above?
10. Grenouille is introduced as "one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages" [p. 3]. Does Süskind manage to make him a sympathetic character, in spite of his murders and obsessions? Or do you find him wholly repellent? How might you explain Grenouille's actions? To what extent do his experiences shape his behavior? Do you think he is inherently evil?
11. When Grenouille emerges from his self-imposed seven-year exile, he is brought to the attention of the marquis de La Taillade-Espinasse, whose theory that "life could develop only at a certain distance from the earth, since the earth itself constantly emits a corrupting gas, a so-called fluidum letale, which lames vital energies and sooner or later totally extinguishes them" [pp. 139 - 140] seems to explain Grenouille's sad condition. This theory also contends that all living creatures therefore "endeavor to distance themselves from the earth by growing" upwards and away from the earth [p. 140]. What attitudes and beliefs is Süskind satirizing through the character of Taillade-Espinasse?
12. Grenouille becomes, toward the end of the novel, a kind of olfactory vampire, killing young women to rob them of their scents. "What he coveted was the odor of certain human beings: that is, those rare humans who inspire love. These were his victims" [p. 188]. Why does he need the scents of these people?
13. In the novel's climatic scene, just as Grenouille is about to be executed, he uses the perfume he's created to turn the townspeople's hatred for him into love and to inspire an orgy which collapses class distinctions and pairs "grandfather with virgin, odd-jobber with lawyer's spouse, apprentice with nun, Jesuit with Freemason's wife—all topsy-turvy, just as opportunity presented" [p. 239]. Grenouille is revered and regards himself as godlike in this triumph. Does he enjoy this moment, or is it a hollow victory? What is the novel suggesting about the nature of human love? About order and disorder?
14. After Grenouille leaves the town of Grasse, where he has caused so much death and suffering, his case is officially closed and we're told, "The town had forgotten it in any event, forgotten it so totally that travelers who passed through in the days that followed and casually inquired about Grasse's infamous murderer of young maidens found not a single sane person who could give them any information" [p. 247]. Why do the townspeople react this way? Why isn't it possible for them to integrate what has happened into their daily consciousness?
15. How do you interpret the novel's ending, as Grenouille returns to the Cimetiere des Innocents and allows himself to be murdered and eaten by the criminals who loiter there? What ironies are suggested by the narrator's assertion that Grenouille's killers had just done something, for the first time, "out of love" [p. 255]?
16. Perfume is set in eighteenth-century France and tells an extravagant story of a man possessed with a magical sense of smell and a bizarrely destructive obsession. Do its historical setting and fantastic elements make it harder or easier to identify with? What contemporary issues and anxieties does the story illuminate?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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That Old Cape Magic
Richard Russo, 2009
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400030910
Summary
Following Bridge of Sighs, Richard Russo gives us the story of a marriage, and of all the other ties that bind, from parents and in-laws to children and the promises of youth.
Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father's ashes in the trunk of his car, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling him on his cell phone.
She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura's best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents' respite from the hated Midwest.
And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that's now thirty years old and has largely come true. He'd left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain, they'd moved into an old house full of character, and they'd started a family. Check, check, and check.
But be careful what you pray for—especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance. And when, a year later, a far more important wedding takes place, that of their beloved Laura, on the coast of Maine, Griffin is chauffeuring two urns of ashes as he contends once more with Joy and her large unruly family, and both he and she have brought dates along. How in the world could this have happened?
That Old Cape Magic is a novel of deep introspection and every family feeling imaginable, with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter's new life, and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has.
The storytelling is flawless throughout, scenes of great comedy, even hilarity, alternating with moments of understanding and heart-stopping sadness, and the ending is at once surprising, uplifting, and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 15, 1949
• Where—Johnstown, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F. A. and Ph.D., University of Arizona
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Camden, Maine
Prizewinning author Richard Russo is regarded by many critics as the best writer about small-town America since Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis. "He doesn't over-sentimentalize [small towns]," said Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for NPR's "Fresh Air." Nor does he belittle the dreams and hardships of his working-class characters. "I come from a blue-collar family myself and I think he gets the class interactions; he just really nails class in his novels," said Corrigan.
When Russo left his own native small town in upstate New York, it was with hopes of becoming a college professor. But during his graduate studies, he began to have second thoughts about the academic life. While finishing up his doctorate, he took a creative writing class; and a new career path opened in front of him.
Russo's first novel set the tone for much of his later work. The story of an ailing industrial town and the interwoven lives of its inhabitants, Mohawk won critical praise for its witty, engaging style. In subsequent books, he has brought us a dazzling cast of characters, mostly working-class men and women who are struggling with the problems of everyday life (poor health, unemployment, mounting bills, failed marriages) in dilapidated, claustrophobic burghs that have—like their denizens—seen better days. In 2001, Russo received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, a brilliant, tragicomic set-piece that explores past and present relationships in a once-thriving Maine town whose textile mill and shirt factory have gone bust.
Russo's vision of America would be bleak, except for the wit and optimism he infuses into his stories. Even when his characters are less than lovable, they are funny, rueful, and unfailingly human. "There's a version of myself that I still see in a kind of alternative universe and it's some small town in upstate New York or someplace like that," Russo said in an interview. That ability to envision himself in the bars and diners of small-town America has served him well. "After the last sentence is read, the reader continues to see Russo's tender, messed-up people coming out of doorways, lurching through life," said the fiction writer Annie Proulx. "And keeps on seeing them because they are as real as we are."
Extras
From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview:
• In 1994, Russo's book Nobody's Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman and Bruce Willis. Newman also starred in the 1998 movie Twilight, for which Russo wrote the screenplay. Russo now divides his time between writing fiction and writing for the movies.
• When he wrote his first books, Russo was employed full-time as a college teacher and would stop at the local diner between classes to work on his novels. After the success of Nobody's Food (the book and movie), he was able to quit teaching—but he still likes to write in tight spots, such as the Camden Deli. It's "a less lonely way to write," he told USA Today. "I'm less self-conscious when it's not so quiet."
• When asked what his favorite books are, he offered this list:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens—All of Dickens, really. The breadth of his canvas, the importance he places on vivid minor characters, his understanding that comedy is serious business. And in the character of Pip, I learned, even before I understood I'd learned it, that we recognize ourselves in a character's weakness as much than his strength. When Pip is ashamed of Joe, the best man he knows, we see ourselves, and it's terrible, hard-won knowledge.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain—Twain's great novel demonstrates that you can go to the very darkest places if you're armed with a sense of humor. His study of American bigotry, ignorance, arrogance, and violence remains so fresh today, alas, because human nature remains pretty constant. I understand the contemporary controversy, of course. Huck's discovery that Jim is a man is hardly a blinding revelation to black readers, but the idea that much of what we've been taught by people in authority is a crock should resonate with everybody. Especially these days.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald—Mostly, I suppose, because his concerns -- class, money, the invention of self -- are so central to the American experience. Fitzgerald understood that our most vivid dreams are often rooted in self-doubt and weakness. Many people imagine that we identify with strength and virtue. Fitzgerald knew better.
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck—For the beauty of the book's omniscience. It's fine for writers to be humble. Most of us have a lot to be humble about. But it does you no good to be timid. Pretend to be God? Why not? (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Although this is a much smaller canvas than Russo has worked on in recent years, what That Old Cape Magic lacks in breadth and plot momentum it makes up for with psychological nuance about the ties that bind—and snap. It's a marvelous portrayal of the strands of affection and irritation that run through a family, entangling in-laws and children's crushes and even old friends…The shelf of books about middle-aged guys going through midlife crises is long, of course, but Russo threads more comedy through this introspective genre than we get from John Updike, Richard Ford or Chang-rae Lee. He's a master of the comic quip and the ridiculous situation.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
When we finish reading That Old Cape Magic, we know we’ll start rereading it soon. And that the characters will come to mind at the most unpredictable times. We will stay on speaking terms with them more than we do with some of our real-life cousins.
Betsy Willeford - The Miami Herald
A comic yet thoughtful take on marriage.... But amid the humor, it raises questions about the complications we inherit and the ones we build for ourselves.
Bob Minzesheimer - USA Today
Crafting a dense, flashback-filled narrative that stutters across two summer outings to New England (and as many weddings), Russo (Empire Falls) convincingly depicts a life coming apart at the seams, but the effort falls short of the literary magic that earned him a Pulitzer. A professor in his 50s who aches to go back to screenwriting, Jack Griffin struggles to divest himself of his parents. Lugging around, first, his father's, then both his parents' urns in the trunk of his convertible, he hopes to find an appropriate spot to scatter their ashes while juggling family commitments—his daughter's wedding, a separation from his wife. Indeed, his parents—especially his mother, who calls her son incessantly before he starts hearing her from beyond the grave—occupy the narrative like capricious ghosts, and Griffin inherits “the worst attributes of both.” Though Russo can write gorgeous sentences and some situations are amazingly rendered—Griffin wading into the surf to try to scatter his father's ashes, his wheelchair-bound father-in-law plummeting off a ramp and into a yew—the navel-gazing interior monologues that constitute much of the novel lack the punch of Russo's earlier work.
Publishers Weekly
Joy and Jack Griffin head to Cape Cod to attend a friend's wedding, where their daughter Laura announces her own engagement. Sensing the malaise in their 30-year marriage, the Griffins decide to reconnect by visiting the B & B where they once honeymooned. Their arrival in separate vehicles seems symbolic of the discord in their hearts and minds. Jack, still coming to terms with his father's death and bristling at his mother's constant criticism, feels restless in his career as a college professor, wondering whether he should have left a lucrative screenwriting gig in L.A. Joy, chafing at Jack's implicit displeasure with her sunny disposition and maddening family, longs for an empathetic listener. Russo lovingly explores the deceptive nature of memory as each exquisitely drawn character attempts to deconstruct the family myths that inform their relationships. Verdict: The Griffins may not find magic on old Cape Cod, but readers will. Those who savored Russo's long, languid novels (e.g., Pulitzer winner Empire Falls) may be surprised by this one's rapid pace, but Russo's familiar compassion for the vicissitudes of the human condition shines through. —Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL
Library Journal
Wryly funny…An impressively expansive analysis of familial dynamics between not only spouses but also in-laws, parents and children.... It’s Russo all the same, and his many fans are sure to savor the journey.
Booklist
A change of pace from Pulitzer-winning author Russo (Bridge of Sighs, 2007, etc.). In contrast to his acclaimed novels about dying towns in the Northeast, the author's slapstick satire of academia (Straight Man, 1997) previously seemed like an anomaly. Now it has a companion of sorts, though Russo can't seem to decide whether his protagonist is comic or tragic. Maybe both. The son of two professors who were unhappy with each other and their lot in life, Jack Griffin vowed not to follow in their footsteps, instead becoming a hack screenwriter in Los Angeles. Then he leaves that career to become a cinema professor and moves back East with his wife Joy. Most of the novel takes place during two weddings a year apart: one on Cape Cod, where Jack had endured annual summer vacations and convinced Joy to spend their honeymoon; the other in Maine, where Joy had wanted to honeymoon. Plenty of flashbacks concerning the families of each spouse seem on the surface to present very different models for marriage, and there is an account of the year between the weddings that shows their relationship changing significantly. It isn't enough that Jack feels trapped by his familial past; he carries his parents' ashes in his trunk, can't bear to scatter them and carries on conversations with his late mother that eventually become audible. Will Jack and Joy be able to sustain their marriage? Will their daughter succumb to the fate of her parents, just as Jack and Joy have? Observes Jack, "Late middle age, he was coming to understand, was a time of life when everything was predictable and yet somehow you failed to see any of it coming." Readable, as always with this agreeable and gifted author.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does Jack Griffin want?
2. In reference to his parents' ongoing but fruitless search for a Cape Cod beach house, Griffin muses, “Perhaps...just looking was sufficient in and of itself” (page 9). Is looking enough? Which characters prove or disprove this point of view?
3. One page 16, Griffin points out to his mother that she and his father used to sing “That Old Cape Magic” on the Sagamore Bridge, “as if happiness were a place.” Is it possible for happiness to be a place? Can a place save a relationship?
4. Griffin poses a question to himself: “Why was he more resentful of Harve and Jill, who really wanted to understand how he made his living, than his own parents, who had never, to his knowledge, seen a single film he had anything to do with” (page 49)? Griffin doesn't admit to an answer, but what do you think the answer is?
5. In “The Summer of the Brownings,” young Griffin refuses to spend his last night on the Cape with Peter, even though the decision only serves to hurt everyone. Can you point to other incidents in which Griffin exercises his perverse desire to hurt himself and others?
6. Why is Griffin so apprehensive of commitment? What is he afraid of losing?
7. Griffin notes that “his wife's natural inclination was toward contentment” (page 105). What is Griffin's natural inclination?
8. Is Griffin afraid of being happy? Is being the happy the same as “settling”?
9. How has Griffin's cynicism caused him to misinterpret the intentions of those around him?
10. Why does it take so long for Griffin to dispose of his parents' remains?
11. Why does Griffin feel the need to carry on internal conversations with his mother?
12. How does Griffin's relationship with his parents lead to the dissolution of his marriage to Joy?
13. Why does Griffin insist on staying in L.A., away from Joy?
14. Griffin uneasily considers the parallels between Joy's attachment to himself and Tommy and Laura's attachment to Andy and Sunny. How do these similar triangles play out?
15. This book dances around the concept of responsibility: filial responsibility, marital responsibility, and personal responsibility, to name a few. What do Russo's characters feel about responsibility?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Shantaram
Gregory David Roberts
St. Martin's Press
944 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312330538
Summary
It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.
So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.
Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.
Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas—this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June, 1952
• Where—Melbourne, Australia
• Education—attended Melbourne University
• Currently—lives in Mumbai (Bombay), India (?)
Gregory David Roberts was born as Gregory John Peter Smith in Melbourne, Australia. An author, he is best known for his novel Shantaram. He is a former heroin addict and convicted bank robber who escaped from Pentridge Prison in 1980, and fled to India where he lived for ten years.
Roberts had become addicted to heroin after his marriage ended, and he lost custody of his young daughter. In his efforts to finance his drug habit, Roberts became known as the "Building Society Bandit" and the "Gentleman Bandit," because he had chosen to rob only institutions with adequate insurance. He would wear a three-piece suit and he always said "please" and "thank you" to the people he robbed. Roberts believed at the time that in this way he was lessening the brutality of his acts, but later in his life he admitted that people only gave him money because he had made them afraid. He escaped from Pentridge Prison in 1980.
In 1990 Roberts was captured in Frankfurt after being caught smuggling heroin into the country. He was extradited to Australia and served a further six years in prison, two of which were spent in solitary confinement. According to Roberts, he escaped prison again during that time, but then he relented and smuggled himself back into jail. His intention was to serve the rest of his sentence to give himself the chance to be reunited with his family. During his second stay in Australian prison, Roberts began writing the novel Shantaram. The manuscript was destroyed by prison wardens, twice, while Roberts was writing it.
After leaving prison, Roberts was able to finally finish and publish his novel. The title Shantaram comes from the name his best friend's mother gave him, which means "Man of Peace," or "Man of God's Peace."
Roberts lived in Melbourne, Germany, and France and finally returned to Mumbai, where he set up charitable foundations to assist the city's poor with health care coverage. He was finally reunited with his daughter. He got engaged to Francoise Sturdza, who is the president of the Hope for India Foundation. Roberts also wrote the original screenplay for the movie adaptation of Shantaram.
In 2009, Roberts was named an Zeitz Foundation Ambassador for Community. Ambassadors help raise awareness and shape activities in their respective dimension. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Shantaram is an exuberant, swashbuckling story of derring-do, told with reckless gusto and obvious affection, and if Roberts is no sort of stylist (and he isn't), you'd have to be a snob not to admit to enjoying yourself.
Patrick Ness - Telegraph (UK)
A gentle giant on the scale of Shantaram can afford a few unintended giggles, but million-rupee questions remain: Why, given Roberts's wealth of material and penchant for soul-searching, didn't he write a memoir? And what of Linbaba's debt to society and, presumably, to his briefly mentioned young daughter back in Australia? What is he really after, anyway? But it seems unsporting to begrudge Roberts the license to thrill while having such a good time —and ''Shantaram,'' mangrove-scented prose and all, is nothing if not entertaining. Sometimes a big story is its own best reward.
Megan O'Grady - New York Times
[A] sprawling, intelligent novel…full of vibrant characters…the exuberance of his prose is refreshing…Roberts brings us through Bombay's slums and opium houses, its prostitution dens and ex-pat bars, saying, You come now. And we follow.
Washington Post
"I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison," says Lin, Gregory David Roberts' hero, on the first page of Shantaram.... The sad truth is that there's little more to be gained by reading the remaining 935 pages. Lin's brutal trek through Afghanistan and its bloody ending turn out to be just another in a shapeless collection of action episodes, strung together by macho ruminations about the nature of love, trust, courage, and, of course, freedom.
Boston Globe
Part travelogue, part love letter, part autobiography, Shantaram is a vivid, entertaining but slightly grandiose tale of Lin, an ex-junkie and convicted robber who escapes from an Australian prison then hides in the most alien of places: the hot, filthy, decadent, seaside metropolis of Bombay.
Rita Bishnoi - USA Today
Shantaram had me hooked from the first sentence. [It] is thrilling, touching, frightening...a glorious wallow of a novel.
Detroit Free Press
Utterly unique, absolutely audacious, and wonderfully wild, Shantaram is sure to catch even the most fantastic of imaginations off guard.
Elle
At the start of this massive, thrillingly undomesticated potboiler, a young Australian man bearing a false New Zealand passport that gives his name as "Lindsay" flies to Bombay some time in the early '80s. On his first day there, Lindsay meets the two people who will largely influence his fate in the city. One is a young tour guide, Prabaker, whose gifts include a large smile and an unstoppably joyful heart. Through Prabaker, Lindsay learns Marathi (a language not often spoken by gora, or foreigners), gets to know village India and settles, for a time, in a vast shantytown, operating an illicit free clinic. The second person he meets is Karla, a beautiful Swiss-American woman with sea-green eyes and a circle of expatriate friends. Lin's love for Karla—and her mysterious inability to love in return—gives the book its central tension. "Linbaba's" life in the slum abruptly ends when he is arrested without charge and thrown into the hell of Arthur Road Prison. Upon his release, he moves from the slum and begins laundering money and forging passports for one of the heads of the Bombay mafia, guru/sage Abdel Khader Khan. Eventually, he follows Khader as an improbable guerrilla in the war against the Russians in Afghanistan. There he learns about Karla's connection to Khader and discovers who set him up for arrest. Roberts, who wrote the first drafts of the novel in prison, has poured everything he knows into this book and it shows. It has a heartfelt, cinemascope feel. If there are occasional passages that would make the very angels of purple prose weep, there are also images, plots, characters, philosophical dialogues and mysteries that more than compensate for the novel's flaws. A sensational read, it might well reproduce its bestselling success in Australia here.
Publishers Weekly
A thousand pages is like a thousand pounds—it sounds like too much to deal with. Nevertheless, Roberts' very long novel sails along at an amazingly fast clip. Readers in the author's native Australia apparently finished every page of it, for they handed it considerable praise. Now U.S. readers can enjoy this rich saga based on Roberts' own life: escape from a prison in Australia and a subsequent flight to Bombay. —Brad Hooper
Booklist
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 Shantaram:
1. Although Gregory David Roberts refers to Shantaram as a "novel," what do you make of the fact that its events are based on his own life? Does that knowledge make the story more interesting, more powerful? How does it affect the way you view the primary character Lin?
2. What would you most like to ask Roberts if you were to meet him?
3. In an interview Roberts says,
I don’t believe that there are Good men or Bad men. I believe that the deeds we do are Good and Bad, not the men and women who commit them.... I’ve known mafia men who took responsibility for feeding the poor in their district, and I’ve known cops who were ruthlessly cruel. We human beings are just that—human animals with the capacity to do Good or to do Bad—and we all do both, to a greater or lesser degree.
What do you think of his remark, and how is his philosophy expressed in the novel? Are there good and bad characters in Shantaram—or characters who do good and bad things? What about your own life—"good" and "bad" people...or actions?
4. According to Roberts, one of the novel's major themes is loneliness—through exile and alienation. How does Roberts use islands, a central image throughout the novel, to represent his theme? Consider Bombay itself (known as the Island City) or Leopold's Beer Bar (referred to frequently as an island). What other islands, literal and figurative, can you indentify in Shantaram? How do they work as images of exile and alienation?
5. Lin comes to India as an exile, already set apart from the villagers with their profound sense of belonging. How do Lin's experiences change him, gradually rescuing him from his isolation. Consider, for instance, the two different taxi accidents—and Lin's two different responses. What else and who else help Lin overcome his alienation—from himself, from humanitiy, from a sense of meaning in his life?
6. What draws Lin to Khader Khan? Does Lin's connection with the mafia don alleviate—or exacerbate—his isolation? Consider his emotional bond with Khader Khan, but also his moral alienation as he reverts to a life of crime.
7. Love represents the only real hope for escaping exile and alienation. There is love between Lin and Karla. What other forms of love occur in Shantaram? Who else experiences love?
8. Events occur twice in the novel, like the two taxi accidents mentioned in Question 5. There are other parallel events and character relationships—what Roberts has referred to as the story's "house of mirrors." Here are several mirror examples:
floods — secret staircases — face "amputations"— wedding parties — the green scarf and green banner — Ulla and Khaled (both have sold themselves to survive) —Mourizio and Aabdul Ghani — Karla and Lisa Carter
Find other "mirrors," and talk about how each pair reflects one another. Roberts says the mirrors represent the self-referential nature of the universe itself. You might also think of them as symbolic of the deep connectedness within all of life.
9. Talk about the novel's many characters: why you like or dislike them—admire them or find them abhorrent. Does Roberts present them as complex individuals, or as one-dimensional cartoon-type characters? What do you think about the author's frequent references to eyes, for instance, as a sort of shorthand method of characterization. Does that device work?
10. Some reviewers find Roberts' prose style heavy-handed, even silly, bordering on the purple prose of cheap romance stories. Others find the prose lush, vibrant, and compelling. Can you find examples of either style? Overall, what is your opinion of Roberts' prose?
11. What about the book's ending? Do you see it as hopeful? Has Lin found...or will he find...redemption?
12. Shantaram represents the second work (though the first published) in a planned trilogy. Are you inspired by this work to read the other installments once they are published?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Tevye, the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories
Sholem Aleichem, 1894
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805210699
Summary
Twenty two stories about Tevye, the best loved character in modern Jewish fiction.
Of all the characters in modern Jewish fiction, the most beloved is Tevye, the compassionate, irrepressible, Bible-quoting dairyman from Anatevka, who has been immortalized in the writings of Sholem Aleichem and in acclaimed and award-winning theatrical and film adaptations of Fiddler on the Roof.
And no Yiddish writer was more beloved than Tevye’s creator, Sholem Rabinovich (1859–1916), the “Jewish Mark Twain,” who wrote under the pen name of Sholem Aleichem. Beautifully translated by Hillel Halkin, here is Sholem Aleichem’s heartwarming and poignant account of Tevye and his daughters, together with the “Railroad Stories,” twenty-one tales that examine human nature and modernity as they are perceived by men and women riding the trains from shtetl to shtetl. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Real name—Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich
• Birth—February (or March?), 1859
• Where—present-day Ukraine, Imperial Russia
• Death—May 13, 1916
• Where—New York City, USA
• Education—local schooling in Ukraine
Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Sholem Naumovich Rabinovich, the popular humorist and Russian Jewish author of Yiddish literature. His works include novels, short stories, and plays. He did much to promote Yiddish writers, and was the first to pen children's literature in Yiddish.
His work has been widely translated. The 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, loosely based on Sholem Aleichem's stories about his character Tevye, the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language play about Eastern European Jewish life.
He was born to a poor Jewish family in the Poltava region, east of Kiev in 1859. At the age of fifteen, inspired by Robinson Crusoe, he composed his own, Jewish version of the famous novel and decided to dedicate himself to writing. He adopted the comic pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, derived from a common greeting meaning "peace be with you", or colloquially, "hi, how are you".
After completing local school with excellent grades in 1876, he left home in search for work. For three years, Sholem Aleichem taught a wealthy landowner's daughter Olga (Golde) Loev, who against the wishes of her father became his wife in 1883. Over the years, they had six children, including painter Norman Raeben—whose teaching Bob Dylan credits as an important influence on Blood on the Tracks—and Yiddish writer, Lyalya (Lili) Kaufman. Lyalya's daughter Bel Kaufman wrote the novel, Up the Down Staircase, which was made into a successful film.
At first, Sholem Aleichem wrote in Russian and Hebrew. But from 1883 on, he produced over forty volumes in Yiddish which was accessible to nearly all literate East European Jews. Most writing for Russian Jews at the time was in Hebrew, the liturgical language used largely by learned Jews.
Sholem Aleichem also used his personal fortune to encourage other Yiddish writers. In 1888-1889, he put out two issues of an almanac, Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek ("The Yiddish Popular Library") which gave important exposure to many young Yiddish writers. In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost his entire fortune in a stock speculation and could not afford to print the almanac's third issue. It was during this time he contracted tuberculosis.
In 1905, he left Russia, forced by waves of pogroms that swept through southern Russia, settling eventually in Geneva, Switzerland. Despite his great popularity, many of Sholem Aleichem's works had not generated much revenue for the author, and he was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of travelling and touring in order to make money to support himself and his family. In July, 1908, while on a reading tour in Russia, he collapsed on a train going through Baranowicz. He was diagnosed with a relapse of acute hemorrhagic tuberculosis and spent the next four years living as a semi-invalid; only eventually becoming healthy enough to return to a regular writing schedule. During this period the family was largely supported by donations from friends and admirers.
In 1914, Sholem Aleichem and most his family emmigrated to the United States, where they made their home in New York City. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916, aged 57, while still working on his last novel, Motl the Cantor's son, and was laid to rest at Mount Carmel cemetery in Queens.
At the time, his funeral was one of the largest in New York City history, with an estimated 100,000 mourners. The next day, his will was printed in the New York Times and was read into the Congressional Record of the United States.
He told his friends and family to gather, "read my will, and also select one of my stories, one of the very merry ones, and recite it in whatever language is most intelligible to you." "Let my name be recalled with laughter," he added, "or not at all."
In 1997, a monument dedicated to Sholem Aleichem was erected in Kiev; another was erected in 2001 in Moscow. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
With his supple, intelligent translation, Halkin makes accessible the poignant short stories by the legendary Yiddish humorist Sholem Rabinovich (18591916), who wrote under the nom de plume "Sholem Aleichem," a Yiddish salutation. As Halkin elucidates in his introduction, Tevye's self-mocking but deeply affecting monologues (which inspired the play and film Fiddler on the Roof satisfy on several levels: as a psychological analysis of a father's love for his daughters, despite the disappointments they bring him; as a paradigm of the tribulations and resilience of Russian Jewry and the disintegration of shtetl life at the twilight of the Czarist Empire; and as a Job-like theological debate with God. The 20 Railroad Stories, the monologues of a traveling salesman and his fellow Jewish travelers, depict Jewish thieves and arsonists, feuding spouses, draft evaders, grieving parents and assimilationists. Like the eight Tevye tales, these unprettified stories of simple people and their harsh realities summon a bygone era, but their appeal and application are timeless. Bringing both groups of tales together for the first time in English, this first volume in Schocken's Library of Yiddish Classics series is an auspicious event.
Publishers Weekly
(Audio version.) These three cassettes contain six Sholem Aleichem stories (one per side) about Tevye, the irrepressible character made familiar by Fiddler on the Roof. If listeners absorb them in order, the story of Tevye and his family unfolds chronologically, covering a period of several years. The author's use of language paints pictures which enable listeners to see rural Russia at the turn of the century. They also get a taste for what it meant to be a Jew in that time and place. Even though many of the anecdotes are humorous in nature, the issues are serious and include courting and marriage customs, dress and food, and persecution of Jews (pogroms and expulsions). Theodore Bikel is the perfect choice as storyteller, and not only because he has portrayed Tevye on the stage. His resonant voice and acting ability add to the portrayal of Tevye and other characters. By slight changes in inflection, Bikel brings every character to life, male or female. His reading includes the explanation of all Hebrew and Yiddish phrases, so even listeners unfamiliar with Jewish culture and history can follow the story. Libraries with audiobooks in their collections will want to add this abridgment of the Sholem Aleichem stories. —Shelley Glantz, Arlington bHigh School, MA
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Tevye often contradicts himself. For example, he says, "...it happened early one summer, around Shavuos time. But why should I lie to you? It might have been a week or two before Shavuos too, unless it was several weeks after...." (P 3). How does this affect his credibility as a narrator? This admission of doubt comes at the beginning of the novel. How would it change your feelings about Tevye if it came at the end?
2. In "Tevye Blows a Small Fortune," the reader is told the outcome at the beginning of the story, indeed in the title. Given this, what provides that tension in the story; what makes you keep reading it?
3. Tevye talks a lot about undergoing personal change. In "Tevye Strikes it Rich" he says "I was the same man then that I am now, only not at all like me; that is, I was Tevye then too, but not the Tevye you're looking at." (P. 4), and in "Today's Children" he says, "I'm no longer the Tevye I once was." (P. 35). Is this simply a literary device intended to capture Tevye's voice, or does it have significance in the story? If significant, what does it tell us about Tevye?
4. These stories are told from Tevye's point of view, as if he were relating episodes of his life to Sholem Aleichem. How does this narrative structure shape our perceptions of Tevye? Sholem Aleichem wanted to create a new voice in Yiddish fiction; in what ways does he succeed?
5. Unlike in Fiddler on the Roof, the film/play based on this novel, Tevye does not live in Anatevka, or any sort of insular Jewish community. How does this affect any notions of shtetl life that we might have received from watching the film or play? Why do you think Sholem Aleichem decided to place Tevye where he does in the world?
6. Tevye disowns Chava for marrying Chvedka, a Christian. Intermarriage is common today, but it is oft sited as one cause of the decline of American Judaism. Tevye asks, "What did being a Jew or not a Jew matter." (P. 81). Perhaps intermarriage is not the end of the world, but is it something we should worry about? What do you think Tevye would say about this?
7. Bielke is Tevye's one daughter who marries for money, yet Tevye actually counsels her against it. Has Tevye changed his mind about how good it is to be rich? If so, what causes this change? What does Bielke's condition tell us about Sholem Aleichem's opinion of the rich?
8. How would you characterize the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in this novel?
9. Hillel Halkin, the translator, claims that the Jewish humor of this period and especially the humor in Tevye the Dairyman served the purpose of "...neutraliz(ing) the hostility of the outside world, first by internalizing it ('Why should I care what the world thinks of me, when I think even less of myself?') and then by detonating it through a joke ('Nevertheless, the world doesn't know what it's talking about, because in fact I am much cleverer that it is—the proof being that it has no idea how funny I am and I do!')..." (P. xvi). What do you think about this theory? Is this why Tevye is funny? (Is Tevye funny?) Do you think that this sort of humor is a useful psychological tool for a people facing oppression?
10. The stories that comprise Tevye the Dairyman were written over the course of several decades with little or no overall plan for their structure. Do they comprise a novel, or are they simply a collection of short stories featuring the same main character? What is the evidence in favor of and against each possibility?
11. With the exception of the first episode, Tevye suffers nothing but one misfortune after another. Do you consider him to be a tragic hero? Why or why not? In what ways does Tevye bring his suffering on himself?
12. Consider both Tevye's Jewish observance and his relationship with God. Is Tevye a good Jew?
13. Several of the episodes in the novel are not included in the play/film version. Why do you think these particular scenes were cut from the story? How do you think Sholem Aleichem's conception of his novel and characters might differ from that of the filmmaker's?
(Questions, prepared by Laura Sheppard-Brick for The National Yiddish Center.)
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