from Washington Center for the Book at Seattle Public Library
Reading Critically
Books that make excellent choices for discussion groups have a good plot, well-drawn characters, and a polished style. These books usually present the author’s view of an important truth and not infrequently send a message to the reader. Good books for discussion move the reader and stay in the mind long after the book is read and the discussion is over. These books can be read more than once, and each time we learn something new.
Reading for a book discussion—whether you are the leader or simply a participant—differs from reading purely for pleasure. As you read a book chosen for a discussion, ask questions and mark down important pages you might want to refer back to. Make notes like, "Is this significant?" or "Why does the author include this?" Making notes as you go slows down your reading but gives you a better sense of what the book is really about and saves you the time of searching out important passages later.
Obviously, asking questions as you go means you don't know the answer yet, and often you never do discover the answers. But during discussion of your questions, others may provide insight for you. Don't be afraid to ask hard questions because often the author is presenting difficult issues for that very purpose.
As with any skill, good literary consciousness grows with practice. You can never relax your vigilance because a good author uses every word to reveal something. Try to be aware of what the author is revealing about himself and what he wants you to learn about life from his perspective. Appreciate the artistic presentation and the entertainment value, but also reap the benefits of the experience the author is sharing.
Another way to analyze the important themes of a book is to consider what premise the author started with. You can imagine an author mulling over the beginnings of the story, asking himself, "what if … " questions.
When you meet the characters in the book, place yourself at the scene. Think of them as you do the people around you. Judge them. Think about their faults and their motives. What would it be like to interact with them? Listen to the tone and style of their dialogue for authenticity. Read portions aloud to get to know the characters and the author's style.
Sometimes an author uses the structure of the book to illustrate an important concept or to create a mood. Notice how the author structured the book. Are chapters prefaced by quotes? How do they apply to the content of the chapters? How many narrators tell the story? Who are they? How does the sequence of events unfold to create the mood of the story? Does it make sense?
Compare the book to others by the same author or to books by different authors that have a similar message or style. Comparing one author's work with another's can help you solidify your opinions, as well as define for you qualities you may otherwise miss.
The very best books are those that insinuate themselves into your experience: They reveal an important truth or provide a profound sense of kinship between reader and writer. Searching for, identifying, and discussing these truths often make the book more important and more significant.
Asking questions, reading carefully, imagining yourself into the story, analyzing style and structure, and searching for personal meaning in a work of literature all enhance the work's value and the discussion potential for your group.
Come prepared with 10 to 15 open-ended questions. Questions that can be answered yes or no tend to cut off discussion.
Questions should be used to guide the discussion and keep it on track, but be ready to let the discussion flow naturally. You’ll often find that the questions you’ve prepared will come up naturally as part of the discussion.
Remind participants that there are not necessarily any right answers to the questions posed.
Don’t be afraid to criticize a book, but try to get the group to go beyond the "It just didn't appeal to me" statement. What was it about the book that made it unappealing? The style? The pacing? The characters? Has the author written other books that were better? Did it remind you of a book that you liked/disliked? Many times the best discussions are about books that the majority of the group disliked.
Try to keep
a balance in the discussion between personal revelations and reactions
and a response to the book itself. Every reader responds to a book in
ways that are intimately tied to his/her background, upbringing, and world
view. A book about a senseless murder will naturally strike some sort
of chord in a reader whose mother was murdered. That’s interesting,
but what’s more interesting is how the author chose to present the
murder, or the author’s attitude toward the murderer and victim.
It’s often too easy to let a group drown in reminiscences …
if that’s what the whole group wants to do, that’s fine, but
keep in mind that it’s not a book discussion.
Suggestions
for Discussion Questions
from Kansas City Metropolitan
Library & Information Network , United
We Read program
The following questions and ideas are suggestions for book clubs and reading groups wanting to discuss Plainsong.
- Focus on the main aspects of the book such as the characterizations, settings, themes, time period, etc.
- What did you like or dislike about the book in particular?
- How did you feel about how the author portrayed the characters? Were they well developed or did you want to know more about them? Did you identify with any particular character and why?
- What did you think about how the story was told? Did you feel like you were a part of the characters' lives? Are there any particular passages that made you feel this way?
- What are the main themes of the book? Love? Hatred? Mistrust? Coming of age? What were the major conflicts in the book? How were they resolved?
- What did you think about the author's use of symbolism? Did they add or detract from the book?
- How did you feel about the author's lack of quotation marks? Why do you think he wrote in this manner? Did you find it distracting?
- Why might Kent Haruf have chosen Plainsong as the title for this novel? What meaning, or meanings, does the title have in relation to Haruf's story and characters?
- How does Haruf characterize the landscape of Holt and its surroundings, and how does he use landscape to set the emotional scene? In what ways are his characters shaped and formed by the land around them?
- Few hints are given in the novel about what life might have been like for the Guthrie family before Ella left. What do you imagine that life to have been like? What sort of a marriage did tom and Ella have, and what made it go wrong? What might account for Ella's nearly total withdrawal even from the children she seems to love?
- What is it about Victoria's life that has made her chose Dwayne, an outsider to the community, to fall in love with? What lack or emptiness in her own life is she trying to fill with this romance? How does her relationship with him echo her parents' relationship?
- How do the three teenagers having sex in the abandoned house inform and affect Ike and bobby? What does this sight tell them about sex? About love? About the relationships and power struggle between men and women?
- Do you believe there are marked differences between Raymond and Harold McPheron? If so, what are they?
- Why do you think the McPheron Brothers have chosen to spend their lives together rather than start families of their own? Are they lonely or unhappy before Victoria's arrival, or do they feel sufficient in themselves? What does Maggie mean when she tells them, "This is your chance" [p. 110]?
- What parallels can you draw between the McPheron brothers and the young Guthrie boys? Why is the relationship so close in each case? What sort of a future do you see for the Guthrie boys? Do you think they will marry and have families?
- The McPheron brothers think they know nothing about young girls. Is that the case? Has their solitary life close to the earth handicapped them so far as human relations go, or has it, in fact, provided them with hidden advantages?
- What examples of parents abandoning children - either by desertion, emotional withdrawal, or death - can be found in this novel? What do these incidents have in common? How does abandonment affect children, and how does it shape their lives and relationships?
- It is usually women who are portrayed as nurturers, but in this novel, men - Tom Guthrie and the McPheron brothers - provide shelter and comfort. How do men differ from women in this respect? What do these men offer that a woman might not be able to?
- "These are crazy times," Maggie Jones says. "I sometimes believe these must be the craziest times ever" [p. 124]. What does she mean by this? In what way are our times "crazier" than earlier eras? How does such "craziness" affect the lives of young people such as Victoria, Ike, and Bobby?
- What motives and feelings might have driven Tom to sleep with Judy when it was really Maggie he was interested in? Why might Maggie have seemed momentarily frightening or intimidating to him?
- Why do the Guthrie boys befriend Iva Stearns? What are they looking for in this tentative friendship? Do they find what they are seeking?
- Why do the Guthrie boys go to the McPheron brothers after Iva's death rather than to someone closer to home, like their father or Maggie? Is there any indication that they connect Iva's death with their mother's abandonment? Why do they place their mother's bracelet on the train tracks, then bury it?
- The inhabitants of Holt and its surroundings are extremely laconic: they speak only sparingly, as though they mistrust words. What might cause this? In what way does it affect the characters' relationships with one another?
- How would you describe Holt, Colorado? What are its limitations, its disadvantages, and what are its strengths? In what ways is it typical of any American small town, and in what ways is it different? What help does it provide for people who need healing, like the characters in this book?
- Plainsong depicts some unusual "family" groups. How might Kent Haruf define family?
A
Conversation with Kent Haruf author of Plainsong
from Random House
Why did you entitle this book Plainsong?
As the dictionary definition of "plainsong" indicates, I mean
this to be a story about centuries-old matters and told in a plain unadorned
manner. And of course I'm also having an obvious pun on the flat land
of America, the high plains, so in the same sense it's also a simple direct
song about the plains and plain matters.
The landscape is as much a presence in this novel
as the human characters. What are the most significant ways in which our
physical surroundings shape our lives?
This is the familiar notion, that landscape and setting are like characters
in fiction, and there's a lot of non-sense written about it, and it's
become a kind of cliché to think this way. It is very important
to me to get the place of a story right, to be true to the place. The
stories that matter the most to me occur in places with real texture and
dimension and not in anonymous suburbs. So all my stories occur in the
part of the world that I love most, the high plains of Colorado. I grew
up there and it is that place in the world that I have a holy response
to. It is not pretty. But it is beautiful. You have to know how to look
at it. It forces you to slow way down and look, really look. If a story
is written well enough, it will be universal whether it's written about
Holt, Colorado or Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi----or that most provincial
of places, New York City.
Many of the characters in this novel find themselves,
at one time or another, in danger--either of sexual or physical assault
or emotional abandonment. Why does this idea of being on the brink of
danger keep recurring?
One reason is that
a novel is a series of causes and effects, so there has to be a chain
of events to drive the novel forward and you have to make succeeding events
more compelling than the previous one so there's an increasing tension
and rising expectation in the story. Also, risk and danger are a part
of life, and these people have to experience all these to make them seem
real. Other years of their lives might not be so dramatic, but these years
wouldn't make as interesting a story. A novel is a crystallization of
people's lives--in this case, eight lives.
The relationship between the McPheron brothers and
Victoria Roubideaux is so compelling. What was your inspiration for this
unusual combination of two old bachelors and a young pregnant teen?
I don't think of writing stories as somehow being an act of inspiration.
Writing, in my experience, is more a matter of writing out of deep emotion
and trying to focus on people and conditions that are significant. Stories
come out of hurt and brooding about these hurts and pondering people and
the conditions of their lives. And in the case of the McPherons and Victoria
Roubideaux, I want to believe that it is possible for people to respond
generously and affectionately to one another even in the strangest and
most unusual of circumstances. In the current state of human affairs,
the idea of family has to be expanded to include old men and pregnant
teenage girls, who are initially strange to one another, who are not united
by blood but by mutual good will.
When his wife moves out, Tom is left with the job
of caring for his two young sons. When Victoria's mother throws her out,
she is taken in by the McPheron brothers. What made you want to explore
the role that men (fathers and father figures) play in raising children
and also explore this idea of mothers who in one way or another leave
their children?
I had nothing doctrinaire in mind. I could also point out that Iva Stearns
and Victoria Roubideaux (both mothers, both women) are the sole caregivers
of their own children. Instead of polemics, I'm more interested in the
opportunities for emotional and spiritual growth among these characters
regardless of age, sex, or condition. For example, I'm interested in the
way the McPheron brothers, at their age, will react to the opportunity
of being fathers and grandfathers.
You have worked at a wide variety of jobs all across
the country and even in Turkey with the Peace Corps. How has that helped
you in your writing?
It's very essential for somebody who is trying to write good fiction to
know as much as he or she can know about all kinds of people and places.
The variety of jobs I've had and the many places I've lived in have been
useful to me as a writer, but I didn't set out that way; all that experience
was gained in the effort to support my family and myself while still trying
to find enough time around the edges to learn my craft.
Novels:
The Tie That Binds, Holt (New York City), 1984.
Where You Once Belonged, Summit Books (New York City), 1991.
Plainsong, Knopf (New York City), 1999.
Also contributor
of short stories to periodicals, including Puerto del Sol, Grand Street,
Prairie Schooner, and Gettysburg Review. Stories have appeared in
Best American Short Stories, Houghton, 1987; and Where Past
Meets Present, University of Colorado Press, 1994.