I have this chance in a couple of weeks. I'd thought of a couple of questions already to start the discussion: Why is this the book most fans love the most? and what about Ender's doctrine of trying not to hurt people, but if you have to, destroy them -- is he right?
If you were doing this . . . what questions would *you* find interesting to discuss?
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
... then I couldn't wait to discuss the more thought provoking Speaker for the Dead. Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I would ignore the popularity part of it, that is extraneous to the book, it involves too much personal politics, and it doesn't really effect how you see the book in a discussion. Ie, its not productive really.
I would talk about some specifics to start, because introducing a discussion with a generalization encourages people to think about specifics. But, if you introduce a specific thing, people are forced to generalize, and reach out for related references. Key word is related, people respond better to a very specific query, which allows the answer to expand, rather than a free question which allows people to pigeonhole.
I would say something like: Did you feel that Ender killing Bonito Madrid was right? Should he have tried to disable Bonzo? Then the small point can be exanded to include broader interest. Even go more specific: "why does Graff say to Ender when they first meet, that Ender's parents will forget about him?" Lots of possible answers there. Follow it with "do you think this is true, why? Do you think that Graff could be lying, why?" etc.
Its really easy to have a good discussion when you ground it in a specific passage or a small point, I find.
Posted by RunningBear (Member # 8477) on :
I wrote a review of Ender's Game for my high school paper, and I had to ask myself all these questions.
Posted by Soara (Member # 6729) on :
I would start by asking what people learned from the book, how it changed the way they look at the world. I know that's a heavy question to start off with, and probably wouldn't really be answered until much later. I would just want people to realize that they must have learned something from the book, and it could in fact have changed the way they look at the world. Too often in book dicussions, people get caught up in agruments about some obscure part of the book, or talking heatedly over something that isn't really relevant to the point of the book. I would want the dicussion to be about what really lies at the heart of the book, because once you understand that, it's so much easier to understand the smaller stuff.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
There's only one question up for discussion?
Who's going to play Ender in the movie?
[ April 08, 2006, 12:58 AM: Message edited by: Orson Scott Card ]
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
Dagonee, I edited out the long annoying blank space - computer screen real estate is precious, and one should not steal it from people trying to fit a forum discussion on their browser. <wink>
And there's absolutely no point at all in discussing who will play Ender, because he has to be played by an actor so young that you almost certainly will not have seen him on screen in any noticeable role.
Running Bear, where's your paper? We'll post it, and Will can use it as the basis of his whole discussion!
Posted by Will B (Member # 7931) on :
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