posted
A friend of mine asked for book club discussion questions for on Enchantment.
I think it is totally cool they are reading the book as part of a book club.
I'm sure I should be able to come up with something profound about OSC interweaving the modern and the old folk tales but for the life of me I'm blanking.
posted
One kind of fun fact, I won't pose it as a question, but you might. M. Mussorgsky's collection of tone poems "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Most folks will remember "Great gates of Kiev") has a piece entitled "Baba Yaga's Hut". You might have folks imagine it as a 747.
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posted
I'm not sure if you can really make anything of it. However, Baba Yaga camped out outside the house always made me think of the way the witch coming around to the cottage and giving her the poisoned apple.
Could they make anything of the different ways that Ivan and Katerina handled "culture shock"? What about the way that even though Ivan was understanding, he had a hard time breaking himself of believing he was superior. For instance, when Matfei was watching Demetri try to train him with the sword. Ivan no doubt thought he was being very clever with his moves, while Matfei thought they were the tricks of a child.
Here's another idea. What about comparing Enchantment to Twain's Connecticut Yankee...
Ok, I'm about out of ideas. It's one of my favorite books though. I could probably just take for an hour about the greatness of it!
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quote:Originally posted by Artemisia Tridentata: One kind of fun fact, I won't pose it as a question, but you might. M. Mussorgsky's collection of tone poems "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Most folks will remember "Great gates of Kiev") has a piece entitled "Baba Yaga's Hut". You might have folks imagine it as a 747.
I recall being in a music history class in which we began discussion on Mussorgsky's tone poems (and comparisons to various orchestrations like Ravel's) while I was first reading Enchantment. I found it to be highly entertaining.
The Great Gates are used in *SO* many animated cartoons, particularly Animaniacs shorts...
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posted
A good discussion would be, "What is a fairy tale?" The first time I read this book, what hit me the hardest was the "un-disney-ing" of Sleeping beauty/snow white.
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posted
I agree with paigereader. I suggested this book to a die-hard fairy tale lover and she hated it. She seemed to think it was too clinical or analytical or something. (But she would willingly admit that she prefers "fluffy" stuff.) It's an interesting line of thought.
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posted
Well, I've never been in a book discussion group, so I don't know exactly how the questions work, but I just re-read this for about the 20th time, and I see things a bit differently each time I read it. Here's some questions I might use to facilitate a discussion:
1. This story is, in many ways, a coming-of-age book. Each character, as well as the communities contained in the story, does some growing up. How did each of them grow as a person or community? Which characters did not?
2. As so many of Card's do, this book explores community relationships - how they grow, how they change, how they fall apart. What role do the communities stories play in this?
To answer my own questions, I really see a coming-of-age theme throughout the whole story. Ivan even specifically mentions at times it's time to "grow up" and be part of the community rather than study it from the outside. There are so many instances of times that the community and characters only progress by coming together as community that I could write for ages about it. I think you could do a great discussion on it.
The fairy tale aspect of it is important, too - but most especially how the fairy tales bind the community together. The power of shared stories in the community is evidenced by Ivan's desire to get the "pure" Russian stories, but also how the events that were taking place in the book were already being put into a more coherent form by the community. Ivan's flight from the village, the re-taking of the fort with the fire, and the like. Even more, most of the characters' supernatural powers came from common belief (reminded me a bit of Gaiman's American Gods) - belief in the Bear, in Katrina, etc. That belief comes from shared community stories.
It struck me especially when I read it this time because of circumstances in my own life right now. I'm a choir director - both public high school as well as a church. My church position is fairly new, and there was a lot of dissension in the past within the ranks of the musicians. I've started planning specific social outings for each choir, and it's been interesting to watch them develop their own community stories. I knew we were on the right track when I saw it. For example, this past week, they were talking over appetizers at the local pub, and one person was asking the waiter about the new Tapas restaurant opening a couple of doors down. Two knew what she was talking about - most heard them asking about the "topless" restaurant, which became especially shocking to them when it was suggested that the choir go out to the Tapas/Topless restaurant. (Who's on first?)When everyone realized what was going on, it was priceless.
That story will now be a shared story for this choir, and they will always have that as something that they will be able to laugh about for years to come. I saw at that moment a community form. Pretty cool.
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