Pacific Alumni Blog

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 1

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:54:00 +0000

Did Chris McCandless love "truth" more than relationships? Are they mutually exclusive?

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 2

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:53:00 +0000

What mistakes, if any, did Chris make before going to Alaska?

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 3

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:53:00 +0000

What do think caused Chris to embark on his journey?

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 4

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:52:00 +0000

What do you think of Krakauer’s insertion of himself into the narrative? Did it add or detract from Chris’ story? Did it help you understand Chris’ own motives?

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 5

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:52:00 +0000

What significance, if any, do you attach to the note Chris left in the margins of Dr. Zhivago: “Happiness only real when shared” as he neared the end of his life?

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 6

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:51:00 +0000

Did you find the book suspenseful? Why or why not?

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 7

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:51:00 +0000

Contrast McCandless' feelings about his family with his family's feelings about him in Into the Wild.

Book Club: Into the Wild | Question 8

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:50:00 +0000

How did Into the Wild impact you?

Book Club: Boom! | Question 1

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Brokaw covers many issues in Boom! including race, politics, Vietnam, women’s rights, drug culture and counter culture. Do you feel he leaves anything out? What else might Brokaw have used to define the 1960s?

Book Club: Boom! | Question 2

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Brokaw has mentioned several times that the acts that took place in the 1960s are shaping our lives today. Do you agree?

Book Club: Boom! | Question 3

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Former president Bill Clinton is quoted in Boom! saying, “If you thought something good came out of the Sixties, you’re probably a Democrat; if you thought the Sixties were bad, you’re probably a Republican.” What do you think of the Sixties? Were the results positive or negative?

Book Club: Boom! | Question 4

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Boom! is often described as a “reunion of the Class of 1968.” Are you from this generation? What are your thoughts on the book as a “reunion?”

Book Club: Boom! | Question 5

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:25:00 +0000

Did you miss the 1960s by being born too late? Does this book still resonate with you?

Book Club: Boom! | Question 6

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:20:00 +0000

Were you a student at Pacific University between 1963 and 1974? How do Brokaw’s descriptions of the time fit in to your memories of life at Pacific?

Book Club: Boom! | Question 7

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:13:00 +0000

Where were you when? Share your story of the 1960s

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 1

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:03:00 +0000

The novelist, who herself fled Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion, wrote the book virtually while the occupation was happening, most likely making Suite Française the first work of fiction about World War II. How do you think she managed to write while she herself was in jeopardy? Do you think it was easier for her to capture the day-to-day realities of life under occupation? In what ways might the book have been different if she had survived and been able to write Suite Française years after the war?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 2

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:02:00 +0000

Suite Française is a unique pair of novels. Which of the two parts of Suite Française do you prefer? Which structural organization did you find more effective: the short chapters and multiple focus of Storm in June, or the more restricted approach of Dolce?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 3

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 01:01:00 +0000

What is the significance of the title Dolce?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 4

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:59:00 +0000

How does Suite Française undermine the long-held view of French resistance to the German occupation?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 5

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:57:00 +0000

Discuss Irène Némirovsky’s approach to class in Suite Française. How do the rich, poor, and the middle classes view one another? How do they help or hinder one another? Do the characters identify themselves by class or nationality?

(You might consider the aristocratic Mme de Montmort’s thought in Dolce: “What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, but the way they hold their knife and fork.”)

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 6

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:56:00 +0000

In Dolce, we enter the increasingly complex life of a German-occupied provincial village. Coexisting uneasily with the soldiers billeted among them, the villagers—from aristocrats to shopkeepers to peasants—cope as best they can. Some choose resistance, others collaboration. Each relationship is distorted by the allegiances of war. What happens when someone—who might have been your friend—is now declared your enemy during a war?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 7

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:55:00 +0000

The lovers in the second novel question whether the needs of the individual or the community should take priority. Lucille imagines that “in five, or ten, or twenty years” this problem will have been replaced by others. To what extent, if at all, has this proved the case? Has Western society conclusively decided to privilege the individual over the group?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 8

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:53:00 +0000

How does Suite Française compare to other World War Two novels you have read? How would you compare it to the great personal documents of the war (for example, those written by Anne Frank and Victor Klemperer), or to fiction?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 9

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:51:00 +0000

“Important events—whether serious, happy or unfortunate—do not change a man’s soul, they merely bring it into relief, just as a strong gust of wind reveals the true shape of a tree when it blows of all its leaves.” —Storm in June, p.203

Do you agree?

Book Club: Suite Française | Question 10

noreply@blogger.com (Pacific University Alumni) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:50:00 +0000

Consider Irène Némirovsky’s plan for the next part of Suite Française (in the appendix). What else do you think could happen to the characters?