The Good Books Club - Discussion Questions

Hey there every one.

Hope you are all wrapping up Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night for the discussion tomorrow! We are so excited to be kicking off the very first discussion of what we hope will be a fun, successful, semi-focused discussion of one of the most under rated WWII novels of all time. For those of you who were not able to make the cut off for this meeting, do not fret. We will be announcing November's book on Monday after the discussion.
For those of you who read the book but are unable to make the discussion, we deeply appreciate the efforts that we do know you made to participate, and look forward to having you for future discussions! We encourage any one who can't make the meeting to write reviews of the book that we will be sure to link to when we do a wrap up of the discussion. For any one who has read the book and participates in any way, be it the discussion, writing a review, promoting the book etc, we have an extra special surprise planned for you, so make sure to check back here on Monday after the discussion!


Discussion Questions!
Attn: Spoilers contained in the discussion qu's
Ok folks so now on to those of you who will be participating tomorrow. Here are a few things to keep in mind. The book club starts at 7p.m EST. If you live in another time zone be sure to do the math and figure out what ever time that might be for your city. I'd do it for you but the whole time I lived in Australia I always got it wrong and would call my house at 3 am... so I probably am not help.
Also, it is probably best to try and log into the chat room (located at the very top left hand scroll bar) at least 10 minuts prior to the discussion, just to make sure that we are not facing techinical problems. If for any reason you get kicked out be all you need to do is close the window and re open the chat room and log back in. You CANNOT at any time close the main Padfoot and Prongs window, as it will also kick you out of the chat room.
As well, we have learned it is best not to copy and paste long quotes or sentences into the chat room as tha makes it angry. I know that is annoying especially for those of you who have quotes typed and saved up, so either send them in small lines at a time or just type them out in the room. Annoying I know, we will work to find something better in the future.

Now here are some discussion questions to consider for the talk tomorrow. We will not be sticking strictly to these questions, but they will help to give us a guide in leading the conversation. In the future we plan to get questions up much earlier for the talk but we suck this month.

1. 'We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.' In the opening of the novel, Kurt Vonnegut openly states in a preface by 'Campbell' that this is the moral of the entire work. Would you agree that this is the most prominent message of the story? Why do you think Campbell/Vonnegut would go to such lengths to make sure the moral of the novel was apparent? Do you agree with the moral and what in this book either confirms or confronts your views?

2. Howard Campbell is a fan of many faces. He is a Nazi propagandist, an under-cover spy, a friend to few and a lover to one. Butcan you be a monster and a martyr at the same time? Who is Campbell to you? Which is these identities do you feel is the most 'true' to Campbell'. How is it possible for someone to be so many people at once, or is it impossible?

Despite acknowledging for a moment the evil behind the people that he served, Howard realized that he had never really seen a fault at all, because the Nazis had given him more than they had taken away. There are multiple times throughout the novel that many of the characters will overlook an obvious flaw to protect some desperate attachment they have to the actions that they are committing. How do you feel about this idea of overlooking obvious moral flaws to gain happiness?

3. How did you feel about the ending of the work? Did you feel that Howard Campbell got what he deserved, or will he gain it through suicide?

4. What were some of your favorite things about this book and the author? What were the Pro's of reading this book including quotes, style, narrative etc.?

5. What were some of your least favorite things about this book and the author? What were the con's of reading this book including quotes, style, narrative etc.?

6. Be sure to have some of your favorite quotes picked out from the story and be ready to share at least one of them, and why you enjoyed it!

That is all for now folks. Like we said, these are only jumping off points for the discussion I am sure we will be straying a bit from these general ideas. The discussion will be lead for 1 hour, 30 mins. If you need to leave before then feel free. If you would like to stay longer to discuss then you are more than welcome as well as encouraged, however we will only be regulating the disucssion for the given time. After that it is a free for all. Any one is welcome at 8:30 to come into the room to discuss the book, Vonnegut, any thing of the sort and we hope to see many of you there!!

The Good Books Club - Discussion Questions

Hey there every one.

Hope you are all wrapping up Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night for the discussion tomorrow! We are so excited to be kicking off the very first discussion of what we hope will be a fun, successful, semi-focused discussion of one of the most under rated WWII novels of all time. For those of you who were not able to make the cut off for this meeting, do not fret. We will be announcing November's book on Monday after the discussion.
For those of you who read the book but are unable to make the discussion, we deeply appreciate the efforts that we do know you made to participate, and look forward to having you for future discussions! We encourage any one who can't make the meeting to write reviews of the book that we will be sure to link to when we do a wrap up of the discussion. For any one who has read the book and participates in any way, be it the discussion, writing a review, promoting the book etc, we have an extra special surprise planned for you, so make sure to check back here on Monday after the discussion!


Discussion Questions!
Attn: Spoilers contained in the discussion qu's
Ok folks so now on to those of you who will be participating tomorrow. Here are a few things to keep in mind. The book club starts at 7p.m EST. If you live in another time zone be sure to do the math and figure out what ever time that might be for your city. I'd do it for you but the whole time I lived in Australia I always got it wrong and would call my house at 3 am... so I probably am not help.
Also, it is probably best to try and log into the chat room (located at the very top left hand scroll bar) at least 10 minuts prior to the discussion, just to make sure that we are not facing techinical problems. If for any reason you get kicked out be all you need to do is close the window and re open the chat room and log back in. You CANNOT at any time close the main Padfoot and Prongs window, as it will also kick you out of the chat room.
As well, we have learned it is best not to copy and paste long quotes or sentences into the chat room as tha makes it angry. I know that is annoying especially for those of you who have quotes typed and saved up, so either send them in small lines at a time or just type them out in the room. Annoying I know, we will work to find something better in the future.

Now here are some discussion questions to consider for the talk tomorrow. We will not be sticking strictly to these questions, but they will help to give us a guide in leading the conversation. In the future we plan to get questions up much earlier for the talk but we suck this month.

1. 'We are what we pretend to be. So we must be careful about what we pretend to be.' In the opening of the novel, Kurt Vonnegut openly states in a preface by 'Campbell' that this is the moral of the entire work. Would you agree that this is the most prominent message of the story? Why do you think Campbell/Vonnegut would go to such lengths to make sure the moral of the novel was apparent? Do you agree with the moral and what in this book either confirms or confronts your views?

2. Howard Campbell is a fan of many faces. He is a Nazi propagandist, an under-cover spy, a friend to few and a lover to one. Butcan you be a monster and a martyr at the same time? Who is Campbell to you? Which is these identities do you feel is the most 'true' to Campbell'. How is it possible for someone to be so many people at once, or is it impossible?

Despite acknowledging for a moment the evil behind the people that he served, Howard realized that he had never really seen a fault at all, because the Nazis had given him more than they had taken away. There are multiple times throughout the novel that many of the characters will overlook an obvious flaw to protect some desperate attachment they have to the actions that they are committing. How do you feel about this idea of overlooking obvious moral flaws to gain happiness?

3. How did you feel about the ending of the work? Did you feel that Howard Campbell got what he deserved, or will he gain it through suicide?

4. What were some of your favorite things about this book and the author? What were the Pro's of reading this book including quotes, style, narrative etc.?

5. What were some of your least favorite things about this book and the author? What were the con's of reading this book including quotes, style, narrative etc.?

6. Be sure to have some of your favorite quotes picked out from the story and be ready to share at least one of them, and why you enjoyed it!

That is all for now folks. Like we said, these are only jumping off points for the discussion I am sure we will be straying a bit from these general ideas. The discussion will be lead for 1 hour, 30 mins. If you need to leave before then feel free. If you would like to stay longer to discuss then you are more than welcome as well as encouraged, however we will only be regulating the disucssion for the given time. After that it is a free for all. Any one is welcome at 8:30 to come into the room to discuss the book, Vonnegut, any thing of the sort and we hope to see many of you there!!

Prong's 15th Review - A Confederacy of Dunces

Hey there all you LOYAL...LOYAL marauders. It feels like (ok it has been) ages since our last post. I feel like we say this a few too many times than is ok, but we are very pressed for time what with opening a business, being full time students, and attending 'over sleepers anonymous.' So once again, we are sorry that the posts have been so few, and the comments on all our favorite blogs so sparse. Now that midterms are about to come to an end, hopefully we will be able to give all our love and devotion back to you all!

So a few quick announcements before we get to the good stuff. First off, for those of you who signed up for the Good Books Club, we couldn't be more excited to have you! Mother Night promises to be a fun read for all involved, and we hope you were able to find a copy. If any one is still having troubles, check out some sites like ABE.com or if you are a book swapper, check around those sites. It is easy enough to find a nice cheap used copy and not have to fork over 15$ to B&N which we never recommend. For those of you who have your copies and have started then hurrah!! Make sure to keep us updated on your progress. We need feed back to be able to adjust for future books. Also be sure to highlight all your favorite quotes because we will be asking every one to share at least 1 quote during the discussion! Only a few more week so get those reading hats on and have fun!!

Second, for those of you who have been so WONDERFULLY PATIENT about our dreams of literary mugs, totes, and shirts, your patience is finally about to be rewarded!! Tomorrow night we plan on having a majority of the products up on our band new Etsy shop tomorrow! Look for an update or a twitter post letting you know. We understand this has been a long time coming, and we have been working our hardest to get you the best quality products and designs!! For now we will only have totes and mugs available but that should be enough to tide you over until all of the shirts are finished!! Happy shopping marauders.

Ok so for those of you who were neither excited for the book club or the book items, thanks for hanging in there. Here we go, finally the review you have all been waiting for...
“Canned food is a perversion, I suspect that it is ultimately very damaging to the soul.”
A Confederacy of Dunces
By John Kennedy Toole

Before I talk about the actual story, I thought we’d take some time to share a bit of history behind this modern classic. This book was published in 1980, 11 years after the suicide of the author John Kennedy Toole. Sadly, Toole never got to see the cult following that his story would one day reach, including the post humorous Pulitzer Prize it won in 1981. This novel was only published, due to the efforts of John’s mother to bring the draft to editors and publisher’s, trying to honor her son’s memory. The title is taken from the epigraph by Jonathan Swift: "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." This idea plays out in a hilarious, unique, gut wrenching way, as Toole exposes our brains forever to the memory of Ignatius J. Reilly, and the book that would be his crowning glory.

A Confederacy of Dunces is not one of those books that one shouldn't read, if they are missing key components of their anatomy. Specifically; their funny bone. From the start, Toole shows his prouis as a comedic master, as we are introduced to the man, the myth, the legend: Ignatius J. Reilly. We meet Ignatius in his natural habitat of New Orleans’s French quarter during the 1960’s. Ignatius is a character to every one, as his obese ornately dressed body, makes it way through the streets of the French Quarter, causing trouble and hilarity where ever he walks. If you are a fan of the ‘The Office’, one can picture Ignatius as a far off cousin of Dwight, and maybe the uncle to Anne of Green Gables. All three characters have a gift for the melodramatic and love to express themselves as loudly and as overdramatic as possible.

“Mother you are standing on my tablets. Will you please move a little? Isn’t it enough that you have destroyed my digestion with out destroying the fruits of my brain also?”

Ignatius is a man who feels out of touch with the world, a true anti-hero to the core, he passes judgment on all that he can, screams out obscenities at the occasional passerby, picks fights with local bartenders, all the while holding himself in the highest regard. For any one willing to talk to him for more than a minute, Ignatius is keen to berate the listener with the same tragic story of the one time he was forced to ride a grey hound bus, and how damaging it was to his sensitive soul.

Ignatius would like nothing more than a quiet life devoted to studying classic literature, eating a frightening amount of food, and writing his life’s work about all that is wrong with the world. Sadly for Ignatius, a term of events in the opening forces him to unwillingly set out into the world that is perishing from its supreme lack of morals, to get a job.

“In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional chesse dip.”

It is during his many adventures into the work force that the bulk of the hilarity insures in this work, as many characters try to hold on for their lives, as this hurricane of a man tears through each obstacle he is presented with. Prostitutes, hot dog vendors, communists, this book has it all and what is makes it better is the constant commentary and observations that a man lost to his times makes along the way. The confederacy of characters that he meets through his various jobs, really do conspire around him in a way that really makes you question... 'Is Ignatius really this fat slob of a man, or is he a genius?' Each day that Ignatius is forced out into the world beyond the saftey of his room, proves to be a new and hilarious challenge for him as the reader drags him unwillingly page after page to see what chaos he gets himself into next.

While Toole controls the book with a quick and abrupt humor, keeping the reader in a constant state of shock and laughter; he shows his true strength as a writer in his description of a 1960’s southern world, a place that is unique in time and space to every one but those who lived there. His descriptions of the people, the streets, the buildings can take you back to another time where absurdity and lude behavior was the norm, in fact it was demanded.

“I had a rather apocalyptic battle with a starving prostitute. Had it not been for my superior brawn, she would have sacked my wagon. Finally she limped away from the fray, her glad rags askew.”

This book will not change your life, will not make you a better person, and it probably won’t cure cancer. However, it will give you a new appreciation for all of the characters there are in the world, and you will have a blast while gaining it. If you are looking for a laugh out loud, roller coaster of a story, this is the book for you.