TL ~ second set of DQs

For our second set of discussion questions about The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, I want to start with a quote from page 35, early in the book.  It's a bit long, but I was fascinated by the cave Harrison Shepherd found below the water line.

Mexican underwater cave (click to enlarge)

Today the cave was gone.  Saturday last, it was there.  Searching the whole rock face below the cliff did not turn it up.  Then the tide came higher and waves crashed too hard to keep looking.  How could a tunnel open in the rock, then close again?  The tide must have been much higher today, and put it too far below the surface to find.  Leandro says the tides are complicated and the rocks on that side are dangerous, to stay over here in the shallow reef.  He wasn't pleased to hear about the cave.  He already knew about it, it is called something alreaedy, la lacuna.  So, not a true discovery.

Laguna?  The lagoon?

No, lacuna.  He said it means a different thing from lagoon.  Not a cave exactly but an opening, like a mouth, that swallows things.  He opened his mouth to show.  It goes into the belly of the world.  He says Isla Pixol is full of them.

8.  Frida tells Harrison, "The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know" (p. 218).  Years later, he writes to her, saying, "Frida, you always said the most important thing about any person is what you don't know.  Likewise, then, the most important part of any story is the missing piece" (p. 277).  How does this relate to the book's title?

9.  Did you like the format, using journals and letters?

10.  What did you think of Violet Brown, who worked for Harrison?

11.  Were you surprised by the way statements were twisted during the McCarthy trials?

12.  How did Harrison Shepherd change over the course of the novel?

TL ~ first set of DQs

This mural by Diego Rivera is in Detroit.  It shows his interest in the workers of the world and also gives us an indication of the wide admiration of Rivera's art.  The story in The Lacuna centers on Harrison Shepherd's connection with Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo. I've read Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the book, most of which is set in Mexico, interrupted by Harrison Shepherd's short stay with his father in Washington, D.C.

1.  Do Harrison's diaries feel realistic to you?  Does he sound like a 12-year-old at the beginning ... and later like a mature man?  What kind of boy was he?  What do you think of him?

2.  What prompts Harrison to begin his journals?  Why does he write?  What does he mean by referring to his notebook as "prisoner's plan for escape"?

3.  How about Harrison's mother?  In what way does her profligate life affect how he decides to lead his own life?

4.  What do you think of the Rivera/Kahlo household?  How does Harrison see Rivera's influence over Kahlo?  Have you seen the 2003 movie Frida?  If so, does that film influence your reading of The Lacuna?  (I hadn't even heard of the movie, but I'm surprised at how much these actors look like the real Diego and Frida.  Click the link to see photos I posted earlier.)

5.  I like Barbara Kingsolver's writing.  In October, I visited the cemetery where my parents are buried; both born in October, they married each other exactly between their birthdays.  When I read this a few days later, I realized my parents are still my family, but I've never thought of it that way.  What do you think?

2 November, Dead People's Day
"Leandro is at the cemetery to put flowers on his dead people: his mother and father, grandmothers, a baby son that died when it was one minute old, and his brother, who died last year.  Leandro said it's wrong to say you don't have a family.  Even if they are dead, you still have them" (p. 32).

6.  Leon Trotsky, born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, was one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution.  I had intended to ask you why he was called "Lev" in the book, but when I found this photo at Wikipedia, I learned Lev was the name he was born with.  I had never heard that, and the book left me confused about why that name was used.  What do you think of Harrison's assessment of Trotsky, quoted below?  Why do you think things didn't turn out the way Lev anticipated?

"Even in the horror of war, Lev [Trotsky] is optimistic; he says it will make internationalists of us all.  A modernized proletariat will unite, because war so conspicuously benefits rich men and kills the poor ones" (p. 224).

7.   What new things have you learned from reading this book?