I hope everyone is getting excited for Book Club on Sunday! I am going shopping on Wednesday evening to provide us with all sorts of Roman/Italian goodies to eat, so get your requests in now! There will be olives, red wine, cheeses, biscotti (traditionally Roman), lasagna (not so much traditionally Roman, but good anyway.) If some sort of venison or game is available, I may get it, though I do have to say most of the food Ovid eats at Tomis is distinctly unappetizing.
As far as the book is concerned, I'm excited to dig into it and see what y'all think of it. In the hopes of guiding our discussion, I thought I would provide a few questions for people to think about as they read (don't worry, no spoilers). I would appreciate if everyone could provide 500 word typed answers for circulation at the meeting.
1. Ovid is most famous for the Metamorphoses, a set of poems with transformation between states of being as its main theme. In Malouf's book, what is Ovid transforming into, and what is the Child transforming into? How are these transformations related?
2. What does the Child himself represent? Why does he appear only at the edges of Ovid's life, in very early childhood and again near death?
3. Malouf is an Australian, and according to Wikipedia, "wrote this novel when issues with the treatment of the Indigenous people of Australia was under question, and the White Australia Policy and paternalistic mentality were inherent in society." What is Malouf saying in this novel about colonization, and interactions between powerful and 'barbaric' cultures?
4. My favorite passage in the novel is this one:
"But we are free after all. We are bound not by the laws of our nature but by the ways we can imagine ourselves breaking out of those laws without doing violence to our essential being. We are free to transcend ourselves. If we have the imagination for it."
Disregarding its potential as a Successories poster (I'm picturing a hawk flying over a dewy golf course in autumn), do you agree or disagree with this statement? Is there such a thing as transcendence of the self, or is one always within one's personality? Discuss, preferably with embarrassing personal stories.
5. As Malouf writes in the revealing epilogue, this novel has no basis in fact, besides that Ovid was exiled to Tomis. What do you think Ovid, an urbane poet not known for his belief or sincerity, would think of this presentation?
That's all I got for now, folks. I hope that people are enjoying this book that I very much love, though I would be curious to hear the opinions of those who don't feel that way as well. And we shall eat and drink well, regardless.
See the previous post for directions to my place on Sunday, and hope to see all of you there!
Mike D
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2 comments:
Distinctly unappetizing??? I have to admit I'm not very far along, but I think everyone will very much enjoy my spider broth soup.
I've decided I'll like this book because it was published the year i was born. This was a year of felicitous invention!
The idea of the savage/aboriginal parallel is interesting. Something to think about, for sure.
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