Gallup Readers Met the Pulitzer Challenge!

Congratulations to all the Gallup readers who participated in our Pulitzer Challenge and many thanks to the amazing librarians at the Octavia Felling Public Library for hosting the dialogues!

Gallup Discussion: Golden Mongooses

This week we discussion The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao at Octavia Fellin Library in Gallup, New Mexico.  And before our discussion began there were some important things to clarify about the setting of the story and some of its symbolism.

Unlike other stories we discussed, some of our readers didn't immediately know the background of the Dominican Republic or the characters in the story.  Just reading the story, you learn a lot of more recent Dominican history, but not everyone remembers off the top of their head where the Dominican Republic is or the significance of its location.

The DR is on the island of Hispaniola.  People who know "a little" history might recall that Columbus discovered America in 1492.  The first place he "discovered" was Hispaniola, an island, and on the modern DR side of that island was where the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Americas was built, also making it the location of the first European colony in the Americas.

Notice how I said, "the modern DR side" above.  That's because, unlike most Caribbean nations, the DR has a border with another country.  Reading the story, you might not some passing references to Haitian genocide, derogatory references to Haitians, maybe a mention of looking like "you speak a little French" as a coded insult.  That's right!  The DR borders Haiti, and they have not had a healthy past. 

The DR was a Spanish colony and while they shipped a lot of slaves to the region, it wasn't half as many as were sent to Haiti for French plantations.  Skin color is a big deal in the story, and there's a lot of coded (and not so coded) language related to it.  Dark skin is usually seen as a terrible thing, handsome means white, as noted with Beli's first paramour, Jack Pujols, and when someone suggests you might speak a little French, it suggests you have darker skin, or in other words, you look Haitian.

The Sauron of our story is Rafael Trujillo or El Hefe, and he is portrayed as a pretty terrifying, incredibly evil guy.  I think the book actually gives you plenty to go off of, but I wanted to show a picture of him, because he doesn't look the super villain, child rapist, mass murdering monster that he definitely was... or at least, he doesn't look like I quite expect him to...

he looks...gassier...

Finally, let's talk about the Golden Mongoose in the story.  This is not really based on any bit of history or folklore.  So if your book club is sitting around scratching their heads and saying "What does the mongoose mean?" in deep, philosophical tones, here it is in the words of Junot Diaz, himself:

“My mother got lost when she was young in a coffee plantation (my father used to grow coffee) and she was lost for like three days and everyone thought she died and by the third day they just went and bought fucking—I mean, it shows you the difference, if a child were lost for three days today, we would still have hope, we would still be looking, but in the DR they were like ‘Three days? ’That kid’s fucking dead man’—they went out and bought funeral clothes, they were going to bury this little outfit and then my mother shows up. And my mother tells this story and she was like I had gotten lost and was just desperate and this mongoose came up and was like ‘you lost?’ ‘Well, I’m tired right now but I’ll come back tomorrow and lead you out.’ So he did and my mother arrived home the next day.” - Junot Diaz 

These are just a few things to keep in mind if you ever have a discussion or book club on this fantastic work.  A little background can help a lot when discussing a book, especially one as closely tied to a time and place as this one.

4 Big Questions for a John Cheever Discussion

I'm an optimist.  I believe that everyone who shows up to the Gallup Pulitzer Discussion Group will have read "The Stories of John Cheever," this 700-page collection, from beginning to end, retaining absolutely every story perfectly in their minds.  But what if...let's say... a couple people only get halfway through.  We all want them to participate in the discussion too.  While I have plenty of questions that pertain to individual stories, I'd like to share some of the broader topics, we'll address that will make it easier for everyone to get a turn.

   1. What does Cheever seem to think of the typical nuclear family?

It's probably not hard to guess how Cheever felt about the nuclear family. If you've read one story, you don't have to guess his feelings toward the upper-middle class and wealthy white world. But this is an opener. People that read even a single story can start citing sources and picking through details.

2. Do the families portrayed in John Cheever stories still exist today?

I've rephrased this question half-a-dozen times in my head, and I'll probably do it a dozen times more before the discussion. What I'm trying to get at: Cheever's works really have a specific feel, a specific time, a specific place. Husbands all have mistresses and wives are all trapped at home. Perhaps some readers will think family structures have changed to no longer reflect the ones in his stories. Perhaps some readers will think they have not.

3. How are male-female relationships portrayed?

All general questions have a million-billion specific ones that can follow, and this one, in particular, can branch out in a million-billion different directions. Perhaps, because I am a man, I found the way Cheever writes men particularly fascinating. Our masculine protagonists are ignorant of their families, constantly cheating on their spouses, failing at work, and irritated by the tiniest of domestic issues, almost without exception. Women can be just as horrible in his tales, but they usually live like caged birds. I'd love to know how other readers felt about these two groups and how/why they clashed against each other.

4. How does the evolution of technology affect the people in these stories?

This is kind of an odd one, but John Cheever's stories take place when a whole lot of new/advancing technologies were drastically changing the world. A few examples I can think of are in The Enormous Radio, The Swimmer, and The Brigadier and the Golf Widow. Do radios, and swimming pools, and bomb shelters (and nuclear bombs!) change relationships and outlooks of people, and in what ways?

So these are four questions that can easily be used to boost discussions of John Cheever's works. They should function pretty well for those who finished the book, those who got halfway through, and those who jumped around, reading the stories that sucked them in, and skipping those that didn't.

"The Plague of Doves" Discussion @ Octavia Fellin Library

I'm pretty sure everyone else has moved on to the next book in the Pulitzer series, but I want to linger on "The Plague of Doves" for a while.  The Octavia Fellin Library Pulitzer Discussion Group read through Louise Erdrich's novel this week and found a lot to unpack, and I'm going to take a couple posts to do that.  So let's start off with the one thing that left everyone head scratching: Doctor Cordelia Lochren.

This is the point where you shouldn't keep reading if you haven't finished the book.

A lot of information about Dr. C is revealed towards the end of the book and one thing that really stood out to our readers was the fact that she wouldn't treat Natives.

"She had let it be known, generally, that she would not treat our people.  They all knew why.  It was more than your garden variety bigotry.  There was history involved..." p.292

This person had been Judge Coutts' lover and she had treated him in the past, but it is revealed to him that she "had turned people down - even in a crisis." For the Judge, this is an epiphany.  His ex never wanted to be seen with him and she would never stay with him because she has a deep-seated hatred, something "more than your garden variety bigotry."  It answers all his questions and the scales are lifted from his eyes... Sort of.

The very next chapter, we get Cordelia's perspective on the matter, and it ends up being a lot more than that garden variety bigotry.

"One thing shamed her, only, one specific paralysis.  She was known to turn Indians away as patients; it was thought that she was a bigoted person.  In truth, she experienced an unsteady weakness in their presence.  It seemed beyond her control..." p.298

For the readers in our group, this explanation was slightly less than satisfying.  She clearly didn't hate them from her perspective, but feeling an "unsteady weakness" didn't really justify abandoning one's Hippocratic Oath in a crisis.  Some thought that the complex feelings she had towards Natives and especially the Judge should have made her more willing to help them.

Having a long standing hatred, as the Judge was taught to believe seemed the more logical answer in many ways.  Cordelia's truth was muddier, like many truths in the book, and really gave our group pause.

Beloved at Octavia Fellin Library

We had a fantastic time talking about Toni Morrison's "Beloved" at our Pulitzer Discussion Group!  Not the lightest book on the shelf, we discussed everything from haints and the physical nature of the novel's ghost to the mercy and mental horror of killing ones own child rather than seeing her dragged into a life of slavery.  With "Beloved" being such a deep and heavy read, a lot of our readers formed some very strong feelings towards it, which made for an excellent discussion!

I'm really looking forward to our next book, "The Plague of Doves" by Louise Erdrich, and will talk about it more as we get closer to the 21st.  Let's hope it sparks just as much interesting discussion and debate.