I believe this is the book we are reading for January.
My question is "What does the title mean?"
Here are some more questions:
1. Talk about each of the characters—Akhmed, Haava, Sonja, Natasha,
Khassan, and Ramzan. Do you care about any of them? Whom do you find
particularly sympathetic? Do your opinions of any of the characters
change over the course of the novel?
2. One of the book's themes
is our inability to know the depths of another being. In a beautiful
paragraph (end of Chapter 3) Sonja ponders Haava who is lying next to
her—Haava possesses 206 bones, 606 muscles, 2.5 million sweat glands,
and 100 billion cerebral neurons; all this Sonja can know. She cannot
fathom, however, "the dreams crowding [Havva's] skull" or "the mystery
the girl would spend her life solving." Do you find that to be true in
real life—how deeply can we know another being? Does fiction, perhaps,
allow us insights into other beings that we cannot attain in our own
lives? Do you feel you know the loved ones closest to you?
3. Follow-up to Question 2:
The narrator frequently jumps ahead by years, even decades, to inform
readers of what happens to various characters—whether they live...or
die...or grow senile.... What effect does this create on you, the
reader?
4. A emphasis on art runs throughout the novel. Akhmed
draws portraits and posts them throughout the village; Haava "rebuilds"
the body of her childhood nemesis, Akim, using Akhmed's portrait of him;
Natasha recreates the view of a cityscape blown away by shelling, and
Maali is nearly as invested in Natasha's project as Natasha herself. Why
is art so significant in this book? What role does art play in Akhmed's
and Natasha's lives—and in the lives of others.
5. Talk about
the characters' religious beliefs or lack of beliefs? How does the war
affect the faithful...and nonfaithful alike? How would your faith be
affected?
6. In interviews author Anthony Marra has said he chose to write
about Chechnya after spending his junior year in St. Petersburg during
the time of the Chechnyan war. While there, he was fascinated by
accounts of how ordinary people behaved in extraordinary situations—the
kinds of moral choices they had to make. Talk about the characters in A Constellation of vital Phenomena
who dramatize the tough moral choices Marra refers to...especially
Ramzan and Khassan. Are there others? What choices do they make and why?
How might you have responded in such horrific circumstances? Does morality change depending on the context?
7. SPOILER ALERTS! Follow-up to Question 6: Should
Khassan have killed his son—is such an action just or moral? Does
learning Ramzan's backstory, change your opinion of him...perhaps
justify his later actions?
8. Trace the six-degrees-of-separation
between the characters, their actions, and final consequences. In other
words, how are the characters interconnected? What might the author be
suggesting by such connectedness—both within the confines of the novel
and, perhaps, in the real world outside the scope of the novel? What
kind of worldview does Marra seem to project? Do the coincidences feel
contrived? Or do you see them as organic, part of the gradual unfolding
of the novel?
9. A great deal is made in the novel of the desire
for characters to be buried at home. Notes with names and addresses are
sewn into clothing so families can be notified and thereby claim the
body of the loved one. Why is burial at home so important? Is it a
tradition peculiar to that culture...or a universal desire?
10.
The book contains a fair amount of humor—the banter between Akhmed and
the nurse Deshi, the reference to Barbie Doll's emaciated waistline,
Akhmed's confusion over Ronald Reagan and Ronald MacDonald, and his
astonishment at how the U.S. elections transfer power from one president
to the next—"It makes me wonder how [Russia] lost the Cold War." Where
else do you find humor...and why do you suppose the author included such
moments in an otherwise dark story?
11. Think about the
structure of the novel, as it moves back and forth through time, and the
inclusion of timelines at the head of each chapter. Why might Marra
have devised a disjointed structure for his story? What might it suggest
about the fractured lives of his characters? What do you, as a reader,
think is gained—or lost—using such a structure?
12. Why are the Feds so intent on finding Haava? What do they want with her?
13.
What drove the two Chechnyan wars? What were the conflicts involved?
What have you learned about the war that you were unaware of before
reading A Constellation of Vital Phenomena? While the Chechnyan war was ongoing, how much attention did you pay to it?
14.
What do you find most shocking in the account of the war? What is most
horrifying or disturbing? Where do you find displays of human kindness
to counteract the brutality? Is there anything hopeful in the book?
15. What is the meaning and/or significance of the book's title?
SOURCE: http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/13-fiction/9270-constellation-of-vital-phenomena-marra?start=3
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Oh look -- Q 15 is my question too.
