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| REMINDER!! |
I just wanted to send out a quick reminder that we will getting together on Saturday, December 10 at 11:30am at Ang's house. I'm super excited to test out this new meeting day because it will open up an entirely new world of possibilities:) Please shoot me an email if you need directions or have any questions about what to bring. The discussion questions are below, however, I got them from the publisher and am a little disappointed by what they had come up with. I will try to come up with a couple doozies before the week is over and add them to the list. But if anyone else wants to come up with a couple more to suppliment, I think it would be most beneficial.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In
The Post-Birthday World, we get to see Irina lead two very different lives based on a choice she makes between two men. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like had you chosen a different path?
2. In each universe that Irina inhabits, she is drawn to the man she let go. Do we always want what we can't have? Why are the choices that we didn't make so appealing in retrospect?
3. In the characters of Lawrence and Ramsey, Irina is offered the choice between two opposites: where Lawrence is predictable, Ramsey is wild; where Ramsey is extravagant, Lawrence is disciplined. Do you think that by casting the men so differently Shriver is portraying general male stereotypes, is there some truth in these characters? What are the pros and cons of each man as a partner? Do women prefer one type to another at different times in their lives? Why?
4. Is Irina the same person in her relationship with Lawrence as she is in her relationship with Ramsey? Do you think that the person you're with determines the person you are, or would you be the same person no matter whom you're in a relationship?
5. Irina is happy and unhappy in both universes, with both men. Who do you think Irina is happiest with? If she had both men before her and could see her different lives with each, which man would she choose? Which man would you choose to be with?
6. Irina is a self-sufficient and highly successful woman, yet throughout
The Post-Birthday World she believes that her ultimate happiness will come from a man. Does Irina's recognition that she needs a man in her life characterize her as a throwback to a pre-feminist era, or can she need a man in her life and still be self-actualized?
7. Children are completely absent from this story. How does this affect the characters, their decisions and their relationships?
8. How much of a choice about the person we end up in a a relationship with has to do with fate and how much ahs to do with the decisions we make over the course of our lives? And are the decisions you might make in your 20's different from the choices you'd make in your 30's, 40's, or 50's?
NEW QUESTIONS:
9. If you were Irina's mother, Raisa, how would you have handled the two scenarios she was presented in the book? More specifically, how Irina introduced her to Ramsey Acton or Lawrence's outburst at lunch (pg 354-355)?
10. As Irina is talking with her mother (pg 317), she explains that "falling in love isn't something that you decide to do, any more than you decide on the weather. It descends on you like a hurricane." She then proceeds to question her own actions and trys to reason whether "emotions were bombardments to which you were helplessly subjected or contrivances with which you were actively complicit. Are they something you suffer or something you make? You can control what you do but can you control what you feel?" Which feelings/emotions, if any, do you believe were out of Irina's control?
