Cafe Libri discussion

Free e-book: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36378

1. How did you experience the book? Were you engaged immediately, or did it take you a while to
"get into it"? How did you feel reading it—amused,
sad, disturbed, confused, bored...?

2. Describe the main characters—personality traits, motivations, inner qualities.
• Why do characters do what they do?
• Are their actions justified?
• Describe the dynamics between characters
(in a marriage, family, or friendship).
• How has the past shaped their lives?
• Do you admire or disapprove of them?
• Do they remind you of people you know?

3. Do the main characters change by the end of
the book? Do they grow or mature? Do they learn something about themselves and how the world works?

4. Is the plot engaging—does the story interest you? Is this a plot-driven book: a fast-paced page-turner? Or does the story unfold slowly with a focus on character development? Were you surprised by the plot's complications? Or did you find it predictable, even formulaic?

5. Talk about the book's structure. Is it a continuous story...or interlocking short stories? Does the time-line more forward chronologically...or back and forth between past and present? Does the author use a single viewpoint or shifting viewpoints? Why might the author have choosen to tell the story the way he or she did—and what difference does it make in the way you read or understand it?

6. What main ideas—themes—does the author explore? (Consider the title, often a clue to a theme.) Does the author use symbols to reinforce the main ideas? (See our free LitCourses on both Symbol and Theme.)

7. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the book's thematic concerns?

8. Is the ending satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change it?

9. If you could ask the author a question, what would you ask? Have you read other books by the same author? If so how does this book compare. If not, does this book inspire you to read others?

10. Has this novel changed you—broadened your perspective? Have you learned something new or been exposed to different ideas about people or a certain part of the world?




(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

Cross post from Cafe Libri Yahoo by Jeffrey:

It is interesting to note that this sensual novel was published in 1896 by a well established erotic writer from Belgium who was living in Paris at the time of publication. Several of his poems were set to music by Debussy as piano pieces. Louys' settings were based upon classical Greek culture and this book became the best selling novel of his lifetime.

The Greeks knew Aphrodite as the goddess of love, pleasure, beauty and procreation. She was said to have had both divine and human lovers. She was worshiped by having intercourse with her priestesses. Aphrodite was understood in the later Greek world, which is the context of this novel, as a very two faced Goddess. She would be called Aphrodite Urania and Aphrodite Pandemos after the two accounts of her birth in mythology. Aphrodite Urania was the daughter Zeus and Dione according to Homer. In Hesiod's Theogony she was created when Cronus cut off Uranus' testicles and through them into the sea. Among Neo-Platonists Aphrodite Urania was associated with spiritual love and Aphrodite Pandemos with physical desire. This parallels a distinction made in Greek classical philosophy between intellectual pleasure which was seen as satisfying and Physical pleasure which was found to be addictive and a source of pain.

We see how that falls out in the beginning of Louys' novel.