• two minutes to think and write about the prompt
• two minutes to talk with a partner about it: just grab the person next to you
• then we’ll share your pair’s thoughts with the big group

To make an obvious statement, novels are made of language: they are, in the end, just big bags of words. Interestingly, this novel is also about language:, it features a central character who is a translator, it portrays a “close reading” of a journal that is also an eyewitness historical account, and it thematizes the relationship between words and things at many points. What are the strengths and weaknesses of language as a mirror on reality in this novel? What other ways of representing, capturing, or pointing at reality compete with language in the novel? What are some things or experiences that prove difficult or impossible to represent in language for the novel’s characters?