As always, discuss for 15 mins or so and designate a “lifeline,” if you have one, to speak for the group:

1. Given that this essay is about 3000 words (< 1/2 of the length of the usual journal article in English), how does Fisher forge an argument that works at this smaller scale? How does it differ from the essays by Frazier, Nayar, et al.? What are some aspects of this piece that you might mimic in your own writing, since longer undergrad papers are often about 3000 words in length?

2. What is Fisher’s argument? How does she signal it to us readers? How does her argument, implicitly, join the meta-argument in our course about the “right” or the “most effective” way to capture climate change in prose fiction that we’ve seen throughout the course, and especially in Ghosh’s critical work?

3. What kind of protagonist is Lizzie? How does she differ, especially in her “affect,” from the central figures of more traditional novels? How, in Fisher’s argument, does her orientation towards “trivialities” or what Leslie Jamison calls “mundane intensities,” move us as readers in particular ways?

4. What does Fisher say about the novel’s form? What are some of the ways we have to adjust our reading practices to “get” this novel?

Just an in-class exercise: no need to respond here…

• Each pair will be assigned one of the five questions: make sure you’re clear on which question is yours!
• 10 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

1. The role of religion grows toward the end of the novel in ways that have some echoes with Earthseed: in both cases, myths or faith traditions are sites of cultural hybridity and fluidity that present an alternative to rational liberal traditions. How are the myths of Bon Bibi and Dokkhin Rai represented in the part we read for today?
2. The theme of the boundary between the animal and the human, which is an important part of the Bon Bibi myths of course, emerges many times as we approach the end of the novel. How does the notion of a firm separation between humans and animal others come up? What does the novel seem to be saying to us here?
3. As many of you have noted, Kanai remains a remarkably unsympathetic character through much of the novel. How does his portrayal change in the section we read for today? What are some signs, both “inner” and “outer,” that he has undergone a transformation of sorts? What do you think Ghosh intends by staging such a dramatic transformation in this character?
4. The love triangle uniting (or separating) Piya, Kanai, and Fokir is one of the central sources of dramatic tension in the novel. As of the part that you read, where do things stand? How do you read this resolution, if you can call it that, of the novel’s romance plot? What predictions do you have of where this aspect of the novel is headed as we approach the end?
5. How do you read the novel’s ending? Is it tragic, comic, ironic, or some mixture of these? Where does the novel leave each of the principal characters, and what does that positioning say about the novel’s overarching message?

If we have time, we’ll tackle this question…

The role of religion grows toward the end of the novel in ways that have some echoes with Earthseed: in both cases, myths or faith traditions are sites of cultural hybridity and fluidity that present an alternative to rational liberal traditions. How are the myths of Bon Bibi and Dokkhin Rai represented in the part we read for today?

• 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?