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1 2 3 4 5 6 NOT THE 7 8 9 END 10 11 12 OF THE 13 14 WORLD 15 16 17 18 19 BY KATE ATKINSON 20 21 22 23 24 A READING GROUP GUIDE 25 26 27 28 29S 30R
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1 2 3 4 5 A Conversation with 6 Kate Atkinson 7 8 9 10 11 If the world were thrown into chaos, the end near, where would you most like 12 to be, with whom, doing what, why? 13 14 With my daughters and my grandson, trying to look on the 15 bright side. 16 17 Not the End of the World is your first collection, after three highly ac- 18 claimed novels. Did any of these stories begin as an idea for a novel? Do you 19 have thoughts about what might happen to some of these characters after their 20 stories end here? 21 22 They were always meant to be stories, I was very clear about that 23 with myself. It had been a long time since I had written any 24 stories and I was very concerned to find again the spontaneity that 25 comes with the form — novels can seem very imprisoning some- 26 times. I rarely think about an afterlife for characters; they exist on 27 the page and not beyond it. The only character who has a kind of 28 half-life for me is Simon, the appalling adolescent from “Wedding 29S Favors” and “Dissonance” — he sort of lurks on. One of my 30R
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1 daughters helped me to invent him and we sometimes find our- 2 selves saying to each other, “That’s what Simon would say/do.” 3 4 The influences apparent in Not the End of the World are as wide-ranging 5 as Metamorphoses and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. How do you 6 think pop culture and classic literature inform our modern lives? 7 8 All the time, every day, in our language, our philosophies, our 9 beliefs, our stories. Both pop and classic equally. I always think 10 culture’s just like a big snowball rolling through history, acquiring 11 more “stuff” all the time. Which makes us lucky in some ways and 12 unlucky in others — living near the end of western civilization 13 we have a lot of “noise” to deal with but also many wonders. 14 15 Which story did you find most difficult to write and why? Which charac- 16 ters do you most and least identify with or sympathize with? 17 18 “Sheer Big Waste of Love.” I kept trying to write it and then 19 leaving it. I finally realized it was because it was absolutely 20 dark, no light, no humor, and so I went back and put some light 21 in, gave Addison, the main character, a wife and child, and it 22 worked. I probably altered about a paragraph in all but the dif- 23 ference for me was total. 24 I don’t think I identify with one character more than any 25 other. I don’t identify with Simon (thank goodness), but I do 26 have an unnatural fondness for him. 27 28 The characters in these stories inhabit the same world. Did you have a sense S29 of how they would relate to one another and interact with one another before R30 you began writing, or did the connections evolve as you went along?
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I’d written about half the stories before I realized they were 1 connected and that I wanted them to connect more, but I al- 2 ways wanted them to be able to stand on their own feet as in- 3 dividual stories, which they do, apart from the last one, which 4 was never meant to. Charlene and Trudi bookend the collec- 5 tion because essentially they are Scheherazade, telling the in- 6 tervening stories to keep themselves alive. 7 8 Your books are published to huge success not only in the U.K. and the United 9 States, but also in translation in many foreign countries. How do different 10 cultures respond to your work? Are there certain qualities more appreciated in 11 some countries than in others? How do other cultures influence your writing? 12 13 I don’t really know how most countries respond — if I visit, 14 they’re polite! I seem to be very popular in France, which is par- 15 ticularly gratifying. 16 17 Your most recent book, Case Histories, weaves three mysteries into one 18 novel. How did Not the End of the World prepare you to handle the dif- 19 ferent story lines? 20 21 I think it made me much more aware of the possibilities in- 22 herent in carrying different story lines, but I was very unstruc- 23 tured in my approach to them in Case Histories; I just wrote it and 24 didn’t think too much about it. What Not the End of the World 25 gave me was a much greater interest in the internal monologue 26 (Simon again) and the confidence to immerse myself in individual 27 characters. 28 29S 30R
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1 2 3 4 5 6 Reading Group Questions 7 and Topics for Discussion 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. Charlene and Trudi respond to the apocalyptic chaos 14 around them in a peculiar way. Is their conversation sur- 15 prising, given the circumstances? How might you and 16 your best friend react differently? Are Charlene and 17 Trudi’s actions at all natural? In what way? 18 2. How do you think Eddie’s relationship with his mother 19 affects his attitude? Do you think June is a good role 20 model for him? 21 3. The Zane sisters are extraordinary women, each in her 22 own way. Do you know any women like them? How are 23 their love affairs and relationships informed by one an- 24 other? How would Meredith fare among your circle of 25 friends? 26 4. Do you have any sympathy for Simon? Why? What as- 27 pects of his personality do you see in yourself? How is his 28 rapport with Rebecca typical of sibling relationships? S29 How is it different? R30
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5. Missy and Arthur have an unusual relationship for a boy 1 and his governess. How is Missy a good nanny? How is 2 she not? Would you have enjoyed having Missy as a care- 3 taker? 4 6. Fielding’s doppelgänger has a lot more fun than Fielding 5 ever does. What do you think that says about Fielding’s 6 choices? If your doppelgänger were free to do whatever 7 he or she wanted, what would he or she be doing? 8 7. How have things changed for Charlene and Trudi in the 9 end? How is their story linked to the other stories in the 10 collection? 11 8. What does Not the End of the World suggest about the role 12 of storytelling in our lives? Is storytelling simply a form 13 of entertainment, or does it serve another function? How 14 do the stories in this book help Charlene and Trudi 15 endure? 16 9. How is pop culture important in Not the End of the World? 17 How might the stories be different without the pop cul- 18 ture references? 19 10. Discuss the ways in which people at the edges of your 20 life — the people you sometimes see at parties, who date 21 your distant relatives, who pass you on the way to work — 22 are living their own stories as well as influencing yours. 23 Where, how often, and in what ways does your life over- 24 lap with theirs? 25 26 27 28 29S 30R
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1 2 3 4 5 6 Kate Atkinson’s Top Ten Reads 7 (and Then Some) 8 9 10 1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 11 Perhaps the best American novel (although see no. 10), or the 12 best novel about America and the hollowness at the heart of 13 the dream. The closing paragraphs of Gatsby are surely some 14 of the most poignant and powerful ever written. 15 16 2. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 17 The individuality of Vonnegut’s style is a curious yet perfect 18 match for the pain of the emotional content. A humane, human 19 book that always remains a work of art rather than biography, 20 no matter how apparent the author’s presence. 21 22 3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 23 The Mozart opera of novels and again a transcendent union of 24 structure and content in which unhappy marriage is the reward 25 for those who show a weakness of character and lifelong hap- 26 piness is a province reserved only for those “who truly know 27 themselves.” 28 S29 4. Just William et al. by Richmal Crompton R30 The funniest English novels ever written?
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5. What Maisie Knew by Henry James 1 The other side of childhood and James’s finest working of his 2 preoccupation with the theme of innocence corrupted. James is 3 the master of making what is not said the most important thing 4 on the page. 5 6 6. Pricksongs and Descants by Robert Coover / Collected Stories by 7 Donald Barthelme 8 Two of the most innovative of all American short story writers. 9 Recklessly imaginative, they are both remarkable for the play- 10 fulness and sheer brio of their writing. Coover’s ingenuity and 11 Barthelme’s absurdity made me look at writing in a different 12 way. More than anyone else, these are the writers who made me 13 want to be a writer myself. 14 15 7. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis 16 Carroll 17 Without these two books in my childhood I doubt whether my 18 imagination would have developed at all. 19 20 8. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 21 The finest American novel not written by an American. Perhaps 22 the finest American novel ever (But see no. 1. And don’t forget 23 no. 10.) No one can emulate Nabokov’s dizzyingly vertiginous 24 prose and his command of the text. 25 26 9. Middlemarch by George Eliot 27 Eliot could write bad books (Romola) and half-brilliant books 28 (Daniel Deronda — the first half), but in Middlemarch her serious 29S intelligence produced a novel that no one else could have been 30R
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1 capable of — a picture of society as an organic, living, breath- 2 ing synthesis: order and disorder, hope and hopelessness, pride 3 and humility, charity and greed. If only she had seen fit to 4 marry Dorothea to Lydgate. 5 6 10. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 7 The perfect novel. 8 9 . . . And I can’t believe there wasn’t room for 11: The Good Sol- 10 dier by Ford Madox Ford, a novel about the wanton destruction 11 caused by passion and bad behavior, written with the greatest 12 delicacy and precision. I also really, really like Lee Child, 13 Michael Chabon, and Jane Smiley’s Horse Heaven. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 S29 R30
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1 2 3 4 5 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 6 7 8 Kate Atkinson’s first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won 9 the Whitbread First Novel Award and was then chosen as the 10 overall 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year. Her other books in- 11 clude the widely acclaimed novels Human Croquet and Emotionally 12 Weird. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. 13 14 15 . . . AND HER MOST RECENT NOVEL 16 17 18 In November 2004, Little, Brown and Company will publish 19 Case Histories. Following is a preview from the novel’s opening 20 pages. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29S 30R
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1 2 1 3 4 CASE HISTORY NO. 1 1970 5 6 7 Family Plot 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 How lucky were they? A heat wave in the middle of the school 15 holidays, exactly where it belonged. Every morning the sun was up long 16 before they were, making a mockery of the flimsy summer curtains that 17 hung limply at their bedroom windows,a sun already hot and sticky with 18 promise before Olivia even opened her eyes. Olivia, as reliable as a roos- 19 ter, always the first to wake, so that no one in the house had bothered 20 with an alarm clock since she was born three years ago. Olivia, the youngest and therefore the one currently sleeping in the 21 small back bedroom with the nursery-rhyme wallpaper, a room that all 22 of them had occupied and been ousted from in turn. Olivia, as cute as a 23 button they were all agreed, even Julia, who had taken a long time to get 24 over being displaced as the baby of the family, a position she had occu- 25 pied for five satisfying years before Olivia came along. 26 Rosemary, their mother, said that she wished Olivia could stay at this 27 age forever because she was so lovable. They had never heard her use that 28 word to describe any of them. They had not even realized that such a S29 word existed in her vocabulary, which was usually restricted to tedious R30 commands: come here, go away,be quiet, and — most frequent of all — stop