Team A reading questions. Responses of 250-300 words are due by 9PM on Monday 11/10 as an original post. Don’t forget a creative title for your post.
1. In her article about Jennifer Weiner’s novels, Laura Miller asks “Is [Weiner] providing her readers with a well-crafted, escapist confection, like Fielding, or is she portraying the knotty concerns of real women’s lives, like Jodi Picoult, whose movie-of-the-week-style novels tackle such issues as bullying, autism and sexual abuse?” How do you respond to this question? Does the pursuit of escapism require authors to avoid heavy issues? Would you have described TFIOS as “escapsit”?
2. Lily, the woman whom Cannie meets at the clinic, reads Bruce’s article and proclaims “This is great…this guy really gets it.” We’ve read the entirety of Bruce’s story, and we’ve heard Cannie’s side as well. Do you agree with Lily, that Bruce “gets it”? Or is Cannie right, that the article was despicable? If Cannie’s right, why does Lily (a woman in a similar situation) disagree with her?
3. We read in the introduction that Weiner, like Cannie, “know[s] how to tell a story” (xviii). Choose one story Cannie tells in what we’ve read so far, and analyze its place in the narrative. What power does the story have? What effects? What is her storytelling style? What is the outcome of her stories?