Astonishing Splashes of Colour

1.  How would you characterize Kitty?  I don’t like her much and personally wouldn’t find her very interesting, her helpless ineffectualness is irritating.  Is here anything redeeming at all about her?

2.  The plot so far seems to be..she’s retracing her past, immediate past, a breakup with husband yet unreconciled, her childlessnes to some degree developing an understanding of whether or not she even could psychologically parent children at all, hapless and self absorbed as she is and finally finding her mother from the sketchy details she can muster from her family.  So, is death and her inability to admit it is part of life that Peter Panishness about her?

3.  How would you differentiate the personalities of the men in her life? pg. 69. “I find my brothers’ lack of interest astonishing.  They’ve closed their minds down, shut the door, moved on. But then they never talk to each other, so I suppose it would be difficult to get the memories stirred up and moving.  It’s a good thing I talk to them.  They might forget the others exist.”  The lack of communication, attention to detail, lack of intuitiveness.  Or her father, “My father gives me stories aobut my mother, but only of the time before they married.  He never talks about her as a mother, or even a wife, as if he is still angry with her for dying and can only see her in the context of a fairy-story beginning.  Even now, when I’m thirty-two, he tells me the same stories, but he muddles and embroiders them.”

4.  One of the ironies of mad people in books seems to be that they see more clearly than the sane characters about them.  Do you find her insights about others and about memory etc.  clear and true?

5.  Not until page 77 do we find out about her strange aloofness, though you’ve probably guessed by now.  She’s depressed though what circumstances led up to her ilness are yet to be revealed.  “It’s three years now since Henry died?” pg. 84.  How does the author show the circumstances of this revelation through switching point of view?  Consider why she may have chosen third person over first person narration?

6.  This novel is a good companion piece to Vernon God Little though I much prefer the latter book in all kinds of ways.  Would you agree?

7.  Memory is one of the themes of the novel.  Sometimes, she notes, memory is best not preserved too well.  “If Jack had lived, his patriotism might have turned to prejudice.  He might spend his time at the golf club, driking double whiskies, fighting a rearguard action against immigration, having affairs with a succession of secretaries, and she would be trying to stay cheerful, knowing all about his indiscretions.  She’s better off with a memory.”pg. 116.  In what way might this observation reflect on Kitty’s own memory quest?

8.  Morrall uses dramatic irony to great effect when Kitty reflects on here reflects on communication with James. “Because you spent all those years before you met me not talking, not learning how to express yourself, hiding behind your aggression and your computer.  Because you’re a coward.  You’re stuck in the old stiff upper-lip way, however hard you try to persuade me otherwise.  ‘How am I supposed to have an argument when you won’t speak?’ I say.” (p.124)  Can you see any more examples of dramatic irony? 

9.  Gardening is a metaphor for…?  Remember Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman?  How effective is this metaphor throughout the story?  Is it a counterpoint to the color imagery or a complement? Is it chaining imagery as Shakespeare uses?

10.  Timing and pace speeds up in the last few chapters.  Is the handling of events believable?  I found it exciting, but not credible the way everything seemed to resolve itself, not necessarily in a happy ending way, but tidily.  Is this novel then a post-modern genre?

11.  What about the mental illness theme?  Is the treatment realistic?  Or is it merely a plot device?